JAUE2020-045: How Environmental Factors Affect Street Vitality--A Case Study Based on PSPL Research in Chengdu

Abstract

Street vitality has been a hot issue in the field of urban planning for many years. Previous studies have already qualitatively proved that environmental factors have a big influence on street vitality. In this paper, the author chose Chunxi Road, which is a commercial block located in downtown Chengdu, China, as the study example. Step one, volunteers were invited to collect the data of pedestrian flow all of the day on a typical Saturday, which is the indicator of street vitality. Step two, following the method of public space and public life (PSPL) thoery which is presented by Jan Gehl, the author set up an environmental evaluation system for commercial street, incluing eight factors in street appearance and street spatial dimension these two aspects. Then, based on the data collected through PSPL survey, correlation analysis was used to build a model which indicates the relation between street environmental factors and street vitaility. In this study, it’s obvious that street vitality is deeply affected by street appearance. However, it has little correlation street spatial dimension.