Persistent Nature-Led Public Life in Vancouver: A SARSE Assessment of Activity Durability and Spatial Readiness, 2018–2023

Abstract

In the case of nature-based vitality, there can be metrics such as quantity of green areas, park availability, or temporary increase in outdoor activities. All of the above approaches have some merit. Yet, they can conflate the temporary impact on visual attention with sustainable changes that will become visible after new routines have been formed. This paper introduces SARSE and applies it to Vancouver data from 2018 to 2023 in order to distinguish between temporary disruption-related reactions and persistent activity patterns as well as environmental and perceptual factors associated with both of them and with meaningful spatial structure. There is an extensive record of annually counted numbers of observations per each image-derived activity category, Moran’s \(I\), variance inflation values, and visitation correlations for Vancouver. The temporal component takes into account pre-disruption 2018-2019 state, 2020 shock effect ratio, persistent 2022-2023 period, terminal memory of 2023 year and volatility. The spatial readiness component encompasses spatial autocorrelation, multicollinearity handling and positive correlation with visitation counts. Urban Elements and Artistic Expression achieved the largest persistently observed expansion from \(B_g=269.5\) up to 4427 observations in 2023 years and attained \(A_g=2.54\) as well. Life and Cultural Activities, Street Landscapes and Life Scenes, Natural Landscapes and Greenery, Urban Built Form and Public Realm and Traffic categories have remained above the pre-disruption level. Flowers and Plants showed the largest 2020 shock ratio (\(S_g=8.50\)) but maintained rather weak 2023 memory (\(M_g=0.18\)). Sentiment Score and Red Maple provided the highest visitation-weighted spatial-readiness score, followed by Number of Parks, Pyramidal European Hornbeam, Tree Height 40-50 and Park Area factors.