Evaluating Sustainable Appropriation of Urban Public Parks

1 INTRODUCTION Urban public parks offer a great potential to raise the quality of life for urban citizens, while at the same time their creation and maintenance requires substantious amounts of money. Surveys have shown that citizens consider parks to be an important element for their well-being, even if used only occasionally. By offering opportunities for equal participation irrespective of gender, age, nationality or social-economic status, parks also enhance social sustainability. We consider social sustainability as the necessary element for the two remaining pillars of sustainability, namely economic and ecological. By equal participation, we mean the possibility for every potential and actual park user to engage in activities as desired, as long as these activities do not prohibit or discourage others to use the park. There are two processes opposing equal participation: First, if a park user leaves or does not show up at all because he or she does not feel comfortable in the park, we speak of processes of exclusion. If the space appropriation in the park is dominated by a certain group of visitors, then there are processes of domination.