Evaluating the Effects of Built Environment on Street Vitality at the City Level: An Empirical Research Based on Spatial Panel Durbin Model

Abstract

There is evidence that the built environment has an influence on street vitality. However, previous studies seldom assess the direct, indirect, and total effect of multiple environmental elements at the city level. In this study, the features of the street vitality on Xiamen Island are described based on the location-based service Big Data. Xiamen Island is the central urban area of Xiamen, one of the national central cities in China. With the help of multi-source data such as street view images, the condition of design that is difficult to effectively measure with traditional data can be better explored in detail on a macro scale. The built environment is measured through a 5D system at the city level, including Density, Diversity, Design, Destination accessibility, and Distance to transit. Spatial panel Durbin models are constructed to analyze the influence of the built environment on the street vitality on weekdays and weekends, and the direct, indirect, and total effects are evaluated. Results indicate that at the city level, the built environment plays a significant role in promoting street vitality. Functional density is not statistically significant. Most of the elements have spatial effects, except for several indicators in the condition of the design. Compared with the conclusions of previous studies, some indicators have different effects on different spatial scales. For instance, on the micro scale, greening can enhance the attractiveness of streets. However, on the macro scale, too much greening brings fewer functions along the street, which inhibits the street vitality. The condition of design has the greatest effect, followed by destination accessibility. The differences in the influences of weekdays and weekends are mainly caused by commuting behaviors. Most of the built environment elements have stronger effects on weekends, indicating that people interact with the environment more easily during this period.

Exploring the Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity and Stationarity in the Relationship between Street Vitality and Built Environment

“…Xiamen Island has developed transportation and convenient public services. The street network and texture are diverse, including historical streets, residential streets, and new streets, which makes it appropriate for in-depth exploration of the relationship between built environment and street vitality (Wu, Ma, et al, 2022).…”

“…In China, most shopping uses mobile payment, as a result, shopping behavior, as an important part of street activities, can also be referred to by mobile positioning big data. LBS data is an effective tool to measure street vitality (Wu, Ma, et al, 2022).…”

Assessment of Influence Mechanisms of Built Environment on Street Vitality Using Multisource Spatial Data: A Case Study in Qingdao, China

“…Economic vitality is the basis of street vitality and a prerequisite for generating vitality; social vitality is the core of street vitality and a concrete expression of vitality; and cultural vitality is the connotation requirement of street vitality [6]. Street social vitality is closely related to residents' activities and trips, and drawing on existing studies and considering the nature of the data [40,41], Baidu heat map data were selected to measure social vitality. Using Meituan store rating data to measure economic vitality, the spatial association of stores with specific streets through the latitude and longitude coordinates of Meituan rating data stores was followed by a kernel density estimation algorithm based on the diffusion of rating influences to quantify the economic activities people perform in streets.…”

Vitality evaluation of historical and cultural districts based on the values dimension: districts in Beijing City, China

“…It can be roughly divided into buildings, road type, pedestrian environment, street greening and parking lot: Mahmoudi et al assess the vitality of the streets through the shape, density, continuity and height and width of the buildings [34]. Wanshu Wu et al evaluate the impact of building environment on street vitality [35]. Ikioda studied the impact of road system on street vitality and the impact of the proportion of roads at different levels on people's travel [36].…”