Aspects of New and Old Urban Parks Most Valued by Residents on Social Media: A Case Study in Hefei

Abstract

The rapid development of new first-tier cities in China has led to potentially significant differences in residents’ environmental perceptions toward parks in new and old urban areas. However, there is currently a lack of relevant comparative research. Therefore, this study used the new first-tier city of Hefei as an example and selected the two most popular urban parks in the new and old downtown areas—Swan Lake Park and Xiaoyaojin Park. This study aimed to find out which aspects of the new and old city parks were the most valued by the residents by analysing their online comments on social media platforms. Based on the social media comments, quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to study residents’ perceptions and preferences and analyse residents’ activities and satisfaction. The research found the following: (1) There was consistency in the type of content in the downtown parks as perceived by the residents of the new and old urban areas. (2) For the old downtown Xiaoyaojin Park, the residents were more interested in the experience in terms of the recreation facilities and services but were less satisfied with the visitor capacity of the playground and the ticket price. For the new downtown Swan Lake Park, the residents were more interested in the experience in terms of the exercise facilities and venues and were worried about the safety of the venues. (3) The perceived environmental preferences of the residents in the old urban areas were mainly related to childhood activity venues, and the perceived environmental preferences of the residents in the new urban areas were mainly related to novelty activities. Based on the results, targeted suggestions were proposed for the development of characteristic resources, facility management and maintenance, and the renewal and renovation of recreational activities. Since social media analysis plays an important role in the construction of urban parks, the findings can help us to better understand residents’ lives, ensure that parks are designed for the happiness of the people, and develop more sustainable pathways for the design and management of urban areas.

1. Introduction

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s socio-economic development aimed to promote high-quality development, which required continuous improvement in urban governance, focusing on the needs of the people and their well-being [1]. As the level of social development continues to rise, residents’ desires for both material and spiritual fulfilment, acquisition, and happiness are steadily increasing [2]. Especially in fast-paced developed cities, the pressures have intensified, and residents are plagued by psychological problems, such as depression, anxiety, and stress [3]. Therefore, parks are important for the well-being of residents and the sustainability of cities since they improve residents’ living environment and quality of life [4]. Many studies have shown that parks can effectively reduce the risk of anxiety and depression [5,6,7,8,9], reduce the probability of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases [10], and increase creativity, physical vigour, and positive emotions [11].

Therefore, considering residents’ needs as an important indicator, optimising residents’ recreational experience and improving residents’ satisfaction and frequency of use are necessary to build people-centred urban parks.

Perceptions of the urban park environment are usually used to evaluate residents’ experiences and feelings during their visits to parks [12,13]. Currently, most domestic and foreign studies on residents’ perceptions of recreation in urban parks have been conducted based on two perspectives. One focuses on the psychological “perception” itself to try to improve the residents’ physiological and psychological satisfaction indicators in park environments through interviews, virtual environment simulation, eye-tracking technology, and psycho-electrical signals [14,15,16,17]. The second perspective is to focus on the “perceived results” [18], using the evaluation of the users as the focus of the study and analysing the advantages and limitations of the planning, design, and operation of the park. This information can then be used in promoting a good experience for residents during park recreation through the implementation of effective improvements in the physical space.

With the rise of the Internet, more and more people are recording and sharing their recreational experiences through social media platforms, which generates a large amount of real and effective data. Therefore, the use of big data technology to obtain information about people’s perceptions of park recreation offers the possibility for assessing environmental perceptions more comprehensively and objectively. Huang et al. [19] found that the frequency of “location words” on social media is usually related to users’ evaluation of the location’s attractions, services, and relevance to daily life. Then, Wan et al. [20] analysed social media data to investigate users’ preferences and values toward urban parks, and they obtained important information for developing social marketing strategies. Moreover, Kong et al. [21] used social media data and sentiment analysis to quantify and compare the positive emotions of visitors to different types of urban parks and to make recommendations for park planning and management. Additionally, Bubalo et al. [22] assessed the perceived value and quality of existing urban parks in Rotterdam, Netherlands, from the perspective of urban park users by analysing the textual content on social media. Lastly, Park et al. [23] used image recognition technology to extract data from photos on social media platforms to analyse people’s recreational experiences in urban parks. Thus, social media analytics is becoming a key source of data analysis in urban planning and design, providing a direct, convenient, and efficient means of data collection.

Due to the special characteristics of China’s high-density built environment, urban residents’ environmental perceptions and preferences in parks differ significantly from those abroad. For example, even within the same city, there are large differences between parks in the new and old areas in terms of accessibility, infrastructure, and demographic structure, all of which can have an impact on residents’ environmental perceptions. As previous studies have not focused on a comparison of new and old downtown parks in the same city, we attempted to explore this aspect. Additionally, to obtain the perceptions of and preferences for these local parks, this study selected the second perspective, i.e., the study of user evaluation. The main objective of this study was to find out which aspects of new and old city parks are most valued by residents through text analytics based on their online comments on social media platforms. The research questions were (1) “What are the residents’ perceived contents of the local parks in the new and old urban areas?”; (2) “What are the residents’ activity preferences in the local parks in the new and old urban areas?”; and (3) “What are the residents’ emotional preferences in the local parks in the new and old urban areas?”.

The purpose of the first and second questions was to understand how residents perceive new and old town parks through social media comments. Despite the limitations of social media analysis, it maximises the ability to scan and identify a wide range of public opinions. Based on this perspective, the key messages of the residents’ concern for the new and old town parks were determined. The third question was related to residents’ preferences for new and old town parks and how social media data can provide useful information about resident satisfaction. This was assessed by examining the content of the parks as perceived by users in comments on social media platforms and resident sentiment toward that content.

This study consists of six parts: an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusions. The literature review answers two questions: (1) “What is the environmental perception of urban parks?” and (2) “What can be gained from analysing urban parks from a social media perspective?”. After a review of previous studies, the data collection and data analysis are presented in the Materials and Methods, and this is followed by the Results. Finally, the conclusions of the study are presented and suggestions for targeted improvements are proposed based on residents’ perceptions and preferences for the new and old urban parks. The findings of this study could provide a useful reference for other new and old urban parks in the rapid urbanisation phase. Moreover, considering social media as a platform for public participation in urban planning provides a broader and more convenient way for the public to participate in urban planning. This not only helps to create an urban environment that meets people’s needs, but also further enhances people’s sense of well-being, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of cities.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Environmental Perception of Urban Parks

Recently, many Chinese cities have prioritized economic development, resulting in the reduction in urban green spaces, destruction of the ecological environment, and epidemics of infectious diseases [24]. Therefore, the Chinese government has paid more attention to the construction of urban parks in urban planning to maintain the stability of the natural environment and the social system of cities and to promote their sustainable development [25]. Urban parks are places that fulfil the need for residents to have access to nature in their daily lives. They not only improve people’s physical and mental health [26] and enhance social cohesion [27,28], but also provide considerable ecological and economic value to local communities [29,30]. Building high-quality parks is therefore a priority for people’s well-being [31,32]. Since frequent visits to parks by residents are required for them to obtain these benefits, urban park builders and managers need to understand people’s perceptions of and preferences for urban parks to ensure that they maximize their value to the public [33]. However, people’s perceptions of urban parks are often subjective, vague, and intangible, and quantifying residents’ perceptions of and preferences for urban parks is challenging. Consequently, environmental perceptions are less commonly considered in current park planning and management than other measures [34,35]. To obtain a more direct and accurate picture of residents’ perceptions of urban parks, research needs to be conducted from both positive and negative perspectives. Unfortunately, negative perceptions of urban parks have often been neglected in current research [36,37]. Urban park environments can also provide disadvantages such as physical hazards (e.g., lack of protection against waters and poisonous plants and animals) and lack of accessibility (e.g., inaccessibility and lack of infrastructure), which may cause strong negative feelings among park visitors. Therefore, this study considered both the positive and negative perceptions of residents with equal importance.

A series of studies have shown that the main factors affecting visits to urban parks include park landscape features, accessibility, and surrounding environment features [38,39,40,41,42]. Therefore, in terms of residents’ perceptions of the environment in urban parks, the landscape factors [43,44,45,46] in parks have been extensively covered by researchers. These landscape factors affect the emotional attitudes and behavioural activities of visitors and residents in urban parks. For example, landscape factors, such as plants, water bodies, and buildings, are closely related to the environmental perception of urban parks [47,48,49,50]. Moreover, the visiting frequency for landscape factors can provide further insight into people’s preferences. For example, landscape environments with water tend to be visited more frequently, and thus more urban parks have been including water features. Therefore, understanding what affects the environmental perception of urban parks and to what extent it influences people’s perceptions is necessary to assist urban decisionmakers and city builders in their policy-making.

2.2. Using Social Media Analysis to Study Urban Parks

Traditional evaluation studies of urban parks have focused on field surveys, i.e., questionnaires, interviews, and observations, to assess the benefits of park applications [51,52,53]. This type of research, which clearly and easily verifies the identity of the participants, has certain shortcomings as the data that are collected are limited by the researcher’s cognitive scope. The questions that are set by the researcher can lead the respondents, and the respondents may conceal their true perceptions due to the lack of anonymity. Another unavoidable drawback is that the data collection of traditional research methods is based on the peer-to-peer form, which is difficult to obtain, inefficient, and laborious. These limitations affect the generalizability and accuracy of the research results to a certain extent.

With the development of network technology, Web 2.0 provides a new way for the public to participate in urban development. Web 2.0 is a collection of technologies in which users create content, interact with other users, and share information [54]. People can share their views, opinions, ideas, and experiences on social media platforms [55]. Since social media data are characterized by the storage of large amounts of rich content and the rapid dissemination of information [56], there are many opportunities for researchers and policymakers to use these data to understand public life and opinions [57]. For instance, Zhang et al. [58] proposed a model of the process of the co-creation of tourism experiences through travellers’ journeys by utilizing people’s excursion experiences that were posted online. Then, Hausmann et al. [59] obtained visitors’ preferences for biotypes through photos of parks that were posted on social media platforms. Additionally, Wang et al. [60] identified and analysed the content that was posted by users on social media platforms to address the regeneration of urban parks.

Unlike typical surveys with targeted questions, social media data are often “loose”, “noisy”, and “dispersed” [61], and the data can be used to revisit the opinions on parks over time and re-examine our understanding of urban parks [60,62,63]. For example, in park design, monumental and iconic facilities are often at the centre of the landscape, yet according to social media data, architectural and man-made elements in parks are not strongly valued by visitors [64,65]. Furthermore, Wan et al. [20] collected and analysed Instagram-generated data and found that natural elements were more associated with well-being than with aesthetic experience. Then, Liang et al. [66] found that during the holidays, the density of visits to Shanghai’s urban parks was significantly higher and more concentrated in the city centre rather than in the parks on the outskirts of the city. As the most-developed city in China, Shanghai’s park use patterns provide some reference projections for other rapidly developing first- and second-tier cities in China. Thus, a large amount of online evaluation data can identify people’s uses and experiences of urban parks and help managers to clearly plan strategies and tactics from all perspectives [67].

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Study Sites

Hefei ranks first in permanent urban population among China’s new first-tier cities [68], and the development of its urban parks is undergoing a transition from a focus on quantity to quality. Additionally, the rapid development of new first-tier cities has led to significant changes in the living environments of Hefei’s new and old city centres [69], and residents of the two districts have developed certain local perceptions of and preferences for local parks. Swan Lake Park and Xiaoyaojin Park are two famous and highly popular urban parks that are located in the centre of the new and old towns, respectively. They share some common characteristics, and many residents visit these parks, which makes them ideal choices for a social-media-based study (Figure 1).

Opened in 1952, Xiaoyaojin Park [70] was the first people’s park in Hefei. It is located in the old political affairs district within the first ring road of downtown Hefei, and it is an open waterfront park that was built around the old city centre of Hefei and is based on the old city wall. With beautiful scenery and humanistic feelings, the park is named after the ancient battlefield of the Three Kingdoms, which is known as “Xiaoyaojin”, and its biggest feature is that there is a lake in the park, an island in the lake, and a pavilion on the island. Additionally, as a park around the old city of Hefei, the composition of the park is like an “emerald necklace”, being tree-lined, with flowers in all seasons, waterfront walkways, a leisure plaza, public toilets, pavilions, seats, fitness equipment, and other functions and service facilities. Thus, residents of all ages can enjoy it.

Swan Lake Park [71] was built and opened in 2004. It is named after the lake, which is shaped like a swan, and it is a landmark park in the new city of Hefei. Being located in Hefei’s new political and cultural district, it is an open waterfront park that meets the recreational needs of residents. As an important landmark in Hefei, Swan Lake Park is surrounded by iconic buildings, such as stadiums, grand theatres, and municipal office centres. The park is centred on a swan-shaped artificial lake with various sculptures, fountains, artificial beaches, and landscapes, and is the future political, cultural, and recreational centre of Hefei with complete accessibility to transportation and public service facilities.

3.2. Data Collection

To understand residents’ perceptions of Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park, a large-scale collection of publicly available social media content was legally constructed using Python crawling techniques. The data that were obtained were anonymized and publicly available. This technology collects data from websites and stores them for further analysis or use, which enables the collection of large amounts of data and a better understanding of the users [72]. In this study, crawling code was written for relevant web pages that recognises the data structure of a web page and collects its information automatically, simulating the task of copying and pasting manually [73]. The database for this study was constructed from reviews that were posted by residents on DianPing (dianping.com (accessed on 6 August 2023)) and Ctrip (ctrip.com (accessed on 6 August 2023)). A comprehensive comparison of the Chinese local life service websites with the top Alexa comprehensive rankings revealed that DianPing and Ctrip had a higher number of comments about Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park (

Table 1. Number of comments on the downtown parks.

Name of Park	Number of Comments
	DianPing	Ctrip	Mafengwo	Qunar
Xiaoyaojin Park	2346	1112	634	54
Swan Lake Park	1054	226	10	3

), richer content, fewer interfering factors, and higher differentiation between positive and negative comments (

Table 2. Type of comments on Chinese local life service websites.

Name of Websites	Xiaoyaojin Park			Swan Lake Park
	Positive	Moderate	Negative	Positive	Moderate	Negative
DianPing	1687	243	50	990	40	7
Ctrip	907	185	20	187	37	2
Mafengwo	120	210	48	9	1	0
Qunar	50	4	0	3	0	0

). Furthermore, most of the comments included the real feelings of the residents, so the combination of the data sources was effective.

The Python crawling technique was used to collect information about the park assessment, which included the user identifier (ID), star rating, text content of the reviews, and time of assessment. The real comments from the residents and visitors of Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park were captured from 1 February 2006 to 1 February 2023. Then, the comments were extracted into an Excel format, and the comments with non-local user IDs, pictures in the text of the comments that were not relevant to the study, and special characters were deleted. Also, meaningless words, such as “the” and “how many”, were filtered out, near-synonyms were replaced with unified expressions, and the specific word lists for Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park were established. After preprocessing the text data, 2050 usable evaluations were obtained for Xiaoyaojin Park, totalling 261,595 words, and 967 usable evaluations were obtained for Swan Lake Park, totalling 100,257 words.

3.3. Data Analysis

After the text was preprocessed, four main types of analyses were carried out: (1) word frequency analysis, which was aimed at discovering the attributes of the parks and the behaviours of the residents and tourists; (2) perception analysis, which categorized the residents’ evaluations and created a list of the elements of the residents’ perceptions of the old and new city parks; (3) semantic network analysis, which demonstrated the hierarchical relationship and the degree of affinity between the theme-related words and revealed the potential relationships between the main issues; and (4) sentiment analysis, which categorized the subjective text with emotional colouring and determined the emotional tendency. Among them, the word frequency, semantic network, and sentiment analyses were quantitative, while the perception analysis was qualitative.

Rost Content Mining 6 [74,75,76] software, which was developed by Prof. Yang of Wuhan University, was used for objective, systematic, and quantitative research. This software is the only large-scale free social computing platform for humanities and social sciences research in China, and its categorized corpus and test corpus are both in Chinese. The software has strong Chinese preprocessing ability, but the classification algorithm is relatively simple. Therefore, this study mainly utilized the functions of text separation and text feature extraction to process the text initially and obtain the topic-related words and word frequencies. Afterward, the co-occurrence network and visualization of the theme-related words were produced using Wordart (https://wordart.com (accessed on 6 August 2023)) and Gephi 0.9.2 software. Then, the “Sentiment Analysis” tool in Rost Content Mining 6 was used to further classify the keywords into emotions, and based on the co-occurrence network and visualization, the factors affecting the residents’ attitudes towards the park were analysed in depth.

The qualitative research is mainly based on rooting theory for the analysis of text. In this study, NVivo12 qualitative analysis software [77,78,79] was used as a coding tool, and the preprocessed comments were imported into the software as separate articles to be coded and analysed. To establish a categorized list of the perceptual elements in Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park, open coding was used to extract the conceptual categories, spindle coding was used to extract the main categories, and selective coding was used to extract the core categories. NVivo is mainly used to process non-quantitative and unstructured qualitative data and output the results in a quantitative form. Therefore, it achieves levels of universality, objectivity, and visualization that are similar to those of big data analyses.

4. Results

4.1. Word Frequency Analysis

Word frequency statistics can be used to understand the attributes of the study site and the behaviour of the residents and tourists. In this study, 200 high-frequency words were obtained through screening. Word frequency can provide a preliminary understanding of the general impressions, main perceived aspects, and key concerns of the residents toward Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park.

As can be seen from

Table 3. High-frequency vocabulary of Xiaoyaojin Park web text analysis.

Ranking	High-Frequency Words	Frequency	Ranking	High-Frequency Words	Frequency
1	Xiaoyaojin Park	1976	31	elephant slide	186
2	Hefei	1087	32	entertainment	180
3	facilities	607	33	playground	170
4	recreation	390	34	sight	169
5	Zhang Liao	373	35	large	167
6	pedestrian street	349	36	friends	166
7	children	336	37	go in	164
8	recreation program	328	38	weather	151
9	Ferris wheel	304	39	fee	149
10	suit	304	40	first time	146
11	remodel	289	41	stroll	144
12	environment	279	42	corsair	129
13	childhood	270	43	bumper car	125
14	Three Kingdoms period	267	44	inside	124
15	play	242	45	admission gate	124
16	free	240	46	take pictures	122
17	ticket	232	47	scenery	116
18	memory	229	48	restart	112
19	teenager	229	49	carousel	111
20	good	219	50	nearby	111
21	weekend	214	51	leisure	111
22	ponder	214	52	Sun Quan	109
23	history	200	53	Hefei people	109
24	rowing boat	200	54	Xiaoyaojin	108
25	walk	198	55	convenience	108
26	past	193	56	formidable	107
27	night	191	57	fun	106
28	time	191	58	various	105
29	line up	190	59	Huaihe Road	104
30	landscaping	187	60	open	101

Note: Due to limited space, only the top 60 high-frequency words are listed.

, the high-frequency words in the online evaluation of Xiaoyaojin Park were mostly nouns (including proper nouns), followed by verbs and adjectives. The noun categories were mainly locations, attractions, people, facilities, and other characteristics of the words. Specifically, “Xiaoyaojin Park”, “Hefei”, “Zhang Liao”, “Ferris wheel”, and “children” were mentioned more frequently. The verbs mainly reflect the main activities of the residents in the park, including “play”, “ponder”, “row”, “walk”, and “stroll”. The adjectives mostly expressed the overall perception of the park by the residents who visited the park, and the feedback was mostly positive, such as “suitable”, “very good”, “big”, “convenient”, and “fun”. These high-frequency adjectives usually describe the feeling of performing dynamic experiential activities, indicating that there were amusement facilities inside the park that were widely acclaimed.

As can be seen from

Table 4. High-frequency vocabulary of Swan Lake Park web text analysis.

Ranking	High-Frequency Words	Frequency	Ranking	High-Frequency Words	Frequency
1	Swan Lake	809	31	Wanda	76
2	Hefei	474	32	Anhui	74
3	park	330	33	teenager	73
4	sandy shore	311	34	beautiful	69
5	night	285	35	air	69
6	walk	246	36	nearby	67
7	lakeside	220	37	sight	65
8	Light Show	175	38	exercise	63
9	environment	153	39	running	63
10	suit	149	40	boisterous	61
11	excellent	141	41	television station	60
12	scenery	122	42	lighting	59
13	swans	114	43	take pictures	57
14	surrounding	111	44	resident	56
15	center	110	45	time	56
16	summer	108	46	nice	55
17	city central business district	108	47	landmark	54
18	weather	104	48	subway	53
19	nightscape	100	49	stroll	52
20	square	97	50	comfortable	52
21	children	96	51	lovers	50
22	swimming	94	52	past	50
23	artificial	93	53	fitness	48
24	convenience	84	54	PRC National Day	48
25	leisure	80	55	sports	48
26	large	79	56	parking space	47
27	weekend	78	57	happy	47
28	sand	78	58	satisfied	45
29	traffic	77	59	play	45
30	buildings	76	60	shopping mall	45

Note: due to limited space, only the top 60 high-frequency words are listed.

, the high-frequency words in Swan Lake Park were also nouns that accounted for a large proportion of the main attractions of Swan Lake Park, the time, the location, and the crowd, such as “Swan Lake”, “sandy shore”, “night”, “light show”, “city central business district”, and “children”. The top-ranking high-frequency verbs included “walking”, “swimming”, “exercise”, “running”, and “stroll”. The adjectives included “suit”, “excellent”, “large”, “beautiful”, and “boisterous”, which had a high degree of overlap with the high-frequency adjectives of the other park. This reflected the residents’ positive perception of the two parks in the old and new towns in terms of the park scale, the environmental conditions, and the recreational experience, which were relatively similar.

The study sites were processed using Rost Content Mining 6 to derive meaningful keywords and their centrality, and then the WordArt website was used to generate a word cloud of Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park (Figure 2). The word cloud graph not only reflected the overall impression of the residents of Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park but also clearly showed the perceived scenic hotspots. The size of the text in the graph reflects the importance of the keyword. The residents’ perceived hotspots in the park included “recreation facilities”, “renovation projects”, “history of the Three Kingdoms”, and “memories of childhood”. This reflected the residents’ overall impression of the park. The term “memories of childhood” reflects a high degree of concern for the recreational facilities and humanistic landscape. For Swan Lake Park, the perceived hotspots were “Swan Lake”, “light show”, “sandyshore”, and “nightscape”, reflecting the residents’ high concern for recreational activities and the artificial landscape.

4.2. Perceived Content Analysis

In this study, Nvivo 12 software was used to analyse and review the data and conceptualise the generalisation and comparison process of the residents’ evaluation content. Drawing on scholars’ previous criteria for classifying the perceived contents of urban park environments, the data were divided into four major categories and ten subcategories (

Table 5. Xiaoyaojin Park perceived content system.

Main Category	Subcategory	Connotation	Corresponding Review Text Example	Points
Landscape Attractions 26.92%	Natural landscapes 67.65%	Natural or artificial flora and fauna landscape	Beautiful scenery, variety of flowers, lake clarity, luxuriant green, diversity of bird species, etc.	2384
	Artificial landscapes 32.35%	Buildings, bridge, sculptures, artesian wells, etc., in a man-made landscape	Archway, small creek promenade, sculpture, trestle bridge, winding corridor, gallery, etc.	730
Featured Environments 11.21%	Climatic conditions 26.16%	Seasons, weather, temperature, and humidity	Late autumn, summer, spring, rain, weekend, cool, suitable temperature, etc.	367
	Landscape features 56.31%	Landscape with Three Kingdoms cultural theme	Pavilion platform building, Dujin Bridge, Xiaoyao Pavilion, cenotaph, etc.	790
	Smells and sounds 17.53%	The smell and sound in the park	Good environment, fresh air, urban green lungs, many negative ions, noisy, etc.	246
Service Facilities 33.30%	Location conditions 42.34%	Geographical accessibility	Subway stations, buses, convenient transportation, pedestrian street, Huaihe Road, etc.	1756
	Facility services 57.76%	Infrastructure and ancillary facilities provided according to the functional needs of tourists for rest and entertainment	Ferris wheel, elephant slide, playground, pirate ship, bumper car, carousel, tickets are too expensive, admission free, open all day, etc.	2624
Recreation Activities 28.57%	Recreation time 22.32%	Time for residents to visit the park	Childhood, weekend, past, night, etc.	798
	Recreational crowds 17.79%	Classification of residents in the park	Child, little friends, friends, old people, Hefei people, etc.	836
	Recreational behaviour 59.89%	Residents’ activities in the park	Stroll, recalling the past, playing in the amusement park, line up, etc.	2141

and

Table 6. Swan Lake Park perceived content system.

Main Category	Subcategory	Connotation	Corresponding Review Text Example	Points
Landscape Attractions 33.79%	Natural landscapes 88.24%	Natural or artificial flora and fauna landscape.	Beautiful scenery, variety of flowers, lake clarity, luxuriant green, diversity of bird species, etc.	1576
	Artificial landscapes 11.76%	Buildings, bridge, sculptures, artesian wells, etc., in a man-made landscape	Archway, small creek promenade, sculpture, trestle bridge, winding corridor, gallery, etc.	210
Featured Environments 15.30%	Climatic conditions 5.69%	Seasons, weather, temperature, and humidity	Late autumn, summer, spring, rain, weekend, cool, suitable temperature, etc.	46
	Landscape features 86.03%	Landscape with swan lake	Pavilion platform building, Dujin Bridge, Xiaoyao Pavilion, cenotaph, etc.	696
	Smells and sounds 8.28%	The smell and sound in the park	Good environment, fresh air, urban green lungs, many negative ions, noisy, etc.	67
Service Facilities 24.10%	Location conditions 88.15%	Geographical accessibility	Subway stations, buses, convenient transportation, pedestrian street, Huaihe Road, etc.	1123
	Facility services 11.85%	Infrastructure and ancillary facilities provided according to the functional needs of tourists for rest and entertainment	Ferris wheel, elephant slide, playground, pirate ship, bumper car, carousel, tickets are too expensive, admission free, open all day, etc.	151
Recreation Activities 26.81%	Recreation time 36.62%	Time for residents to visit the park	Childhood, weekend, past, night, etc.	519
	Recreational crowds 19.41%	Classification of residents in the park	Child, little friends, friends, old people, Hefei people, etc.	275
	Recreational behaviour 43.97%	Residents’ activities in the park	Stroll, recalling the past, playing in the amusement park, line up, etc.	623

). The four major categories are detailed below. Based on the proportion of the main categories, the contents that the residents mainly valued in Xiaoyaojin Park were, in descending order, the service facilities (33.30%), recreational activities (28.57%), landscape attractions (26.92%), and characteristic environments (11.21%); for Swan Lake Park, they were the landscape attractions (33.79%), recreational activities (26.81%), service facilities (24.10%), and characteristic environments (15.30%). Both parks had lower values for the creation of characteristic environments, which needs further improvement.

4.2.1. Landscape Attractions in Downtown Parks

Landscape attractions include both natural and man-made landscapes, with natural landscapes being a common focus for residents in both the old and new towns. The landscape that is derived from the historical resources of Xiaoyaojin Park was found to be the focus of the park, such as the “Xiaoyaojin Pavilion” and the “Dujin Bridge”. There are also natural characteristics of the landscape, such as hydrangeas, hibiscuses, and lotuses. Swan Lake Park has a swan lake and an artificial beach at its centre, and, together with the night lights, these have become the highlight for attracting residents for recreation.

4.2.2. Characteristic Environments in the Downtown Parks

Characteristic environments include climatic conditions, landscape features, and smells and sounds. In terms of the climatic conditions and smells and sounds, both parks were suitable for the residents in terms of air quality and temperature. The landscapecharacter was a common concern for residents of both the old and new town areas. In terms of the landscape features, the Three Kingdoms cultural area at the base of Xiaoyaojin Park added historical features to the environment of the park, while Swan Lake Park’s swan lake, beach, and light show resulted in a completely modern lakefront leisure scene.

4.2.3. Service Facilities in the Downtown Parks

Services facilities include the location conditions and facility services. Residents of the old town area were more concerned about the facility services in Xiaoyaojin Park, while the residents of the new town area were more concerned about the location of Swan Lake Park. The two parks are located in the centre of the old and new town areas, so there is a large flow of people and convenient transportation. In terms of facilities, there are more playground facilities inside Xiaoyaojin Park, which evoked memories of many residents’ childhood, but the lack of recent maintenance and management measures has led to a low level of satisfaction for the residents. Meanwhile, Swan Lake Park has fewer types of facilities and mostly simple fitness equipment, so maintenance is easier and users are more satisfied.

4.2.4. Recreational Activities in the Downtown Parks

Recreational activities include recreation time, recreation crowds, and recreation behaviours. The residents of the old and new town areas mostly chose evenings, weekends, holidays, and other leisure times. The recreational crowd was mainly families with children, which was followed by friends and couples. The difference in the recreational behaviours between the two parks was mainly determined by the service facilities and characteristics of the environment, with more play facilities in the park resulting in more recreational behaviours in Xiaoyaojin Park. Meanwhile, Swan Lake Park’s fitness facilities and the lakefront environment of the park meant that the residents’ recreational behaviours at this location favoured fitness and exercise activities.

4.3. Semantic Network Analysis

To further interpret the residents’ environmental perceptions of Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park, this study used NetDraw 2.084 software to conduct a semantic network analysis and then optimised the network relationship mapping using Gephi 0.9.2 software. Then, the vocabulary semantic network analysis visualisation map was obtained.

As shown in Figure 3, the semantic network of the park shows the distribution characteristics of the multiple cores radiating outwards. With “Xiaoyaojin Park” as the centre, the words “recreation facilities” and “Hefei” were central to the residents’ perception of the park’s environment, which indicates that residents paid great attention to the recreational facilities and local conditions of the park. The core vocabulary was similar in its circle composition; using “recreation facilities” as an example, it extended to “landscape”, “play”, “Elephant Slide”, “pedestrian street”, and “history”. The “scenery” is a natural landscape term, “play” is a recreational behaviour, “Elephant Slide” is an amusement facility, “pedestrian street” represents the local conditions, and “history” is a landscape characteristic. The circles that were formed by these words indicated that the residents’ main perceptions of the park were composed of landscape attractions, characteristic environments, service facilities, and leisure activities. Overall, residents mostly had positive environmental perceptions of characteristic and reminiscent recreational activities, which is consistent with collective memory research on historical and cultural landscapes in parks in old urban areas.

Figure 4 shows that the semantic network of Swan Lake Park is more concentrated when compared with that of Xiaoyaojin Park, with “Swan Lake” as one of the central words, which is connected to almost all of the words. Also, the sub-centres of the words that are closely connected to it are “artificial sandy shore” and “Hefei”, so the residents’ main environmental perceptions of Swan Lake Park focused on landscape attractions and the local conditions. In the sub-circle, the words that related to the attraction “artificial sandy shore” are “summer”, “night”, “children”, and “walk”, which reflects the residents’ focus on leisure time and activities during the visit and also reflects the lack of secondary attractions connected to the main attraction. The outermost vocabulary is more dispersed than that for Xiaoyaojin Park and the degree of connection between them is not high. This indicates that the Swan Lake Park environment’s perception was more singular, reflecting the need to take into consideration the continuation of memory and preserving cultural heritage when planning and designing new city parks.

4.4. Emotional Analysis of the Residents

The text sentiment analysis was used to analyse the subjective text with emotional colours, mine the emotional tendencies contained therein, and divide the emotional attitudes, which is a current research hotspot in natural language processing. In this study, Rost Content Mining 6 was used to analyse the sentiment of the online review texts for Xiaoyaojin Park and Swan Lake Park to compare the residents’ affective tendencies toward the overall environment of the two parks in the old and new downtown areas (

Table 7. The residents’ emotional attitudes.

Emotional Attitude	Xiaoyaojin Park (Old Downtown)		Swan Lake Park (New Downtown)
	Number	Percentage%	Number	Percentage%
positive	2248	45.92	1357	59.13
moderate	1029	21.02	780	33.99
negative	1619	33.07	158	6.88

).

Overall, the residents’ affective tendencies toward the two parks in the old and new towns were dominated by positive emotions. Positive emotions had the highest proportion in both places among the three types of emotions, and the residents were satisfied with the park environment as a whole, but the residents’ overall positive emotions for Swan Lake Park (59.13%) in the new town were much higher than those for Xiaoyaojin Park (45.92%) in the old town. Accordingly, the percentage of negative emotions towards Xiaoyaojin Park (33.07%) was about five times that for Swan Lake Park (6.88%).

To further explore the differential factors of the residents’ emotions, an online review of the texts about the two parks was constructed to visualise the positive and negative lexical–semantic network analysis (Figure 5 and Figure 6). Firstly, since Xiaoyaojin Park is located in the old city, it mainly relies on the cultural heritage of the Three Kingdoms and rich and varied amusement facilities to satisfy the residents’ needs in terms of amusement and science popularisation. However, during the park’s operation period, the words “line up”, “embarrassing”, “regret”, and “expensive tickets” reflected that the sustainable development of the cultural features and the service management of the amusement facilities did not satisfy the residents. Among them, the environmental capacity of the amusement area and pricing problems were particularly prominent.

In contrast, Swan Lake Park in the new city, as a new landmark, with a convenient location, perfect infrastructure, and a local environment to meet the residents’ recreational needs, was seen to be a people-oriented lakefront park. For example, the light show that was held on the beach at night was very well received by the residents of the neighbourhood. However, it is worth noting that the safety of its waterfront activities was one of the dominant factors of residents’ negative emotions towards Swan Lake Park, which is the park’s largest feature attraction. There have been news reports of drowning incidents in the lake every year, which has been causing concern. Another negative concern is the lack of swans, which not only relates to the branding of the park but also reflects a problem with the creation of an ecological environment.

5. Discussion

5.1. Discussion of the Results

5.1.1. Comparative Analysis of the Perceived Content of the Local Parks by New and Old City Residents

There was consistency in the categories of the residents’ perceptions of the local parks in the old and new towns, which can be summarized into four main categories (landscape attractions, characteristic environment, service facilities, and recreational activities) and ten secondary categories (natural landscape, artificial landscape, climatic conditions, landscape characteristics, smells and sounds, location conditions, facilities and services, recreation time, recreation crowds, and recreation behaviours). These elements are similar to the findings of most park evaluation indicators [20,80,81].

The main reason for the difference in the top perceived categories of the local parks between the old and new urban areas was because of the differences between the urban areas. Wang et al. [82] suggested that the differences between urban areas in terms of residents’ perceptions of parks are related to the quality of the parks. Notably, this study found that the residents of the old and new urban areas had the worst perception of the characteristic environment, i.e., the residents had a vague perception of the characteristic environment of the local central park, and most of the residents thought that the meaning of the park’s name was not well represented in the landscape. When compared with previous studies [20,40,80,83,84] on residents’ perceptions of parks, this study found an aspect that has been rarely mentioned in the literature. Residents were found to pay more attention to the creation of the characteristic environment, and, thus, how to shape the “park IP” and form a “park brand” [67,85] should be the main future direction of urban park optimization.

5.1.2. Comparative Analysis of the Residents’ Preferences for Local Park Activities in the Old and New Cities

The construction of urban parks must be people-centred to meet more diversified needs [66]. In the old city, the residents of the park were more attracted by the amusement facilities. Residents tended to visit the park as a family unit and often stayed in the amusement activity area, and they were interested in the facilities related to the Three Kingdoms culture. The main activities in the park and issues related to the park are highlighted in the word cloud map and semantic network relationship mapping. For the main activities, using the elephant slide and riding the Ferris wheel were the most frequently mentioned on social media platforms. Due to the early establishment of the park and the low mobility of residents, some of the old rides such as the elephant slide carried childhood memories for most of the residents and became a Netflix hotspot. It is worth noting that Xiaoyaojin Park is a park that was built with the history and culture of the Three Kingdoms as its specialty, but it had the lowest percentage of specialties in the environmental perception category. This is because there are fewer facilities related to the history and culture of the Three Kingdoms, and the overall architectural style of the park is not uniform, which leads to few activities for residents in the featured landscape area. These results broadly support the proposition that urban parks are designed for residents’ daily activities, but in terms of the characteristics of Xiaoyaojin Park itself, it lacks historical and cultural-themed activities.

Swan Lake Park in the new city is integrated into the daily lives of neighbourhood residents. Residents like to come to the lake for exercise in the morning and at night but are concerned about water quality and safety. Since the new town has a large proportion of young and old residents, fitness and exercise-related facilities and venues were given more consideration in the design. For new town residents, the purpose of visiting the park is to exercise or to participate in activities such as “Summer”, “Light Show”, “Swan Lake”, “Sandy Beach”, and other activities. In addition, as Swan Lake Park is a landmark attraction that is surrounded by various commercial and governmental buildings, there may be many sightseeing tourists coming to the park, and residents experience overcrowding in terms of space for “transportation” and “parking” activities.

5.1.3. Comparative Analysis of the Emotional Attitudes of the New and Old City Residents toward Local Parks

Residents of both the old and new towns had the highest percentage of positive feelings toward local parks. According to the analysis, this result was due to the qualities of the parks themselves and positive reflections on activities with family and friends. The residents of the old city tended to visit Xiaoyaojin Park as a family, and in China, where children’s emotions are important to the whole family, the value of the experience increases when the park’s rich recreational facilities are loved by the children. In addition, as the earliest urban park was built in Hefei City, Xiaoyaojin Park is the place where most residents played in their childhood, and the memory of experiencing the landscape during their childhood means that they have developed an attachment and preference for the environment [86,87]. The results of this study provide insights into people’s attitudes toward urban parks and values related to them, which have been neglected in existing research.

Surprisingly, negative emotions in Prosperity Park were approximately five times higher than those in Swan Lake Park. This is despite the fact that Xiaoyaojin Park is rich in activities and embraces the history and culture of the Three Kingdoms. The reasons for this result are complex and can be reasonably inferred using social media analysis. With the variety of activities in the park and the long hours that were spent there by the residents, “crowding” and “queuing” were the main factors that led to the negative sentiment. There was also the issue of the amusement ride fees, and people’s dissatisfaction was reflected in the high frequency of the word “expensive”. This is consistent with other scholars’ findings [20,40,80,83,84] that the accessibility of play areas and the appropriateness of ticket pricing have been the main concerns of residents when visiting parks. When compared with Xiaoyaojin Park, Swan Lake Park has fewer themed activities and only performs themed light shows at specific times of the night. However, for residents in the Swan Lake Park neighbourhood, the light show was an unexpected event and therefore more exciting and enjoyable. This finding may explain why excitement [20,67,88] is considered to be an important element of urban parks.

5.2. Research Recommendations

(1)

There should be an emphasis on the development and promotion of natural and humanistic resources. A great proportion of the keywords of the two parks in the old and new towns included natural and humanistic landscapes, and the residents’ satisfaction was higher, so the parks should pay attention to the existing characteristic resources. The park in the old city is themed on the ancient Three Kingdoms to create a natural landscape with humanistic feelings, but there is a lack of interaction with the culturally themed display. Thus, it is recommended that additional cultural activities should be added, such as a Three Kingdoms theatre performance and the exhibition of cultural creations in the park. In contrast, Swan Lake Park in the new city has a lack of local characteristics with cultural connotations and regional memorable traces of history, which leads to a lack of emotional interaction between the residents and the landscape environment. Thus, it does not inspire people’s hearts. Therefore, as the most frequent keyword was “Swan Lake”, we would suggest increasing the playfulness and attractiveness of the routes along the lake, such as the construction of fitness facilities and trails, the planting of suitable plants, and the introduction of swans in the lake, which will leave unique memories for the residents.

(2)

Additionally, the management and maintenance of park areas and leisure facilities should be strengthened. Recreational services and facilities are important for promoting residents’ positive tendencies in terms of their environmental perception. In the semantic network of the negative emotions in Swan Lake Park, the security of the waterfront recreation area was the dominant factor of residents’ negative emotions, so strengthening the security measures in the waterfront area should be the focus of further improvements in the park. Moreover, it is recommended that additional security signs and security personnel should be installed in the accident-prone area. When compared with Swan Lake Park, Xiaoyaojin Park has been around for a longer period, and many of the leisure service facilities have a lot of potential safety hazards due to aging or poor management, so residents’ negative emotions are more prevalent. To enhance residents’ leisure experience, the management of the park area and the maintenance of the leisure facilities should be improved, such as the maintenance and management of the pavilions, water pavilions, park squares, recreational trails, other open spaces, and other architectural landscapes. Also, some of the damaged public service facilities should be replaced to optimise the management of the amusement park facilities. Furthermore, improvements in the awareness and level of service management in recreational areas, such as queuing guidance, pier safety management, food and beverage outlets, and ticket prices, should be conducted to enhance the demand for people-centred park services.

(3)

Renewal and renovation should also be conducted based on the location’s advantages and the crowd structure. The two parks are the central parks of the old and new towns, with convenient traffic, a large flow of people, and sufficient location advantages. Additionally, in terms of the composition of the recreational crowd, families with children account for a relatively large proportion of the population, and therefore the safety of the service facilities and the recreational nature of the park should be the focus. Since Xiaoyaojin Park is located in the old city, there is a stronger recreational need for older residents, such as squares, pavilions, and fitness equipment, and the climate and environmental requirements are higher. Thus, the priorities for the park should be infrastructure and natural landscape enhancement. For Swan Lake Park, young people have a greater demand for fitness and recreational activities, and thus the optimisation of the exercise routes along the lake and its surrounding greenery and activities on the beach should be the focus of the park’s improvement.

5.3. Limitations and Prospects

This study demonstrates the analysis of urban park development based on social media data. Social media analysis was used to understand how the residents perceive and use the new and old city parks. However, most of the social media data providers consisted of young and middle-aged people, with fewer elderly people and children. Therefore, in the future, we would recommend conducting offline surveys that specifically target the elderly and children to address this limitation.

6. Conclusions

In this study, Hefei, one of the new first-tier cities in China, was selected and text analysis was used to analyse the ratings of the two most popular new and old downtown parks that were chosen by residents on social media. The main findings can be summarized as follows:

(1)

Residents of the old and new downtown areas basically perceived the content of the downtown parks in terms of four categories: landscape attractions, characteristic environment, service facilities, and recreational activities.

(2)

Residents had higher expectations for the play facilities and service management of the parks in the old downtown area. The attraction of the park in the old downtown area was mainly based on the setting of the playgrounds and the popularity accumulated due to its long history. Dissatisfaction with the park’s centres was based on the capacity of the play area and the ticket price.

(3)

Residents were more interested in the experience of the new downtown park in terms of the exercise facilities and landscape environment. The attraction of the new downtown park for the residents was focused on the novel activities that were organized in the parks, which created excitement and pleasure. Additionally, the security of the landscape was the main source of residents’ negative emotions.

Based on the social media data, this study proposes a new perspective for understanding urban park use by comparing residents’ perceptions of new and old urban parks. The significance of the study is that it avoided the shortcomings of traditional studies and utilized new technology to obtain a large amount of comprehensive evaluation information, making the results timelier and more universal. Moreover, Hefei City, as a new first-tier city, has an urbanization development process that is the epitome of most cities in China, and coupled with its location in the central region, it combines the characteristics of cities in the north and south. Thus, the selection of highly popular parks in its old and new downtown areas is representative of many cities and has research value. More importantly, this study demonstrated how social media data can be used to study urban parks, and it provided a better understanding of how to build and manage urban parks. The findings can inform urban renewal decisions, improve people’s well-being, enhance urban vitality, and assist in realizing sustainable urban development.