Spatial analysis of urban Advanced Producer Services (APS) using spatial statistics, Case study: Ardabil city

The aim of the present study is to analyze the spatial distribution and to show the spatial patterns of advanced producer services (APS) in Ardabil; one of the middle-sized cities in Iran. Sample of the study comprises 2100 activity units in four groups of advanced services, including banking and financial services, healthcare and remedial, real estate, and insurance services. Documentary and field methods are applied for collecting and processing the data. Spatial statistical techniques such as Kernel Density, Average Nearest Neighbor, the local Moran statistics, Cluster and Outlier spatial analysis, Hot Spots and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) methods have been used in GIS environment for data analysis, density estimation, distribution pattern analysis and conceptualization of spatial relationships. The results show that, insurance and real estate consulting services are enjoying the highest levels of coverage around the city. The highest densities of ASPs belong to center and south parts of the city. The spatial pattern of the advanced services is spread in type. Spatial pattern and spatial distribution of insurance services and real estate consulting are dispersed around the city, but the spatial pattern of banking, health and remedial services are clustered. The gravity or central point of advanced services locates at the geographical center of the city and the movement path of the advanced services follows a north-south route. There is a significant relationship between population density and some kinds of advanced services. Finally, some recommendations are presented based on the findings of the study.