An Evaluation of the Visit Potential of an Urban Park Location based on Spatial Efficiency and Equity: The Case of Urban Natural Park Districts in Seoul

An urban park is a leisure space for citizens and the extent to which the park is visited can thus be a useful index for measuring the degree of social utility provided by the park. This study proposes the Visit Potential Index (VPI) which evaluates the extent to which an urban park is visited based on its locational properties. The VPI combines the concepts of spatial accessibility and opportunity fungibility by considering spatial efficiency as well as equity. The spatial accessibility of an urban park is calculated by the number of residents within the service area of the park, while the opportunity fungibility of an urban park is defined in terms of the availability of neighboring parks. Since spatial accessibility and opportunity fungibility are demandand supply-side concepts respectively, the VPI can effectively reveal the locations that should be provided with more park service. As a case study, we evaluate the visit potential of urban natural park districts in Seoul, which are of increasing social interest, in regard to the Sunset law. The VPI is expected to be utilized for evaluating new and existing locations of urban parks by providing a more flexible way of assessing their locational values from multiple angles.