Abstract
The design and optimization of urban form has always been a hot topic in urban planning and development research. Besides, the creation of continuous vitality in urban areas is of critical importance in the development of urbanization. However, due to the lack of data, it is difficult to measure the effects of urban form on neighborhood vibrancy. Additionally, no uniform conclusion has been drawn regarding to what degree urban form can contribute to neighborhood vibrancy. Taking advantage of emerging new data sources, the depth and breadth of related research can now be improved. Therefore, this paper uses high-precision positioning social media check-in data to approximate the vibrancy of 658 neighborhoods, and uses a geographical information system (GIS) to quantitatively measure the urban form indicators in the central area of Chengdu City, China. A quantitative exploration and analysis of the relationships between neighborhood vibrancy and urban form is conducted. The results of three regression models considering different explanatory variables show that socio-economic factors account for approximately 23% of neighborhood vibrancy. In addition, the correlation between the shape characteristics of a neighborhood and the vibrancy is weak. However, when the inner urban form indicators of neighborhoods are introduced into the regression model, the goodness of fit (R2) is nearly doubled. This finding indicates that strong associations exist between urban form and neighborhood vibrancy. Specifically, building density and functional diversity are positively correlated with neighborhood vibrancy. Unlike existing studies, this study finds that the road network within the neighborhood plays a positive role in the creation of neighborhood vibrancy. However, the impact of a road density indicator is not as powerful as the impacts of building density and functional diversity. This research can help urban designers to better design urban environments.
Highlights
The design and optimization of urban form has received considerable attention regarding urban planning and development
This research answers the important questions already proposed, namely, to what extent can urban form contribute to neighborhood vibrancy
This paper uses the number of bus stations (NBS) in the neighborhood to measure the degree of bus accessibility
Summary
The design and optimization of urban form has received considerable attention regarding urban planning and development. With the rapid urbanization in China, the spatial and social attributes of China’s neighborhoods are quite different from those of Western countries, and the comprehensive measurement of the urban forms has gradually attracted considerable attention [23,24]. Many map platforms provide free, basic urban space data include points of interest (POI), road networks, and building vectors This information lays a sufficient data foundation for portraying urban form. We give quantitative measurements of neighborhood vibrancy and urban form by using new big data sources at fine scales. The correlations between socio-economic indicators, urban form indicators, and neighborhood vibrancy are evaluated by introducing three sets of regression models. This research answers the important questions already proposed, namely, to what extent can urban form contribute to neighborhood vibrancy.
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