Comparing Characteristics of Environmental Behaviors and Spatial Types in Open and Gated Housing Blocks: A Case Study of Changchun, China

Jiayu Huang,Suguru Mori,Rie Nomura

doi:10.3390/su10061835

Abstract

Physical characteristics of residential areas affect many aspects of living sustainability, including the environmental behavior of residents. Based on the policy issued in China in 2016, the guideline of transforming existing gated housing blocks into open mode is being gradually implemented in some cities. However, the transforming of boundary walls and internal roads has changed the living environment such as the open space that residents have been accustomed to and has affected environmental behaviors correspondingly. From perspectives of spatial types and environmental behaviors, this research compared an open housing block (which is reconstructed from gated one) with a comparable original gated housing block. The Behavior Mapping Method was used to capture environmental behaviors in two housing blocks; factor analysis and cluster analysis were used to extract spatial characteristics and classify spatial types; and finally differences between the open housing block and the gated housing block were shown by comparing the distribution of environmental behaviors in each space type. The results indicate that the presence or absence of the enclosing walls affects the division of space types and environmental behaviors in housing blocks. For gated housing blocks, spaces with strong privacy attract various types of activities, which are overwhelming in categories and the number of people, while in the open housing blocks, this situation is not as obvious as in the former.

Highlights

The impact of demolishing wall and changing internal roads on the environmental behaviors have not been demonstrated in previous studies yet, while many scholars have explored the impact on environmental behavior with these physical characteristics [28,29,30,31,32]
In the case of open housing block in this paper, the removal of walls and the change of internal roads did affect the division of space types, the attraction of various space types to residents, and the characteristics of the residents’ activities
It is more accurate to discuss the influence of the transformation by comparing the statuses before and after reconstruction of the same housing block, while, due to the implementation of the policy, the settlement is often in the state of being transformed when it is publicized, and it is difficult to find it in advance and commit research

Summary

Introduction

This kind of blocks covers a large area and is usually zoned by urban arterial roads, whose lengths are 300–500 m. The wide existence of this kind of housing blocks has caused some traffic problems such as limited connectivity and low density of road network [7,8] Because of this state, the central government of the People’s Republic of China released a guideline in February 2016 to address “obvious issues” and “urban ills”, such as making traffic networks intensive and unclogging the urban roads by two main approaches: (a) promoting open housing blocks with small areas among newly-built residential areas; and (b) reconstructing gated housing blocks by removing bounding walls and connecting internal roads with urban roads [9]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion