Parks and Recreation: Perceptions and Uses of NeighbourhoodGreen Areas

Sammanfattning

Urban green areas hold many important values relating to biodiversity, climate adaptation, human wellbeing,but also as a place enabling positive social settings.As technology developed, so did new ways to interact with people. When new contacts can be createdall over the world through internet and long-distance travelling, spontaneous interactions and creatingnew contacts in our proximity risks being forgotten. However, social possibilities near the residence arestill something many people call for. To enable such spontaneous interactions and open up for newcontacts in the neighbourhood, attractive environments must be available where people want to spendtime and have the option to meet new people.In Sweden, different planning ideals have formed neighbourhoods of varying character with differentopportunities for people to meet. Depending on the time during which an area was built public spacesand green areas have been formed differently depending on concurrent planning paradigms. The aimof this study was to investigate if the use and perceptions of green areas in different neighbourhoodsvaried depending on the type of greenery, or during different weather conditions.The results show that wind conditions and sun access vary between the three areas. While harsher windconditions had little effect on people’s use of green areas, sun access was noted as an important factorto make people visit the outdoors. Some variations in the use of green areas depending on the type ofgreenery present were noted, both for passive and active recreation. The results gathered in the studyimplies that to make people visit their neighbourhood green areas, good sun access should be granted,as well as ensuring possibilities to conduct different activities, both active and passive.