Spatial Analysis of Urban Poverty in Neighborhood Levels (case study: Mashhad city)

Generally, in developing countries urban growth overtakes the governments and municipalities’ capacity to provide appropriate infrastructure and services for their population. This has caused problems such as urban poverty to be intestified, especially in large cities of such countries. Ofcourse, providing any solution for organizing and reducing urban poverty is subject to determining the levels of urban poverty and its distribution pattern. So, this study is trying to provide a spatial analysis of urban poverty for the neighborhoods of Mashhad. In this research, urban poverty has been investigated in the form of three social, economic and physical dimensions by 30 indicators and using the statistical blocks of the 2011 census. The weighting of the research indices was done using the AHP method. ARC GIS 10.3 has been used to display and analyze the urban poverty in the neighborhoods. The research results show that the distribution pattern of poor neighborhoods in Mashhad follows a cluster pattern. The distribution of urban poverty clusters shows that the largest cluster is concentrated in the eastern part of Mashhad, although there is a small cluster of poverty in the northern part of the city. On the other hand, urban poverty clusters have focused in marginal neighborhoods in Mashhad, which indicates the need for more attention to these neighborhoods.