Within the City of Vancouver there are many public parks, schools, gardens, forests, cul-de-sacs, and many other spaces where children play. This study focused on city parks, which were free to enter, and public school grounds. Parks such as Stanley Park were omitted because they are not included within one of the city’s 23 neighbourhoods. In total, 375 parks and schools were identified and 46 were selected for auditing. The sites that were included in the study are identified in the interactive map below. The name of each can be identified by clicking on the schools (blue) and parks (green), and a link is provided to the City of Vancouver website for additional information about the parks, and to the Vancouver School Board for additional information about the schools.
The 46 sites, composed of city parks and public schools, which were chosen for this study were selected using a stratified random sampling method. This approach involved organizing the data into smaller groups (strata) from which the random samples were derived. The 23 neighbourhoods within the City of Vancouver were chosen as the strata for this sampling approach. These strata were chosen in order to facilitate greater public understanding, as this scale is easily relatable to Vancouver residents. Furthermore, more people are likely to relate to parks that are within their own neighbourhood rather than if the sample was clustered to one particular area of the city. This method also allowed for a comparison between the East and West sides of the city, as there are an equal number of sample sites in each of these two halves. Finally, scaling the study to neighbourhoods allowed for a comparison of the possible socioeconomic factors that may influence the quality of the parks within each neighbourhood.
The 46 sites in the study were selected from the neighbourhoods by organizing the total number of sites by their respective neighbourhood. From each of these neighbourhoods two sites were chosen using a random selection process. Other sampling methods were evaluated in order to determine the most appropriate sample for the study, however, the stratified random sampling approach produced a more evenly distributed sample across the study area.
The two maps that are included below illustrate the location of all of the city parks (right) and public schools (left) within the study area. It also specifies the areas of the city that are within 500m of a park or public school. This buffer was created using the ArcGIS network analyst tool. While these buffers only indicate a 500m service area, the buffer that was included in the final MCE included 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500m intervals, with those areas closest to a park or school having the highest proximity rating and those furthest away the lowest.