Impact of community deprivation on urban park access over time: Understanding the relative role of contributors for urban planning

As an important element of urban landscapes, park plays an important role in building environmentally sustainable cities. Thus, it is important to examine park accessibility and how it changes over time in relation to community deprivation so as to provide all residents with equitable services. Using the Gaussian-based 2SFCA (two-step floating catchment area) method, this paper analyzes dynamic park accessibility from 2016 to 2018 for communities within the Hangzhou metropolitan area in China and then quantifies the relative role of local contributors to park accessibility changes (population, park and transport network). A machine learning algorithm, which handles the interdependences of deprivation dimensions, is further employed to determine the relationship between community deprivation and park accessibility changes. Results show that park accessibility continued to grow during the study period, and most communities achieved excellent park accessibility by 2018. Population decreases and park increases contribute positively to improved park accessibility, while transport network changes have had less of an impact. Deprived communities have observed a rising trend of park accessibility, while the elderly concentrated communities are more likely to experience declined park accessibility. Our study provides a new methodological framework, which integrates the geographical accessibility model, economic chain substitution model and machine learning algorithm, for understanding the dynamic park access and associated social inequalities in rapidly urbanizing regions. The lessons learned from this study should be insightful for urban planning.