Studying the impact of land use distribution on citizen's health (A case study of Babolsar)

Introduction The physical expansion of cities and continued use of automobiles underlie many problems of urban world. North of Iran with its unique natural potential is one of the rapid growing centers in response to the increasing level of inter and infra provincial migrants. Thus, now inactivity is a part of problems emerging in small urban centers due to sprawl growth, unplanned development, shortage of public services, and an increase of physical and mental health problems. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impacts of land use and its arrangement on the citizens’ health in one of the coastal cities with cultural and tourism function of the Caspian Sea.
New studies indicated that physical activity is a precondition for people’s health in cities and urban planners have a great responsibility to plan and design spaces which provide opportunities for physical activities such as walking. The concept of urban form includes designing buildings, and in other words, arrangement of all urban elements in a city. Thus, city form or quality of land use distribution determines the modes of transport and people’s mobility. A healthy environment provides opportunities for citizens to walk in cities, communicate with people, and enjoy their life in the city. The theory of sustainable development following the 21 agenda showed that urban planners should create spaces which limit the use of personal cars and encourage walking. Also, in new urbanism, cities are seen as segments of natural environment which should be preserved from pollution and irregular growth. Today, sprawl expansion of cities has threatened natural resources of urban areas by consuming vast energy. Hence, the main priority of an urban planner should be the development of walking-friendly environment in cities and towns.
Methodology The methodology of the research is based on descriptive and analytical approaches which has accompanied with conducting a fieldwork to complete the given questionnaires via cluster sampling. The city of Babolsar as a cultural and tourism center was chosen. Accordingly, the land use mix of each neighborhood was determined using Shannon Entropy by Frank walkability index. Then, the data were processed using SPSS and analyzed through parametric statistical methods.
Results Based on the research process, three components were considered to calculate the level of walkability. These components include accessibility to shopping centers, parks and schools in the sample neighborhoods. The results are classified in three categories as high, medium, and low accessibility. The one tailed T-test revealed that the significance level is less than 0.05 and that the null hypothesis was rejected. Also, there was a significant difference in the level of accessibility among different uses. The findings indicated that, in general, 32 percent of neighborhoods had a high level of walkability, 27 percent had a medium level of walkability, and 41 percent showed low level of walking in their neighborhoods. The walkability index indicated that nine areas of the city had the lowest accessibility while only the residents of four neighborhoods had high level of walkability level to reach shopping centers, parks, and schools.
Regarding the results of the research it seems that the quality of the streets and distance between home and destination can affect the level of walking. The arrangement of different land uses can encourage physical activities. As in areas with lower access to three destinations of shopping center, park, and schools people were less keen to walk while in neighborhoods with higher access to public facilities people had greater level of physical activities. Moreover, the area with higher mixed use and higher connectivity encouraged people to take a walk for doing their daily attendance in three public spaces.
Conclusion The environment with a higher public health could be considered as the reflection of a good planning procedure. The present research revealed that there is a positive relationship among the level of mixed use, residential density, and level of connectivity of conjunctions. The results of this study have been in line with other similar studies and supported the idea of mixed use for more physical movement and the pattern of urban transportation. The travel behavior of residents in the city showed that using public transportation, bicycles, and walking can upgrade the environmental health through urban land use planning.