Urban parks and their accessibility in Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Parks play a vital role in the well-being of communities. The spaces covered by parks and their distribution within a city should therefore observe certain standards to provide a fair access for its residents. The purpose of this research was to investigate public parks and their accessibility in Tehran, Iran. We used a comparative evaluation method for the research, in which, along with descriptive statistical methods, a buffering technique in Geographic Information System was also applied. The findings of this study revealed that the indexes of "park ratio" and "per capita" for Tehran parks are below Iran standards. High disparities in the distribution of parks have contributed to unequal access of the inhabitants of the city to these parks. While some residents live within the vicinity of 11 parks, a large part of the city, about 26% of the city's area and 18.67% of the population, is not within the access areas of any park. Creation of smaller parks in certain parts of the city should alleviate the inequality.