Sustainable Urban Planning and Genius Loci: A LDA-Based Analysis of Recreational Landscape Imagery in Hangzhou’s Qiaoxi Historic District

Abstract

Amidst the impacts of urbanization and commercialization, the cultural and historical essence of neighborhoods is undermined, paralleled by the diminishing Genius Loci. This research explores the previously under-researched area of how urban leisure districts’ spatial design influences tourists’ experiential imagery perceptions and the Genius Loci, aiming to elucidate their dialectical relationship. Leveraging LDA topic modeling and TF-IDF text analysis, we distill behavioral and cognitive imageries from tourist reviews to forge a perception framework of the Genius Loci, bifurcated into spiritual and directional imagery dimensions. Secondary dimensions emerge through TF-IDF keyword extraction. GIS technology further analyzes the spatial distribution of emotional imageries and the spatiotemporal dynamics of emotions, highlighting its significance in sustainable urban development. The findings reveal the multidimensional experiential imageries of tourists in leisure neighborhoods and their impact and feedback on the Genius Loci, offering a new perspective on the interaction between tourists’ emotional spatial experiences and the Genius Loci. It is discovered that tourist perceptions mainly concentrate on “environmental psychological perception dimension” and “spatial orientation perception dimension” with the spatial distribution of tourists’ emotional experiences showing significant temporal dynamics. These results underline a complex interaction between tourists’ experiential imagery and the Genius Loci, suggesting that tourists’ feedback could play a critical role in shaping the evolution of these cultural spaces, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches in urban planning and heritage conservation.