Preferences for urban green space characteristics: a comparative study in three portuguese cities

Abstract

Many studies have argued that a better understanding of peoples preferences about publicurban green spaces may inform urban planners to effectively provide and manage urban green spacesto meet users needs. The aim of this study is to examine urban residents preferred public greenspace characteristics and investigate whether similarities and differences can be highlighted in threedifferent Portuguese cities. Through a web-based questionnaire based on the best-worst scaling(BWS) method, residents of Lisbon, Porto and Évora (n = 750) were asked to select the most andleast important public green space characteristic among thirteen attributes. The results suggest aconsensus about some green space characteristics across cities but also the existence of some localvariations in city residents preferences. Overall, this study can support public authorities and urbanplanners as they strive to effectively design and manage urban green spaces to meet users needs.