# Effect of Space Configurational Attributes on Social Interactions in Urban Parks
## 1 Introduction  
With urbanization and population aging, living alone and the corresponding social isolation has become an important problem in China and all over the world [1; 2; 3]. Urban parks, an essential component of the urban open spaces, were suggested to have the potential to improve physical activity and social interaction [4; 5; 6]. However, green resources are limited and unevenly distributed, especially in compact cities [6]. Therefore, how to improve the usage of urban parks has drawn attention from city administrators and designers. Numerous studies have been carried out to investigate the associations between park characteristics and the behavior of people in urban parks, which can inform park planning and design. Up until now, it has been well established that multiple factors could facilitate people's activities in urban parks, including park characteristics [7; 8; 9; 10], environment quality [11; 12], social-economic factors [13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18], and individual characteristics [19; 20; 21]. Proximity was suggested by previous studies as one of the key factors for park use [20; 22; 23]. People are more likely to engage in park use when there is a park nearby [20]. Moreover, park use was found to increase with the increase of park size [10] and the improvement of physical qualities of the park [7; 8; 24]. At the micro level, well-maintained infrastructure, facilities, and amenities have been found to support people's physical activities in urban parks [22]. Recently, increasing evidence has indicated that space configuration could also promote activities in urban parks [9; 23; 24; 25]. Since space configuration attributes provide a structure to locate other design elements, such as squares, street furniture, and pavilions, it is an essential design decision that needs to be made at the beginning stages. Therefore, quantitative analysis of space configurational attributes could provide valuable guidancefor landscape architects to enhance park use. At the city level, distance together with spatial factors calculated from road segments were found to be useful in improving the accessibility of the park [6; 21; 24; 26]. At the neighborhood level, sidewalks and intersections were found to have positive associations with park use [24; 25]. At the park level, pathway configuration attributes, integration for instance, were suggested to encourage senior walking behavior in urban parks [23]. To quantitatively analyze the spatial characteristics of urban parks, space syntax has been widely used [26; 27]. In space syntax, complex urban spaces are modeled as axial lines, which allows mathematical analysis of the configurational attributes of urban spaces [9; 28]. However, the existing literature mainly focuses on the overall use of and physical activity in parks. The association between spatial configurational attributes and social interactions remains in question. In the context of the urban environment, some exploratory studies have revealed the significant impact of space configurational features on social interactions within urban spaces [29; 30; 31]. [PERSON] et al. investigated the potential associations between spatial configuration and the possibility of socialization on school campuses [30]. Focusing on in-between spaces, [PERSON] and [PERSON] revealed that street connectivity is important for long-duration activities and social interactions [29]. As suggested by [PERSON] and [PERSON], social activities depend on the degree of permeability, and they noted that social interaction activities increased in the least connected areas [31]. However, few studies have examined the relationships between space configurational attributes and social interaction behaviors in the context of urban parks. To address the aforementioned gaps, this study aims to investigate the effect of space configurational attributes on social interaction activities in urban parks using space syntax theory. A segment model at the city level is established by merging a detailed park pathway model into a large city road model.