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Analysis of spatial (in)equality of urban facilities in Tehran: an integration of spatial accessibility

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Abstract

The urban expansion and growth of Tehran have caused many challenges and issues for the city, which has been shown in the form of spatial–social balances with informal expressions, weakness of local governments, biological pollution, etc. The lack of balance in urban service facilities has led to a significant gap in different parts of the city. In this research, main providers of urban facilities concerning spatial inequality were used. The results of this study, using spatial statistics methods and fuzzy logic, showed that the propellants of the city of Tehran are distributed in three ways: cluster, random, and disperse. Hospitals, police stations, subway lines, local governments, and gas stations are clustered. Fire stations, Red Crescent, food and wholesale centers, medical services, housing prices, bus terminals, and hotels are random. Ambulance services and sports clubs are dispersed. These ways of distribution have resulted in a significant difference in the use of services provided by residents of different regions and have contributed to unequal opportunities for citizens in the use of facilities. Deprived districts represent the fact that the urban population is growing faster than the necessary infrastructure which can be built by urban management. The least developed and underdeveloped areas are mostly in the south and southeast of Tehran city, the medium and relatively developed areas are located in the center and west of the city, and the developed areas are located in the north of the city. Findings in this paper are trying to provide main criteria and the results to have a rational assessment of the current situation in the city to solve problems to urban managers and planners, as well as policy and planning strategy for urban development programs to achieve urban sustainability.

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Notes

  1. US dollar equals 30,220 IRR of government (official) currency in 2016 (CBI, 2016).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to Kristin Anderson of the University of Oklahoma, the USA for the English language editing of the paper. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which have been very helpful in improving the paper. This work was supported by the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF).

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  1. Department of Human Geography, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Ali Hosseini, Ebrahim Farhadi , Fatema Hussaini, Ahmad Pourahmad & Nooshin Seraj Akbari

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  1. Ali Hosseini
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Hosseini, A., Farhadi , E., Hussaini, F. et al. Analysis of spatial (in)equality of urban facilities in Tehran: an integration of spatial accessibility. Environ Dev Sustain 24, 6527–6555 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01715-3

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