An increasing number of old communities are experiencing deterioration in their living environments, which negatively affects the sustainability of the urban environment. Many cities have tried to solve the above problems through reconstruction or micro-renovation, but the result is unsatisfactory. Social change has led to a shift in the meaning of community, so the space transformation of the old community cannot be carried out simply by increasing the function and beautifying the environment. To achieve sustainable development of the old community, we should recreate the contemporary meaning of the old community. This paper aims to innovate urban design approaches and promote sustainable urban development in its environmental, ecological, and cultural dimensions through the reinvention of vitality and contemporary values of built community spaces. Based on the theory of meaning change, this paper constructs a conceptual framework for the reinvention of space in the old community. In the case study of a block in Rongxiang, Wuxi, we verify the framework’s effectiveness and build spaces more in line with people’s lifestyles in the new era. Based on the study, we conclude that meaning change is the key to achieving sustainable development of old community spaces. The framework can provide a new reference for solving the social problems of aging urban space and achieving sustainable development of the urban environment.

Urbanization has increasingly led to the overlapping of old and new spaces in historic city areas, creating challenges in preserving valuable urban heritage. To meet the requirements of the effective protection, utilization, and sustainable development of these historical spaces, this study introduces a comprehensive framework grounded in the theory of heritage corridors. The proposed framework subdivides and connects fragmented historical spatial resources through the “point–line–plane” dimensions, fostering sustainability across the environmental, ecological, and cultural domains. To validate the effectiveness of the framework, we apply it to the historic city center of Wuxi. This case study demonstrates that integrating spatial resources within the old city enhances the overall quality of urban living spaces in the historic district. The findings suggest that the heritage corridor framework is a feasible and systematic approach for the sustainable renewal of historic urban areas. Furthermore, this study offers valuable insights for advancing Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11), particularly in promoting inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities.

In the context of the global fine-grained urban renewal initiative, living streets closely related to people’s lives have become a hot topic. This study provides a comprehensive framework for addressing prominent issues such as the limited adaptability and inability to accommodate development in living streets. It explores the value and design innovation points of incorporating resilience concepts in the renewal of living streets. Taking the living streets in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, as an example, the grounded theory approach was employed to conduct in-depth interviews and three-level coding of the data to systematically elucidate the influencing factors and implementation paths of resilience in living streets. The study reveals that the resilient development of living streets is influenced and constrained by six factors: positive values, demand factors, spatial environment, contextual factors, operation and management, and resilience characteristics. Each of these six main dimensions encompasses multiple subcategories and the factors influencing living streets’ resilience through different mechanisms. Building upon the guidance-demand-design-context-operation pathway model for enhancing the resilience of living streets in small and medium-sized towns in the Jiangnan region, the study proposes new perspectives such as correct orientation, adaptability to change, and a balance between rigidity and flexibility tailored explicitly to the enhancement of resilience in living streets. These novel perspectives contribute to the theoretical research achievements on the resilience development of living streets in small and medium-sized towns in the Jiangnan region of China to a certain extent. Furthermore, these findings hold significant implications for attaining SDG11, which emphasizes sustainable urban development.

Entrance design involves visual prominence, wind exposure, and spatial visibility, which are complementary but non-interchangeable attributes. This exploratory study examines five rendered alternatives for Wolong Ancient Fishing Village and Vanke Fuxian Lake Resort Town in Yunnan, China. Image composition and archived heatmap intensity ratings are compared with reported computational fluid dynamics and visibility-graph outputs. Eleven archived rating records per scheme support descriptive summaries without participant-level inference. Walls or facilities receive median ratings of 3–5 on a five-point scale, whereas sky receives medians of 1–2 despite occupying 37.41–49.69% of the images. Reported pedestrian-level wind speeds range from 0.35 to 3.65 m/s across sampled location categories; a consistently applied, illustrative wind-shelter transformation replaces the irreproducible calibrated comfort scores. The resort configuration has higher reported Visual Integration [HH] at sampled nodes, but a smaller entrance isovist area than the village configurations. An overall ranking is not reported because image regions, wind locations, and spatial nodes are not registered as corresponding observations. The findings support parallel assessment of distinct design attributes, rather than cultural-memory effects or typological superiority. Further validation requires verified participant linkage, complete final solver records, spatially matched observations, and field evaluation.

This study examines how the textual tourist gaze is expressed in online reviews of Jiangnan classical gardens through ABSA-inspired dominant-aspect classification and review-level sentiment analysis of 30,478 reviews from 28 sites. We develop an eight-dimensional Landscape Aesthetic Attribute Taxonomy (LAAT), grounded in classical Chinese garden theory, particularly Yuanye, and Attention Restoration Theory. One fine-tuned MacBERT classifier assigns each review to its dominant LAAT dimension, while a second, independently fine-tuned model identifies overall sentiment polarity. The findings reveal a highly uneven distribution of dominant themes in the review corpus, providing a textual indication of how tourist attention is selectively represented in online reviews, with Atmosphere & Conception accounting for 33.0% of all reviews. Sentiment also varies significantly across dimensions. Core esthetic dimensions, including Architecture & Construction and Rockery & Waterscape, maintain positive-sentiment rates above 88%, whereas Service & Facility records a negative rate of 36.0%. An adapted Importance-Performance Analysis heuristically suggests that Service & Facility may warrant priority attention in future improvement efforts. Hierarchical clustering further grouped the gardens into four clusters based on their dimension-specific sentiment profiles. Theoretically, the study conceptualizes the textual gaze as the selective, evaluative, and culturally mediated act of writing about a landscape and shows how review text can provide an empirical articulation of the tourist gaze. We further conceptualize the textual gaze as the outcome of a five-stage textualization process and organize the LAAT as a two-level hierarchy, enabling analysis at both fine-grained and broader categorical levels.

Climate change exacerbates challenges for old urban parks in high-density cores, intensifying urban heat islands and overcrowding hazards and causing limited extreme weather resilience. These parks face climate maladaptation, urban health risks, and reduced adaptive capacity. This study applies performance-based urban design through an “environmental analysis Overlay method,” integrating space syntax, CFD-Phoenics wind simulation, and solar analysis to translate climate adaptation, urban health, and urban resilience dimensions into measurable indicators including ventilation efficiency, crowd dispersion comfort, and flexible space capacity. Using Chengzhong Park in Wuxi as a case study, the method employs a diagnosis–optimization–validation process. Results demonstrate substantial improvements: (1) Climate: Problematic wind areas (>4 m/s or <0.5 m/s (stagnant)) decreased from 30% to 11%, while comfortable wind zones (0.5–1 m/s) increased to over 30%, achieving optimal microclimate conditions 89% of the park; (2) Health: Pedestrian circulation capacity increased by 25%, and activity areas with under 3 h of winter sunlight reduced from 26% to 19%; (3) Resilience: Spatial units consolidated from 155 to 115, with global-local integration improving from R² = 0.39 to 0.64, significantly enhancing network coherence and adaptive functionality. The findings confirm that this method provides a scientifically rigorous, replicable pathway for climate-adaptive renewal of old urban parks, supporting urban resilience agendas.