Assessing the accessibility of churches in Hong Kong for poor people

Abstract

Planning has an important role in tackling poverty as it can potentially influence people’s accessibility to amenities, services and economic opportunities. In addition to efforts from the Government, social organizations should also take great responsibility for poverty alleviation. Under the context, this dissertation aims to conduct a more detailed analysis based on a voluntary project initiated by the Hong Kong Church Network for the Poor to assess the accessibility of churches in Hong Kong.

Through literature review of key concepts involved and methods used in prior researches, a data analysis framework to assess the potential spatial accessibility of churches in Hong Kong is formulated by also considering the special study context, the availability of data and data resolution. This data analysis framework is implemented with the aid of ArcGIS. Firstly, the study area, which refers to the Tertiary Planning Unit with a large number of poor household, is identified as TPU 510 in Tin Shui Wai, TPU 326 in Kwai Chung and TPU 281 in Diamond Hill. And then the service area of existing churches is identified and visualized in ArcGIS to obtain a general ideal. To demonstrate the spatial variation of accessibility within same service area, a more detailed map of accessibility is calculated with the gravity-based method for a sample of buildings within the three TPUs. Finally service gap of churches within poor communities is obtained through comparing each building’s accessibility value with the average value of the community.

To supplement the quantitative analysis in ArcGIS, qualitative information is collected to discuss the influencing factors of revealed accessibility of churches by considering the non-spatial component in the study context, which includes the socio-economic, organizational and personal factors.

Based on the assessment results and analysis process, recommendations are made from different perspectives and for the purposes of enhancing both potential and revealed accessibility to service providers in future planning and creating better data base for further academic analysis.