Accessibility to Health Infrastructure in Hill Settlements: A Case of Shimla

Abstract

Urban areas are spreading their extents rapidly across different geographic conditions and simultaneously affecting the hill topographies. This rampant development brings inequity in terms of access to services, and accessibility being a major factor affecting the livelihoods need special attention. Indian Cities generally has concentration of services in their core, bringing friction for residents living across the city, when accessibility is concerned. In hill cities, the accessibility parameters take account of multiple factors and majorly, topographic factors. Study enquires the relationship between residential choice and accessibility to health amenities for city of Shimla (H.P). As evident in hills, degraded accessibility in such areas can lead to multiple social disorder and sense of insecurity, along with added economic cost. Study measures the network accessibility analysis for health infrastructure in hill areas using FlowMap^® and GIS-based tools. In this study it has been tried to analyze how the different residential areas of Shimla perform in terms of network access to hospitals. Which can certainly be used in multiple urban planning decision and in diverse sectors.