Preferences for cultural urban ecosystem services: Comparing attitudes, perception, and use

Highlights

• We compare attitudes towards ES provision, perception, and use of urban parks

• Parks are considered most important for regulating and supporting ES in all cities

• Park use frequency and activities vary significantly between the cities under study

• Cleanliness and low crime are the most important characteristics for park visitors

• People’s perceptions match stated importance of park characteristics in most cases

Abstract

Urban green spaces, including parks, provide numerous ecosystem services (ES) for city inhabitants. Besides provisioning and regulating services, they also provide cultural services by giving people opportunities to recreate and experience nature in the city. The focus of this paper is on cultural ES provided by urban parks in four European cities (Berlin, Stockholm, Rotterdam, and Salzburg). We compare attitudes towards ES provision, perception, and use of urban parks. In particular, we compare the perception of several park characteristics to their stated importance for park visitors. Results indicate that there are similarities between cities regarding attitudes towards ES provision and the importance of different park characteristics for visitors. Park use patterns such as the share of regular park visitors or the activities carried out, however, vary significantly between cities. The city-specific context, including park availability, quality, and perception but also the inhabitants’ preferences for cultural ES and existing substitutes, is thus crucial for urban planning.

Introduction

Approximately 75% of today’s European population lives in urban areas (World Bank, 2013). One important element for their well-being and quality of life is the availability of urban green spaces. Urban green spaces, including parks as one important component, provide numerous ecosystem services (ES) for city inhabitants (Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999, TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), 2011). These services are “the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being” (TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), 2010) and consist of provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Cultural ES, which are probably the most relevant ES in urban environments besides regulating services (see, e.g., Jim and Chen, 2006), encompass tourism, recreation and physical and mental health as well as aesthetic appreciation, inspiration, education, and spiritual experiences (MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment), 2005). Opportunities to recreate are of particular importance for the well-being of city inhabitants who live in a stressful and hectic urban environment (Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999). This view is supported by evidence from the psychological and medical literature which shows that urban green spaces significantly enhance human health and well-being (see Tzoulas et al. (2007) for an overview).

This paper focuses on urban parks, a main component of urban green spaces, and the ES they provide. We compare attitudes towards ES provision, perception, and use of urban parks among the inhabitants of four European cities, namely Berlin (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden), Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Salzburg (Austria). Focusing on one component of urban green spaces allows carrying out a consistent analysis of preferences and uses as other types of urban green spaces (e.g., forests or cemeteries) may be used differently.

Given the focus of our study on attitudes towards ES provision, perceptions, and use of urban parks, studies that have dealt with one or more of these aspects before are most relevant for putting our analyses in context¹. One example for such a study is Chiesura (2004), who analyzes people’s reasons for and perceived benefits of visiting urban parks. Examples for studies that focus on the use and perception of urban parks include Zhang et al. (2013), Özgüner, 2011 and Lo and Jim (2010). Some studies also analyze attitudes towards and/or the perception of urban parks and ES provided by them but leave out actual use (e.g., Bonaiuto et al., 2003; Balram and Dragićević, 2005, Jim and Chen, 2006, Kabisch and Haase, 2014). Other studies analyze preferences for varying types of vegetation, differentiating between different groups of people, for example between residents and landscape planners (Hofmann et al., 2012). Some studies also relate socio-economic characteristics to attitudes towards urban parks, to perception of urban parks or to preferences for park characteristics using statistical tests (Chiesura, 2004, Jim and Chen, 2006, Jim and Shan, 2012) or econometric analysis (Bjerke et al., 2006).

These studies mostly focus on a particular park in one city (e.g., Kabisch and Haase, 2014, Chiesura, 2004) which limits general statements and, furthermore, comparability with other studies due to, for example, differences in survey design and varying degrees of detail. One rare exception is Van Dyck et al. (2013), who analyze neighborhood perception and physical activity in Baltimore (USA), Seattle (USA), Adelaide (Australia) and Ghent (Belgium). The focus of the van Dyck study, however, is different from ours because Van Dyck et al. (2013) focus on physical activity and not on a broader set of recreational activities. Moreover, they do not consider people’s attitudes towards ES provision or their perceptions of urban parks. We thus add to the literature by providing a comparative study on people’s attitudes towards ES provision, perception, and use of urban parks in four European cities. This allows investigating whether general patterns are observable and to what extent findings are transferable between different locations and across countries. The four cities are interesting examples for comparison because they are quite different with respect to size, location, physical geography, and economic structure. But they are all faced with projected increases of population numbers in the medium term, which might put pressure on existing urban parks².

In addition, many studies that analyze people’s preferences for urban parks do not systematically include the ES framework in their analysis. First, this implies that most preference studies about urban parks directly consider recreation without paying attention to the question of how other cultural urban ES such as spiritual experiences and aesthetic appreciation are valued by citizens (e.g., Zhang et al., 2013; Özgüner, 2011). Second, most studies investigating regulating services consider the potential of urban ecosystems such as urban parks to provide these services but they do not ask to what extent this potential is recognized by the citizens (e.g., Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999; Kabisch et al., 2013). While it is important to know the potential of urban parks to provide regulating ES, it is also interesting to find out whether this multi-functionality of urban parks is recognized by the citizens. Jim and Chen (2006) is the only study that we are aware of that investigates to which extent people recognize the importance of different urban ES provided by urban parks and green spaces. We thus add to the literature by showing which services of urban parks citizens recognize and how they value them.

Finally, we relate people’s stated importance of park characteristics to how these characteristics are perceived by park visitors in the four cities. If there are differences between what people find important and how parks are designed and equipped, then this will be valuable information for city planners because it informs them which characteristics of urban parks need improvement to meet the needs of the visitors. Subjective information on how people perceive the quality of urban parks may, in addition, help city planners to evaluate whether the measures they have taken fulfil the intended purpose. Some of the characteristics might be more easily altered (e.g., equipment with facilities such as playgrounds) than others (e.g., distance).

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents main information about the case study cities as well as information about survey content, design, and implementation as well as the statistical methods used for the analyses. Section 3 presents the results, including a description of main demographic characteristics of the sample populations in the four cities and a comparative description of people’s attitudes, perception, and use of urban parks in the four cities. Section 4 discusses the results and concludes.