Accessibility of urban parks for older adults in post-industrial cities: the case of Sosnowiec, Poland

Population ageing increases the need for urban environments that support safe everyday physical activity, social interaction, and quality of life. This article assesses the network-based accessibility of designated urban parks for older adults in the post-industrial city of Sosnowiec. The study used registry data on residents aged 60 and over and park data from the Database of Topographic Objects (BDOT10k), supplemented and validated with OpenStreetMap (OSM). Accessibility was modelled as walking time along the pedestrian network. Three cumulative thresholds were analysed: 5, 10, and 15 minutes, corresponding to approximately 250, 500, and 750 m. Of 55,748 older adults, 19.28% were located within the 5-minute catchment of at least one park, 39.10% within the 10-minute catchment, and 56.86% within the 15-minute catchment. These results indicate limited coverage by designated parks under the adopted thresholds, and the coverage estimate was strongly dependent on the threshold selected. Park-level Gini coefficients of 0.461–0.486 and top-three shares of 39.8–41.5% show that exclusively assigned accessible residents were concentrated among a small number of parks. The findings support a dual planning strategy: maintaining highly accessible parks while developing smaller, proximate recreational spaces and reducing pedestrian barriers in underserved areas.