2022 年 15 巻 p. 39-47
COVID-19 has led to demands for a different lifestyle. Parks are required to respond to complex needs, such as promoting their use while preventing infection. This constitutes an opportunity for citizens to rediscover the appeal of the park, which is accessible to everyone. Therefore, this study aims to comprehensively understand the role and significance of urban parks in Japan and apply this understanding to improvement and management based on the changes in usage and user comments for urban parks. Specifically, we investigated both the objective viewpoint, such as the current state and actual usage of urban parks, and the subjective viewpoint, such as the comments and opinions of park users using the text data of newspapers from January 2020 to March 2021. In addition to changes in the number of people infected, the survey found positive feelings about living in a park as people are forced to refrain from living, although negative opinions were found about the park. Accordingly, we can understand the process by which people again realize the need for the urban parks itself.