Reading the Landscape : A Social Assessment of Parks and Their Natural Areas in Jamaica Bay Communities. White Paper, Part I: Social Assessment Overview

This report presents a project overview and research findings from the 2013 Social Assessment of Parks and Their Natural Areas in Jamaica Bay Communities. In this report, we present a conceptual and geographic introduction to the research, outline our study area, introduce research methods, present detailed findings from individual sites and the study area as a whole, and offer a discussion synthesizing the findings from our mixed methods approach to the inquiry. The report is organized in two parts – the first is a full project summary and the second includes individual park profiles. These park profiles summarize and explain findings from each of our 39 park locations in New York City. Data presented in each profile are from three visits to each park in summer 2013 with three types of data collection: direct human observations, signs of prior human use, and rapid interviews. The profile format is as follows: a site map, narrative syntheses of findings, illustrative photographs, summary bar graphs and tables of quantitative observations, tables and discussion of major themes that emerged from onsite park user interviews. Park profiles are arranged in alphabetical order by borough.

• Author(s): Erika S. Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Nancy Falxa Sonti, Michelle L. Johnson