The Study On Spatial Need And Supply Of Urban Residents’Leisure-Time Physical Activity

As a part of urban, urban sports space is the main basis and material carrier ofurban residents’ leisure-time physical activity. The urban sports space directlyinfluences the scope, depth, and effectiveness of residents’ leisure-time physicalactivity.The present study focuses on such two subjects as ‘human’ and ‘Spatial’and examined the need of urban residents’ leisure-time physical activity by usingsome theories of city geography, city sociology, leisure science, and sports science.Furthermore, the study explores the quality of city leisure-time physical activity spaceby analyzing the structure of leisure-time physical activity space. Finally, the studyproposes the implication and strategies to develop urban space of leisure-timephysical activity.The study uses Shanghai city as a sample. By utilizing such research methodsas literature reading, survey, observation, interview, and case study, the present studyexamines the need and supply of Shanghai residents’ leisure-time physical activityspace. This study also uses the analytic tool of geographic information space todiscuss some problems, to search for solution, and finally to propose suggestions andimplications.The results are showed as follows:(1) With the development of social economy and improvement of people lifequality, the need of people’s leisure life increasingly varied. Leisure sport wasaddressed by people as a part of their daily life and it directly influences the lifequality. Therefore, it is meaningful to construct a supply system of city leisure-timephysical activity space to meet the diversified need of urban residents. The study usestheories of social geography to examine the city leisure space construction. It takesboth the material space of city leisure and behavioral space of residents’ leisure-timephysical activity into consideration.(2) The diversified and varied characteristics of the ways of the residents’leisure-time physical activity and needs of their leisure-time physical activity areshown by their preference, intention, and time and space need of residents’ leisureactivity. Several factors such as residents themselves, family, social level, and somepsychological factors such as leisure motivation and space perception influence theways of their leisure-time physical activity. (3) The psychological motivation for residents to choose leisure-time physicalactivity space consists of various levels. Through the analysis of motivation ofresidents’ temporal and spatial behavior of leisure-time physical activity, temporaland spatial behavior motivation was classified as two groups including the primaryneeds of health care and leisure and the advanced needs for the social relationship,development, and achievement sense. With the improvement of residents’ abilities,the motivation of leisure sport time and space behavior developed from primary toadvanced level, which shows the hierarchy characteristics.(4) The psychological perception of urban residents’ leisure time sports behaviorshowing a "quantity" and "quality" differences. Through the analysis of urbanresidents’ perceived spatial behavior, the factors of accessibility perception andreachability perception represents the "quantity" needs, while factors such as services,environment, adaptability, and other perceived factors stands for "quality" needs.With the increase of the demand of residents’ leisure life, leisure-time physicalactivity’ spatial behavior will develop to meet the increased needs from “quantity” to“quality”.(5) Urban residents leisure-time physical activity behavior spatial class can bedivided into urban leisure lifestyle features consistent with the general rule. From thetemporal perspective, although urban residents’ leisure time increased, the effectiveuse of the leisure physical activity time is still limited, which inhibit the leisurephysical activity of urban residents. From the spatial point of view, leisure-timephysical activity behavior spatial characteristics exhibit both traditional close-focusdistance decay spatial characteristics and traditional behavioral patterns and rules asDistance attenuation law, which also showed a weakening in distance constraints. Insummary，limited time inhibit leisure-time physical activity behavior more than thespace problems.(6) The spatial characteristics of Shanghai leisure-time physical activity facilitiesare as follows. First, leisure-time physical activity facilities in Shanghai arecollective. Second, leisure-time physical activity facilities in Shanghai are dispersed.Third, there are differences in the supply and layout of leisure-time physical activityfacilities in different spaces.(7) It is the future direction of development to provide more leisure-timephysical activity facilities and satisfy the diversified need of urban residents. With theextension of city and suburbanization of population, the supply of leisure-timephysical activity will also extend to suburban area. With the development ofintegration among suburban, rural area, and town, the improvement of transportation,and increase of residents’ consumption level, the differences between suburban andrural area is not apparent and the supply of leisure-time physical activity facilities willbe the same.(8) The first principle of developing urban leisure-time physical activity space isto meet the need of urban residents’ leisure-time physical activity. Furthermore, theprinciple of regional co-ordination, equity and diversity, and sustainable development should be also considered. The six perspectives including the central integration, RBDintegration, community integration, integration of city green space, waterfront spaceintegration, and traffic integration should be improved for the integrated optimizationmodel. Considering the future development of urban leisure space and realistic spaceresource structure, improving the layout of commercial circle is the ideal choice toalign with future development of sports space in Shanghai.