By 2021, the urbanization rate of China had reached as high as 64.72%. At the same time, the efficiency-driven urban planning paradigm had shifted to that of an efficiency-and-fairness intent. Fairness refers to the publicness of public open spaces (POS) as an indicator of an inclusive and fair city. The authors are interested in the measure of POS. However, few studies evaluated POS by effective assessment frameworks and tools. Based on this critique, the authors propose to integrate a qualitative assessment tool—the Star Model, with that of a quantitative assessment tool—the Space Syntax, for assessing publicness and enhancing the understanding of POS (streets and squares). There are two conclusions: (1) The combined use of the quantitative and qualitative tools provides accuracy and enables a comprehensive understanding of public spaces, namely, the mechanism of publicness—of both bottom-up POS and top-down POS. On the one hand, bottom-up POS is an outcome of the spatial system enabled by a networked structure of space. On the other, the publicness of top-down POS can be largely twisted by the government and urban designers rather than the residents. (2) This research has introduced an improved combined tool for the benefits of both policymakers and planners.

Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are regarded as the most important public facility after fire extinguishers due to their importance to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) victims. Previous studies focused on the location optimization of the AED, with little attention to inequity among different social groups. To comprehensively investigate the spatial heterogeneity of the AED inequity, we first collected AED data from a WeChat applet. Then, we used the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to quantify the inequity level and identify the socio-economic status group that faced the worst inequity in each neighborhood. Results showed that immigrants of all ages suffer a more severe AED inequity than residents after controlling population and road density. Immigrants face more severe inequity in downtown, while residents face more severe inequity in the peripheral and outer suburbs. AED inequity among youngsters tends to be concentrated in the center of each district, while inequity among the elderly tends to be distributed at the edge of each district. This study provides a new perspective for investigating the inequity in public facilities, puts forward scientific suggestions for future AED allocation planning, and emphasizes the importance of the equitable access to AED.