Spatial Quality Measurement and Characterization of Daily High-Frequency Pedestrian Streets in Xi’an City

Abstract

Street space plays a crucial role in human activity and social life, forming an essential component of a livable and sustainable built environment. Consequently, its quality has garnered significant attention from researchers, designers, and policymakers who aim to achieve precise assessments of street infrastructure and conditions. This study presents a multi-dimensional framework for evaluating street space, considering factors such as access frequency, environmental quality, and amenity richness. By utilizing city-level path planning data, street view imagery, point of interest data, and social media check-in data, this framework assesses each street and assigns scores across these dimensions. These scores facilitate a human-centered analysis of the disparities in street usage and quality. The aggregation of results by administrative regions supports effective policy formulation and implementation. Application of this framework in Xi’an, China, reveals that only 6.95% of frequently visited streets exhibit high environmental quality and functional richness. This study underscores the potential of leveraging public data for detailed street space assessments to inform urban renewal policies.

Keywords

• high-frequency pedestrian streets
• spatial quality
• facility function
• streetscape image