Assessing accessibility and crowding in urban green spaces: A comparative study of approaches

Abstract

Urban green spaces (UGS) are pivotal elements of the structure of urbanised areas, important for the well-being of the city inhabitants. Therefore, it is necessary to provide tools for determining the accessibility and crowdedness of the UGS. To this end, we assess how much space there is for potential UGS users in individual green spaces. It is pilot quantitative study limited to an area of one city, showing the crowdedness of UGS in two approaches. In both approaches, we assume an extreme event observed in the time of pandemic that all people in the accessible distance visit a UGS at the same time. In the approaches, we have combined parameters from literature and the idea that analysing UGS accessibility could be size sensitive to come up with methods for assessing residents’ accessibility to green spaces with spatial analysis. Our study shows the variability of UGS accessibility throughout the city. The results indicate that to identify areas in cities with insufficient UGS, analyses using the commonly referenced 300-meter accessibility measure may be sufficient. However, for a more comprehensive assessment of UGS accessibility, it is necessary to conduct studies that are sensitive to UGS size and factor in the estimated population within it. The study tackles the UGS accessibility problems in a novel way of comparing two popular approaches and providing practical insights. The approaches may be useful for spatial planning practices to show the differences in local UGS accessibility and delimit areas with lower UGS accessibility. The findings may support the municipality in the practical task of monitoring the crowding of UGS in the city and facilitate decision making in the new UGS site selection process.