Historic street layout and its impact on shaping residents’ daily lives: insights from Sanxue Street, Xi’an

Abstract

ABSTRACT Historic street layouts are integral to historic districts’ tangible cultural heritage and are intricately linked to the residents’ daily lives; however, existing studies have only examined their spatial aspects, primarily using quantitative methods. Conversely, studies on tangible cultural heritage’s impact on residents’ lives have principally employed qualitative methods. Therefore, this study bridges qualitative and quantitative approaches to propose a layout – daily life model, which explains the relationship between the layout of Xi’an, China’s Sanxue Street historic and cultural district, and its residents’ daily lives. A combination of space syntax and geographic information system-based land-use analyses revealed that eating, shopping, calligraphy, and transportation were the main activities of residents. Questionnaire responses from 335 participants validated the proposed model and confirmed its feasibility. When certain types of facilities are widely distributed in streets with high choice and integration, residents’ daily lives tend to involve the functions represented by them. Furthermore, calligraphy is an important part of most residents’ daily lives, regardless of the transportation mode used. This study contributes to the understanding of the effect of tangible cultural heritage, particularly street layouts, on residents’ daily lives in historic districts.