Spatial equity in urban facility versus residents’ satisfaction: challenge for the unplanned cities—a case study of Barasat city,India

Spatial equity in urban facilities or service distribution is considered as a critical determinant of the quality of urbanization. Spatial equity simply means the presence of adequate facilities and equal proximity. Many initiatives have mostly focused on one type of facility, obviating the holistic understanding of the equity of distribution of all basic facilities in cities. Moreover, the perceptions of the citizens in the process of planning are hardly considered. In this paper, an integrated facility-satisfaction index is presented to evaluate the balance between the distribution of facilities and the level of residents' satisfaction derived from those facilities. This method has taken all possible urban facilities and categorized them as educational, health, financial, recreation, and others. The per capita facility availability is calculated by incorporating the spatial distribution of urban facilities, the service range of facilities, population distribution, and weight. The proper weights have been given by employing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The satisfaction index has been derived from the citizens’ perception of each facility, marked on a 5-point Likert scale during the field survey. The paired-sample t-test demonstrated that there is a significant difference between the facility availability and satisfaction index at the significance level of 0.05. The application of the method is demonstrated in fast urbanizing Barasat city, West Bengal, India. Based on the degree of facility-satisfaction differences or correspondences, the entire region has been categorized into four zones viz. satisfied people with favorable facility availability, unsatisfied people with poor facility availability, unsatisfied people with relatively high facility availability, and satisfied people with relatively low facility availability. The pattern has been validated by identifying spatial clusters and spatial outliers of facility availability and satisfaction using local Moran’s I. This approach can help a city to distribute the facilities to satisfy the citizens of all corners which will help to overcome the constant problems of policy decisions without adequate and reliable information about the actual demand of the residents.