Gender and ethnic variations in urban park preferences, visitation, and perceived benefits

This paper examined how gender and ethnicity are related to preferences for various park characteristics, visitation to urban parks and open spaces, and perception of park benefits as reported by participants in a mail survey of residents in two metropolitan areas in the eastern United States. In total, 1570 questionnaires were completed, but 65 cases were deleted because they failed to identify their ethnicity or gender. The overall response rate for the survey was approximately 27%. Although women were more likely than men to evaluate some park characteristics as "important," there were no significant gender differences/variation in the types of visits or the perceived benefits of parks. There was significant ethnic variation in preferred park attributes, frequency and type of visits, and perceptions of the positive and negative effects of parks. However, the effects of ethnicity were not found to differ for men and women.