How Diversity and Accessibility Affect Street Vitality in Historic Districts?

Abstract

The loss of traditional features and place memory, and ultimately vibrancy in historic districts, has attracted substantial attention in today’s urban design. Most conventional theories are of the consensus that diversity and accessibility characteristics play important roles in creating street vitality, whereas how these characteristics influence street vitality in historic districts has not been thoroughly explored. Furthermore, it is less clear as to which characteristics exert greater influence. Taking the Drum Tower Muslim District, a historical neighborhood in Xi’an, China, as a case study, this paper employs geospatial data to examine how diversity and accessibility influence street vitality. This study identifies seven factors of diversity and accessibility, and incorporates them into a spatial multivariate regression model for analysis. The results indicate that accessibility makes a stronger impact on the street vitality than diversity does. Furthermore, the closeness of streets, the functional density, the intersection density, the location of public transportation and the density of public infrastructure are the top five factors influencing street vitality. The outcome of this study will shed light on what constitutes a vibrant historic district and will help to inform us as to where and how we can improve street vitality.