Studies on social functions of the urban park greens in Changchun city

This paper adopted theoretical and empirical methods to study the urban parks in Changchun, China on their effects on urban life and their social functions. As is shown in the findings, urban parks serve as quiet places for the urban people to relax and to relieve stress against the hustle and bustle environment. They also serve as important places for urban people to get close to nature so that they have a positive influence on people´s mental and physiological health. In addition, urban parks provide people with opportunities for social interactions so that they have played an important role in promoting social interactions and community development, relieving people´s stress, strengthening their mental health, and increasing their social communications. This paper also adopted contingent value method to conduct quantitative evaluation of the social function value of the urban parks in Changchun. The result of evaluation shows that the urban parks provide the social function value worth 2.005 billion yuan per year according to Changchun urban population statistics (3.581 million). Research findings and results reveal that the social function of urban parks has become increasingly evident.