Developing an analytical framework for liveable streets in Shanghai
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Developing an analytical framework for liveable streets in Shanghai Aura‑Luciana Istrate1 · Fei Chen2 · Paul Kadetz1,3 · Ying Chang1 · Austin Rhys Williams1,4 Accepted: 15 October 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract This research explores how to understand the concept of ‘liveable streets’ in the context of Shanghai. It follows the Chinese State Council’s call (2015) for ungated communities and dense street networks, meant to improve liveability in cities. Factors of liveability have been extracted from the international and Chinese literature and refined through locally administered online questionnaires (n = 95) and semi-structured interviews (n = 12) with a sample of urban studies professionals. The outcome of this research is an analytical framework consisting of qualities, factors and indicators to assess and distinguish what constitutes a liveable street in Shanghai. A set of 28 indicators is proposed to facilitate the straightforward application of the framework in fast-growing urban settings. This research reveals the importance of contextualising liveability factors and their relevance in informing policy-making and the practice of urban design and planning in Chinese cities. Keywords Liveable streets · Shanghai · Analytical framework · Liveability
Introduction Urban liveability appears frequently in governmental agendas as an objective to be achieved by providing adequate services and suitable living conditions in cities and by attracting economic and social capital to urban areas (see The Liveability Agenda for the twenty-first Century, World Bank 1996). In 2015, the Chinese State Council advocated for building liveable cities (yí jū chéngshì, 宜居城市) in the country’s ongoing urbanisation process (People’s Daily 2015). Nevertheless, the western concept of liveability has no clear or agreed-upon definition (Balsas 2004; van Kamp et al. 2003; Pacione 2003). Rather it is believed that liveability may imply different spatial qualities in different contexts and at different levels of analysis of countries, communities * Aura‑Luciana Istrate [email protected] 1
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), 111 Ren’ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China
2
University of Liverpool, Foundation Building, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L69 7ZX, UK
3
Present Address: Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
4
Present Address: Kingston School of Art, Kingston upon Thames KT1 1LQ, UK
or residential streets (Istrate 2016; Liu and Wang 2013; Mandhar and Watt 2011; Southworth 2016). In China, few attempts have been made to assess and rank liveable cities; for instance, the ‘Liveable City Assessment Standard’ was released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development (MOHURD) in 2007 (Wang et al. 2011). However, such assessments predominantly employed criteria from the West and did not consider local Chinese contexts. In particular, the criteria that make a street liveable (and suitable to live on) remains an unso
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