THE LOCATIONAL MEASURE IN THE PLANNING OF QARIAH MOSQUES

Abstract

Public facilities are vital to contributing positively to people’s quality of life. Facilities play an important role in cities by providing public services to communities. Therefore, planning equitable public facilities is crucial for planners to ensure that every citizen has equal access to the planned public facilities. Scholars have conducted various studies to assess the location and distribution of public facilities. Spatial equity is one aspect of locational measures used by scholars to determine the accessibility and spatial distribution of facilities in relation to the user’s location. Previous studies by researchers have focused on public facilities such as medical facilities, parks, and schools. However, there have been limited studies that evaluate the spatial equity of religious facilities such as mosques. Therefore, this study attempts to assess the location of qariah mosques (mosques of local jurisdiction) based on the spatial equity concept by measuring their spatial distribution and accessibility. The present study utilised a Geographical Information System (GIS) and used descriptive and statistical analyses to examine the spatial equity of 418 mosques in Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. GIS data was collected for this study, which includes mosques, populations, and mukim (township or sub-district) boundaries. The study used aggregated data from the population to identify the spatial pattern and spatial distribution of accessibility to mosques. The data was analysed using the container index and local indicators of spatial association (LISA) to assess the accessibility and spatial equity. This method utilised GIS capabilities to explore the spatial relationship between mosques and population characteristics. By adopting this approach, the findings of the study will reveal communities with limited accessibility to mosques.