M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This thesis deals with the reappropriation of an existing parking garage into a language institute at Constitution Hill. Through the generation of a flu id conversation between architecture and people this thesis aims to address the underlying social miscommunication present within South African society through a socially motivated architectural manifestation. The underlining aim of this thesis will be the generation of a socially orientated architectural platform that allows and encourages cross-pollination. This architectural platform will revolve around and investigate the many opportunities that language offers asa social mediator and how these opportunities can aid in the democratization of identity generation. This new approach will be more representative of the complex multicultural society that is present within South Africa and as a result will end up being more democratic in nature.

Mobile devices and online services allow capturing an unprecedented amount of information about human behavior. In this dissertation, I use these new types of data to understand how the built environment affects social life and businesses in cities. In Chapter 1, I provide the first causal evidence that the provision of urban parks promotes opportunities for racially and ethnically diverse encounters. Utilizing a novel dataset featuring individual GPS tracking data for more than 60 thousand Twitter users in the New York metro area, I introduce a measure of racial diversity that captures one's level of exposure to diverse others in places visited daily. My empirical strategy relies on using the variation in the timing of park construction works across the city (that temporarily limit the capacity of said parks) to identify the impact of the effectively accessible parkland area on the individual exposure to racial diversity. My results show that for White and Black/African American residents additional 10 acres of parks within a 5 km radius from home increase individual chances of encounters with the members of other groups by 1 p.p. The effect is sizable: for reference, transitioning from the current state to the random mixing scenario would require a 9 p.p increase in diversity for an average Black or African American individual and a 3.5 p.p increase for an average White person. I also provide evidence to suggest that park accessibility affects the diversity of White and Black residents differently: for parks located closer to home, the effect appears to be more pronounced for Whites than Blacks. Chapter 2, written jointly with Dmitry Sedov, investigates the role of sports facilities in generating consumption spillovers for the local businesses. The construction of sports facilities, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, is often subsidized by public sources. In many cases, subsidies are allocated on the premise that sports venues benefit the local economy by bringing new customers to nearby businesses. We pin down the size and the spatial distribution of such spillovers using daily foot traffic data from mobile phones covering major sports league facilities and the surrounding commercial establishments. By employing the fixed effects and the IV estimation strategies, we show that the spillover benefits are heterogeneous across sports and business sectors. We find that 100 baseball stadium visits generate roughly 29 visits to nearby food & accommodation businesses and about 6 visits to local retail establishments. While the estimates for football stadiums are comparable, basketball & hockey arenas do not appear to generate significant spillovers for the surrounding businesses. Using our spillover estimates, we also compute an upper bound on the additional local spending induced by each sample arena. The median value of the additional spending turns out to be substantially smaller than the corresponding median subsidy to sports facilities in our sample. In Chapter 3, I examine the contribution of parks to social ties between neighborhoods in New York City. Although the role of public spaces in facilitating social interactions in cities has been widely discussed by social scientists and urban design scholars, data sets from online social networks present unexplored opportunities to quantify this link on a larger scale. I use data on friendship links between Facebook users across New York City zip codes to show that two neighborhoods with a higher density of green spaces between them are more likely to have stronger social ties. In particular, when controlling for demographic differences and zip-code level fixed effects, I find that a 1 p.p. increase in the percentage of land allocated to parks between two given zip codes is associated with a 1.2% higher chance of online social connection between their residents. Comparing the effects of park density for different types of parks, I further document that the presence of community parks, flagship parks, and playgrounds are all significant predictors of higher social connectedness between zip codes. Notably, the largest estimated effect is for playgrounds, indicating a 33% higher probability of connection per 1 p.p. increase in density.

Under global urbanization backgrounds with physical population migrations and relocations, corresponding consequences in society developments, cultural transformations, technology inventions and interactions between regions and countries, etc. are considered as having a huge impact on normal urban dwellers. For human beings always have intentions towards managements and benefits from natural surroundings, urban dweller demands under the modern challenges and their interactions are necessary to be concerned about. Urban ecosystem is considered as a highly developed civilization, but also with features of resources and energy demands and pollution and distributional exports. As the only natural element in this ecosystem, UGI (urban green infrastructures) is considered as an important human-environment interaction provider with urban ecosystem services (UES) largely focused by academic scholars, urban planners and policy managers. As one of the fastest urbanizing cities in the world, Shanghai is considered as having huge cultural and social developments combined with socioeconomic acceleration. Under the unique background of policy planning and traditional Confucian culture transformation, the impacts to urban dweller demands, whether these newly developed modern demands can be satisfied by UES provided by UGI and how the understandings of these normal dwellers to UGI in Shanghai are necessary for academic researches. By considering the interactions with urban dwellers, six urban parks in the center of Shanghai are chosen as research sites in this study. Combined with factors of urbanization processes and observed patterns of visitor interactions, the indicator of “park age” is concerned with three old parks (older than 25 years old) and three new parks (younger than 25 years old). With methodologies of fieldwork mapping, questionnaires, indicator based evaluation system constructions, etc., the quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out to habitat diversity, cultural and regulation UES results, and the background reasons caused by political and financial influences are subject to further discussion. The visitors to urban parks of Shanghai are classified into four sorts: “retired dwellers”, “dwellers for children care”, “tourist visitors” and “other visitors”, we found out that related demands and interactions with urban parks have significant differences. After detailed discussions, it could be figured out that the visitors demands play a significant role, and the interactions between visitors and UES in Shanghai are comprehensively influenced by multiple factors of “visiting objectives”, “park cultures (ages, popularities, etc.)” and “personal identities (educations, incomes, etc.)”. Based on this, the detailed differences of policy, finance, Confucian culture, nature understanding, and community society between old and new parks were further discussed. With all aspects of physical, mental, psychological and other demand aspects especially focused on, the typical features in Shanghai are also highly concentrated on dominant activities. For China is suffering from national environmental and urbanization problems but lack in related concerns combined with dweller demands, this research work may make certain efforts on model assessment methodologies constructions and national implementations. Also, with a combined background of top-down policy systems and natural understandings under socioeconomic duress, this research could also make significant efforts in dweller-UES interactions researches in similar cases of other countries and newly developed urban ecosystems in the world.

The risk of spread and establishment of invasive species to interior habitat within urban parks is of great concern to park managers and ecologists. Informal trails as a vector for this transmission are not well understood. To characterize effects of informal trails on understory plant communities, I conducted a study of the informal trail network in Forest Park, Portland, Oregon. The system of 382 informal trails was mapped and evaluated qualitatively, and from this population a systematic sample was selected for analysis. To identify hotspots of informal trail activity, showing the relationship of informal trails to formal trails, other park features, and trail use level, I evaluated all mapped trails using line density spatial analysis tools. To characterize understory communities, thirty transects were placed along informal trails, with paired transects along nearby formal trails for comparison. I measured percent cover by species for non-graminoid understory plants, and percent total plant cover at different structural layers, for quadrats at regular intervals from the trail edge. I calculated richness and Shannon-Weaver diversity for non-graminoid understory plants. For community analysis, species were grouped by dispersal strategy, native status, and growth form. Observations from system mapping suggest that "hidden" behaviors drive many informal trails: bathroom stops, party spots, waste dumping, and camps make up 28% of all informal trails. Trails to private property are few but represent over 29% of total trail length. Informal trail density is highest along Balch Creek. Hotspots of informal trail presence are associated with trailheads, trail intersections, and water access. Quadrats located within one meter of informal trails showed higher richness and diversity due to increased number of introduced and ruderal species. Formal trails exhibit these same patterns to a stronger degree and over a greater distance (two meters) from the trail edge. Distance from trail edge explained variation in plant communities when grouped by dispersal type, but not by growth form. This study shows that although informal trails are widely distributed throughout the park, they are concentrated in high use areas. The presence of informal trails leads to significant changes in Forest Park plant communities that favor invasive and ruderal species, but these effects appear limited to two meters from the trail edge.

Parker och grönområden är betydelsefulla för en stad och har många viktiga egenskaper och funktioner för både enskilda människor och för att möta de klimatutmaningar som samhället står inför. För människor erbjuder de plats för att socialisera, koppla av och njuta samtidigt som den biologiska mångfalden främjas, dagvatten tas omhand samt att det skänker karaktär för dess stad. När dessa grönytor presenteras för allmänheten upphöjs dem som attraktiva, inbjudande och trygga där det finns möjlighet för olika aktiviteter under dagtid. Under kvälls- och nattetid riskeras deras karaktär att ändras när mörkret faller, platsen avfolkas och människors rörelsemönster förändrar. Detta arbete fokuserar på att studera människors uppfattning av trygghet i parker och grönområden i städerna under kvälls- och nattetid idag och vilka fysiska faktorer som ger upphov till denna uppfattning. Studien är upplagd som en enkätundersökning som har skickats ut via mejl och sociala medier till människor över hela Sverige. Enkäten ställer frågor om människors egen uppfattning om trygghet i städernas parker och grönområden under kvälls- och nattetid, vilka fysiska faktorer som påverkar, synen på kommunernas kommunikation och ordningsmaktens arbete. Resultatet visar att människor i städerna känner otrygghet i våra parker och grönområden under de mörka timmarna på dygnet. Det visar även att människor undviker att röra sig eller vistas i parker och grönområden under kvälls- och nattetid. Från undersökningen går att utläsa vilka fysiska faktorer som påverkar uppfattningen av otrygghet, som exempelvis vegetationens storlek och placering, belysning samt otydliga gångstråk. Från dessa påverkande fysiska faktorer visas att mörka platser är den största faktorn för otrygghet. Enkätens respondenter anger även att med högre närvaro av ordningsmakten och mer kameror utplacerade så skulle känslan av trygghet öka. Med allmänhetens åsikter av vad som ger otrygghet idag mot hur kommunernas trygghetsarbeten bevisas här att man inte har lyckats. Resultatet av studien ger utrymme för att kunna skapa en diskussion mot att stärka den fysiska miljön i våra parker och grönområden. / Parks and green areas are important to a city and have many different characteristics and functions, both for individuals and the climate challenges society is facing. For the people they offer a place to socialize, relax and enjoy while promoting biodiversity, taking care of stormwater and giving character to the city. When these green spaces are presented to the public, they are raised as attractive, inviting and safe where there is the opportunity for various activities during the day. But in the evening and night time, their character is at risk of changing as darkness falls, the place is depopulated and people's movement patterns change. This work focuses on studying people's perceptions on sense of safety today in parks and green areas in cities during the evening and night hours, and what physical factors that cause this perception. The study is designed as a survey that has been sent out by e-mails and social media to people all over Sweden. The survey asks questions about people's own perceptions on sense of safety in urban parks and green areas during the evening and night hours, what physical factors affect, the view of the municipalities' communication and the work of the authorities. The result shows that people in the cities are not feel safe in our parks and green areas during the dark hours of the day. It also shows that people avoid moving or staying in parks and green areas during the evening and night hours. From the survey it is possible to find out which physical factors that affect people perception of safety, such as the size and location of the vegetation, lighting and unclear walking paths. From these affecting physical factors it is shown that dark places are the larges factor for felling of safety. The survey respondents also state that with a higher presence of police and more cameras deployed, the feeling of safety would increase. With the public's views of what gives the felling of safety nowday agains municipalities' safety work proves here that they have not succeeded. The result of the study gives room to for a discussion about strengthening the physical environment in our parks and green areas.

Alors que les bienfaits des parcs et espaces verts sont largement démontrés dans la littérature, la pandémie de COVID-19 a mis en lumière la nécessité de ces espaces auprès de la population, notamment en milieux urbains denses. Malgré cela, des recherches indiquent que dans les villes où la densité est importante, ces dernières peinent à offrir une quantité suffisante de ces espaces à leurs citoyens. Des recherches illustrent le rôle clé des outils d’aménagement et d’urbanisme pour planifier l’offre en parcs et espaces verts dans un contexte de densification urbaine, mais sans offrir de réponse complète quant aux façons dont les municipalités devraient utiliser ou combiner ces outils. Alors que le Québec a planifié la consolidation des municipalités déjà développées pour accueillir la croissance démographique anticipée, les outils qu’il met à la disposition des municipalités et la façon dont elles les utilisent pourront-ils lui permettre de planifier adéquatement l’offre en parcs et espaces verts dans ces milieux à densifier ? En s’appuyant sur la perspective de 15 professionnels de l’aménagement œuvrant pour des municipalités québécoises, cette recherche approfondit l’utilisation et l’influence des outils d’aménagement et d’urbanisme sur la planification de l’offre en parcs et espaces verts dans les milieux à consolider. La recherche a pour objectif de comprendre de quelles façons ces espaces sont planifiés, quels sont les outils utilisés, les pratiques porteuses et les facteurs de succès. Les résultats suggèrent que les outils québécois peuvent permettre aux municipalités de planifier adéquatement les parcs et espaces verts de leurs citoyens s’ils sont utilisés en synergie, en support à la négociation, et de manière concertée et innovante. Toutefois, les défis pour y arriver demeurent nombreux. Cette recherche contribue à l’avancée des connaissances en documentant la création de parcs et espaces verts dans un contexte de consolidation et de densification d’espaces urbains au Québec. Elle permet également de conscientiser les acteurs à l’importance et aux enjeux des parcs et espaces verts et aux spécificités des outils et des pratiques existantes en amont de la consolidation urbaine à venir. / While the benefits of parks and greenspaces are widely demonstrated in the literature, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for these spaces among the population, particularly in dense urban environments. Despite this, research indicates that cities with high densities struggle to provide adequate amounts of these spaces to their citizens. Research illustrates the key role of planning and development tools in planning the supply of parks and greenspaces in the context of urban densification but does not provide a comprehensive answer as to how municipalities should use or combine these tools. While Quebec has planned the consolidation of already developed municipalities to accommodate anticipated population growth, will the tools it makes available to municipalities and the way they use them allow it to adequately plan the supply of parks and green spaces in these densifying environments? Based on the perspective of 15 planning professionals working for Quebec municipalities, this research examines the use and influence of planning tools on the planning of parks and green spaces in areas to be consolidated. The objective of the research is to understand how these spaces are planned, what tools are used, what practices are effective and what factors contribute to their success. The results suggest that Quebec's tools can enable municipalities to adequately plan parks and greenspaces if they are used in synergy, in support of negotiation, and in a concerted and innovative manner. However, the challenges to achieve this remain numerous. This research contributes to the advancement of knowledge by documenting the creation of parks and greenspaces in a context of consolidation and densification of urban spaces in Quebec. It also allows us to raise awareness of the importance of parks and greenspaces and the specificities of the existing tools and practices upstream of the urban consolidation to be carried out.

Cities are home to more than half of the world’s population, and this figure is set to continue to rise amidst ongoing global urbanization trends. Against this backdrop, urban development is increasingly confronted with multifaceted challenges. These range from public health emergencies, exemplified by the COVID-19 global pandemic, to the environmental hazards driven by climate change, including extreme heat waves and more frequent severe storms. Confronted with these substantial risks, the urgency of devising and implementing strategies for sustainable and resilient urban development has become paramount. Given this context, the work presented in this thesis aims to advance understanding of some critical urban sustainability challenges, and to develop models, tools, and sensing systems that can support progress towards a more sustainable and resilient urban future. The first part of the thesis focuses on the role and usage of urban parks during a global public health emergency. Urban parks became critical for maintaining the well-being of urban residents during the COVID-19 global pandemic. To examine the impact of COVID-19 on urban park usage, New York City (NYC) was selected as a case study, and SafeGraph mobility data, which was collected from a large sample of mobile phone users, was used to assess the change in park visits and travel distance to a park based on park type, the income level of the visitor’s census block group (visitor CBG) and that of the park census block group (park CBG). All analyses were adjusted for the impact of temperature on park visitation, and the research work was focused primarily on park visits made by NYC residents. Overall, for the eight most popular park types in NYC, namely – Community Park, Flagship Park, Jointly Operated Playground, Nature Area, Neighborhood Park, Playground, Recreation Field/Courts and Triangle/Plaza – visits dropped by 49.2% from 2019 to 2020. The peak reduction in visits occurred in April 2020. Visits to all park types, excluding Nature Areas, decreased from March to December 2020 as compared to 2019. Parks located in higher-income CBGs tended to have lower reductions in visits, with this pattern being primarily driven by visits to large parks, including Flagship Parks, Community Parks and Nature Areas. All types of parks saw significant decreases in distance traveled to visit the park, with the exception of the Jointly Operated Playground, Playground, and Nature Area park types. Visitors originating from lower-income CBGs traveled shorter distances to parks and had less reduction in travel distances compared to those from higher-income CBGs. Furthermore, both before and during the pandemic, people tended to travel a greater distance to parks located in high-income CBGs compared to those in low-income CBGs. Finally, multiple types of parks proved crucial destinations for NYC residents during the pandemic. These included Nature Areas to which the visits remained stable, along with Recreation Field/Courts which had relatively small decreases in visits especially for lower-income communities. Results from this particular research study can support future park planning by shedding light on the different users of certain park types before and during a global crisis, where access to green spaces can help alleviate the human well-being consequences associated with mitigating the crisis, including the type of “lockdown” or limited mobility policies implemented in 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The second part of the thesis investigates the role of urban greening and other land surface features in influencing the urban heat island effect in NYC. The urban heat island (UHI) effect describes the phenomenon whereby cities are generally warmer than surrounding rural areas. UHI effects can exacerbate extreme heat events, leading to an increase in heat-related illness and mortality. Here, the runoff coefficient was used as a numerical surrogate for urban greening, with lower runoff coefficients being associated with higher fractions of urban greening. Using a high-resolution landcover GIS dataset developed for New York City (NYC), which classified the city into more than 13 million land patches, the runoff coefficient of land use across the entire city was mapped down to a resolution of 30m×30m, along with five other variables including surface albedo, distance to water bodies, land surface elevation, building density and building height. Daytime land surface temperature (LST) in summer was used as a surrogate for the UHI effect in NYC, and the work investigated the relationship between the runoff coefficient and LST. The work also examined the relationship between LST and the variables of surface albedo, distance to a water body, land surface elevation, building density and building height. Results indicate that runoff coefficient can explain a large portion of variability related to urban LST, with lower runoff coefficients (more greenery) being associated with lower LST. Use of the five other variables improves the predictability of LST, although the influence each variable has on LST varies with urban setting and context. The research work presented in this part of the thesis also shows the disproportionately higher exposure to urban heat in lower-income communities in NYC. The findings can be used to develop strategies to mitigate UHI effects in NYC and other cities around the world. In the third part of the thesis, a wireless environmental sensing system is developed for monitoring urban green spaces, with demonstrated application for stormwater management. The monitoring of urban green spaces, including monitoring of soil conditions and soil health, is crucial for sustainable urban development and ecological resilience. Leveraging advances in wireless environmental sensing, a LoRaWAN-based system capable of measuring air temperature/humidity, soil temperature and moisture, and soil moisture dynamics is designed and deployed across seven diverse urban green spaces for a full year at Columbia University’s Morningside Campus in New York City. The data collected by this sensing network reveals notable variations in soil moisture across the seven monitored sites, which are influenced by a combination of vegetation type, soil conditions, and physical settings. Monitored lawns consistently showed higher soil moisture levels due to their slower draining soil type, underlying concrete structures, and lower canopy rainfall interception and transpiration loss, whereas one monitored tree pit site with a more rapidly draining soil type showed significantly lower soil moisture throughout the study period, despite having comparable physical settings with another monitored site. Seasonal trends indicated lower summer moisture in some monitored areas due to increased evaporation and transpiration under high temperatures, while others areas maintained higher soil moisture as a result of frequent irrigations. Models were developed to quantify soil moisture response to rainfall events. It was found that the increase in soil moisture at each monitored site was highly dependent on the rainfall depth and the initial soil moisture. Overall, the results show that a range of diverse green spaces can help retain and drain storms up to certain sizes of 30-50mm. However, proactively designed soil drainage systems are needed to handle extreme storm events above 50mm. The study highlights the effectiveness of LoRaWAN technology in urban environmental monitoring and provides valuable insights into how different urban green spaces can contribute to stormwater management. The findings presented in this portion of the thesis demonstrate the instrumental role that monitoring, data analysis and modeling can play in helping city planners and environmental managers optimize urban green spaces for ecological benefits and enhance urban resilience, including in the face of stressors such as climate change. Overall, with its data-driven, evidence-based insights, this work contributes to the understanding of the multifaceted urban sustainability challenges in a changing environment, including public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 global pandemic, and climate change induced environmental hazards such as extreme heat events and more frequent severe storms. Alongside deepening understanding, the developed quantitative models and sensing technologies presented in this thesis offer practical solutions to support urban development towards a more sustainable and resilient future.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The official custodian of the Cape Peninsula mountain chain, located at the centre of Cape Town, is the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP). This park is South Africa’s only urban open-access park and has been declared a World Heritage Site. This thesis is an anthropological and historical examination of the past and present conservation of the Cape Peninsula . I provide an overview of the relationship between the urban environment and the Cape Peninsula aiming to illustrate the produced character of the mountains and its mediation in power relations. This study of custodianship reveals that protecting and conserving the Cape Peninsula is shaped by the politics of the urban and natural environment as well as by the experience of living in the city. As such, official and unofficial custodianship is informed by class and race differentiations, embedded in the politics of identity, responsive to the local and national political transformations in governance and connected to the urban struggles of the marginalised Capetonians. Furthermore, inherent in the notion of custodianship is the social appropriation of the Cape Peninsula which was shown to produce specific ideological representations of nature. The thesis presents an ethnographic study of Hangberg, a poor neighbourhood situated at the border of the TMNP. There, the encroachments and poaching within the park boundaries is addressed by focussing on the competing discourses between biodiversity, entitlement and heritage. The engagements between the TMNP, the state and Hangberg on the issues of conservation reveal the distinct complexities of running a national park in a city beset with inequalities. My focus on these engagements also illustrates that the manifestation of ‘community’ is a construction contingent upon circumstances which reflect a meaningful and political relationship between identity, citizenship and place, rather than a homogeneous group of people. I conclude with the idea that in attempting to make the park socially and racially equitable, urban conservation ought to begin to recognise its distinct urban character in the larger socio-environmental framework of the city. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die offisiële beskermheer van die Kaapse Skiereiland Bergreeks, geleë in die sentrum van Kaapstad, is die Tafelberg Nasionale Park (TNP). Die park is Suid-Afrika se enigste stedelike en oop-toegangspark en is verklaar as ’n Wêreld Erfenis Gebied. Hierdie tesis is ’n antropologiese en historiese studie van die huidige en geskiedkundige beskerming van die Kaapse Skiereiland. ’n Oorsig van die verhouding tussen die stedelike omgewing en die Kaapse Skiereiland ontbloot die geproduseerde karakter van die bergreeks en die bemiddeling daarvan in magsverhoudinge. ’n Studie van die beskermheerders van die Kaapse Skiereiland toon aan dat die beskerming en bewaring van die bergreeks (of dele daarvan) afhanklik is van die stedelike en nasionale politieke klimaat en die ervaring van ’n stedelike lewe. Sodoende word offisiële en nie-offisiële kuratorskap as klas- en ras-onderskeibaar, ingebed in identiteitspolitiek, verwant aan die plaaslike en nasionale politieke transformasies in die regering, en verbonde aan die stryd van armes in Kaapstad gedefinieer. Verder, inherent aan kuratorskap is die sosiale toe-eiening van die Kaapse Skiereiland wat spesifieke ideologiese voorstellings van die natuur in die stad produseer. Die tesis bied’n etnografiese studie van Hangberg aan, ’n arm woonbuurt geleë op die grens van die TNP. Ek bespreek die onwettige behuising en stropery binne die park se grense deur te fokus op die kompeterende diskoerse tussen biodiversiteit, regte en erfenis. Die onderhandelinge tussen die TNP, die staat, en Hangberg in verband met die kwessies rondom bewaring ontbloot die spesifieke kompleksiteit daarvan om ’n nasionale park in ’n stad geteister deur ongelykhede te bestuur. Hierdie fokus illustreer dat ‘gemeenskap’ manifesteer as ’n konstruksie wat afhanklik is van omstandighede en dui op ’n betekenisvolle en politieke verhouding tussen identiteit, burgerskap en plek, eerder as ’n homogene groep. Ek sluit af met die idee dat in ’n poging om die TNP meer sosiaal- en ras-inklusief te maak, behoort stedelike bewaring die spesifieke stedelike karakter daarvan te erken in die groter sosialeomgewingsraamwerk van die stad.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:50:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Claudia Gomide Guimaraes.pdf: 20307041 bytes, checksum: 57713fb6685c1bedb76814b9c6e368b8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-01-14 / In the last decades, the discussion of the environmental problems became a thematic one obligatory in the daily city dweller. The green areas became the principal icons of defense of the environment due to your degradation and for the small space that is destined them in the urban centers. The evolution of the urban park on these last two centuries accompanied the changes urbanísticas of the cities, they are like this, an important testimony of the values social, economical and cultural of the urban space. In the several speeches on the city, specifically on the urban parks, in your great majority, a consent was built expresses for the attributed positive values the those public spaces. Though, sees more closely, that consent doesn't seem to match with the multiple realities that involve the parks. The population can show in a different way in relation to the presence of the parks in your neighborhood. Besides, it is possible that they can act in the valorization or depreciating of your entornos. It is observed that there are ambivalences in relation to the urban parks and that those link directly with the place where you/they are proposed. To show those dualities and those paradoxes between central areas and outlying areas with relationship to the presence of parks was the challenges of this research wor. / Nas últimas décadas, a discussão dos problemas ambientais tornou-se uma temática obrigatória no cotidiano citadino. As áreas verdes tornaram-se os principais ícones de defesa do meio ambiente em decorrência de sua degradação e pelo exíguo espaço que lhes é destinado nos centros urbanos. A evolução do parque urbano nestes dois últimos séculos acompanhou as mudanças urbanísticas das cidades, são assim, um testemunho importante dos valores sociais, econômicos e culturais do espaço urbano. Nos vários discursos sobre a cidade, especificamente sobre os parques urbanos, em sua grande maioria, construiu-se um consenso expresso pelos valores positivos atribuídos a esses espaços públicos. Todavia, visto mais de perto, esse consenso não parece condizer com as múltiplas realidades que envolvem os parques. A população pode manifestar-se de forma distinta em relação à presença dos parques em sua vizinhança. Além disso, é possível que eles possam atuar na valorização ou desvalorizando de seus entornos. Observa-se que há ambivalências em relação aos parques urbanos e que essas relacionam-se diretamente com a localidade onde são propostos. Mostrar essas dualidades e esses paradoxos entre áreas centrais e áreas periféricas com relação à presença de parques foi os desafios deste trabalho de pesquisa.

Local authorities exist to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of communities. Parks provide a means of achieving this purpose. This study investigates community preferences for Christchurch parks using the Beneficial Outcomes Approach. Outcomes desired by the community are identified, together with the park settings required to achieve them. Different attitudes and preferences of three socio-economic areas are compared. Information was gathered from a household survey of 600 residents from three diverse socioeconomic areas of Christchurch selected by using the New Zealand Deprivation Index. Results show that the overwhelming majority of Christchurch residents regularly use Christchurch parks for a diverse range of activities. Parks fill many different roles associated with the activity, aesthetic and environmental values ascribed to parks by the Christchurch community. The Christchurch community perceives and wants a diverse range of personal, social/cultural, environmental, and economic benefits from parks. Differences were found between the three socio-economic areas in the way they valued and used parks. Respondents from the low socio-economic area were more inclined to use parks as a special place to visit for weekend outings and relaxation in contrast to respondents from the high socio-economic area who were more likely to use parks for daily exercise. Respondents from the medium socio-economic area had mixed use patterns. The study concludes that a city-wide network approach to park provision is required to cater for the diverse range of experiences, settings and activities preferred by the Christchurch community and to optimise the beneficial outcomes of Christchurch parks. The BOA provides a useful method of prioritising outcomes and guiding management actions to be more responsive to community needs.