Public Outdoor Recreation Areas: Accessible and Available
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Proximity to parks and public greenspace is an important component of maintaining human health and wellbeing. Metrics used to assess this proximity tend to fall into one of two categories: those that measure access (are people within or beyond a certain distance) and those that measure availability (how much area there is relative to the population within a reporting unit). We assert that accessibility and availability of a rival good such as parks should be evaluated in conjunction. We have designed a new metric that accounts for both people’s proximity to parks as well as how many people they share it with upon arrival to better understand the extent to which populations are served.