Urbanization is a global trend that is expected to continue, and by 2025, it is estimated that almost 60% of the world’s children will live in urban areas. Urban community pocket parks provide a solution to the need for parks in high-density urban communities due to their flexible location, small size, and patchy distribution. This paper aims to examine and optimize the construction of urban community pocket parks from a child’s perspective to encourage children’s participation in these parks. The first step was to conduct a literature review to identify key evaluation indicators for assessing the child-friendliness of pocket parks. Then, the AHP-entropy TOPSIS approach was used to establish an indicator system to effectively evaluate the child-friendliness of pocket parks in urban communities. The system included physical space, cognitive ability, emotional development, environmental perception, and social interaction. Finally, suggestions for optimization were made based on the weighting of influencing factors. The results show that freedom of movement (6.2%) significantly affects the child-friendliness ratings of community pocket parks. Additionally, Hefei residents are not sufficiently influenced by the diversity of play (2.29%) and play facility planning (2.58%) in pocket parks. Therefore, consideration should be given to focusing on the degree of nature adaptation in park construction and renewal projects, as well as understanding children’s perception of nature.

In the global context of sustainable urban development, urban regeneration is an activity to improve the form and function of urban space in built-up areas. Commercial streets are one of the most active factors in urban space and an important factor in promoting urban prosperity and reflecting urban vitality, yet these streets have not kept pace with the public’s quest for quality through theoretical change, and this can even affect public comfort and well-being. In order to effectively undertake urban regeneration and improve the quality of urban streets and residents’ satisfaction, design factors for the quality enhancement of commercial streets are explored in order to rationalise residents’ demand preferences and their priorities, enhance residents’ sense of belonging, and provide suggestions for the optimisation of the design of subsequent urban street regeneration in China. By summarising the literature and the content requirements of the quality enhancement scheme for Shuanggang Old Street in Hefei, this study applied a questionnaire survey and scientifically developed an index system containing five evaluation indicators, including spatial carrying capacity, street attractiveness, travel safety, environmental comfort, and social interaction. A combination of hierarchical analysis and entropy weighting was used to identify the most influential factors on the implementation of the quality improvement of the commercial street and design optimisation suggestions. The evaluation results show that travel safety and social interaction significantly affect the evaluation of the quality improvement of commercial streets, as well as highlighting the needs of residents for street environments and services and the role of local governments.

As an important form of night-time economy, night tourism is in urgent need of innovation and upgrading to cope with market changes. As an important part of the night tourism experience, the spatial vitality of night parks is also an important factor affecting the quality of night tourism and economic development. By summarizing the literature and the content requirements affecting the vitality of night parks, this study scientifically and objectively designates an index system containing six evaluation indicators, including Environmental adaptability, abundance of facilities, park attractiveness, Ease of travelling, environmental comfort, and social interconnectedness, based on visitor questionnaires and analysis. The hierarchical analysis method and entropy weight method are used to combine and assign the factors that have a greater impact on the spatial vitality of night parks. The evaluation results show that the environmental security and location significantly affect the spatial vitality of the night park, that is, the social interconnectedness and the park attractiveness have a greater impact on the spatial vitality of the night park. Therefore, in the subsequent construction of the night park, in order to effectively activate the spatial vitality, the visitors’ perception of the safety of the environment and the degree of locational advantage should be prioitised.

Chaohu Lake is the fifth biggest freshwater lake in China and one of the “Three Rivers and Three Lakes” in the country-wide water air pollution prevention and control plan. The complete cure of Chaohu Lake is a key task in Hefei City. This study takes the ecological surroundings of the Chaohu Lake region as the precedent and selects 21 warning signs from 4 aspects, namely, air quality, meteorological indicators, water resources, and ecological land, and establishes the assessment gadget of ecological surroundings in the Chaohu Lake area. The entropy weight TOPSIS approach and ArcMap10.7 analyze the ecological surroundings, using elements and spatial differentiation traits of every region to act as references for the ecological surroundings, administration, and preservation of the ring Chaohu Lake region. The outcomes of the study are: 1) the basic ecological surroundings of the circum-Chao Lake vicinity (Feidong County, Feixi County, Lujiang County, Baohe District, Chaohu City) used to be negatively impacted all through 2018-2022, declined drastically in 2019, and remained essentially flat in the following period; 2) in the five-year complete comparative analyses of every location in the circum-Chao Lake vicinity, the typical ecological surroundings of Chaohu City and Baohe District was the worst and Lujiang County was the best, followed by Feidong County and Feixi County; 3) through a 12-month evaluation of the ecological surroundings, modifications in the areas around Chaohu Lake from 2018-2022, the ecological surroundings of the Baohe District and Chaohu City suggests an upward trend, and Feixi County indicates a small downward trend in 2022; 4) evaluating the weighting coefficients of every index, the annual common attention of nitrogen dioxide (C3), annual common attention of sulfur dioxide, common annual awareness (C4), common annual temperature (C9), and irrigated vicinity of arable land (C14) are the 4 main factors having an impact on the ecological environment.

Evaluating ecological livability is to consider the balance between urban development and ecological sustainability from an ecological perspective. This study takes the ecological environment of seven counties in the Huizhou region as the object of study and summarizes an ecological livability index system of evaluation which includes 18 indexes across five criteria: human habitat, resource utilization, ecological maintenance, pollution treatment, and climatic environment. Using the entropy weight- TOPSIS method, the study evaluates and analyzes the factors influencing the ecological livability of each region. The spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics of the region are then analyzed using ArcMap 10.8 to provide an example for ecological environment maintenance in the Huizhou region. The following conclusions were obtained: (1) The overall level of urban eco-livability in Huangshan City, Huizhou region, is low, with a slow downward trend before 2019 and a rapid increase after 2019, with the highest district and county eco-livability scores reaching “general level”. (2) Huizhou’s ecological livability level is spatially structured around the urban region, with the structural features of “high in the central area and poor in the periphery” and a tendency to radiate and extend outward from the center. (3) By comparing the weighting coefficients of the evaluation indicators, it is found that the four indicators of daily per capita domestic water consumption (C9), green space and plaza land (C3), annual precipitation (C6), and current year afforestation area (C12) are the main factors influencing the ecological livability.

The general population’s assessment and perception of a city can be influenced by its skyline, which is one of its representatives. This paper uses semantic segmentation and exploratory factor analysis to conduct a study from two different perspectives, aiming to analyse the development and current situation of the skyline of Hefei’s political and cultural new district. By collecting pictures of the skyline of the New Administrative and Cultural District, the New Administrative and Cultural District of Hefei’s skyline is being studied for overall changes using the semantic segmentation method, and to evaluate the quality of the skyline in various years, the entropy weight–TOPSIS is employed. Through the literature investigation and creation status of the new political and cultural district, the index system is scientifically formulated to conduct a questionnaire survey, and its reliability and validity are tested. This study is conducted with exploratory factor analysis of factors that are vital in the city skyline. The results of this study show that (1) after the semantic segmentation of the pictures, it is found that the proportion of buildings and the proportion of vegetation are both rising; the proportion of buildings tends to level off after 2018, and the proportion of vegetation shows a uniform increase. In the relative proximity ranking, the overall trend is increasing, and the skyline is ranked first in 2024. (2) Two variables were identified based on the findings of the exploratory factor analysis: ‘skyline value’ and ‘neighbourhood ecological quality’. The results of this study show that the skyline of Hefei’s New Administrative and Cultural District in 2024 is the best overall, and that the skyline of the New Administrative and Cultural District has developed into one of the city images of Hefei, and that its optimisation can be considered in terms of the “quality of the surrounding ecological environment”.