Evaluation of Spatial Justice Measurement Methods in Urban Land-Use Distribution, Case Study: Qazvin

Due to their complicated multidimensional nature, cities are linked to some principles and fundamentals from different human sciences. City’s confrontation with critical and idealistic concept of Social Equity, obtained from political and social sciences while forms a multi-dimensional concept known as Spatial Equity. The necessity for justice in urban facilities distribution is something reasonable, yet how to measure it is a big question. In this research, evaluating spatial justice measurement methods and their appropriate applications is considered as the main objective and measuring the amount of spatial justice in neighborhood facilities distribution in Qazvin, as a following one. In this regard, three methods of Cumulative Opportunities, Competition Factors in Accessibility and Place Rank are introduced as efficient methods in this subject. In addition, their practical application in a case study, neighborhood facilities of Qazvin, is evaluated comparatively. Research results show a relatively high imbalance in neighborhood facilities distribution of Qazvin (primary school and green space) but regarding to the details and amount of such imbalance, meaningful differences are found in results of presented methods. Comparison of these findings, with two independent approaches, ended in some results showing appropriate and efficient applications for each of these methods. Through first approach, after identifying areas with highest accessibility ranking in each method, the difference among those ranks is analyzed comparatively. In second one, the amount of conformability between results obtained using each method and citizen’s imagination about facilities accessibility is considered. Accordingly, choosing a suitable evaluation method is completely bound to the nature of study, its goals and characteristics of case study. Research findings show that place- rank method will be useful just when land-use and transportation analyses are considered simultaneously. According to findings from comparisons of methods, cumulative opportunities method can be considered as an efficient method for measuring spatial equity level if urban areas are monotonous from population distribution point of view and the capacity of service units is relatively similar and homogenous. On the other side, due to its easiness, this method seems to be the best one for a quick and short investigation. In competition method, considering the capacity of facilities supply in service units and the level of demand for each unit, two limitations of the former method were eliminated. It seems that the only issue which will possibly cause errors for applying this method is developing and forming areas of the city. Moreover, if the facilities exist, due to low resident population, the ratio of supply to demand will show a high value. Some northern parts of Qazvin face such condition and considering rank of access to facilities by using competition method, they are falsely considered in appropriate access to facilities. Finally, results of comparative assessment of methods show that, based on kinds of factors and their correlation, each method considers equitable accessibility from a different points of view. Therefore, selecting an appropriate method is dependent on planners’ goals and characteristics of the place being studied. Regarding to this, considering current case study, place’s ranking will be applicable just in investigations related to integrated plan of land- use and transportation, where their effects on access level is considered. In addition, it seems that if our goal is to investigate areas separately, due to relative uniformity of physical and social conditions in each area, cumulative opportunities method is appropriate as a simple short method. Besides, if accessibility measurement is simultaneously considered in all areas- as it is in current research- with a little overlook and omitting northern part of the city which includes the areas being formed, competition factors method seems to be more appropriate for measuring spatial equity level. In addition, results of investigating the conformity of objective values obtained from methods to citizens’ idea about accessing show the highest conformity between objective and subjective access in competition factor, then in a short distance from it, there exists cumulative opportunities method. Place-rank method is in a farther distance from two other ones, in this regard. In this manner, based on the values obtained from competition factors method, the level of access to schools throughout Qazvin’s zones, according to its actual values is from 0 to 222, with an average of 22.68, and standard deviation of 0.0191. These actual values are between 0 to 2000 for local green space with an average of 151.17 and standard deviation of 0.043, where a severe imbalance is explicitly seen; particularly in acquiring facilities (especially local green space). This can be occurred due to lack of an integrated land-use and transportation planning which despite of its increasing importance and proved efficiency is still neglected in cities like Qazvin. So, to improve the equity in distribution of local facilities of this city, integration of these two fields will be the first step. It also seems that in future studies, considering economic potential and social conditions of inhabitants in spatial equity measurement factors can help to improve equitable landuse distribution.