2025/11/08 by Protik Bose Pranto, Pranto, Protik Bose, Md. Monirul Islam +6
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #Cultural Industries and Urban Development #FOS: Computer and information sciences #I.2.m #Library Science and Administration #Machine Learning (cs.LG) #Museums and Cultural Heritage
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.07475
openalex publication_date 2025/11/08 · openalex created_date 2025/11/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Cultural infrastructures, such as libraries, museums, theaters, and galleries, support learning, civic life, health, and local economies, yet access is uneven across cities. We present a novel, scalable, and open-data framework to measure spatial equity in cultural access. We map cultural infrastructures and compute a metric called Cultural Infrastructure Accessibility Score (CIAS) using exponential distance decay at fine spatial resolution, then aggregate the score per capita and integrate socio-demographic indicators. Interpretable tree-ensemble models with SHapley Additive exPlanation (SHAP) are used to explain associations between accessibility, income, density, and tract-level racial/ethnic composition. Results show a pronounced core-periphery gradient, where non-library cultural infrastructures cluster near urban cores, while libraries track density and provide broader coverage. Non-library accessibility is modestly higher in higher-income tracts, and library accessibility is slightly higher in denser, lower-income areas.