Abstract
This paper examines the accessibility of urban green spaces within the Syrian city of Aleppo before the civil war using an environmental justice approach by indicating the current state of the parameters proximity and quantity in relation to the socioeconomic status of the inhabitants. Therefore, we conducted the average nearest neighbour analysis, facilities over and under coverage analysis, network analysis and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test followed by a post-hoc Tukey honestly significant difference (HSD) test. The findings clearly indicate that the spatial pattern of the distribution of public parks facilities was significantly clustered (p-value < 0.0001), with a z-score of −16.4. Several neighbourhoods within the western and central parts of the city were identified to have a higher density of facilities, while the majority of the neighbourhoods located in the marginal parts in eastern Aleppo (low income) lack access to urban green spaces. The hierarchy-wise analysis reveals a strong deficit of urban green spaces at lower hierarchies, for example pocket parks and neighbourhood parks, while access to quarter parks and district parks is high. The urban green spaces at higher hierarchies are located in high and middle socioeconomic status areas. Regarding social segregation in park distribution and their accessibility, the data showed that high income neighbourhoods enjoy a significantly higher percentage of park facilities. The approach presented in this paper offers a generic method for the future development of public green spaces for balanced and sustainable planning.
Highlights
Spatial equity to public park is an important measure of sustainability and sustainable cities should seek to offer equitable access to public facilities and amenities to all cohorts of their population [1,2,3]
Most cities aim to supply their citizens with public green spaces
Few cities have been able to devise a system of parks that provide their citizens with the spatial and social benefits of public green space [41]
Summary
Spatial equity to public park is an important measure of sustainability and sustainable cities should seek to offer equitable access to public facilities and amenities to all cohorts of their population [1,2,3]. In cities of the developing world like Syria, unplanned and informal settlements are increasingly affected by social and spatial inequality, resource consumption and environmental degradation [3]. Spatial expansion of Aleppo city has caused spatial changes in social structure. Migration from villages and small towns surrounding the city of Aleppo, especially in the east and south of Aleppo city in 1970–2010 due to climate change, comprised mainly of workers, has caused tremendous changes in the social structure and social polarization in the neighbourhoods [4]. We refer to Rigolon (2016) and Rigolon et al (2018), which demonstrate that accessibility can be measured by the Forests 2018, 9, 706; doi:10.3390/f9110706 www.mdpi.com/journal/forests
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