Are Parks Equitable for New Yorkers? Examining the equity of acreage and safety of parks

Parks are important for people’s well-being, but historically, parks have worse coverage for vulnerable populations. This thesis examines whether park acreage and park safety are inequitable across vulnerable people in New York City. The network analysis, Cadastral-Based Expert Dasymetric System, two-step floating catchment area method, and weighted average method were used to measure park acreage and safety. LASSO regression algorithm was used to build regression models to detect whether there is an inequity issue so that vulnerable populations have access to less park acreage or worse park safety. The results show that the minority and foreign-born populations have inequitable fewer park acreage but that there is no significant inequity in park safety.