Download to read offline
Report-new
- 1. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report How to Allocate the Limited Park Resource of Baltimore City? One of the central questions of urban planning is “How to allocate the limited resource to the right place?” This study tried to address the issues that from the author’s work experience of Patterson Park Master Plan planning process involvement. Patterson Park is one of the biggest parks with various functions in the Baltimore City. Study of Patterson Park set a very good example that how the citizens use the park and what kinds of issues occurs. The top two issues that the park users most concern as follows: Facility Issue: The park facilities is crpwded especially those for daily used. Enforcement Issue: Poor enforcement of the park rules. The target of the study is trying to address these two “bottom to top” issues by using GIS spatial analysis. The two topics will be discuss respectively. Part A Facility Issue: Where the Playground Should Go? Table 1: Park Usage of Patterson Park Activity Walking Distance Preference Peak Hours Weekdays Weekends Daily Activity No Facility Needed Relaxing 5-‐10 mins After 4 pm Whole day Walking After 4 pm Running/Jogging Morning and after 4 pm Facility Depended Playground 15 mins after 4 pm Dog Park 20 mins Ater 4 pm Senior Center Driving Distance Whole day Closed Recreation Center Depend on the Activities After school program and evening class Weekly Activity Facility Depended Sport League Driving Distance 6-‐9pm Whole day Ice Rink (Winter) Depend on the reservation
- 2. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report Table 1 indicates the park usage by daily and weekly activities and the peak use hours based on the one-‐year seasonal surveys of Patterson Park and various in-‐depth focus group interviews. The author will use as playground as an example for the reason that: 1. The City only has run over 120 playgrounds for the population of 622,793 (2014 census data). Over 5,200 people share one playground and still lower than the number suggested by APA Planning Advisory Service Department. 2.Playground is the most heavily used facility on regular basis. Some park users suggested playground is “very packed” during the peak hours. It is usually attract the children and students from the area, but sometimes also attract people from “driving distance”. It will lead the parking issue around the park. 3. The other daily use facility can apply the same method. Therefore, this study will try to find out the playground allocation within the walking distance. Data and Study Area The study area is Baltimore City and used the “block” as the analysis unit since the study will try to allocate the playground within walking distance. The data sources include OpenBaltimore and self-‐collect data from Patterson Park study. Methodology and Result The first part of this study is to located playgrounds in the existing parks. The author applied “Location-‐Allocation” model to address the facility issue.
- 3. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report Figure 1 The first step is to set up demand point and facility. The author used “residential block” as demand point. Based on the APA guide, the standard size of playground is 5,000 sq. ft. and should leave extra space for open space and other facilities. Thus the author only select the 269 existing park that larger than 15,000sq ft. as the “potential facility”. (See as Figure 1) The self-‐collect data (see table 1) indicate that the park users are preferred to get the park within 15 minuets walking distance (0.7 mile) thus the author use 0.7 miles as impedance cut off.
- 4. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report Figure 2 Figure 2 showed the result after run the Location-‐Allocation Model (type: “minimum facility required”). There are 137 parks selected as candidate to put playground in order the service area can are within 15 minutes walking distance. The purple polygons show the service area. It is clear to see that lots residential blocks are out off the service area, so cannot access the playground within 15 minutes walking distance. Therefore, the second part of the facility issue is “Where to put a new playground?” The author also use “Location-‐ Allocation” model to address the question. The author selected the “playground needed area that have higher population density ((poo density
- 5. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report higher than 13 /acre) as “Solution Area” in order to focus on the area that have higher needs. The author select “qualified undeveloped area” that larger than 15,000sq ft as potential facility. (see figure 3) Figure 4 indicated the model selected 17 lots could be put new playground. The result show that some new playgrounds only can serve few residential blocks. The author will discuss the result and limitation in the last part. Figure 3
- 6. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report Figure 4 Part B Enforcement Issue: Where should the Park Ranger go? Even the city park condition are improving these years, the park users are still brother by the issues such as “parking without permit”, “littering”, “drug sell” , “not pick-‐up dog poop” and so on. Besides the regular police patrol, another important authority who in charge of park rule is park ranger. As for the fact that the city has very limited number of park rangers, it is important to reasonably located the park ranger at the right space during the right time. Table 1 indicates that the peak hour of the park will be heavily used after school, it will also imply the higher chance that someone will break the park rule during that period of time.
- 7. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report Therefore, this study will focus on “where should the park ranger go during the peak hours”. Data and Study Area The study will focus on the city-‐wide analysis fist and then close up the study area around the Patterson Park. The data source is same with part A. Methodology and Result Figure 5 The study will use “Hotspot Analysis” to find out the “hot zone” that in need of park enforcement during the peak hours. Base on the knowledge from Patterson Park study, the author found the park near the afterschool program and facility are more attract to the park
- 8. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report users during the peak hours for the reason that: 1.many parents are bring their children to the park when they off the work. 2. Children will join the afterschool program after 4 pm. Afterschool program/facility include library, recreation center and the school itself. Figure 5 shows all these facilities in the city. Figure 6 The author selected “Distance from park to the afterschool program/facility” as variable to run “Hotspot Analysis” and the result shown as figure 6. The park in red indicated in need of park rangers during the peak hours. As the author mentioned before, another variable to refine this hotspot map it to check the whether the park has the “attractive point” such as
- 9. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report playground, dog park, sport field and so on. What is more, the patrol of park ranger is a kind of “point to point”, it is necessary to have a closer up to have a detail analysis. Figure 7 show the area of the Patterson Park. The author refine the hotspot map by ground checking and highlight the park within the red area and have the “attractive point” mentioned above. This map can be a guideline for not only park ranger but also for the maintenance team to have a better idea to prioritized the park in need of clean up and maintain. Figure 7 Discussion In this study, the author was trying to address the issues from the need of users, in other works, “from the bottom to top”. The GIS spatial analysis is a good tool to address issue on
- 10. Yijing He (Urban Planning & Studies Program)-‐URSP 688M Final Project Report the larger level but have many limitations on the issues on the smaller scale for the reason of data limitation. The data on the smaller scale such as the location of playgrounds and the park with playgrounds is less available. Use the enforcement issue study as an example, the program that list all afterschool program will be improve the analysis remarkably. What is more, the hotspot analysis only can take one variable into account and ignore the rest important variable that cannot be quantized. However, GIS still a powerful tool to address the question that “How to allocate the limited resource to the right place?” but definitely cannot provide the ideal answer. As for the reasons listed above, to address the issue that “from bottom to top”, the lesson from this study is “Ground Check/first hand is necessary. Experience is essential”.