Abstract

This study aimed at determining the effectiveness of public recreation opportunities generated by active green spaces and cultural places in Iskenderun city. The public recreation area assets were obtained as green space values per capita and indexed at the neighborhood level. The effectiveness of public recreational area opportunities for each neighborhood were estimated by distances between the centers of neighborhoods and the threshold distance between any active green space and the furthest residential housing. And firstly, the effectiveness change values were obtained for each neighborhood from these estimation results. The effectiveness change values were associated with per capita recreation area opportunities (per capita resource value) and thus effective public recreation area opportunities values were found. The received findings indicate that the active green spaces have an unbalanced allocation and this unbalance changes effectiveness of opportunities in the neighborhood. With reference to these findings, being a neighborhood close to other neighborhoods that have higher per capita resource values brings increasing effective opportunities for this neighborhood. On the contrary, to be close to neighborhoods that have high population density and less opportunities decrease effective opportunities because of high user density.

Keywords: Effective public recreation opportunities, active green spaces, cultural spaces, index values, effectiveness change values