Journal of Parks

(1) Background: Analyses using participatory GIS (PGIS) data have primarily focused on reporting landscape values (e.g., subsistence, spiritual) or activities (e.g., hunting, meditation) and less frequently on identifying patterns of value and activity co-occurrence. This paper explores whether consistent combinations of landscape values and activities associated with meaningful places identified by visitors—referred to as “bundles”—emerge across protected areas. These bundles represent the cognitive-behavioral components of sense of place. (2) Methods: We used exploratory factor analysis on aggregated PGIS data collected between 2011 and 2017 to identify value-activity bundles across three protected areas administered by the Forest Service in the northwestern United States. (3) Results: We found no universal bundles of landscape values and activities across the protected areas, limiting the ability to describe consistent sense of place bundles. Instead, relationships between landscape values and activities varied across areas. Weak associations between them highlight heterogeneity in how individuals perceive and interact with meaningful places, reflecting the subjective and context-dependent nature of the sense of place. (4) Conclusions: These findings suggest that identifying visitor “types” for outreach and planning may be more nuanced than anticipated. To provide diverse opportunities for visitors to protected areas, planners and decision-makers may need to move beyond standard audience segmentation practices and consider the context-dependent nature of sense of place.

Researchers, policy- and decision-makers, and planners have historically focused on the monetary value of parks and green spaces (either as costs or potential sale value). In this article, we argue that researchers, practitioners, and policymakers need to consider and investigate the non-economic values of parks and green spaces to more fully understand the worth of these spaces. We apply the total economic value framework (TEVF) to parks and green spaces in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to assess how use values and non-use values shape how people value local green spaces. This methodology provides a more comprehensive value of park spaces beyond the economic value which, in most cases, undervalues natural spaces. Our research indicates that, in the case of Kalamazoo, Michigan, parks and green spaces are worth more than the monetary value of their property to people. Non-use, existence, and bequest values all load strongly in our analysis, and these results indicate that people in the Kalamazoo area believe the worth of their park spaces extends well beyond the purely economic realm. We further argue that TEVF is an effective tool for park managers to incorporate diverse value systems and perceptions to quantify the importance of these values.

Journal of Parks (JOP, ISSN: 3042-5689) is an international journal developed to enhance our knowledge of how people use and perceive parks [...]