Conservation Priorities for Open Space Access

Publicly accessible open spaces provide valuable opportunities for people to exercise, play, socialize, and build community. People are more likely to use public open spaces that are close (ideally within walking distance) to their homes. To assess the spatial distribution of access to open space for recreation in the southeastern United States, we constructed an index of open space access based on the size of the largest publicly accessible open space within 10 miles of each point on the landscape, using three distance categories to represent whether people can reach the open spaces by walking (within 0.5 mile), via a short drive (within 3 miles), or via a longer drive (within 10 miles). Using the open space access index, we identified regional priority areas at the county and Census block group scale based on the number of people who would have increased access to open space (within the three distance categories) if new open space were created within those areas.