An urban plan evaluation for park accessibility: a case in Izmir (Turkiye)

Abstract

Plan evaluations about park accessibility are rare at the neighbourhood scale. Moreover, urban plans traditionally identify park accessibility with predetermined measurements that may ignore limited walking conditions of children, the elderly, women with children, and low-income groups. Alternatively, this paper considers equitable (rather than equal) park accessibility as an important goal concerning environmental justice. To guide a path to achieving this goal, it investigates how to assess and revise urban plans with parks within walking distance to social groups in the case of a plan (1/1000 scale) in Izmir (Turkiye). Deployment of the location-allocation analysis (a multi-criteria assessment methodology in Geographic Information Systems, GIS) allows this research to consider physical/geographical barriers to walkability in actual neighbourhood settings and reconfigure such barriers as contextual variables, including limited walking distances of disadvantaged groups. Ultimately, this study also contributes to how to handle spatial and demographic data deficiencies in Turkiye when measuring equitable accessibility of public facilities by walking. Results identify an uneven distribution of park accessibility even within the neighbourhood on the plan and the potential for improving park accessibility by designing some non-park public lands with park features.