IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i23p9976-d453219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Historical Public Parks: Investigating Contemporary Visitor Needs

Author

Listed:
  • Angeliki Paraskevopoulou

    (Laboratory of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Department of Crop Science, School of Plant Sciences, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 118 55 Athens, Greece)

  • Andreas Klados

    (Laboratory of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Department of Crop Science, School of Plant Sciences, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 118 55 Athens, Greece)

  • Chrysovalantis Malesios

    (Laboratory of Political Economy and European Integration, Department of Agricultural Economics and Development, School of Applied Economics and Social Sciences, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 118 55 Athens, Greece)

Abstract

Worldwide, several large-scale historical gardens have been adapted to social needs and became public parks. Historical parks, designed in a different era and often subjected to pressures for development, raise concerns in meeting contemporary visitor needs, rendering them vulnerable to private interests. The main purpose of this paper was to determine whether a historical park designed in a different era can meet today’s visitor needs. The National Garden (NG) in Athens, Greece, a well-protected historical park, was selected as a case study. A questionnaire survey addressed to the visitors of the NG was undertaken on the basis of the main components of park design, factors affecting visitation, and visitor perceptions of involvement in park management. A descriptive and regression analysis was applied. Even though the NG was not originally designed as a public park but as a garden, overall results showed it satisfies its visitor’s needs. The planting and associated tranquility are the most liked characteristics of the NG that are inextricably linked with its original design as a private garden. The main qualitative traits of plants that people like were found in the NG plant species. Suggested improvements to fulfill further contemporary visitor’s needs have to be considered carefully and must comply with the statutory measures that protect the NG and associated wildlife habitat. As in many urban parks, concerns for safety and cleanliness and willingness to volunteer in park maintenance were also expressed by visitors of the NG. This study illustrates that historical gardens designed many years ago and transformed into public parks can protect and conserve the historical and cultural heritage and concomitantly meet today’s visitor needs. Further research is suggested to study other historical parks.

Suggested Citation

  • Angeliki Paraskevopoulou & Andreas Klados & Chrysovalantis Malesios, 2020. "Historical Public Parks: Investigating Contemporary Visitor Needs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-27, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:9976-:d:453219
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9976/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9976/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aleksandra Lis & Łukasz Pardela & Paweł Iwankowski, 2019. "Impact of Vegetation on Perceived Safety and Preference in City Parks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-20, November.
    2. Eva Heinen & Kees Maat & Bert Wee, 2013. "The effect of work-related factors on the bicycle commute mode choice in the Netherlands," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 23-43, January.
    3. Fariba Bahriny & Simon Bell, 2020. "Patterns of Urban Park Use and Their Relationship to Factors of Quality: A Case Study of Tehran, Iran," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-33, February.
    4. Luca Battisti & Filippo Corsini & Natalia Marzia Gusmerotti & Federica Larcher, 2019. "Management and Perception of Metropolitan Natura 2000 Sites: A Case Study of La Mandria Park (Turin, Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-19, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Titus Bazac & Sorin Marin & Cosmin Olteanu & Anca Hotoi, 2023. "Sustainable Management Decisions for Urban Historical Parks: A Case Study Based on Online Referential Values of Carol I Park in Bucharest, Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-26, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kinga Kimic & Paulina Polko, 2022. "The Use of Urban Parks by Older Adults in the Context of Perceived Security," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-20, March.
    2. Verma, Meghna & Rahul, T.M. & Reddy, Peesari Vamshidhar & Verma, Ashish, 2016. "The factors influencing bicycling in the Bangalore city," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 29-40.
    3. Fengrui Jing & Lin Liu & Suhong Zhou & Guangwen Song, 2020. "Examining the Relationship between Hukou Status, Perceived Neighborhood Conditions, and Fear of Crime in Guangzhou, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-19, November.
    4. Ton, Danique & Bekhor, Shlomo & Cats, Oded & Duives, Dorine C. & Hoogendoorn-Lanser, Sascha & Hoogendoorn, Serge P., 2020. "The experienced mode choice set and its determinants: Commuting trips in the Netherlands," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 744-758.
    5. Hamidreza Rabiei‐Dastjerdi & Stephen A. Matthews, 2021. "Who gets what, where, and how much? Composite index of spatial inequality for small areas in Tehran," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 191-205, February.
    6. Rupi, Federico & Freo, Marzia & Poliziani, Cristian & Postorino, Maria Nadia & Schweizer, Joerg, 2023. "Analysis of gender-specific bicycle route choices using revealed preference surveys based on GPS traces," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Emad B. Dawwas & Karen Dyson, 2021. "COVID-19 Changed Human-Nature Interactions across Green Space Types: Evidence of Change in Multiple Types of Activities from the West Bank, Palestine," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-21, December.
    8. Barbara Sowińska-Świerkosz & Malwina Michalik-Śnieżek, 2020. "The Methodology of Landscape Quality (LQ) Indicators Analysis Based on Remote Sensing Data: Polish National Parks Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-18, April.
    9. Giuseppe Salvia & Irene Pluchinotta & Ioanna Tsoulou & Gemma Moore & Nici Zimmermann, 2022. "Understanding Urban Green Space Usage through Systems Thinking: A Case Study in Thamesmead, London," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-24, February.
    10. Abdullah Addas & Ahmad Maghrabi, 2020. "A Proposed Planning Concept for Public Open Space Provision in Saudi Arabia: A Study of Three Saudi Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-36, August.
    11. Yang Yang & Zhifang Wang & Guangsi Lin, 2021. "Performance Assessment Indicators for Comparing Recreational Services of Urban Parks," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-21, March.
    12. Ali Alamdar Moghaddam & Hamid Mirzahossein & Robert Guzik, 2022. "Comparing Inequality in Future Urban Transport Modes by Doughnut Economy Concept," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-24, November.
    13. Patel, Samir J. & Patel, Chetan R., 2020. "A stakeholders perspective on improving barriers in implementation of public bicycle sharing system (PBSS)," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 353-366.
    14. van Wee, Bert & De Vos, Jonas & Maat, Kees, 2019. "Impacts of the built environment and travel behaviour on attitudes: Theories underpinning the reverse causality hypothesis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    15. Dėdelė, Audrius & Miškinytė, Auksė & Andrušaitytė, Sandra & Nemaniūtė-Gužienė, Jolanta, 2020. "Dependence between travel distance, individual socioeconomic and health-related characteristics, and the choice of the travel mode: a cross-sectional study for Kaunas, Lithuania," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    16. Shixian Luo & Jing Xie & Katsunori Furuya, 2021. "Assessing the Preference and Restorative Potential of Urban Park Blue Space," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-16, November.
    17. Georgia Apostolou & Angèle Reinders & Karst Geurs, 2018. "An Overview of Existing Experiences with Solar-Powered E-Bikes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-20, August.
    18. Verma, Meghna & Rahul, T.M. & Vinayak, Pragun & Verma, Ashish, 2018. "Influence of childhood and adulthood attitudinal perceptions on bicycle usage in the Bangalore city," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 94-105.
    19. Rahman, Mashrur & Sciara, Gian-Claudia, 2022. "Travel attitudes, the built environment and travel behavior relationships: Causal insights from social psychology theories," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 44-54.
    20. Jia Guo & Tao Feng & Harry J. P. Timmermans, 2020. "Modeling co-dependent choice of workplace, residence and commuting mode using an error component mixed logit model," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 911-933, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:9976-:d:453219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.