Speaker
Description
Evaluating urban vitality holds significant positive implications for supporting decision-making in urban regeneration. Optimizing the built environment to adjust the urban functional structure, enhance transportation conditions, and improve the living environment, thereby reshaping urban vitality, is an important objective of urban regeneration. Therefore, clarifying the fundamental characteristics of urban vitality and conducting scientific evaluation and analysis are particularly crucial for urban decision-makers and planners in formulating urban regeneration strategies.
Jacobs' theory of urban vitality serves as a pivotal foundation for comprehending and undertaking comprehensive evaluations of urban vitality. The endorsement of her theory is gaining momentum, with a rising number of studies implementing evaluation methodologies across a multitude of cities. Nevertheless, the comprehensiveness and local adaptability of the existing vitality measurement indicators require enhancement, the reliability of the assessments necessitates improvement, and the exploration of the structured characteristics of vitality demands augmentation. Furthermore, there is an imperative need to continuously advance empirical explorations in a broader range of regions.
To this end, taking Xi'an, China as an example, we constructed a comprehensive vitality evaluation index system that encompasses five dimensions—concentration, mixed use, short block, aged buildings, and accessibility—comprising 12 first-level indicators and 22 specific second-level indicators. Subsequently, we employed game theory to conduct a combined weighting based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC), and further utilized the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to obtain a preliminary comprehensive vitality index. On this basis, ten combined machine learning algorithms formed by the integration of Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), Swarm Intelligence (SI), and Multi-Kernel (MK) were utilized to optimize the comprehensive vitality index; our study compared the overall performance of these models and obtained the optimized comprehensive vitality index (i.e., the analysis results of the optimal model). Finally, we analyzed the spatial structure and agglomeration characteristics of Xi'an's urban vitality and proposed suggestions for regeneration strategies.
Our study in Xi’an has four major findings: i) Transportation location, living and tourism service facilities, tourist attractions, and functional mix play a greater role in the formation of vitality compared to other environmental elements; ii) Some factors emphasized in Jacobs' vitality theory do not seem to have as significant an impact on the shaping of vitality in Xi'an, such as population density, the mix of old buildings, and boundary vacuums; iii) The urban vitality of Xi'an is concentrated in the old city and extending along important rail transit lines, which corresponds with the city's functional structure and the main rail transit framework; iv) The introduction of combined weighting and composite machine learning algorithms can effectively enhance the accuracy and computational efficiency of comprehensive vitality assessment. Based on these findings, this study proposes suggestions for vitality-oriented stock regeneration, such as intervention of key spatial elements and the redevelopment of areas surrounding subway stations.
Our work overall demonstrates that Jacobs' urban vitality framework still has significant in guiding modern urban analysis. This study can provide an innovative paradigm for future urban vitality analysis and offer clues for decision-makers to understand the spatial distribution characteristics of vitality and thereby formulate more reasonable regeneration-related strategies.
| Keywords | Urban vitality; Comprehensive assessment; Urban regeneration; Spatial structure; Jane Jacobs |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
