PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2022, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (4): 621-635.doi: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2022.04.007

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The equity of urban park green space accessibility in large Chinese cities: A case study of Wuhan City

WANG Zilin1,2(), LI Zhigang1,2,*(), CHENG Hanbei1,2   

  1. 1. School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
    2. Hubei Provincial Research Centre of Human Settlement Engineering and Technology, Wuhan 430072, China
  • Received:2021-06-22 Revised:2021-09-14 Online:2022-04-28 Published:2022-06-28
  • Contact: LI Zhigang E-mail:zilin_wang@whu.edu.cn;zhigangli@whu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(41771167)

Abstract:

Urban park green space (UPGS) is an important part of the urban ecosystem. Good accessibility of UPGS can promote urban livability and improve residents' well-being. It is important to evaluate the fairness of UPGS accessibility. Taking the central city of Wuhan as a study case and 2020 as the research time period, this study measured the accessibility from the supply and demand aspects, evaluated the spatial characteristics of the accessibility of UPGS from both the local and global perspectives, and further explored the relationship between accessibility and residents' social and economic conditions, in order to explore its social equity. Our findings include: 1) The spatial distribution of accessibility of regional, city, and comprehensive level UPGS is better than that of community level UPGS. 2) The spatial pattern of the overall accessibility of UPGS in the central city area of Wuhan gradually decreases from the core to the periphery. The communities with more UPGS and higher UPGS density show a higher level of accessibility. 3) There is a positive spatial correlation between UPGS accessibility and residents' socioeconomic conditions. The communities with higher housing prices also have higher UPGS accessibility. Thereby we identified marked social inequality in terms of the UPGS accessibility for Wuhan. It is recommended that in the future we should be further concerned with the optimization and regulation of the layout of UPGS with more nuance. While implementing the universal strategies, we should adopt targeted strategies and implement precise policies for the needs of different regions and different social groups. This study contributes to the literature in several ways. Using multi-source data and new technology to optimize indicators and data sources, the quality of parks was measured from UPGS area, ecosystem service value (ESV), recreation facilities, and safety conditions and various traffic patterns, real-time conditions, and selection preferences of different age groups, and so on were considered. At the same time, this study paid attention to the social inequality of accessibility, which enriches the empirical content and case materials and provides a scientific basis for the layout of urban infrastructure and the practice of environmental justice.

Key words: urban park green space, multi-G2SFCA, accessibility, equity, Wuhan City