Park-related social mixing opportunities vary with park features and neighborhood contexts of users

Source abstract

Urban parks have long been regarded as vital public spaces for fostering social mixing. Yet existing evidence largely relies on small-scale case studies, constrained by challenges in measuring social mixing with a representative sample size. Using nationwide mobility data encompassing nearly 40 million visits to 74,991 parks across the contiguous United States, we quantify park-related social mixing using an income-based co-location indicator and examine its associations with park features (amenities and landscape elements) from both park and neighborhood perspectives. At the park level, parks with broader catchment areas show greater social mixing, and social mixing is positively associated with the provision levels of amenities and landscape elements for parks located in low-income and mixed income areas, but such association weakens or reverses for those in high income contexts. At the neighborhood level, residents from low-income neighborhoods experience higher levels of social mixing and greater park–residential differences when visiting amenity-equipped and landscape-rich parks, a pattern not evident among residents from high-income neighborhoods. These findings reveal that the role of parks in promoting social mixing opportunities depends on park features and the social context of park users. Park development with enhanced amenities in low-income neighborhoods may foster social mixing, but such benefits should be weighed against potential risks of green gentrification and displacement.