Suitability Assessment of Rural Public Spaces and Facilities

Abstract

With the rapid change of rural communities and increasing desire for social welfare, the demand for the quality of public spaces and facilities is increasing. However, inefficient location of rural public space and facility has caused problems such as economic inefficiency, inconvenient accessibility, environmental pollution, unsustainable energy use, and disturbance of visual landscape. This study aims to evaluate suitability of public spaces and facilities in three types of rural village: rural downtown village, rural clustered village, and individual village. As a way to measure the suitability of public spaces and facilities, we assessed indicators of suitability in terms of accessibility, usability, biophysical environment, and sustainable management. To evaluate the accessibility, we applied indicators such as distance from residential areas, public transit, market and public facilities. For the evaluation of biophysical environment, we applied indicators such as slope, elevation, aspect, and occurrence of natural disasters. We analyzed digital maps representing the indicators listed above using GIS. We also conducted a survey and face-to-face interviews to evaluate usability and sustainability of management which are not possible to understand through maps. As a result, we identified that suitability of public spaces and facilities in downtown villages is higher than clustered and individual villages. In particular, suitability of infrastructure facilities, social welfare facilities, and income generation facilities in downtown village are higher than those in clustered and individual villages. The suitability of tourism facilities is generally lower than other types of public facility across the three types of villages. Tourism facilities in clustered village have been identified especially unsuitable compared to other types of villages. We expect the outcome of the research is helpful to improve allocation of public spaces and facilities in rural villages.