Search Results (9)

With the acceleration of urbanization, the accessibility and equity of urban green spaces have become crucial issues in urban planning and public health. In the context of the 15-min living circle, whether residents can conveniently reach parks within a walkable or bikeable time frame directly impacts their quality of life and social well-being. Traditional park accessibility evaluation methods, such as the G2SFCA, effectively measure accessibility but fail to fully account for the diversity of travel modes and the impact of regional disparities on equity. This study employs the TB-G2SFCA method, integrating the concept of the 15-min living circle, to analyze the equity of park accessibility in the Dianchi Lake ring area of Kunming under different travel modes. The findings reveal significant disparities in park accessibility for walking and cycling, particularly in suburban communities distant from the city center, where many areas cannot reach a park within 15 min. Although accessibility improves under driving and public transit modes, resources remain concentrated in well-connected areas, leaving peripheral regions with insufficient access. Compared to the traditional G2SFCA method, the TB-G2SFCA approach more accurately reflects spatial differences and equity issues across travel modes. This study suggests that future urban park planning should optimize resource allocation, improve transportation networks, and enhance park accessibility in peripheral areas—especially for walking and cycling—to achieve a more equitable and sustainable distribution of urban green spaces. Full article

A future community is a community with the core mission of realizing people’s vision of a better life, focusing on meeting the all-round life needs of community residents. Residents’ participation in the construction of a future community is also regarded as one of the core driving forces to promote the sustainable development and innovation of future community construction. Therefore, to better facilitate the construction of future communities, based on relevant studies at home and abroad, this thesis combines questionnaire surveys and expert interviews, identifies 20 driving factors from five levels of human nature, ecology, intelligence, convenience, livability, etc., according to which it constructs a system dynamics model and carries out a simulation analysis, observes the effects of the driving factors at each level on residents’ sense of belonging and sense of participation, and finally, the results of the analyses are combined to put forward relevant suggestions for future community building. The results of this study show that residents’ perception of future community construction, their demand for intelligent life, the degree of promotion of a 15 min community living circle, and the degree of improvement of a community’s disaster warning and emergency response mechanism are the key factors driving resident participation in the construction of a future community, with residents’ demand for intelligence at different times being the most central driving factor. The research results of this thesis provide theoretical references for stimulating resident participation and building livable future communities while offering insights applicable to global contexts, particularly in regions undergoing rapid urbanization and digital transformation. Full article

Spatial planning requires ensuring the legality, uniformity, authority, and relevance of data. Blockchain technology, characterized by tamper-proofing, complete record-keeping, and process traceability, may effectively organize and manage spatial planning data. This study introduces blockchain technology to address common spatial planning problems, such as planning overlaps and conflicts. We developed a block structure, chain structure, and consensus algorithms tailored for spatial planning. To meet the data management requirements of these structures, we devised a primary unit division method based on the space and population standards of the 15 min life circle, using the Point Cloud Density Tiler. The validation experiments were conducted using the Hyperledger Fabric 2.0 technology framework in Changsha City, Hunan Province, China, with the division method validated against the number and distribution of public service facilities. The validation results show that during the data storage process, the block size remains below 1.00 MB, the data redundancy is up to 21.30%, the consensus verification rate is 150.33 times per second, the block generation rate is 20.83 blocks per minute, and the equivalent data throughput is 12.21 transactions per second. This demonstrates that the proposed method effectively addresses the challenges of block size, data redundancy, consensus algorithm efficiency, and data throughput in blockchain technology. The findings demonstrate that the structures ensure legal, uniform, and authoritative spatial planning, and advance the application of blockchain technology in relevant fields. Additionally, we explored the application of a blockchain data structure in spatial planning monitoring and early warning. This technology can be further studied and applied in related fields. Full article

Neighbourhood social cohesion has emerged as a prominent concern in urban governance worldwide. As the primary domain of residents’ daily activities, the community life circle contributes to neighbourly interaction and social cohesion. This study investigates the role of space use within the community life circle in promoting social cohesion in Chongqing, China. Through an in-depth activity diary survey and structural equation model analysis, we empirically examine the interplay between community space use, neighbourly interaction, and social cohesion. Our findings suggest that the 15 min community life circle plays a crucial role in residents’ daily lives, particularly among senior residents. However, the contribution of community space use to social cohesion is fully mediated by neighbourly interaction. Furthermore, not all patterns of community space use contribute to social cohesion equally; space use engaged with diverse companions on workdays significantly enhances neighbourly interaction and social cohesion. The study enriches the existing literature by deepening our understanding of the role of the community life circle in fostering socially cohesive and sustainable neighbourhoods. Full article

In the current stage of urbanization in China, urban construction has gradually shifted from incremental construction dominated by real estate to stock transformation based on improving urban quality. The evaluation of urban renewal projects is crucial for decision-making and resource allocation. However, there is no consensus on the evaluation indicators and methods. This study evaluates the current status of urban quality using the MABAC method based on numerical indicators. It evaluates the improvement of urban quality using the VIKOR method based on public satisfaction indicators. It is found that the comprehensive weights and subjective weights of the five first-level indicators in the evaluation index system of urban quality improvement in Shandong Province, namely blue–green space improvement, air cleanliness improvement, road traffic improvement, life service improvement, and governance capacity improvement, are quite different. The weight distribution of these indicators needs to be adjusted and optimized, especially for improving living services, as well as secondary indicators such as black and odorous water treatment, urban clean heating, the number of public vehicles per 10,000 people in the city, the 15 min living circle, the renovation of old residential areas, and the construction of urban intelligent management platforms. Based on the comprehensive evaluation results, an attempt is made to propose a more scientific evaluation index system, providing valuable references for urban renewal management. Full article

Determining the optimal planning scale for urban life circles and analyzing the associated built environment factors are crucial for comprehending and regulating residential differentiation. This study aims to bridge the current research void concerning the nonlinear hierarchical relationships between the built environment and residential differentiation under the multiscale effect. Specifically, six indicators were derived from urban crowdsourcing data: diversity of built environment function (DBEF1), density of built environment function (DBEF2), blue–green environment (BGE), traffic accessibility (TA), population vitality (PV), and shopping vitality (SV). Then, a gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) was applied to derive the analysis of these indicators. Finally, the interpretability of machine learning was leveraged to quantify the relative importance and nonlinear relationships between built environment indicators and housing prices. The results indicate a hierarchical structure and inflection point effect of the built environment on residential premiums. Notably, the impact trend of the built environment on housing prices within a 15 min life circle remains stable. The effect of crowd behavior, as depicted by PV and SV, on housing prices emerges as the most significant factor. Furthermore, this study also categorizes housing into common and high-end residences, thereby unveiling that distinct residential neighborhoods exhibit varying degrees of dependence on the built environment. The built environment exerts a scale effect on the formation of residential differentiation, with housing prices exhibiting increased sensitivity to the built environment at a smaller life circle scale. Conversely, the effect of the built environment on housing prices is amplified at a larger life circle scale. Under the dual influence of the scale and hierarchical effect, this framework can dynamically adapt to the uncertainty of changes in life circle planning policies and residential markets. This provides strong theoretical support for exploring the optimal life circle scale, alleviating residential differentiation, and promoting group fairness. Full article

The 15 minute Community Life Circle (15 min-CLC) concept is an urban planning approach that aims to provide various daily services for citizens within a short distance. It has been widely adopted in China, especially in large cities. However, there is a lack of research on how to apply the 15 min-CLC concept in second-tier cities, which have high population densities and lower quality of life. This study chose Jinan City as a case study to explore the underdeveloped areas and facilities of 15 min-CLCs in rapidly developing and medium-size cities, called second-tier cities. First, it analyzed the distribution of facilities and residential POIs in old communities, new communities, and the whole city, to find out which types of facilities are missing at the community level. Second, it examined the relationship between facilities and population in each 15 min-CLC by using the Facility to Population Ratio (FPR), to evaluate the sufficiency of facilities to meet the daily needs of residents. Through the analysis of facility distribution and Facility to Population Ratio, our study found that old communities have all the required facility types within each 15 min-CLC, but they do not have enough number of facilities to support the population. At the same time, identified the underdeveloped regions and provided specific development directions for each 15 min-CLC. The FPR methodology developed in this study can be used to evaluate whether the existing facilities can meet the daily needs of residents in a certain region. Full article

The physical environment of urban public facilities is an important driver for public health and work efficiency. Unfortunately, citizens are exposed to negative physical environments because of inappropriate spatial forms in urban growth boundaries. This study aims to explore psychophysical drivers and their spatial distribution in campus city community life circles during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questionnaires and measuring equipment were used to gather psychophysical information in a 15 min campus city community life circle in Fuzhou, China. To this end, acoustic, light and thermal environments were used to map spatial distributions. We then explored relationships between spatial form and psychophysical parameters. The study results show that the distance to road (DTR), green area ratio (GR) and street width (SW) are all potential spatial drivers for psychophysical information. Furthermore, the acoustical, light and thermal environments provide interactions for the public understanding of the environment. These findings contribute to the understanding and evaluation of psychophysical drivers, spurring regional industry in community life circles and contributing to developing suitable plans and industrial distribution in urban areas. Full article

Living convenience, as a perceptual quality of life, is gradually playing an increasingly important role in the context of seeking livable cities. A high degree of living convenience positively affects urban vitality, livability, and daily physical activities. However, it is hard to achieve a quantitative measurement of this intangible, subjective issue. This study presents a data-informed analytical approach to measuring the human-scale living convenience using multi-sourced urban data and geodesign techniques. Firstly, according to classical theories, living convenience is translated as the co-presentation of accessed number and diversity of urban facilities. Based on that, this study applies multi-sourced urban data, including points of interest (PoIs), buildings, and street networks, to compute the living convenience of each building in the 15 min community–life circle. Through the geoprocessing tools developed by ArcGIS API for Python (ArcPy), the living convenience of millions of buildings in an entire city can be computed efficiently. Kaifeng City from Henan Province, China, is selected as the case study, and the verification from local experts in urbanism shows high accuracy. The capacity to measure intangible perception exhibits the potential for this analytical approach in urban planning practices. Several explorations have been conducted in this direction, including analyzing the spatial heterogeneity in Kaifeng City and planning decision support for bus station arrangement. In short, this study contributes to the development of human-centered planning by providing continuous measurements of an ‘unmeasurable’ quality across large-scale areas. Insights into the perceptual-based quality and detailed mapping of living conveniences in buildings can assist in efficient planning strategies toward more livable and sustainable urbanism. Full article