Small Public Green Spaces for Equitable Urban Regeneration: Community-Scale Compensation and Mismatch in Shenzhen, China

In land-scarce urban regeneration, small public green spaces (SPGSs) are increasingly used to improve everyday green-space access. However, their contribution to spatial provision equity in urban regeneration depends not only on how many small green spaces are built, but also on whether they compensate communities with greater spatial relief needs. Taking Shenzhen, China, as a case, this study develops a community-scale need–provision matching framework to evaluate the compensatory performance of 537 post-2016 SPGSs across 582 valid residential communities. Spatial relief needs were measured using a composite Spatial Relief Need Index (SRNI) based on traditional park deficiency, built-up intensity, and residential land concentration; the analysis therefore addresses spatial provision equity rather than broader social equity. SPGS provision was measured by distinguishing network-accessible SPGSs, evaluated through pedestrian-network accessibility, from residential-embedded SPGSs, evaluated as internal residential green-space supplementation. Communities were then classified into four compensation typologies: effective compensation, compensation failure, potential amplification (a diagnostic low-need–high-provision category), and low need–low provision. The results show that SPGS provision in Shenzhen is spatially fragmented and does not consistently align with high-need communities. Effective compensation occurred in 128 communities, while 163 high-need communities remained underprovided, and 163 lower-need communities received relatively high provision. Compensation failure and potential amplification together accounted for 56.0% of valid residential communities, exceeding the 50.0% random-label expectation (two-sided permutation p = 0.005), although the association was small (|φ| = 0.120). The traditional park deficit-supplementation and need-oriented compensation indicators yielded 58.8% and 44.0%, respectively; because their definitions and thresholds differ, this contrast is descriptive rather than a direct scale-effect estimate. The findings indicate that SPGS policy should move beyond project counts and coverage expansion toward community-scale, need-oriented allocation so that incremental greening can better support spatially responsive and sustainable urban regeneration.