Public green space planning for equity using an accessibility-based GAP analysis

The fulfillment of equity in the distribution of urban public green spaces is a great goal to urban planners, who must identify at least how many public green spaces are required to meet all residents´ relaxation demand and where they should be. Since it is commonly accepted that the accessibility is the most important quality of public green spaces for citizens´ equal use, in this paper, a planning technique integrates the accessibility evaluation into GAP analysis in a GIS is presented, through which urban planners can analyze the gaps of the requirement of urban public green spaces and their distribution. The Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen in China is used as the experimental site for users to better understand this planning method, and results carried out by this paper demonstrate the power of this approach to identify where should be paid more attention to in the future green space planning and construction.