Comparison of urban green space usage and preferences: a case study approach of China and the UK

The literature identifies an important research gap regarding the variability in people’s needs and preferences for Urban Green Space (UGS) depending on sociodemographic and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, it is essential to understand the impact of these differences on UGS utilization preferences. However, there remains a lack of a comprehensive comparative research on this topic. This study compared the analysis of park usage and preferences from urban parks accessed on foot by analyzing and comparing the results of 2,360 online questionnaires from Guangzhou (China) with 7,159 responses from London (UK) using the Monitoring of Natural Environment Engagement (MENE) survey data. The results highlighted the importance of knowing which park usage and preferences were more likely to exhibit large variations/similarities based on different socio-demographic and cultural backgrounds. For example, one difference was in the UK older people were more likely to spend less time in parks, while in Guangzhou duration increased up to the age of 50 years before declining. One similarity indicated that park users in both countries tended to spend longer times in parks if they walked longer times accessing these parks. These findings have implications for distinguishing international planning and designing principles in various social cultural contexts.