- Comparison of Urban Residents’ Use and Perceptions of Urban Open Spaces In USA, Canada and China    319 kb by    Fang, Jia & Wu, Cheng-Zhao & Wall, Geoffery | fangjiajerry@gmail.com    Short Outline The data are collected from one hundred face-to-face interviews in three different countries. Four groups of similarities and differences are described with detailed mathematical statistics Abstract Although urban open space plans in different countries have differences in their names, contexts, criterion, documentations and outputs, they have four key factors in common: quantity, type, facility and service and should be set up based on local residents’ recreation needs. In order to examine the latent rules and characteristics under residents’ recreation behaviour and operation of these plan factors, and to enhance effective urban open space plan for urban liveability, residents’ use and perceptions of open spaces are examined in Shanghai, China, Waterloo, Canada and Kokomo, USA, (Ch, Ca and Us are short for the corresponding data groups), which possess very different social, economic and cultural attributes. The four factors are explored from 90 face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. Similarities and differences are described in four categories such as activity frequency, open space use，latent expectation and pursuits in nature resource-reliance activities. The main results show all groups have high participation in walking and have demand in parkways. Ch and Us both have demand for convenience-based open space, while Ca prefer natural status-based open space. Ch has polychronic time activities while Ca and Us have monochromic time activities. Ch has the lowest pursuits, but Ca has high pursuits for nature resource reliance activities. Hierarchical and facility-activity open space planning constructs are deduced to describe these latent rules and characteristics. The results are used to compare and deepen understanding of local residents’ perceptions of urban open space and to enhance the plan effects for promoting the quality of urban life. Keywords Open Space Recreation Comparison Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper