Analysis of spatial Justice in distribution and access to gardens in Babol city

Improper spatial distribution of gardens at city levels can lead to low utility of the gardens, disturbance in the urban landscape, inadequate social interactions, management and maintenance problems, and reduced psychological and social security. Babol city as has faced increasing population over the past decades and the unimpeded construction. This has led to injustice in the distribution of public services, including gardens at city level. Accordingly, the purpose of the present study is to analyze the distribution of gardens at the level of Babol city by using spatial justice approach to determine the pattern of distribution and the extent of lack of access to the gardens, across Babol city.

The present study is applied the based on the purpose and nature and is descriptive-analytical in terms of method. The data on the gardens of Babol city were collected from the Babol municipality green space organization and matched with Google Earth, Open Street Map and field view.  To analyze the spatial distribution pattern of the gardens, models of directional distribution (standard deviational ellipse), mean center, multi-distance spatial cluster analysis and mean of nearest neighbor were used in Arc Gis software environment. Then, the radius of access to the gardens was determined by network analysis method. Finally, the radius of service and accessibility of the gardens was adapted to the population density of the neighborhoods of Babol city to determine the neighborhoods access to gardens.

The gardens have a north-south distribution at the level of Babol city. The center of gravity of the gardens is located in the city center and in neighborhood 6. The gardens have a scattered distribution across Babol and are randomly distributed and do not follow a specific pattern. By comparing access to different types of gardens with the population density of neighborhoods of Babol, it has been shown that downtown neighborhoods with high population density have good access to the gardens. It has also been found that there are no garden in the three overcrowded neighborhoods, including 14, 16 and 20, as well as in the eastern and western neighborhoods of the city.

The area of gardens per capita in Babol city is 0.73 square meters. According to the standard per square meter of 8 square meters in Iran, there is a deficit of 7.27 square meters at the city level. Therefore, despite the distribution pattern which is scattered, many neighborhoods are devoid of gardens and suffer from injustice in the distribution and access to the gardens. In particular, the shortage of neighborhood and urban gardens is extremely significant; therefore, in order to establish spatial justice in the distribution of gardens in Babol city, it is suggested to establish urban gardens in crowded neighborhoods without gardens, such as neighborhoods 14, 16 and 20 as well as in eastern and western neighborhoods of the city.