Rui Wang

As the global population ages rapidly, the built environment has become increasingly critical for the health of older adults. In China, although the government has continuously promoted age-friendly retrofitting of old residential communities, these communities often face low usage rates after renovation. This study evaluated the age-friendliness of eight old residential units in Dalian, China, using the EVOLVE 2010 (Evaluation of Older Adults’ Living Environment) tool and combined semi-structured interviews with older residents. The results analyzed environmental impacts on older adults’ health across three domains: diet, exercise, and emotion. The findings reveal systemic deficiencies in housing units, external spaces, and urban planning, with limited physical accessibility being the predominant concern. Improving spatial functionality or environmental optimization alone is insufficient to enhance health outcomes; instead, expanding the range of activities and improving access to various locations contribute to increased self-esteem, confidence, and engagement in beneficial behaviors such as physical exercise and a healthy diet. The study highlights a gap between current renovation practices and the actual needs of older adults, emphasizing that accessibility should be prioritized in age-friendly design. These findings provide evidence-based policy implications for promoting healthy aging through urban renewal.

The study explores the features of spatiotemporal circles of residents’ daily walking. Through a survey of residents’ walking activity in 16 residential communities, the walking purpose, distance, time, and speed of different residents were analyzed, and the circles of residents’ walking activities in historic and modern districts were identified. It is found that residents’ walking activities showed obvious spatiotemporal and individual differences. Walking activities on weekdays mainly focus on short distances (0.5–1 km) and short duration (5–15 min) for commuting and basic needs, while walking activities on weekends tend to be longer distances (more than 2 km) and longer duration (15–40 min) for leisure purposes. There are significant differences in distance and speed between walking activities in the historic and modern districts, with residents of the historic districts walking a smaller range but more diverse destinations, and residents of the modern districts walking to a wider range but fewer types of destinations. The study provides a scientific basis for multi-circle planning strategies of community life units, and it contributes to the localized adaptation of the “15-minute city” concept by revealing how historical and modern districts shape distinct spatiotemporal circles for walkability in Chinese cities.

As an important ideal social practice in world history, the people’s commune system and its organized architectural activities took the first step in promoting rural modernization in modern China and had a significant impact on the built environment of urban and rural areas. This study aims to discuss how to view the legacy of rural people’s communes in service of contemporary society. Taking the Weixing Commune, which was the earliest established commune in China in 1958, as an example, through a comparative study of relevant planning and construction archives and the literature, combined with onsite investigations and through the perspective of the cultural landscape, this study delves into the history of local rural construction and sorts out the types, specific compositions, and value elements of the commune’s remains from four dimensions: environment, industry, architecture, and memory. The heritage of the people’s commune is unique. It was a comprehensive transformation of land to farmland, water conservancy, and other natural environmental patterns carried out by residents and related professionals to realize the ideal life of socialism and ultimately resulted in the shaping of a unique type of cultural landscape, presenting the coexistence of political landscapes that hold ideals and vernacular landscapes that carry life.

The listed price of real estate is a subjective reflection of its value by sellers, usually related to structural, neighborhood, and environmental attributes. Although previous studies have proposed the hedonic pricing model, factors related to perception are rarely seen in explanatory variables. This study aims to explore the impact of street-level perceived qualities on the listed price per square meter of plot set by the seller of the real estate using the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR)-based hedonic pricing model and analyzes the spatially heterogeneous effects of the coefficients. In the city of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Google Street View photos collected at 200 m intervals were employed to calculate representative variables of perceptual quality via a validated convolutional neural network, alongside structural and neighborhood attributes. The final model includes eight explanatory variables, and the results indicate that, apart from the plot area and the number of rooms, the influencing mechanisms of other factors are different. The impact of perceived beautiful quality on listed real estate prices demonstrates obvious distinctions between the north and the south. Perceived livability (positive) and depressing (negative) qualities show similar heterogeneous characteristics. This study offers a comprehensive approach to promote diverse strategies for real estate development across urban areas and recommends a heightened emphasis on the design quality of residential streets.

Over the past decades, China has built a large number of superblocks and gated residential areas, which have contributed to increased congestion on urban road traffic. Although some studies have found a correlation between residential environments and travel convenience, there is little quantitative evidence to explain which factors influence the connectivity of road networks. This paper aims to clarify the indicators of built environments in Chinese residential areas that affect travel accessibility and their correlation proportions through a more quantitative method and to provide a basis for planning and design decisions. To this end, this study took 204 residential areas in the three districts of Nanjing, China as a sample and calculated 16 built-environment indicators. The path distance (D) and pedestrian route directness (PRD) from the center of these residential areas to the nearest urban intersection were measured by GIS as outcome variables. First, correlation analysis was used to screen for significant variables, and multiple linear regression models were used to examine the significant influencing factors of D and PRD. Then, a binary logistic regression analysis was performed to provide a model that could determine whether the built environment of the residential area met the requirements for convenient travel. The results revealed that the length of the long side, the area size, and the total road length of the residential area were significantly related to D, and the number of entrances and exits, the intersection density, and the X ratio were significantly related to PRD. The indicators that were positively correlated with D were the size, network complexity, and the boundary shape of the residential area according to the degree of correlation. Meanwhile, other indicators such as the density and connectivity of the residential road network were negatively correlated with D.

Improving walkability is critical for sustainable and livable urban development. Although numerous measures for walkability have been developed by researchers from different fields, systematic classification and comparisons are lacking. Few studies have discussed the inconsistency in the factors that influence walkability in different social contexts. To address these gaps, this study identified the significant researchers, keywords, and citations from papers that were collected between 2014 and 2021 through a bibliometric analysis to provide a basic understanding of walkability research. Then, subjective and objective, and neighborhood and street level measurement methods were distinguished for targeted use. Finally, the built environment factors and social factors that were found in the existing studies that influenced walkability were discussed separately. The findings of this study could help researchers from different fields to select the appropriate methods and factors and remind them that the sociocultural and socioeconomic causes of local differences should be fully considered in walkability assessments. In addition, due to the advantages of low cost and high efficiency, the automatic virtual audit should be recommended for future walkability studies.