Heterogeneous nighttime safety structures among urban park users: Evidence from perception-based clustering and exploratory path analysis

Source abstract

As park use increases, nighttime safety has emerged as a key requirement for the sustained use of urban parks. However, studies have largely treated users as a single homogenous group or compared safety perceptions solely by biological and sociodemographic characteristics. Research analyzing cluster-specific safety judgment structures based on users’ environmental perception patterns remains limited. To address this literature gap, this study analyzed differences in key safety elements and behavioral influence structures across clusters classified by users’ nighttime safety perception patterns. Nighttime field surveys were conducted in three urban parks in Jeonju, South Korea, yielding 673 valid responses. Based on perception items related to physical, social, and maintenance factors, a cluster analysis identified subgroups according to users’ perception patterns, and an exploratory path analysis evaluated the structural relationships among nighttime safety perceptions within each cluster. The results showed that nighttime park users were classified into distinct clusters based on how they perceived safety elements and how these elements influenced overall nighttime safety. Important safety elements differed even among members of the same sex, whereas similar influence structures were found between different-sex clusters for certain environmental factors. These variations spanned physical, social, and maintenance factors, with the influence of each factor manifesting differently across clusters. These findings suggest that nighttime park safety is shaped by the combined effects of environmental factors and the specific influence structures of user clusters, highlighting the need for differentiated design and management strategies that reflect distinct safety judgment criteria.