Visitors most value the relatively wild aspects of large urban parks like Seattle’s Discovery ParkThis case study sought to understand how people interact with nature in Seattle’s Discovery Park. Established in the 1970s, Discovery Park is a popular urban park that sits on more than 500 acres of undeveloped public land. However, it’s under threat to be developed, so the authors conducted a study to understand how people use the park. Specifically, they wanted to know if visitors valued the park’s large size and relatively wild landscape or if most of their interactions with nature took place in the most domesticated parts of the park. Understanding how people interacted with nature and which nature experiences they considered most meaningful could inform the city’s decision to develop the park or protect its original charter, which established it as an open space sanctuary for Seattle residents.
To determine if Discovery Park’s value to visitors hinged on its relatively large and wild characteristics, the researchers set up an online portal that prompted visitors to log short descriptions of their nature experiences at the park: “Please describe an interaction you had with nature in the park that was meaningful to you. For example, what were you doing in the park? Where were you? Why was this meaningful?” Researchers then systematically coded these human-nature interactions using a systematic protocol. They analyzed which human-nature interactions occurred most frequently, which nature interactions participants highlighted as most meaningful or important, and what types of nature engagements facilitated additional nature engagements. Further, they analyzed participants’ language to highlight what types of nature they found most important, which interactions took place in relatively wild versus developed nature areas, the psychological states these human-nature interactions mediated, and overarching themes about visitors’ park experiences. By coding all these interaction patterns, the research team could provide some quantitative frequency analysis of the qualitative data they collected.
This data analysis yielded 520 interaction patterns. The most frequent human-nature interactions were encountering wildlife, following trails, walking to natural destination spots and gazing at the ocean or mountains. Of these human-nature interaction patterns, 77% depended on the park’s relative wildness. Of the experiences that visitors considered most meaningful, 95% depended on the park’s relative wildness. Of the online entries that mentioned positive psychological states, 96% depended on the park’s relatively wild areas. The overarching themes for why people used and valued Discovery Park were absence of civilization, seclusion, generating new social relationships, deepening existing social bonds, nature sparking happy memories, biodiversity/diverse landscapes.
Overall, people primarily visited and appreciated Discovery Park because of its relatively wild character. “Relatively wild” refers to varied and relatively unmanaged land, high levels of biodiversity, old growth trees, large open spaces, expansive vistas, and experiences of solitude and being removed from civilization. Given these results, developing or selling off portions of this public land not only would undermine the park’s original charter but also most of the benefits that visitors described in the study. The authors suggested their core finding—that people’s meaningful interactions with nature depended on the park’s relative wildness—would likely hold true for other large urban parks. In their view, relatively wild urban parks can provide urban residents ways to manage the stressors of urban life and potentially reverse downward cycles of environmental generational amnesia—which normalize environmental degradation and loss of wilder nature. Finally, they argue that interactions with wilder nature can counteract a domination worldview by providing people experiences where they are not in control of nature but living in balance with it.
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