'While many studies looked at these topics at the city level, I was able to explore the local patterns within the city, not just talk about the fact that there is unequal access to parks, but I was able to identify neighborhoods that should be improved'. Not everyone has equal access to green spaces, and knowing who does is important for making these places accessible and equitable. Though many studies have tried to understand these questions, the results are unclear. College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources doctoral researcher Pan Zhang and Assistant Professor Sohyun Park, both in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, wanted to take a deeper look at factors contributing to inequity in park access and park quality and fill in the gaps from previous studies. Their research was published in Applied Geography. Zhang looked at spatial data including roads and parks within the city limits to assess accessibility within a 10-minute walk for residents. Zhang also looked at three years of police incident data, and the American Community Survey to assess demographic and socioeconomic data. To assess park access and spatial patterns Zhang used spatial analysis in ArcGIS and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). The results of this multidimensional analysis show that understanding park disparity requires a more rigorous approach to have a more accurate and unbiased assessment of park access since the patterns observed were very location specific and the factors had low correlations to one another.
