The built environment and multidimensional poverty: exploring accessibility as a mediator of spatial opportunity

Abstract

While research has established links between the built environment and urban poverty, the mechanisms through which spatial opportunities influence multidimensional poverty remain poorly understood. This study examines how accessibility mediates the relationship between spatial opportunity and multidimensional poverty, while accounting for other built environment characteristics. Using household-level data, we applied structural equation modelling to analyse the complex pathways through which spatial opportunity affects poverty via accessibility, alongside considering the influence of density, design, distance to public transport, and diversity. The research reveals that accessibility plays a crucial mediating role, enabling spatial opportunities to translate into tangible reductions in multidimensional poverty. Specifically, while spatial opportunity alone may not guarantee poverty reduction, improvements in accessibility significantly enhance the potential positive impact of these opportunities. Furthermore, the study identifies distance to public transport as a factor positively associated with multidimensional poverty, and diversity exhibiting a negative association. The findings suggest that simply changing spatial opportunities may be insufficient for poverty reduction; accessibility plays a crucial mediating role that must be considered in urban interventions. The findings suggest that urban interventions aimed at poverty reduction should prioritise enhancing accessibility to existing and new spatial opportunities. This study advances our understanding of how built environment interventions can address urban poverty by highlighting the conditional importance of accessibility in shaping the relationship between spatial opportunities and poverty, and by underscoring the need for careful consideration of local context when designing urban interventions.