IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i19p8036-d421338.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Perceived Site Qualities and Experiences of Urban Public Spaces: A Case Study of Social Media Reviews in Bryant Park, New York City

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Song

    (Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77840, USA)

  • Jessica Fernandez

    (College of Environment + Design, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Tong Wang

    (School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China)

Abstract

Urban public spaces are a key component to the well-being and prosperity of modern society. It has been increasingly important to improve the qualities and maximize the usages of urban public spaces. There is a lack of studies that investigate how people use and perceive urban parks using quantitative analysis of location-based social media reviews. This study tackles this gap by introducing a case study that uses social media reviews (Tripadivisor.com) to understand the perceived site quality and experiences of Bryant Park in New York City. A large dataset including 11,419 Tripadvisor reviews from 10,615 users was collected. LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), a natural language processing and machine learning technique, was used to perform topic modeling analysis that could reveal hidden themes in large amounts of text. The results include five semantic topics and their associated topic terms. A comprehensive overview of the user experiences in Bryant Park were provided along with their weekly and monthly dynamics. The findings provide insights for future public space designers and managers by revealing how users describe the designs and operations of Bryant Park.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Song & Jessica Fernandez & Tong Wang, 2020. "Understanding Perceived Site Qualities and Experiences of Urban Public Spaces: A Case Study of Social Media Reviews in Bryant Park, New York City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-15, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:19:p:8036-:d:421338
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8036/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8036/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Southworth, 2014. "Public Life, Public Space, and the Changing Art of City Design," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 37-40, January.
    2. Yang Song & Bo Zhang, 2020. "Using social media data in understanding site-scale landscape architecture design: taking Seattle Freeway Park as an example," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 627-648, July.
    3. Votsis, Athanasios, 2017. "Planning for green infrastructure: The spatial effects of parks, forests, and fields on Helsinki's apartment prices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 279-289.
    4. Guo, Yue & Barnes, Stuart J. & Jia, Qiong, 2017. "Mining meaning from online ratings and reviews: Tourist satisfaction analysis using latent dirichlet allocation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 467-483.
    5. Rachel Kallus, 2016. "Citizenship in action: participatory urban visualization in contested urban space," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 616-637, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raluca Ignat & Marius Constantin, 2020. "Multidimensional Facets of Entrepreneurial Resilience during the COVID-19 Crisis through the Lens of the Wealthiest Romanian Counties," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-29, December.
    2. Gabriele Zabelskyte & Nadja Kabisch & Zaneta Stasiskiene, 2022. "Patterns of Urban Green Space Use Applying Social Media Data: A Systematic Literature Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, February.
    3. Qureshi, Salman & Tarashkar, Mahsa & Matloobi, Mansour & Wang, Zhifang & Rahimi, Akbar, 2022. "Understanding the dynamics of urban horticulture by socially-oriented practices and populace perception: Seeking future outlook through a comprehensive review," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Hongxu Guo & Zhuoqiao Luo & Mengtian Li & Shumin Kong & Haiyan Jiang, 2022. "A Literature Review of Big Data-Based Urban Park Research in Visitor Dimension," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-17, June.
    5. Chenghao Yang & Tongtong Liu, 2022. "Social Media Data in Urban Design and Landscape Research: A Comprehensive Literature Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-22, October.
    6. Jessica Fernandez & Yang Song & Shirin Rezaeimalek & Katherine Melcher & Donnie Longnecker, 2023. "Exploring rural community place assessment through mobility and social media data in Fort Gaines, Georgia," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 425-446, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Binni & Wang, Pong & Tu, Yiliu, 2021. "Customer satisfaction service match and service quality-based blockchain cloud manufacturing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    2. M. Narciso, 2022. "The Unreliability of Online Review Mechanisms," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 349-368, September.
    3. Jiacong Wu & Yu Wang & Ru Zhang & Jing Cai, 2018. "An Approach to Discovering Product/Service Improvement Priorities: Using Dynamic Importance-Performance Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-26, October.
    4. Mutlu, Asli & Roy, Debraj & Filatova, Tatiana, 2023. "Capitalized value of evolving flood risks discount and nature-based solution premiums on property prices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. Ahmad Adeel & Bruno Notteboom & Ansar Yasar & Kris Scheerlinck & Jeroen Stevens, 2021. "Sustainable Streetscape and Built Environment Designs around BRT Stations: A Stated Choice Experiment Using 3D Visualizations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-21, June.
    6. Shuyue Huang & Lena Jingen Liang & Hwansuk Chris Choi, 2022. "How We Failed in Context: A Text-Mining Approach to Understanding Hotel Service Failures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-18, February.
    7. Carmela Iorio & Giuseppe Pandolfo & Antonio D’Ambrosio & Roberta Siciliano, 2020. "Mining big data in tourism," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(5), pages 1655-1669, December.
    8. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2023. "A one-hundred-year structural topic modeling analysis of the knowledge structure of international management research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3905-3935, August.
    9. Llorens-Marin Miguel & Hernandez Adolfo & Puelles-Gallo Maria, 2025. "Decoding hotel reviewers: Insights from a decision tree analysis," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 20(2), pages 81-92.
    10. Ian Sutherland & Kiattipoom Kiatkawsin, 2020. "Determinants of Guest Experience in Airbnb: A Topic Modeling Approach Using LDA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-16, April.
    11. Omer Unsal & M. Kabir Hassan, 2025. "Employee treatment and firm performance: evidence from topic modelling in lawsuit announcements," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 1-38, July.
    12. Boccali, Filippo & Mariani, Marcello M. & Visani, Franco & Mora-Cruz, Alexandra, 2022. "Innovative value-based price assessment in data-rich environments: Leveraging online review analytics through Data Envelopment Analysis to empower managers and entrepreneurs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Zeyu Chen & Stephanie Hui-Wen Chuah & Kandappan Balasubramanian, 2025. "Be Smart, but Not Humanless? Prioritizing the Improvement of Service Attributes in Smart Hotels Based on an Online Reviews-Driven Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-22, April.
    14. Ahani, Ali & Nilashi, Mehrbakhsh & Yadegaridehkordi, Elaheh & Sanzogni, Louis & Tarik, A. Rashid & Knox, Kathy & Samad, Sarminah & Ibrahim, Othman, 2019. "Revealing customers’ satisfaction and preferences through online review analysis: The case of Canary Islands hotels," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 331-343.
    15. Qureshi, Salman & Tarashkar, Mahsa & Matloobi, Mansour & Wang, Zhifang & Rahimi, Akbar, 2022. "Understanding the dynamics of urban horticulture by socially-oriented practices and populace perception: Seeking future outlook through a comprehensive review," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    16. Xue, Lan & Leung, Xi Y. & Ma, Shihan (David), 2022. "What makes a good “guest”: Evidence from Airbnb hosts' reviews," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    17. Xiao-kang Wang & Sheng-hui Wang & Hong-yu Zhang & Jian-qiang Wang & Lin Li, 2021. "The Recommendation Method for Hotel Selection Under Traveller Preference Characteristics: A Cloud-Based Multi-Criteria Group Decision Support Model," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 30(6), pages 1433-1469, December.
    18. Carolyn Whitzman, 2016. "‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’: the powers and limitations of urban design education," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 574-576, September.
    19. Guarini, Maria Rosaria & Roma, Antonella & Sabatelli, Emma & Segura-de-la-Cal, Alejandro, 2025. "Intrinsic and extrinsic attributes in real estate pricing: Insights for sustainable urban planning strategies," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    20. Liu, Yuqing & Schuberth, Florian & Liu, Yide & Henseler, Jörg, 2022. "Modeling and assessing forged concepts in tourism and hospitality using confirmatory composite analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 221-230.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:19:p:8036-:d:421338. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.