An assessment of urban park accessibility using multi-source data in Hefei, China: A social equity perspective

Urban parks are vital to enhance human well-being and encourage sustainable urban development. However, the supply-demand match between the layout of urban parks and various social groups needs to be addressed. Therefore, this study quantitatively evaluates urban park accessibility using house-level data from the social equity perspective in Hefei, China. A real-time navigation route measurement based on the Amap application programming interface was taken advantage of to calculate green space travel time costs-accessibility, and a combination of the Gaussian-based two-step floating catchment area method and measurement model to analyze supply-demand accessibility. On the other hand, housing price was used to indicate dwellers' socioeconomic status. The Gini coefficient, Lorenz curve, and bivariate correlation were adopted to explore the inequality of green space accessibility among residential communities. The results reveal a spatial inequality of green space between communities in the central portion of the Hefei and those in peri-urban areas. We further found a spatial mismatch between green space resources and population distribution. At the same time, there is a significant correlation between green space accessibility and housing prices, which means the disadvantaged urban strata with low economic income face a supply shortage, while wealthier communities benefit more from green space accessibility. Hence, based on the evaluation results, the author proposes feasible optimization strategies for constructing urban parks in Hefei and can inform policy decisions regarding future park construction.