The Influence of Socio-Demographic Factors on Preference and Park Usage in Guangzhou, China

Yueshan Ma, Paul Brindley and Eckart Lange
Additional contact information
Yueshan Ma: Department of Landscape Architecture, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
Paul Brindley: Department of Landscape Architecture, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
Eckart Lange: Department of Landscape Architecture, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: Urban green space (UGS) provides a range of services to visitors and is particularly important for recreation and well-being. There are a number of approaches to research visitor accessibility, but implications for demographic differences of users are typically ignored. In order to more precisely model usage of UGS regarding visitor preference, this study used Guangzhou (China) as a case study, concentrating on residents’ visitation to parks and their factors across different groups (for example, by gender, education level, age and visiting frequency). Online questionnaires from 2360 adults were collected on visiting preferences, such as traveling time, visiting frequency, visit duration within parks, visiting reasons and barriers. Results indicate that women were less likely than men to undertake longer walking trips to access parks (over 40 min). Elderly people tended to have longer visit durations, and lower-educated people tended to have shorter visiting times (particularly less than 15 min) in parks. Visit duration in parks had a positive association with walking time and a negative association with visiting frequency. Furthermore, the proportion of people visiting parks to relieve stress declined with increasing age. Infrequent park users (visiting parks less than once a month) rarely visited to gain inspiration or to socialize with strangers. Barriers to use of parks were correlated with socio-demographic factors, highlighting that older people identified poor quality of parks and long walking times as critical barriers. This study provides evidence that there is no one-size-fits-all modeling approach for UGS usage; instead, it demonstrates the importance of considering the socio-demographic characteristics of users.

Keywords: park usage; demographic difference; visiting preference; structured questionnaire survey; statistical analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/8/1219/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/8/1219/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:8:p:1219-:d:878420

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().