Neighborhood Socio-Racial Composition and the Spatial Reach of Park Visitation in New York City

Static park-access measures do not show how far observed park visitation extends from residents’ home areas. This study examines neighborhood-level associations between socio-racial composition and the spatial reach of attributed park visits in New York City using 2023 Advan Weekly Patterns, American Community Survey data, park inventories, and built-environment measures. The local park-use ratio (LPUR) is the share of a census block group’s dwell-qualified attributed park visits reaching destinations within a prespecified 2 km Euclidean radius. Global and local Moran statistics described spatial clustering, and partial spatial Durbin models estimated neighborhood-level direct and total associations. LPUR was strongly clustered (Queen Moran’s I = 0.718; permutation p = 0.001). An interquartile-range increase in Non-White share was associated with a direct LPUR difference of −0.022 (95% CI −0.033 to −0.012) and a total difference of −0.065 (95% CI −0.103 to −0.026), alongside a total mean-distance difference of 0.750 km. Black and Asian shares showed negative total LPUR associations, whereas the Hispanic total estimate was imprecise. Park quality and local park supply were positively associated with LPUR. A separate descriptive analysis found less concentrated non-local destination distributions in higher-Non-White-share quartiles; it was not a statistical control in the spatial models. LPUR complements provision metrics by describing residential visitation reach, but neither LPUR nor the cross-sectional models can distinguish preference from constraint. The findings describe neighborhood composition, not visitor-level racial effects, and their behavioral interpretation remains sensitive to distance definition and commercial-panel coverage.