A Multidimensional Study on the Spatial Allocation of Pre-school Education Resources in River Valley Cities: Case study of Lanzhou

As the initial stage for children to receive knowledge systematically, pre-school education not only affects the quality of family life and happiness index, but also is an important indicator to measure the level of urban education development. Kindergarten is the main facility carrier of pre-school education. This study uses population census data and kindergarten degree and other multi-source data, based on the street scale, presents a systematic analysis of the spatial distribution of kindergarten, the relationship between the supply and demand of educational resources, accessibility, fairness in 51 streets in the central city of Lanzhou. The research is of great significance for optimizing the spatial distribution of preschool resources and adjusting the supply and equitable allocation of street-scale preschool resources. The results show that: 1) the spatial distribution of kindergartens is relatively uniform, showing the characteristics of ‘one core, four centres’ and east-west belt-shaped distribution. 2) The spatial distribution of school-age children roughly coincides with kindergartens, the overall mismatch between the supply of kindergarten places and the demand for the number of school-age children. with 13 streets are under supply of pre-school education resources and 38 streets are oversupply of pre-school education resources. 3) Within 300m, the number of streets with accessibility index of 0 accounted for 84.31%, and within 500m, the number of streets with accessibility index of 0 accounted for 58.82%. Along with the expansion of the search distance, the opportunity of enrolment increases, and the value of accessibility increases as well. 4) Lanzhou City preschool education resources in the range of 300-500m show inter-district overall equity and intra-district local imbalance, and in the range of 1000-1500m show inter-district overall imbalance and intra-district local equity. Finally, due to the limitations of data sources and precision, we have only discussed the allocation of preschool education resources at the street scale, and we have not been able to further analyses the differences in the access to preschool education resources, opportunities for enrolment in kindergartens, and the quality of education enjoyed by children of families from different strata at the residential scale. In the future, we will combine family income and other socio-economic factors to study social stratification and equal opportunities in preschool education resources, with a view to providing reference for strengthening the rational spatial distribution and coordinated development of preschool education resources in Lanzhou City.