Factors of Spatial Distribution of Recreation Areas in Peri-Urban Beijing

Introduction

Peri-urban recreation areas, as the main outdoor playing places for tourists and urban residents at leisure time, are important components of urban recreational system. In the last two decades, with the rapid expansion of urban built-up area in China, the isolation between human and nature turns to be distinct, and the conflict between leisure demands and recreation supplies becomes more and more acute. The tendency of metropolitan residents who escape from their routine life and touch the nature in peri-urban areas on weekends and holidays has turned to be a popularized. Recreation areas could be divided into three types: public recreation area, commercial recreation area and affiliated recreation area, according to suppliers, operators and objectives of land use and its service functions (Figure.1). Based on the case study of Beijing metropolis, the influencing factors of different types of peri-urban recreation areas are analyzed and the dominant factors for each type are identified by the methods of spatial division and statistical analysis, so as to provide significant guides for China’s urban tourism and recreation resources management and planning.

Figure 1.

Classification of recreation areas in suburbs

In contrast to the hundreds years’ development on empirical study in western countries, literature on tourism and recreation literature is still weak in China. Researches on recreation areas involve multi-disciplines, e.g. tourism, geography, urban and landscape sciences. Geographers and urban scholars began to showcase their concerns on the recreation phenomenon from the mid and later 19^th Century. They have pointed out a number of theories concerning the distribution of recreation areas, which have been applied to urban planning and construction. At the end of 1950s, the United States initiated a park movement and Central Park, New York, which was proposed by F.L.Olmsterd who pushed the movement to the summit. In the early of the twenties century, Wilderness Protection Regulation was enacted and implemented in national parks. These theories and practices assured that western countries kept harmony between human and nature in the process of urbanization. Functionalism urban planning, sprang up at the early stage of World War II, put the distribution of recreation areas on a very important position. After World War II, a number of researchers began to focus on recreation opportunity. Since 1960s, based on the tourist behavior investigation, researchers tried to divide the tourism space around the urban into different circle layers according to visiting probability. Wilderness Planning Manual recorded a relatively formal zoning method in the early time. In 1962, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) proposed a 6-division system. In 1982, the United States Forest Service drew up the 6-division system for Recreation Opportunity Spectrum, which is perceived as a widely used classification for tourism space: primitive, semi-primitive non-motorized, semi-primitive motorized, roaded natural, rural and urban. In 1977, Tourism and Recreation Development was published and its theory was approved and widely applied by tourism planners all over the world. It classified tourist destinations in suburbs according to capacity and described their features from the perspective of urban population, outdoor recreation behavior and types of tourist destination.