Study On The Structure Of Urban Public Sports Space

The contradiction between the urban residents’ needs for sports and thelack of urban public sports space is growing. On the one hand, because ofthe shortage of public sport space, people have to exercise in streets, lanes,road space or other public area, on the other hand, because of the lack offoresight for planning and construction of public sports space, the situationof uneven distribution, redundant construction and the waste of unusedspace still exists. How to plan the public sports space rationally and how touse it fairly and efficiently has become a practical problem.Based on the theory of Urban Space Structure, in this paper we willtake the city of Shanghai as an example to find out the shortcomings of thecurrent model of the central urban public sports space. And then we willdiscuss the ideal model fit for the city of Shanghai. At the same time, wewill try to find out the factors which affect the residents’ behavior of sportsactivities, and try to provide a good material carrier of inspiring theresidents’ enthusiasm for exercise, and of forming the residents’ healthysports lifestyle.This paper takes the central area of Shanghai as the sample. Themethods we adopt include documents analyse, interviewing experts andresidents and on-the-spot investigation. Importantly, we used ArcGISSpatial software to analyse the space structure of public sports space in thecentral area of the city in order to find out problems in its location andlayout. Finally, we will visualize the entire situation on diagrams. We hopethat our final analysis and conclusions could provide a valuable referencefor the relevant departments in making public sports space planningdecisions.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly, publicness is the basic attribute of public sports space. It ismainly reflected in the nonprofitness of the service and the supplier. Therationality of space structure will influence residents’ enthusiasm forexercise. Planning and construction of public sports space which could leadand motivate the residents’ positive enthusiasm for exercise is the importantcontent of urban public sports service, and it is also the important means ofNational Fitness Program.Secondly, because of its natural and geographical environment, urbanspatial structure and development trend, different city has differentrequirement for the layout of the space, but the general principle is fairnessand efficiency. Fairness and efficiency is a "double-edged sword", whichshould be used according to the actual situation. Excessive pursuit ofefficiency will lead to a too large urban public sports space service radius toaccess; Excessive pursuit of fairness will result in a too small and scatteredlayout pattern, which might lead to the waste of space. Specifically: therelevant departments should establish a reasonable hierarchy of the urban public sports space; determine a reasonable service radius according to thereachability of all levels of sports space; build and plan the urban publicsports space according to the urban living space; determine the number andscale of the urban public sports space according to the regional population(density) and long-term development goals.Thirdly, the overall service level of central area’s public sports space islow, and the street-level service is better. But residential area is seriouslyshort of public sports space, which not only affects the overall service level,but also restricts residents to participate in physical exercise; public sportsspace of all levels shows a "core-edge” structure characteristics withoutexception, and shows the prevalence of "domestic excellence, overseastroubles" situation, which mainly originate from the single model ofoutward expansion of the central area, and the configuration of the urbanpublic sports space can not keep up with the expansion of the living spacespeed. The main factors which affect the fairness and efficiency is thatpublic sports space structure does not coincide with the living space, theservice efficiency is not uniform, and aggregation extent have largedifferences.Fourthly, the sports activity regularity of residents who live in centralarea of Shanghai is correlated with the level of public sports space. Fromhigh to low, the randomicity rise. Residents’ public sports space isrelatively fixed. The diversification of the resident’s sports events and thelimit of their spare time are the two factors which influence thenonstationarity of their choice. Resident’s economic attribute and schoolinginfluence their choice of places. The starting point of resident’s sportsactivity trip is their habitation, from where to higher level public sportsspace the level of motorization is higher, but lower conversely. The mainrestricting factor of residents’ sport activity trip is spatial factor. Thefrequency of their sports activity reduces with the raise of trip distance.Fifthly, the finiteness of public sports space determines thediversification of its function, and the lack of urban public sports spaceprompt the development of diversification. The combination with otherspace elements not only expands the urban public sports space, but alsogives these urban elements new features, and promotes mutual integrationof athletics and fitness, sports and recreation, sports and culture.Sixthly, the construction of sports space which takes homogeneous cityelements as the carrier is a useful complement of the construction of urbanpublic sports space, but it does not mean reducing the number of sportsspace. The congestion of urban space decides that the specialized and thenon-specialized construction of public sports space should be takensimultaneously as the main strategy. At the same time we should form thespecial planning for urban public sports space which should be integratedinto the overall urban planning, in order to form a forward-looking guide ofthe siting and layout in urban regeneration, a fair and efficient structure of urban public sports space.In addition, from the perspective of low-carbon and green travelconcept, the public sports space based on residential area should be inwalking distance; the public sports space based on villages or towns areashould be accessible by non-motor vehicle; the public sports space based ondistrict (regional) or city area should be accessible by bus. The planningand construction of public sports space of Shanghai central area shouldfocus on the middle circle and the outer circle instead of the inter circle.