Designing urban parks for inclusion, equity, and diversity

Urban parks are vital spaces that provide the much-needed open space in cities offering numerous benefits and opportunities. One of the prime roles of urban parks is to fulfill the physiological and psychological needs of diverse populations. Empirically observing and analyzing park use can be an important tool toward reducing the gap between user needs and the planning, design, and management of urban parks. This paper reports the findings of systematic observation and evaluation of park design and management of two major urban parks in Cincinnati, Ohio. First, we conduct systematic on-site observation and document user-activity patterns at different times of day and week. Second, we graphically represent the observations using outputs from qualitative and quantitative analyses. Finally, we synthesize and analyze the observations to identify the dominant users of the parks, their behaviors and activities, and the utility of the park designs and facilities in serving the needs of the diverse social groups. The findings provide useful insights on aspects of park design that create affordances for diverse groups to use the park and ones that create territorial segregation, thus showing whether contemporary parks are inclusive, equitable, and diverse or not. The paper concludes with recommendations for designing for diversity in urban parks.