Assessing disparities in open space provision for primary and secondary schools: A case study of high-density Hong Kong

Regular access to open spaces has been found to significantly improve the physical and mental well-being of primary and secondary school students. However, land scarcity in dense urban settings restricts the scale of on-campus open spaces. In response to this constraint, this study posits that urban open spaces adjacent to schools can supplement and compensate for inadequate on-campus open spaces. Taking high-density Hong Kong as a case, this study aims to evaluate the service provision of two types of open spaces: internal on-campus open spaces and external urban open spaces. An integrated framework is constructed to quantify provision disparities; cluster analysis is adopted to generalize typical patterns. The results reveal an undersupply of internal open spaces across most samples, validating the need for supplementary external open spaces. Significant provision disparities exist across districts and school types. Schools in old urban cores and industrial satellite towns provide poorer internal–external open space services than those in garden suburbs and new towns; this pattern is driven by regional development trajectories and planning doctrines. Meanwhile, school funding and site selection rules induce provision disparities among different school types. Schools in Hong Kong present five typical patterns of open space service provision: Balanced Intermediates, Internally Oriented, Internally Sufficient with Polarized Externalities, Comprehensive High Achievers, and Externally Oriented. In summary, this study establishes an evaluation framework for school internal and external open space provision and delivers actionable insights to integrate school and urban open space system planning for more equitable, healthy student environments in high-density cities.