Voices from the city: Sentiment across public open space types in Hong Kong before and during COVID-19

Understanding public sentiment toward public open spaces (POSs) is essential for sustainable urban planning, as these spaces support ecological, social, cultural, and recreational functions. However, despite the diversity of POSs, there has been limited research to systematically examine how public sentiment varies across different POS types. In addition to commercial and recreational features, environmental features such as greenery and waterfronts play a key role in shaping public perceptions. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered how these spaces are used and may have influenced emotional responses to environmental features. Against this background, this study examined the relationships between environmental features and public sentiment across three POS types (active, passive, and mixed), applying BERT-based sentiment analysis to more than 1.75 million geotagged tweets posted …