Analysis of the Attitude of Residents toward Neighborhood Parks in Sapporo-city

Abstract

Previous studies of neighborhood parks have generally focused on explaining the use. The lack of research concerning the attitude of residents toward neighborhood parks has prevented their full evaluation. The main object of this report is to clarify the residents' subjective assessment of the parks and demand for them. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was carried out in the vicinity of three typical neighborhood parks in Sapporo city. Throughout the study, the focus was upon how their assessments vary with distance of residence from the parks and demographical attributes.
The results made it possible to determine the “influence area” based on the residents' awareness of the parks' presence and assessments of the parks.
The other main results showed significant differences in the reasons why residents wish to have the parks according to life stage in the family. A great number of the residents repl ied that the parks were necessary for children's play, for exercising and sports, for taking walk and resting and the parks were good for these purposes. But not so many residents felt that the parks provided residents with a chance to be close to nature or good scenery. Thus, we can point out that when we plan and design neighborhood parks, it is important to take into more consideration planting and landscaping.
The assessed scales of functions of the parks were intercorrelated and factorized by means of the principle factor method. The two identified common factors were“useability for recreation and social benefits” and “natural condition and beauty”.