The cost of building a public park or offering any kind of public good is deemed justifiable if it is used often and provides some form of social benefit. A public good, by definition, is a non-rival and non-excludable good, meaning that one person’s use does not deny or reduce someone else the use of that good, and that it is difficult to exclude someone from using the good. [1] A public park’s design, location, and facilities however, can sometimes deter people from accessing it. Allowing a large number of people into the park does not reduce the amount of park available to consumers, but eventually, additional visitors do reduce the benefit to other users. Parks can become crowded or their design may not suite the interests of certain groups of people. For a park to be deemed successful, it must meet the standards of public goods as best it can. By addressing non-rival and non-excludable use, a park is essentially dealing with the institution of equal accessibility, first envisioned by Frederick Law Olmsted. If a park is accessible to people regardless of their socioeconomic or geographic backgrounds and if it is large enough to cater to a diverse form of interests then the park has achieved equal accessibility. A park with equal accessibility, not just in terms of physical access, but in social use, is successful because it follows the criteria for a public good, which ultimately serves a social benefit. Central park is model of success, a public park that satisfies a diverse range of users, has a strategic location for optimal accessibility, and has strong imageability that enhances the user’s experience in the park in order to feel welcome.

Equal Accessibility significantly increases the potential for a park’s use and consequently increases the intangible benefits that the public good can offer its citizens. A park’s size and location, imageability, and range of features are all factors that affect accessibility. If a park does not cater to a diverse range of users, then the park fails to equally integrate citizens and will suffer lower numbers of use. If a park is small and poorly located in the city, only those who live nearby the park will use it and once again the number of visitors will dwindle. Imageability, or the quality in a physical surrounding which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any give observer, also factors into accessibility, since the park should be designed in such a way that promotes a strong presence both inside and out. [2]

Non-excludability was an issue addressed by Central Park’s designer in 1873, Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmstead understood that social equity was imperative to the success of the park. His goal was to make the experience of nature available to ordinary, working people living in modern, industrial cities, “The larger a town becomes simply because of its advantages for commercial purposes, the greater will be the convenience available to those who live in and near” [3]. With this logic, Olmsted envisioned Central Park’s role in the lives of New Yorkers as a benefit that all should enjoy, “We come to the question, what accommodations for recreation can we provide which shall be so agreeable and so accessible as to be efficiently attractive to the great body of citizens…and for the time being, to strongly counteract to the special enervating conditions of the town”[4]. TheGreensward Plan, The title of the park’s design plan, postulated what individuals from all social or economic backgrounds would do there: admire the artistically composed scenery, enjoy the spectacle of the crowd on the promenade, and engage in the wholesome exercise of driving, riding, walking, skating, and competitive sports.

Olmsted’s design for Central Park, although effective in meeting the criteria for promoting a diverse range of users, is only the first step in guaranteeing equal accessibility in the park.  Without some form of regulation by a party with vested interest in the park, maintaining the standard for a successful park would be nearly impossible. Central Park, even with Olmsted’s design, was not a pleasant place to be prior to the mid 1980’s with the creation of the Central Park Conservancy. Up until the 1980’s, Central Park was filthy, a place for the homeless, and a common scene for crime and drug use. [5] The Conservancy was founded as a private non-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving and maintaining the park and its operations, funds roughly 85% of the park’s 42.4 million dollar annual budget. They are responsible for the park’s rules, regulations, law enforcement, management, activities, events, and in some cases the biodiversity of the park. The Conservancy today works daily to clean up the park, maintain security and remove graffiti [6]. The enforced rules and regulations in the park are for the purpose of guaranteeing everyone’s satisfaction by allowing diverse activities within different sections of the park. For example, the area of the Central Park Conservancy Garden is to quite 24 hours a day, while other parts of the park are reserved for organized sports play or playgrounds for children. Driving is not permitted through the park after 7:00 pm and during special events in the park [7]. The many duties of the conservancy allow for greater accessibility to all, by creating safety, cleanliness, and an atmosphere that all can enjoy.

The Conservancy’s role in creating a welcoming atmosphere in Central Park is evidenced when observing how people use the park. By collecting our own data, we noted how many people used the park, at what time of day, and how they used it. Our observational study took place during the time of 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., between the areas of 59^thstreet to 72^nd street and 5^th avenue. Despite a rainy forecast, we observed a fairly numerous amount of activities in the park, ranging from organized sports play by children around the ages of 8-10 on grassy terrain, men and women reading on benches throughout the park, people walking in groups along the paths of the park and photography by tourists in landmark areas. Some areas of the park were more concentrated than others, but even in the areas with few people we could see a diverse range of uses of the park, such as filming and eating. Other areas, such as the spot with the Alice in Wonderland sculpture attracted attention and had a higher concentration of people taking pictures, eating and talking. Human activities such as running, reading were most often found in regions of the park with high traffic passing through. Paths roads and walkways were where we found most of these activities. The variety in social uses that we observed demonstrates the Conservancy’s success in maintaining a high level of accessibility in the park.

In addition to attracting people by incorporating a range of diverse features in the park, strong imageability is important because it allows users to experience better orientation within a space, which facilitates and encourages better use and participation in the space[8]. Urban planner and author Kevin Lynch outlines 5 main physical features which contribute to imageability:

• paths, the streets, sidewalks, trails, and other channels in which people travel;
• edges, perceived boundaries such as walls, buildings, and shorelines;
• districts, relatively large sections of the city distinguished by some identity or character;
• nodes, focal points, intersections or loci;
• landmarks, readily identifiable objects which serve as external reference points. [9]