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Rethinking place-making: aligning placeness factors with perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) to improve the built environment in historical districts

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Abstract

Understanding the concept of place is critically important for urban design and place-making practice, and this research attempted to investigate the pathways by which perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) influence placeness factors in the Chinese context. Twelve hypotheses were developed and combined in a structural equation model for validation. The Tanhualin historical district in Wuhan, China was selected for the analysis. As a result, place attachment was verified as a critical bridge factor that mediated the influence of PUDQs on place satisfaction. Among the five selected PUDQs, walkability and space quality were revealed as the most influential factors associated with place attachment and place satisfaction. Accessibility was actually indirectly beneficial to place-making via the mediation of walkability. Corresponding implications and strategies were discussed to maintain the sense of place for historic districts.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51408442), Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (2018CFB570), and Luojia Young Scholar Project of Wuhan University (SZDW-2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    Xin Li

  2. School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Xin Li

  3. School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Tao Jia

  4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, USA

    Anne Lusk

  5. School of Engineering and the Built Environment, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

    Peter Larkham

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Li, X., Jia, T., Lusk, A. et al. Rethinking place-making: aligning placeness factors with perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) to improve the built environment in historical districts. Urban Des Int 25, 338–356 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-020-00137-3

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