ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Urban Greening
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsc.2025.1519500
Personal characteristics, gardening engagement, and the value of local garden: a social and economic perspective
Provisionally accepted
- 1Korea national arboretum, Pocheon-si, Republic of Korea
- 2Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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In South Korea, government-led garden development has shifted gardens from private spaces to public domains. This study evaluates the economic value of gardens' social functions by analyzing the willingness-to-pay (WTP) and usage patterns of 759 visitors across seven local gardens. On average, visitors spent 77 minutes traveling, with women aged 50+ reporting high stability and healing. Middle-and low-income groups (incomes below 4 million KRW) had a WTP rate of 68.1%, and garden creation experience raised WTP to 70.5%. The estimated WTP was 5,932 KRW per person per day. These findings provide key evidence for policies addressing regional depopulation and social isolation.
Keywords: Local Garden1, Social Functions2, Willingness-to-pay3, Economic Value4, Contingent valuation method5
Received: 30 Oct 2024; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jeong, Park, Lee and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Miae Jeong, Korea national arboretum, Pocheon-si, Republic of Korea
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