Comparative Analysis of Urban Open Space Proclivity in Port-Harcourt, Enugu and Aba, South-South and South-Eastern States of Nigeria, West Africa

 

Umunakwe Henry, C., Egbu Anthony, U., Azubuine Chika, E. and Kalu Abarikwu,O.

 

Full Length Research Paper I Published September,2018

 

Journal of Physical Science and Environmental Studies Vol. 4 (2), pp.27-35

 

ABSTRACT

Several scholarly articles have addressed the issue of urban inclinations and characteristics. Some of these articles argued that a better understanding of people’s proclivities about public urban open spaces might inform urban planners and other stakeholders in the built environment to effectively provide and manage urban open spaces to meet users’ needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate urban residents favoured public open space features and ascertained whether likes and differences can be established in three different Nigerian urban areas. A web-based questionnaire based on the Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) method was administered on an overall number of 750 urban residents of Port-Harcourt, Enugu and Aba, with the respondents asked to choose the most and least important public open space characteristic among thirteen variables. The findings formed not just an agreement towards some open space features across urban areas, but also the availability of some local variations in urban area residents’ proclivities. Generally, this study can aid municipal establishments, town planning authorities and other stakeholders in the built environment like architects and surveyors, as they endeavour to successfully design and manage urban open spaces to meet the needs of the user population.

Key words:Urban open space, public urban parks, proclivities, coolness, open spaces, features.

 

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