Abstract
This study is aimed at classifying different types of parks in Gwang-Ju city and providing efficient Planning and guidelines to satisfy the needs of park users. The first stage of this study was accomplished by site surveys of neighborhood parks in Gwang-Ju where park types, locations, neighboring conditions, park layout, and other physical environments were surveyed for the specific status of parks. With those basic data, urban neighborhood park types were classified into different categories: 1) urban neighborhood parks; 2) riverside neighborhood parks; and 3) natural(mountain side) neighborhood parks. For the second stage of this study, behavior patterns and satisfaction were investigated to provide empirical data on the relationship between the physical environment and human behavior. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: 1. The highest level of satisfaction for the users of urban neighborhood parks in Gwang-Ju city is the accessibility of the parks which are small but located in neighborhoods, The users tend to visit the nearby parks regardless of size. 2. The users have relatively high levels of satisfaction for urban neighborhood parks which have a lot of green zones or park facilities. Therefore, the park planner should consider the natural environment in the park area and should reconsider the type of park in the planning process. 3. The different types of urban neighborhood parks in Gwang-Ju city do not affect the level of satisfaction and the motivation of park visits. However, the accessibility of the parks is the most important factors of users' satisfaction regardless of the type of the park. 4. The level of user satisfaction for all of the urban neighborhood parks in Gwang-Ju city indicates that the users have a relatively low level of satisfaction. Especially, 26.2% of the users have a high level of dissatisfaction. The new parks, which have recently been developed, have a higher level of satisfaction than the old parks which have a lack of facilities, insufficient maintenance, and poor management planning in the park. 5. As a result of factor analysis, all city neighborhood parks showed a similar tendency with urban type parks, but showed a tendency that was different from the other park types.