Assessment Of The Location And Availability Of Public Facilities And Services In Port Harcourt Metropolis In Rivers State Nigeria

ABSTRACT The continues increase in both urban and rural population has birthed the problem of inadequate availability of facilities and social services thus giving rise to social disparity and unequal access to basic facilities and services by people of the same population spectrum. Consequently the problem of social disparity inequality is on the increase and is gaining global and local attention. Despite the efforts of government to combat this social problem it is still raising its head in form of unequal access to educational facilities heath care good roads emergency services and etcetera. Hence the study was intended to ascertain whether or not there is disparity in distribution and access to facilities and services by assessing facilities and services in Port Harcourt City. The study adopted the simple random technique for data collection. Also primary and secondary data were the major data collected with the use of closed ended structured questionnaire. However the result of the study showed that income formed a major determining factor in the distribution of facilities and services in Port Harcourt while population threshold was not considered significantly in the study area. However the study revealed that there is gap in the distribution of facilities and services in Port Harcourt City. The recommendations included the involvement of the citizens at grass root in decision making facilities and services should be provided with respect to actual population on ground income level should not determine facilities and service distribution. The study concluded that there is disparity and unequal access in the distribution of social services and facilities.