More than a billion people in the worldsuffer from some kind of disability, which can affect quality of life. Somepeople experience physical or social disadvantages depending on the nature oftheir disabilities. The social disadvantages stem from civic policies that donot take into consideration the needs of disabled people, standards that arenot fulfilled and people’s prejudices. In this study, barriers that disabledpeople experience in physical and social environments are examined in terms ofopen areas and greenspaces. To this end, popular parks in Kastamonu from Turkeywere chosen as the study area. In the scope of the study, a questionnaire wasgiven to 124 disabled persons and the relatives of disabled persons and 382individuals who currently do not have any disabilities. Multivariate linearregression was used in order to evaluate the questionnaire data. The studyresults indicate that disabled individuals encounter physical and socialbarriers, and they also confirm that non-disabled people often complain aboutthe same problems as disabled people with regard to the management and runningof public parks. Moreover, the study reveals that the actions of public lawcorporations toward disabled people are not sufficient and public informationand awareness-raising activities also fall short.
Cite this paper as: Belkayalı, N., Güloğlu, Y., 2019. Physical and social barriers for disabled urban park users: case study from Kastamonu, Turkey. Forestist 69(1): 35-43.