Assessing urban-park governance priority for regreening in high-density cities

• Develop a tool for assessing UGP that can support multi-scale regreening planning in high-density cities. • Integrally measure disparate factors through a demand–supply framework. • Identification of Key Areas of Supply-Demand Imbalance and Governance Priority in Urban-Parks across Multiple Scales. • Established a bridge between academic research and practical planning for urban-parks in high-density cities. High-density cities are confronting a growing demand for refined urban-park governance, posing significant challenges for identifying governance priorities across multiple scales. In this study, we developed the Tool for Assessing Urban-park Governance Priority (TAUGP), designed to support multi-scale planning for greening governance in high-density cities. Using the central city area of Shanghai, a typical high-density city in China, as a case study, we established a supply–demand framework: the supply side assessed urban-park governance suitability (UGS) based on ecological capacity and recreation capacity, while the demand side measured high-density demand intensity (HDI) using population density, land use, building blocks, and traffic organization. Utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we evaluated the levels of supply and demand and their spatial clustering characteristics. This enabled the identification of key areas experiencing supply–demand mismatch and the delineation of governance priorities (UGP) at multiple scales (district scale, street scale, community scale). The results indicate that: (1) TAUGP significantly enhances the precision and comprehensiveness of governance information processing by integrating multi-source data; (2) The composite supply level exhibits a “low center, high periphery” spatial pattern, while the demand pattern shows the opposite trend; (3) Priority governance areas are concentrated in districts such as Jing’an, Hongkou, and Huangpu, and diffuse westward into the Pudong New Area as the scale becomes finer. The multi-scale integrated assessment framework developed in this study overcomes the limitations of traditional tools in integrating multi-dimensional data and analyzing spatial heterogeneity. It provides a scientific basis for decision-makers to accurately identify priority areas for resource allocation and implement tiered governance strategies. This tool is applicable for exploring urban-park supply–demand states and governance optimization in similar high-density cities.