This article, which focuses on online reviews of public gardens in Turkiye, is an insightful view into how we perceive nature and how green space is viewed in the public eye. Complaints are mostly centered around the lack of development within the park - including restroom facilities, playground structures, and accessibility modifications - which raises the question of how natural our nature truly is. Parking is also a large issue - how do we encourage people to visit parks while also encouraging less use of cars? And what do we do about overcrowding of people? Should we build more parks, or bigger parks? This article also dives into the issues of urbanization in conjunction with green space, with concerns about crime and vandalism, as well as nearby highways causing noise pollution.

The authors of this article write about how accommodating for people who are alone in public can lead to a reduction in feeling loneliness. They talk about how things like benches and square tables can hint at how it is socially normative to be in public with other people, leading to increased feelings of aloneness. The article goes on to propose solutions like park chairs instead of benches, round instead of square tables, plants/shelves/bushes to reduce feelings of exposure, and more. It also goes on to mention how interactive spaces, like street gardening and open spaces to graffiti, can add belongingness. The goal of the article is to educate on how to create a more inviting space for everyone by including spaces to be alone. This is a form of accommodation that most won’t think of, but we need to keep in mind that there are people who would rather be alone than forced into social situations. We should accommodate everyone.

In this article, the development of Stead Park in Washington DC's Dupont Circle neighborhood is analyzed through the lens of accessibility. After detailing the history of Stead Park and explaining its "evolution from dirt field to community staple," the author goes through exactly what "equitable park access" is supposed to entail. Jenkins argues that developing equitable parks "entails more than just meeting their needs; it also requires building a sense of identity and belonging," especially in neighborhoods that have typically suffered from systemic racism such as redlining. Jenkins then details the steps needed for a park to be successful: the conduction of extensive community outreach, the examination of thorough local data, the forging of local partnerships and the exploration of multiple funding streams, and the leveraging of temporary-to-permanent innovations are the critical needs for a park's success, according to "research from the Urban Institute." The author then finishes by giving the applied example of Stead Park's historical progression using these criteria, offering a contextualized result that may be copied by other cities struggling to improve the efficacy and utility of their green spaces. 

A past news article of an event held near in dear to my heart, the Fish Fly Festival of New Baltimore, MI was caught in the crossfire of the COVID-19 pandemic and canceled in 2020. This article by local news goes into the theme of the 2021 Fish Fly Festival, and outlines how the organizers of the yearly event take into account Michigan’s COVID safety measures while keeping the event fun and friendly. Both the safety measures and the huge amount of interest present in the festival revival are relevant to bike-pedestrian events as a whole because it shows that the community is resilient. Even if there is a pandemic, the people of New Baltimore recovered and want their local festival more than ever now that they realized what they missed. 

The article begins by addressing the existence of eco-gentrification, where the addition of parks and green spaces to an area raises living costs and forces out low-income residents. Greenspace addition is not all negative, though, because parks are proven to significantly better physical and psychological health. The article specifically addresses the High Line in New York, a rail line that was shut down and abandoned, left to go green thanks to a neighborhood nonprofit maintaining the area. The researchers used regression analysis and determined that homes within 0.1 miles of the green space rose in value 35.3% more than homes over 0.1 miles away. Though the addition of the well-maintained green space was supposed to be a neighborhood amenity and a positive, it created financial strain for those living in the area who couldn’t afford to live there anymore. As people fight to spread parks’ benefits to everyone, they push people of lower socioeconomic status out of their homes and towns and only the upper-class benefit.

This article discusses privately owned parks and the environmental, funding, and inclusion concerns they cause. The writers address the expense of privately owned parks and how higher-income neighborhoods have them, which creates issues for lower-income, disadvantaged neighborhoods.  The study to understand the impact of privately owned parks in New Urban Communities was done in 12 New Urban communities with privately owned parks in the Colorado Front Range. They compared accessible public and private parks in New Urban developments to median parks per 1,000 people of block groups as well as comparing median household income and percentage of non-Hispanic Whites demographics in the New Urban community and the city. They found that almost all of the privately owned parks in the study raised environmental privilege concerns. They also found that affordable housing initiatives caused a significant rise in the socioeconomic diversity in the privately-owned parks while Denver's inclusionary housing ordinance did not.

This article addresses how efforts to increase physical activity have both short-term and long-term improvements. The researchers assess the amount of moderate-vigorous physical activity for 811 grade 7-8 students in London, Ontario, Canada. Through surveys sent out to parents, they found that students with two or more recreational facilities had the highest physical activity levels. Land use mix and park size were not significant factors influencing physical activity. The study did have several limitations. For one, the cross-sectional design prevents causal inferences. They also did not take the quality of facilities, parks, and green spaces into account. The information was also self-reported so accuracy is not totally reliable. Lastly, the sample of kids was not completely random since the parents had to give consent and only 49% of the original 1666 agreed to participate.

This paper covers the rapid urbanization taking place and the positive impact parks have on people’s well-being and health. The researchers discuss access to parks as perceived accessibility (i.e. quality, diversity, size, age, income, safety, and cultural concerns) and geographic accessibility (i.e. distance). The researchers used a study of three parks from two suburbs each in Brisbane, Australia with the factor separating them being socioeconomic status: Graceville, the higher average income suburb, and Salisbury, the lower average income suburb. The resulting data found that Graceville residents were more likely to respond that it was very easy to walk to parks near them, and Salisbury residents were more likely to have mixed responses ranging from very easy to very difficult. The perceived accessibility was significantly related to income, health, and language spoken at home, but not related to age, sex, and education. They also found that, though socio-personal things did influence people’s perception and use of the park, physical accessibility was significantly more important. This is essential for my research regarding marketing since it researches how people perceive access. The issue of people not perceiving greenspaces as accessible is one marketing works to solve.

Hillary Richard discusses urban beekeeping, a little known phenomena in cities around the world. She starts talking about the effects of the pandemic on urban beekeeping in New York City, where many prominent buildings on which bees are stored were closed and without access, so they were rescued and relocated. There are over 350 registered hives in New York City, but Andrew Coté, the president of the NYC Beekeepers Association estimates there could be over 600 accounting for those unregistered. These hives host honeybees, that contribute to the wildlife in the city and generate honey for their proprietors as a steady source of supplemental income; many restaurants and bakeries operate their own hives to use in their kitchens. However, honeybees are an invasive species and many groups advocate for using local bees instead to protect local bee species and make truly local honey. Overall, urban beekeeping could have positive and negative effects on local wildlife, and while bees contribute greatly to the green space of a city, they can be dangerous to local species if implemented wrongly.

This article addresses how urban parks help urban environments. Children especially benefit from green spaces since it’s a place to meet people, form social experiences, and stay physically active. The researchers studied accessibility for children (7-16 years old) in Montreal Island, Quebec, Canada since they cannot drive and guardians may restrict their transportation in other ways. They took information about travelers (i.e. age, gender, income level, household type, and main occupation) as well as information about transportation (i.e. ownership of driver's license and mode of travel). The study found that there is much higher accessibility when there are more parks in the area. Kids without parks and facilities cannot use them, and, since socioeconomic factors are a factor in the dispersal of parks, people from a family of lower socioeconomic status are less likely to have accessible parks and green spaces.

This paper addresses the dramatic rise in urbanization and how parks and green-spaces positively impact public health along with many other things. The purpose of the article is to compare the impact of perceived accessibility and geographic access to parks in urban environments while understanding people’s choices and behavior. The researchers used a study of three parks from two suburbs each in Brisbane, Australia with the factor separating them being socioeconomic status: Graceville, the higher average income suburb, and Salisbury, the lower average income suburb. The article uses the theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behavior as the basis for the researchers’ psychological understanding of people’s decisions. The results found that perceived access both directly and indirectly affected park use more so than the other factors tested for, although this remains in its limited scope of two Australian suburbs and results could vary along cultural lines (eg. Europe vs Asia).

Hamil Pearsall and Jillian K. Eller research the where, when, and what of the "green space paradox." The green space paradox references when efforts to improve communities that have been underserved displacing residents. The authors studied 18 greenspaces in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the city's "Greenworks Philadelphia" sustainability initiative. The information from this study is important for avoiding gentrification when creating and renovating parks. It also educates about the impacts and differences of public/private/non-profit managed and cared for parks.

Alexandra Lange asserts the need for more accessible public places for teenage girls. She quotes from interviews of several important figures including leaders of teenage interest groups, urban designers, and parks experts, using their testimony to display the problems. Teenagers are seen as invaders and outsiders at playgrounds, and the parks built for adolescents serve masculine audiences (skate parks, basketball courts, etc); girls above the age of 8 are 4 times less likely to use parks than boys and 40% of young women aged 11-21 claim feeling unsafe outdoors based on studies done by interviewees. Teenage girls are often overlooked in the public sphere, and by actively working to make public spaces more inclusive and equitable, especially for adolescents at a crucial social period is necessary to have accessible, open, and vibrant communities. 

The author recounts the history of the High Line Park in New York and how it can be used as an example of what not to do. She points out how the project rapidly gentrified the area and, instead of serving the community surrounding it, attracted millions of tourists. The group that made it didn’t really care about the surrounding people and, instead of asking for their actual opinions on whether or not it should happen, asked about color preferences and other inconsequential things. Once installed, several trendy clothiers and restaurants popped up and pushed out the locally owned businesses. The goal of this article isn’t to dissuade every fixing or renovating unused areas, but to encourage people to think about the impact their actions might have and to properly counter them before they’re a problem. It also encourages those in the area to fight for what they know to be best for them, stating, “If you’re not part of the fight, you might not be living here in the future.”