Understanding Perceived Site Qualities and Experiences of Urban Public Spaces: A Case Study of Social Media Reviews in Bryant Park, New York City

Abstract

Urban public spaces are a key component to the well-being and prosperity of modern society. It has been increasingly important to improve the qualities and maximize the usages of urban public spaces. There is a lack of studies that investigate how people use and perceive urban parks using quantitative analysis of location-based social media reviews. This study tackles this gap by introducing a case study that uses social media reviews (Tripadivisor.com) to understand the perceived site quality and experiences of Bryant Park in New York City. A large dataset including 11,419 Tripadvisor reviews from 10,615 users was collected. LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), a natural language processing and machine learning technique, was used to perform topic modeling analysis that could reveal hidden themes in large amounts of text. The results include five semantic topics and their associated topic terms. A comprehensive overview of the user experiences in Bryant Park were provided along with their weekly and monthly dynamics. The findings provide insights for future public space designers and managers by revealing how users describe the designs and operations of Bryant Park.

Patterns of Urban Green Space Use Applying Social Media Data: A Systematic Literature Review

“…From the review, we identified a number of advantages and limitations of using social media data for urban park studies. The advantages included the availability of a very large amount of data that cannot be obtained through traditional methods such as surveys, and the possibility of receiving more "honest" answers [52]. The potential limitations identified include respondent bias, data security issues, and others.…”

“…In Asia, the number of park visitors increases in April, May, June and October [50,53,56,58], while in Europe, both late spring (from May onwards) and the summer months show the highest number of park visitors [18,43]. May, June, September, and October [25] and, in New York, December, which apparently shows an increase [52], are the peak months in North America. However, worldwide, visits to urban green spaces are mainly popular on weekends and on public holidays [18,43,50,53,58].…”

“…However, worldwide, visits to urban green spaces are mainly popular on weekends and on public holidays [18,43,50,53,58]. A study in Bryant Park, New York City, showed that Mondays and Wednesdays are the most popular weekdays [52].…”

“…In addition, the hitherto untapped potential of review platforms such as Google Reviews, TripAdvisor, and others opens up the possibility of gaining new insights into parks, satisfaction with parks, and the use of park facilities [55]. In total, only four studies that were part of our systematic literature review used review platforms [49,52,53]. One study used TripAdvisor as a data source to analyse the daily use of Bryant Park, New York [52].…”

“…In total, only four studies that were part of our systematic literature review used review platforms [49,52,53]. One study used TripAdvisor as a data source to analyse the daily use of Bryant Park, New York [52]. Such review platforms provide information for a longer time period and usually have no limit of signs for entering text information [52,56].…”