3.1. Sociodemographic and Exploratory Data Analyses
In terms of ideal sampling, the objective was for each urban public space to provide 100 participants. Discrepancies in the number of completed surveys in certain spaces appeared, as obtaining an exactly the same number of participants for each space was unrealistic. The surveys were conducted using the same recruitment method in each urban public space.
The survey was completed by 905 respondents, of which 58.2 % were women, 41.3% were men, and 0.5 % did not want to answer the question. Regarding the age structure, most of the respondents are between 25 and 44 years old (39.5%), followed by 45–64 years old (26.5%), 65 years old and older (18.8%) and 15-24 years old (14.9%), and 0.3 % of the respondents did not provide any information. In terms of educational structure, the majority of respondents had a high level of education: 57.1% had a master’s degree, doctorate, post-secondary education, or university degree, while 30.5% had a secondary education, only 4.3% had a vocational education, 7.6% had a primary education, and 0.5% of respondents did not give any answer.
3.2. Survey Results
The reliability of the restorative dimensions studied (escape, fascination, coherence, compatibility, and novelty), was evaluated using the Cronbach alpha coefficient. The analyses performed with the SPSS program showed that all five dimensions have a high level of reliability and form quality components (see
Table 3).
People in the urban public spaces studied valued compatibility the most, with an average score of 4.39. Compatibility reflects the feeling of enjoyment and agreement in a given environment. It is higher when engaged in an activity with which one is familiar. To be compatible with an environment, it must be one in which the person spends time based on intrinsic motivation and personal preferences [
33]. This was followed by coherence with an average score of 4.19. This dimension refers to the quality of a restful environment that encourages full engagement and involvement [
34]. It means that the environment has no unusual or unexpected features and that one feels comfortable and relaxed in the selected environments. The third highest rated dimension was novelty with an average score of 4.14. Novelty refers to the unexpected and surprising [
35]. It means that the environment is new to someone or different from their daily environment [
36]. The next dimension was escape (4.04), which refers to the feeling of escaping from one’s usual thoughts and worries and distracting oneself from the environment that occupies one’s attention and energy [
33]. The least appreciated dimension was fascination (4.01), where attention is held without any effort.
According to the results showed on
Table 4, people had the greatest sense of escape in the urban forest (4.73), which is not surprising considering that research shows that the urban forest is the most different from other urban environments in terms of stimuli, and therefore is the environment where people can forget about everyday urban life [
37,
38]. Interestingly, respondents mentioned sports facilities as the second place where they experienced escape (4.61). The reason for this is that sport in itself is a distinctly relaxing activity where one can switch off the mind [
39]. On the other hand, there is an increasing importance of leisure and sports. Neighborhood green spaces were the third place where people experienced an escape (4.35). In this case, the reason could be the desire to escape from a small and cramped flat, which is typical especially for large flat blocks with small apartments. On the other hand, the respondents felt the least sense of escape in the shopping center (3.03). Shopping malls involve a large covered space, which in itself provides a variety of stimuli that cause additional arousal in a person.
The feeling of fascination was felt most strongly by respondents in the Old Town (4.48) and by riverbanks (4.26). This is not surprising, as these are very rich points in terms of cultural (Old Town), aesthetic (Old Town and surrounding area), and biotic (riverbank) values, which could be called “heritage hotspots” in the case of the Old Town and “nature hotspots” in the case of the riverbank area. Respondents felt the least fascination for small city parks (3.63) and neighborhood green spaces (3.82). The reason for this is that respondents are very familiar with these two environments, as they are in close proximity to their homes, and these are frequently visited. They felt the strongest sense of coherence in the Old Town (4.53), sports facilities (4.48) and children’s playgrounds (4.42), and the least in small city parks (3.72) and urban forests (3.76). The greatest sense of compatibility was characteristic of sports facilities (4.86) and large urban parks (4.78), while the least sense was attributed to shopping malls (3.64) and small urban parks (3.97). Nowadays, sports are an increasingly important part of leisure time [
40], and people increasingly identify and feel fulfilled by sports activities. Moreover, they feel compatible with a large urban park, which is, among other things, a space for people to engage in sporting activities such as running, outdoor fitness, yoga, basketball, etc. On the other hand, it is not surprising that they feel least compatible with a shopping mall, as it is an artificial space with many stressful stimuli. Respondents felt most surprised in the Old Town (4.56) and in the urban forest (4.40), and least surprised in green spaces in the neighborhood (3.59) and in small urban parks (3.79). The reason for this is that the appearance of the Old Town is constantly changing due to various events, everyday hustle and bustle, the changing appearance of service infrastructure, etc. The urban forest is also constantly changing and nature shapes its dynamics (such as seasonal changes). In addition, the respondents visit the urban forest on average less frequently than other urban public spaces. On the other hand, we are not surprised by the answers concerning the least feeling of novelty in neighborhood green spaces and small urban parks, since these areas are very frequently visited by the respondents.
Using the independent samples
t-test, we found that participants’ responses to all five restorative dimensions were not statistically significantly different with respect to their gender, age, and educational structure, but that there were some interesting differences between participant groups (see
Table 5). In terms of gender structure, females rated higher on all the restorative dimensions examined. However, both genders rated compatibility the highest, followed by coherence, novelty, escape and fascination.
In terms of age structure, it was the more mature respondents, aged 45 to 64, who valued restorative components to a greater extent (see
Table 6). The reason for this could be that the more mature age group is the most exposed to stress. On the one hand, this is the time when the highest work activity takes place from the point of view of career, raising children and caring for parents. On the other hand, this is also the time when health problems begin.
As for the educational structure, the results did not reveal any significant differences between the respondents.