The Effect of Built Environment on Urban Park Visits during the Early Outbreak of COVID-19

Abstract

During the COVID-19 early outbreak, the effects of built environment on individuals’ urban park visitation are understudied. We employed structural equation modeling to disentangle such complex relationships and investigate the impacts over time at the census tract level across the 100 largest American cities. The results show that density and design both explain park visitation, while only the dimension of density has major influences on the distance to urban parks.