2026 Theses Master's

Parks, Design, and Community Stress: Lessons from East Brooklyn

Pacheco, Yerandy

This study examines whether differences in park design quality and investment scale correspond to differences in perceived stress among users of two large parks in East Brooklyn, New York. Focusing on Shirley Chisholm State Park — a 407-acre state park opened in 2019 with over $40 million in investment and designed with continuous waterfront access, car-free trails, and a dense amenity infrastructure — and Highland Park, a 141-acre municipal park shaped by over a century of incremental investment without a unifying design vision, this thesis investigates whether specific design choices, maintenance conditions, and investment structure are associated with lower perceived stress among park users. Data were collected through on-site surveys using the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and semi-structured interviews with park planners, landscape architects, and agency administrators. Quantitative data were analyzed using Ordinary Least Squares regression to test whether park location, perceived design quality, park engagement, and perceived safety are significantly associated with PSS-10 scores.

Findings reveal a statistically significant difference in mean PSS-10 scores between the two parks: Highland Park users reported a mean score of 17.1 compared to 12.9 among Shirley Chisholm users, a difference of approximately 4.2 points (p = 0.034). In the full regression model, visit frequency emerged as the strongest predictor of lower perceived stress, consistent with existing research linking sustained park engagement to mental health outcomes. Park location alone was not statistically significant after controlling for engagement patterns and other variables, suggesting that Shirley Chisholm’s ecological design advantage operates primarily by activating more frequent use rather than producing a direct, independent stress reduction effect. Qualitative interviews with four practitioners confirmed that park investment in New York City is shaped more by political relationships and institutional advocacy than by any systematic assessment of community need, and that the structure of investment — whether it arrives as a single, unified commitment or accumulates incrementally across decades — produces fundamentally different design outcomes regardless of the total amount spent.

The findings point toward several implications for park planning and policy: the need for a needs-based framework for park capital investment, design standards that accommodate ecological and nature-forward park environments, and transit connections that make purpose-built parks accessible to the communities they were built to serve. By linking specific design conditions and governance structures to perceived stress outcomes in a historically underinvested community, this study contributes original evidence to the relationship between park design quality and community mental health and informs how New York City and other municipalities might prioritize park investment as a form of preventive public health infrastructure.