Urban/Suburban Park Use: Links to Personal Identity?

Abstract

Public greenspaces provide an opportunity for community members to engage with the outdoors. In many locations, however, parks are under used. In an effort to gauge the potential for outdoor interaction and ecosystem education, we conducted a survey of residents from a central New Jersey, USA, county. Our correlation analysis indicated that park use could be related to socioeconomics and in particular education, environmental literacy, pet ownership, outdoor enjoyment and preferred environment. Variables relating to mood and other personal characteristics were more strongly associated with individual identity characteristics. Through multivariate analyses, we offer an organizing framework that can help tailor outdoor greenspace improvement/restoration and programming to identity categories. These categories are a combination of where an individual lives, enjoyment of the outdoors, education and socio-economics, sense of community, institutional trust, and pet ownership.

Characterization of Factors Influencing Environmental Literacy in Suburban Park Users

“…The questionnaires and methodology for distribution for this research have been based on previously published research 6,7 . As defined in these publications, sampling was conducted across six municipalities in central New Jersey.…”

“…In order to ensure that our metric of environmental literacy was stable, we used multiple cognitive and attitudinal measures in our survey as previously published in Jordan (2015) 6 and Sorensen (2015) 7 but conducted our own analysis, presented in Table 1. We analyzed these data together to ensure that responses were highly correlated; meaning that individuals were responding similarly to multiple measures.…”

“…As a test of our questionnaire, confirmatory analysis was performed and is presented as previously published in Jordan (2015) 6 and Sorensen (2015) 7 and is presented in Table 1. People who reported being closer to nature did significantly correlate with having higher EL.…”

“…These habits of mind impart individual identity, which informs both action and behavior. Whether or not a person engages in particular environmental behaviors can result not just from knowledge but from aspects of habit, mind, mood, and identity as well 6 . An individual's identity can also inform how one thinks and feels about issues, how they view their own role or function within their social context, and how they are connected to the environment 6 .…”

“…Whether or not a person engages in particular environmental behaviors can result not just from knowledge but from aspects of habit, mind, mood, and identity as well 6 . An individual's identity can also inform how one thinks and feels about issues, how they view their own role or function within their social context, and how they are connected to the environment 6 . While environmental literacy in many forms has long been studied, there has been little work linking identity, personal experiences, and environmental knowledge, especially with regard to environmental related actions.…”