Analyzing the distribution of public land use from the spatial justice perspective: A case study of 10 districts of Shiraz Metropolitan

A B S T R A C T
In today’s cities, a primary objective of the distribution of public land use zones is to achieve spatial justice. The absence of this justice has serious impacts on the nature and structure of the city and eventually leads to class division, which will impose even more challenges on urban management. This descriptive-analytical research aimed to analyze the inequalities in the distribution of public land use zones in Shiraz, Iran, from the spatial justice perspective based on library and field studies with the help of GIS. The distribution of land use zones that accommodate urban services over the study area was analyzed in a comparative fashion. After examining the disparities in the distribution of different types of public land use, it was found that the study area has a better condition in terms of office, tourism and hospitality land uses than in terms of other land uses. Unfortunately, sports, education, and utility land uses were found to be in critical condition. The results showed that in Shiraz, district 1 has the highest public land use per capita and districts 4 and 5 have the worst conditions in this respect. This suggests a lack of order in the spatial distribution of zones, especially in relation to population and land use. Hence, the urban management of this city needs to pay more attention to the disadvantaged districts in order to close the gaps in terms of mentioned criteria.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
In developing countries, land use planning is a complex challenge that requires attention to issues far beyond the mere planning. Examination of the distribution of land use zones contributes to achieving the goals of urban development by providing a clear picture of the current urban landscape and allocation of urban spaces, and their developments over time. The issue of spatial justice, while being important in essence and definition is also essential because of its social, economic, and physical implications for the city. Because of this ambiguity, many researchers assess the spatial justice in terms of distribution of services based on a combination of criteria such as per capita indicators, access radius, service efficiency, etc. The issue is that the effect of traffic, noise pollution, and air pollution on the one hand and the absorption of complementary and parallel land use zones. Spatial thinking about justice makes the practical knowledge more efficient for achieving justice and democracy; therefore, planners should seek to find out how much inequality has been created and which departments are most deprived in the pattern of location services and how they are distributed. In the majority of previous studies, the emphasis is on land use and fewer public utilities have been considered. Therefore, this research has been conducted in the context of the analysis of the distribution of urban utilities from the perspective of spatial justice (case study of 10 provinces of the metropolitan area of Shiraz) seeking to measure the distribution of public usage and its spatial distribution pattern in the city of Shiraz to assess its fairness.
The aim of this research is, therefore, to investigate the type and distribution of public land use zones in the districts of Shiraz in order to determine the advantaged and disadvantaged districts and ultimately the extent of spatial justice in the allocation of urban facilities and resources. In order to aid the urban management to acknowledge and fight the disparities between the districts of Shiraz, the research seeks to answer the following questions:
- How is the spatial distribution of urban
 
land use zones in Shiraz?
- Is there a difference between the districts of Shiraz in terms of access to public facilities and services?
 
Methodology
This research is a descriptive evaluation performed based on library resources with GIS data, satellite imagery and maps, and confirmed statistics used to analyze the land use changes and the distribution of public land use zones in the districts of Shiraz over the past decades. Satellite images of Shiraz over different periods were processed using a remote sensing software and required data were produced based on GIS Ready maps and satellite images. After tabulating the gathered data, using ArcGIS to study the distribution of public land use zones, and using Excel to calculate the land use per capita available to each zone, each district’s shortage of each type of public land use zone was determined. Ultimately, the obtained results were used to draw a map of public land use shortage.
 
Results and discussion
Districts are not very well-suited for public utilities and is inadequate in terms of educational, religious, and cultural uses, sports, and equipment. In 1 district most common lack of utilization of facilities and equipment is 3.42 meters, which has the capacity to develop intermediate (unused and inappropriate uses) in this area to compensate for these shortcomings and achieve standard per capita in these applications. In general, the region 2 municipality, has a per capita deficit of 11.73 meters. It is in good condition in terms of health and medical applications. In general, the area of 3 district has a per capita footprint of 12.17 meters. The greatest shortage is related to the use of facilities and equipment with 4.66 meters. In district 4, the largest shortage of per capita use of facilities and equipment is 3.84 meters and training use is 1.91 meters. District 5 is inadequate in terms of public utilities. This area is in good condition due to its administrative use and it is inadequate in terms of religious, cultural and green areas. This area is 15.59 meters second in terms of the lack of per capita use among Shiraz Municipality. The largest shortage of per capita in 6 district is related to the use of facilities and equipment with 4.26 meters and green space usage of 2.36 meters. The area of 7 district is also in bad condition in terms of public utilities. In the field of educational applications, facilities and equipment, health and medical and sports facilities is in critical condition and in terms of religious and cultural applications, tourism and green spaces is in poor condition and only in standard administrative use is standard per capita. The highest per capita consumption of green space in district 8 is 7.03 m, the use of facilities and equipment is 4.97 m, and the use of sports is 1.87 m. This area of 9 district is not very well-suited for public utilities, but in other parts of the city of Shiraz it is better in terms of per capita. In the field of educational and tourism applications, there is a lot of shortage and is in critical condition. The highest per capita shortage in 10 district is related to educational applications with 2.13 m sports with 1.87 m and 0.55 m health care.
 
Conclusion
The results showed that in Shiraz, district 1 has the highest public land use per capita and districts 4 and 5 have the worst conditions in this respect. This suggests a lack of order in the spatial distribution of zones, especially in relation to population and land use. Hence, the urban management of this city needs to pay more attention to the disadvantaged districts in order to close the gaps in terms of mentioned criteria.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
 We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.