In historic and cultural districts characterized by the coexistence of residential and commercial functions, street spaces play a pivotal role in shaping urban cultural continuity and local identity. They simultaneously support the daily lives and emotional attachment of residents while accommodating the tourism activities of visitors. Despite this dual significance, the distinct functional and experiential expectations of residents and tourists have resulted in multidimensional perceptual differences, which have not been sufficiently addressed in previous studies yet are crucial for enhancing street space quality. Using the Sajinqiao Historic and Cultural District in Xi’an, China, as a case study, this research develops a perceptual evaluation system for street spaces and applies an enhanced IPA-KANO model to examine variations in explicit importance, attribute performance, and implicit importance between residents and tourists. Findings indicate that residents attach greater importance to religious sites, community facilities, and cultural belonging, whereas tourists prioritize transport accessibility, iconic architecture, and commercial vibrancy. Both groups expressed relatively low satisfaction with several key cultural experience elements. Based on these results, this study proposes targeted optimization strategies for elements identified as highly important yet underperforming, providing a practical framework for balancing heritage conservation with contemporary tourism development in such integrated urban environments.

The mode of urban renewal in China has changed from incremental expansion to a value-added stage, and the development of cities has increasingly focused on the human experience and quality improvement. However, Cultural Street Vending and the unique street spaces in the historic districts that bear important connotations to the city have shown a trend of rapid decline and even disappearance. Therefore, how to identify the characteristics and connotations of such street vending spaces, grasp the relationship between perception of locality and built environment elements in different states and formulate targeted protection and renewal strategies is presently an urgent problem to be solved. Many studies have now discussed in detail the identification of elements, street perception and preservation strategies for historic districts. However, the Cultural Street Vending space, which carries special urban memory connotations, has been neglected, especially the characterisation of this type of space in different time dimensions. This paper takes the Cultural Street Vending space as a research object and focuses on the perceptual differences between its market day and non-market day, aiming at grasping the perceptual characteristics and constituent elements of this type of street space in different time states, as well as the patterns of changes they undergo. This paper took the Baxian Temple, a typical Cultural Street Vending space in a historic district of Xi’an, as the research object and took 30 architecture students as the evaluators to score 33 pairs of adjectives and recall the elements of nine streets. This paper compared and analysed the differences in the structure of people’s psychological perception of the street in the state of market day and non-market day by SD method. It was found that the activities of the vendors obviously promoted people’s positive emotions, and three commonality factors including impression, vitality and morphosis were extracted through the factor analysis. Moreover, through the element recall method to understand the change in element perception on the market day, we found that the range of people’s perception was smaller on the market day and summarised the element map of the space and the element components of high, medium and low characteristics. The correlation analysis between psychological quantities and environmental elements revealed that people’s positive psychology has a positive correlation with vendors, goods and street components and a negative correlation with greening, colour and texture. This study can provide an important research basis for the development of conservation and renewal strategies for this type of Cultural Street Vending space.

Insufficient public service facilities in rural areas, which leads to failures in meeting the needs of villagers, has become a significant barrier to the high-quality development of rural regions. This issue is particularly acute in the Loess Plateau area, where the complex topography leads to scattered and independent village layouts, making it challenging to allocate service facilities based simply on distance and population. Aiming to arrange public service facilities efficiently and intensively from a “bottom-up” approach, this study, from the perspective of living circles, attempts to summarize the current usage and needs of villagers at the “village–town–county” levels, as well as to seek strategies for facility allocation in villages. This provides a scientific basis for optimizing the configuration of service facilities in the Loess Plateau area. Through field surveys based on questionnaires and interviews with over 60 households and more than 100 villagers, this study authentically reproduces a picture of their daily lives and summarizes their needs for well-configured services and facilities. The findings of this study include the following: (1) The village domain serves as a space of daily production and living for villagers, necessitating facilities for everyday purchases, activities, and elderly care; the town domain supplements the daily production and living needs of villagers, with a higher demand for production materials; the county domain, integrating urban and rural spaces, provides higher-level medical, educational, and other service facilities. (2) Within the village domain, villagers’ demands for facilities lean towards miniaturization and integration. With the increasingly aging population, the demand for elderly care and health facilities is becoming more urgent. Facilities such as activity rooms, fitness equipment, and stores with a wide range of products at reasonable prices can effectively improve levels of convenience and happiness in villagers’ lives. This study summarizes, from a “bottom-up” approach, the villagers’ facility layout needs within the rural living circle, providing a scientific basis for establishing a human-centered rural living circle and enhancing the quality of rural living environments.

With the rapid expansion of Chinese cities, traditional siheyuan in some old urban areas and historic districts have gradually transformed into overcrowded courtyard tenements inhabited primarily by rural migrants. Multiple families reside together in one siheyuan, creating a housing model akin to “shared housing”. Due to the complex relationship between property rights holders and users, coupled with the absence of a unified management and supervision system, siheyuan residents are confronted with the predicament of aging buildings, backward infrastructure, and poor living conditions. Finding a means of improving living conditions while maintaining the existing settlement style and population structure is an issue that demands urgent resolution. This study focuses on Mizhi, an ancient city in Shaanxi Province, China. Through the investigation and mapping of 31 typical siheyuan and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 160 families, it reveals the property rights division, current spatial usage, and future demands of the residents of traditional settlements dominated by siheyuan and proposes suggestions for their renewal. This study finds that siheyuan can be categorized into three types based on property rights, that the primary motivation for migration is to access quality educational resources, and that the insufficiency of per capita facilities is the primary source of inconvenience in residents’ lives. Future siheyuan renewal efforts should adopt a multi-stakeholder framework that integrates the government, urban planners, and residents. Improving the residential environment requires a dual strategy: optimizing spatial design and strengthening policy management. This research provides fundamental data for the protection and renewal of siheyuan and has practical reference value for formulating future settlement development strategies.

Scenic parks in rural areas occupy crucial positions, serving as vital hubs for the daily lives of villagers and important leisure destinations for tourists. This research is dedicated to assessing the significance of the scenic park in Wawuzhuang Village from the perspectives of both villagers and tourists. Employing a comprehensive research approach, this study examines the current state of the scenic park and its ability to meet the requirements of villagers and tourists. Villagers, mainly elderly individuals with low levels of education, rely heavily on green spaces for leisure and social interaction. In contrast, younger tourists and villagers require spaces that offer more comfort and aesthetic appeal. This study highlights the possibility of designing rural scenic parks to meet the basic needs of both tourists and villagers. In addition, mixed-use designs and public participation designs are suggested to promote the use of rural parks, potentially creating an attractive community environment that attracts new villagers and more tourists. Although this study is limited to a single case, it lays the groundwork for further research in other rural areas. This research contributes to the sustainable development of rural revitalization.

Amid urbanization, historic districts serve as key carriers of urban cultural memory, confronting dual challenges of integrating tradition with modernity and balancing cultural inheritance with spatial renewal. Enhancing residents’ satisfaction with cultural spaces is crucial for improving their quality of life and promoting the sustainable development of urban culture. However, existing research lacks systematic analysis of the intrinsic relationship between residents’ needs and spatial satisfaction, focusing on holistic conservation or spatial design. Using ERG Theory and taking Longweiguan Historic and Cultural District in Dali, China, as the case, this study explores how residents’ needs and cultural space satisfaction interact via theoretical construction and empirical analysis. It establishes a 20-index satisfaction evaluation system, adopting field surveys, in-depth interviews and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for quantitative analysis. Findings: (1) Residents reported moderate-to-high overall satisfaction with cultural spaces, where relatedness needs demonstrated the most significant impact on satisfaction, while growth needs scored lowest. (2) Existence needs directly affect satisfaction through basic elements like spatial safety and indirectly strengthen relatedness needs. (3) Cultural industry spaces hinder satisfaction due to disconnected innovation and resident participation. Thus, a “safety–social interaction–innovation” strategy is proposed to support the living conservation and sustainable development of historic districts.