Influence of Built Environment on Street Vitality: A Case Study of West Nanjing Road in Shanghai Based on Mobile Location Data

Abstract

A successful built environment is assumed to encourage street vitality in the time and space dimensions. The availability of mobile location data has made it possible to measure street vitality from a large-scale and multiperiod perspective. We used the mobile location data recorded in West Nanjing Road and the surrounding streets in Shanghai as a proxy for street activity, and introduced intensity and instability as indicators of street vitality to test whether there is still a correlation between street vitality and built environment in high-density cities, and whether there are applicable conditions. The results show that for spatial units with higher intensity, the street activities tend to be more unstable. It is more effective to promote street vitality by increasing the diversity of commercial formats. For the streets in high-intensity areas, increasing the mix degree of building functions and the development intensity of the surrounding blocks may not necessarily enhance the street vitality. The design of the external spaces is always an effective measure to maintain continuous vitality. Subway stations play a significant role in promoting street vitality.

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

“…Destination accessibility reflects the convenience to reach the destination, which can be measured by spatial design network analysis (sDNA) [43]. The 5D framework is often used to assess the street quality and explore the influence of the built environment on street activities [15,35,41,44].…”

“…(1) Research on a certain street on the micro scale [15,16,44,47]. Based on pedestrians' perception of street space, these studies focus on a specific street in the city, evaluating the built environment factors closely related to street design and optimizing street space.…”

“…Street vitality can be measured by pedestrian flows and activities, the use of public facilities, and the existence of business destinations [7]. Many studies have verified that the built environment, such as functional mix, intensity of development, street facility, scale, and commercial service, can effectively enhance the street vitality [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…There are two major gaps in the literature. First, most studies are conducted on the meso and micro scales, and limited studies assess the influence of the built environment on the street vitality at the city level [15]. Based on the manual survey data or GPS auxiliary equipment, they often focus on one single or several streets, which can hardly reflect the temporal and spatial characteristics of the street vitality across a wide range of time and space [16].…”

“…Most of them focus on one or several environmental elements, such as density [27][28][29], land use [29][30][31], transportation facility [28,31,32], and design [33,34], to explore the relationship between individual factors and street vitality. Although there are studies measuring the built environment from multiple dimensions, including diversity, density, scale, old buildings, etc., they aim to explore the influencing characteristics of each indicator and to verify the classical theories, without comparing the effects and the magnitudes [15,35]. These assumptions disguise the most effective elements affecting the street vitality, and there is a lack of accurate assessment of the influencing effects, leading to limited guidance in planning practice.…”