1. Introduction
Public fitness venues [
1], which are a part of the public service infrastructure to promote national fitness, are the main places for urban residents to undertake various fitness activities, and they are involved in improving the health of urban residents. National fitness is an important indicator of all citizens having a healthy life of, it is a reflection of a nation’s comprehensive strength, and an important approach to achieve nationwide health [
2]. With the benefits of steady economic development [
3], the living standards of urban residents have improved, thereby increasing the demand for sports, fitness, leisure, and recreation. However, rapid urbanization has compromised integrated planning to develop public fitness service facilities, urban road traffic networks, and community housing, thus resulting in an unbalanced supply and uneven spatial distribution of public fitness venues [
4]. Consequently, urban residents are unaware of the location of fitness centers [
5]. Therefore, based on the theories of the Healthy China initiative, the National Fitness initiative, and the equalization of basic public services [
6], studying the spatial distribution characteristics of urban public fitness venues will not only help to solve the problem of there being an insufficient number of fitness venues for urban residents, but also benefit the planning and development of cities [
7].
A previous study reported that a lack of physical activity centers hinders the physical activity of people and encourages people to use non-fitness venues to undertake physical activity [
8]. Numerous scholars have studied the spatial distribution of physical fitness venues from multiple perspectives. These studies have mostly compared the inter-regional spatial distribution of fitness venues, but there have been fewer studies on school sports venues. For example, a comparative study between urban and rural areas on the satisfaction of residents with urban and rural exercise facilities in China indicated that rural residents were more dissatisfied (by almost 16.1%) with their local public sports service system than urban residents were [
9]. Xiao believes that the distribution of sports venues is of great significance to mobilize the enthusiasm of primary and secondary school students to participate in sports activities and to promote their formation of good physical activity habits. Therefore, the studies of the distribution characteristics of primary and secondary school sports grounds in Nanchang are based on GIS technology [
10]. Other scholars have discussed the actual use and satisfaction towards school sport field facilities in elementary schools in Taichung City [
11]. Studies have focused on how different school ground environments can stimulate physical activity (PA) in children. The study found that the constructed schoolyard afforded a space of 44 m
2 per child, and they had access to sports and game courts and various types of equipment for PA [
12]. Furthermore, Duan compared the activity areas in two urban parks in China and Germany and found that men exercised more than women, who are less active [
13]. In addition, several studies have been conducted on the spatial pattern [
14,
15], equity [
16], and accessibility [
17] of physical fitness venues. Among these, accessibility analyses have been widely used in sports venue research. Cutumisu and Spence assessed the accessibility that people had to facilities using an enhanced two-step floating catchment area method, and they found that women and older adults were less physically active and that those with a higher self-efficacy used sports venues for physical activity more frequently [
18]. In addition, accessibility analyses have been widely used in spatial planning and analysis. Karusisi et al. examined the relationship between the accessibility to specific sports facilities and related sports practices, and they showed that the level of education and household income were associated with swimming activities and that the spatial accessibility to a pool was related to swimming by adjusting the personal environment [
19]. Furthermore, Bukers and Wibowo concluded that German gymnasiums are not easily accessible [
20].
Accessibility, which refers to the ease of communication between different spatial entities that are overcoming distance barriers [
21], has been widely considered in transportation planning [
22], urban planning [
23], and geography studies [
24]. Currently, the main methods for calculating accessibility are the cost–distance method [
25], the gravitational model method [
26], and the buffer zone analysis [
27]. The buffer zone essentially represents the topological data of a map patch consisting of polygons that separate a certain geographical target [
28]. The cost–distance method calculates the time that is required or the material that is consumed (generally, time, and money) to transport from a spatial point or an area to an urban green space [
29]. This method abstracts all of the targets as points during the evaluation; therefore, the error in the evaluation results is large [
30]. The gravity model method is suitable for urban or regional spatial-scale studies that do not require highly accurate results. The buffer zone analysis considers the road network, and its results can be used to visualize the accessibility to facilities that are in service and those that are under planning [
31]. Therefore, in the present study, the buffer zone analysis was selected for the accessibility calculations.
While studying urban accessibility, different scholars have drawn conclusions on the optimal travel time of urban residents, and the coverage and distribution characteristics of the urban green and blue spaces based on the data of population elements, hydrology, traffic, urban parks, and green spaces in the city, through buffer zone analysis, network analysis, walkability, and accessibility. Wustemann et al. studied the accessibility of urban households to blue spaces in Germany and showed that approximately 20% of German urban households are located at a maximum distance of 500 m from the nearest water source [
32]. Moreover, Silva et al. conducted an in-depth analysis of the role of environmental equity in the accessibility to green infrastructure in two European countries. The results showed that the availability and accessibility to public green spaces was higher in Tartu, Estonia, than in it was in Faro, Portugal [
33]. Das and Honiball, and Monteiro et al. analyzed the accessibility among South African urban parks [
34] and between garden and real cities [
35], respectively. They found that the ratio of the road network to the pedestrian facilities network, number of park entrance streets, park size (area), and park night-time illumination were the main variables affecting the accessibility of parks. Additionally, the accessibility in garden cities was better than that in real cities because there is less sprawl in the former. Yin at al. studied the neighborhood accessibility to subsidized housing in US cities and found that better walkability and accessibility measures, which were included in the affordable housing siting criteria, would encourage the development of revitalization strategies to improve the walking experience, services, and transportation [
36]. As such, the accessibility analysis enables an objective evaluation of the equity and convenience of the spatial distribution of urban parks, green spaces, and housing.
Previous studies on the accessibility to sports venues have focused on two aspects: the different levels of the areas and the different attributes of the people. The spatial analysis method has been mainly used to analyze the accessibility of sports venues at different regional levels. For example, when they considered the national sports characteristic town as the study site, Liu and Zhou showed that the topography, climate, economy, population density, and traffic conditions were the main factors causing an uneven spatial distribution [
37]. In addition, the spatial distribution characteristics of urban sports service facilities, urban fitness paths [
38], and school sports venues [
39] have been studied. Moreover, the accessibility to sports venues using different population attributes has been studied. For example, based on the fitness needs of the elderly population, Chun and Zheng found that the distribution of fitness venues in Nan gang District, Harbin, did not match the needs of the elderly population that were involved in fitness activities [
40]. Other studies on the accessibility to sports venues from the perspective of population geography [
41] have also been conducted.
In summary, the accessibility analysis has been applied to study the spatial distribution of sports venues, but most of the previous studies have focused on public sports venues or school venues, and studies that comparatively analyze the spatial distribution of both venue types are relatively few in number. Rung et al. found an association between the activity areas and the number of park users through a study of the relationship between the activity areas, the number of park users, and the level of physical activities in parks [
42]. Karusisi et al. also considered the number of sports facilities that there were around residences in a study of the relationship between spatial accessibility to specific sports facilities and physical practice issues. The number of fitness venues and the size of the area are important indicators of the adequacy of fitness venues in a certain area. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the number and area of public fitness venues in the city statistically and compared the differences between them in each district the city by calculating the percentage of the number of fitness venues and the size of the area in each district. Cranney et al. analyzed the number and location of outdoor gyms and the type of equipment in the outdoor gyms in Sydney, and they found that 36.8% of the gyms were located in the suburbs [
43]. Furthermore, it was suggested that increasing the accessibility to outdoor gyms through well-designed locations is an important public health strategy that is used to increase physical activities among at-risk populations. This study was conducted to understand the density of public gyms that are distributed in the study area by assessing the location of gyms in order to analyze the balance of the public gym distribution and then the spatial distribution characteristics. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to (1) analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of fitness venues from the perspective of the number of them and the area that they are in based on data of public fitness venues and school sports venues, (2) analyze the status of the accessibility to an urban “15-min fitness circle” by calculating the ratio of the service area to the service area in which the public fitness venues are located at 0–15 min distance using the buffer zone analysis, (3) compare and analyze the change in accessibility to an urban 15 min fitness circle by calculating the service area-to-service area ratio of the public fitness venues after considering school sports venues, and (4) demonstrate the necessity of opening school sports venues in the main city of Dalian through the abovementioned methods.
We explored following three questions:
Is the spatial distribution of public fitness venues in the city reasonable?
What is the accessibility to public fitness venues in the city? Does it meet the expectations of full coverage of the 15 min fitness circle?
What is the effect of opening school sports venues to the society on the accessibility to fitness venues in the city?
To address the first problem, by obtaining data on the location, number, and area of public fitness venues in the city, we found that the spatial distribution of public fitness venues in the city is uneven. To solve the second problem, we used a buffer zone analysis to study the current situation of the accessibility to public fitness venues in the city. By calculating the service area of each public fitness venue from 0 to 15 min, we found that the city did not reach the state of full coverage of the 15 min fitness circle. For the third problem, we included the school sports venues in the main urban area within the research scope and used the same method that is described above to calculate the service area of the fitness venues after increasing the range to include school sports venues. Through a comparative analysis, we found that the opening of school sports venues to society will lead to a substantial increase in the accessibility to fitness venues in the main urban area. The abovementioned three issues will be discussed in detail in the following sections.