Park Characteristics and Changes in Park Visitation before, during, and after COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place Order

Yizhen Ding, Dongying Li and Huiyan Sang
Additional contact information
Yizhen Ding: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Dongying Li: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Huiyan Sang: Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has limited people’s visitation to public places because of social distancing and shelter-in-place orders. According to Google’s community mobility reports, some countries showed a decrease in park visitation during the pandemic, while others showed an increase. Although government responses played a significant role in this variation, little is known about park visitation changes and the park attributes that are associated with these changes. Therefore, we aimed to examine the associations between park characteristics and percent changes in park visitation in Harris County, TX, for three time periods: before, during, and after the shelter-in-place order of Harris County. We utilized SafeGraph’s point-of-interest data to extract weekly park visitation counts for the Harris County area. This dataset included the size of each park and its weekly number of visits from 2 March to 31 May 2020. In addition, we measured park characteristics, including greenness density, using the normalized difference vegetation index; park type (mini, neighborhood, community, regional/metropolitan); presence of sidewalks and bikeways; sidewalk and bikeway quantity; and bikeway quality. Results showed that park visitation decreased after issuing the shelter-in-place order and increased after this order was lifted. Results from linear regression models indicated that the higher the greenness density of the park, the smaller the decrease in park visitation during the shelter-in-place period compared to before the shelter-in-place order. This relationship also appeared after the shelter-in-place order. The presence of more sidewalks was related to less visitation increase after the shelter-in-place order. These findings can guide planners and designers to implement parks that promote public visitation during pandemics and potentially benefit people’s physical and mental health.

Keywords: COVID-19; park visitation; park characteristics; behavior; SafeGraph (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/6/3579/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/6/3579/ (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:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:6:p:3579-:d:774159

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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