Effects of the spatial patterns of urban parks on public satisfaction: evidence from Shanghai, China

CONTEXT: Urban parks need to meet the growing demand for activities vital to residents’ well-being and urban development. A holistic understanding of public satisfaction with urban parks is a prerequisite for improving management. OBJECTIVE: The spatial patterns and composition of urban parks vary greatly, and the objective of this study is to comprehensively investigate public satisfaction with urban parks and the impact of their structure. METHODS: With the metropolis of Shanghai, China, as an example, we employed 111,814 social media data sets for 50 urban park sites to quantify public satisfaction via the long short-term memory model. We analyzed the internal, boundary and external dimensions of spatial patterns and described the internal landscape patterns from the perspectives of size, heterogeneity, aggregation, shape, diversity and landscape elements. Moreover, we used all-subset regression and hierarchical partitioning to quantify the relationship and mechanism of action between spatial patterns and public satisfaction. RESULTS: The results indicate that the mean value of public satisfaction with urban parks was 0.716 (ranging from 0 to 1), which is generally positive or neutral. Satisfaction was influenced by the internal, boundary, and external spatial patterns of urban parks. The independent contribution rates of external transportation facility density (51.49%) and internal edge density (48.51%) to satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: We highlight the roles of spatial patterns, especially the degree of external transportation convenience and the edge density of urban parks at the landscape level. The findings provide guidance and recommendations for the planning and design of public satisfaction-oriented urban parks. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-023-01615-z.