On-Street Non Movement Activities and Street-Trees in Monsoon Asia

Abstract

Every city's artificial setting including infrastructures must reflect its surrounding climatologic conditions and people's lifestyles. Authors focus on people's various on-street activities, particularly non-movement activities (NMA), as well as the function of street-trees which seem to be heavily influenced by climate. The city of Hanoi, having a 36-street area (traditional area) and a French quarter (colonial area) for comparison, was taken as a sample city of monsoon Asia for primary and intensive surveys. It was found that NMA, which plays an important role on people's life in cities, is significantly dense and varied and highly depends on street-side land-use and species of trees. Street-trees, especially their human-scale functions, were then observed to be quite important for NMA under monsoon Asia's climate. Consequently, GDI (Green Dome Index) is proposed for evaluating people's preference of trees for NMA.