Analysing of Residents’ Understanding about the Inhibiting Factors of Using Urban Parks

Abstract

Studying on people usage of urban parks indicates that although people pay a lot of attention to the urban parks and talk about different advantages of it, some of the barriers with a different view among people cause negative attitudes which lead people not to use parks. The purpose of this study first is to recognize and classify the residents' points of view and their images about inhibiting factors of visiting to the parks and then surveying the difference of these factors in various groups of users. In this study a survey was conducted among 300 visitors randomly selected from visitors of two urban parks in the city of Gorgan in Iran, regardless of their social extraction or professional background. Visitors respond to a questionnaire about use rating and inhibiting factors on the use of urban parks. Factor analyses revealed four clearly distinguishable factors (quality, safety, accessibility and personal problems). Three first factors (quality, safety and access) had more than 55 percent of all of the answers which show the highest and most important inhibiting factors. Quality, safety and accessibility were known as the most important factors. The results showed that there is no significant difference between the four factors in the user groups. Understanding and finding these inhibiting factors will help the urban managers, policy makers through recognizing and classifying these factors step by step start to solve them.