1. Introduction
Rural recession is a challenge for many countries [
1]. In the face of this issue, China has been trying to solve it through urban-rural transformation. During China’s rural revitalization over the past decades, the spatial structure and function of rural communities have changed dramatically. The development of rural communities has shifted individual functions to diversified functions [
2]. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in October 2022 emphasized the integrated development of rural communities once again, proposing to “promote rural revitalization comprehensively, and giving priority to the development of agriculture and rural areas”. Improving the living environment and enhancing the vitality of rural communities are important indicators of rural revitalization. Meanwhile, this brings new challenges to the sustainable development of rural communities. China’s urbanization is characterized by urban-rural integration. Against this background, suburban rural communities are particularly important since they are bridges between urban and rural areas. Therefore, the way to take a differentiated approach to enhance the vitality of suburban rural communities is of vital practical significance to direct sustainable development.
Suburban rural communities grow faster than general rural communities far from urban areas in terms of urbanization and agricultural modernization, which is attributable to their unique strengths in location, transportation, economy, landscape environment, etc. Accordingly, they have turned into a frontier and key area of rural revitalization, and their development model and spatial structure determine the process of urbanization [
2]. Furthermore, suburban rural areas are affected by both their development and the spillover of urban functions. The migration changes of the rural population in the suburbs have changed the original closed nature of rural areas, and more and more heterogeneous social relations have rushed into rural areas, which affect the culture, life and industries in rural areas to varying degrees [
3]. In addition, since high-density urban spaces can no longer meet people’s needs for leisure, people are increasingly consuming the rural areas in search of nostalgia, and suburban rural communities close to cities naturally become the first choice for urban people. While the growth of tourism has laid the economic foundation for many rural communities, it has also had several negative impacts. These impacts are not only on the natural and cultural environments but especially on residents and tourists in rural communities [
4,
5]. To alleviate such negative effects, many scholars have proposed that the needs and behaviors of various groups in society should be considered [
6,
7,
8]. As the spaces of experience for tourists, the windows into the communal life of residents, and the important resources and assets of rural collectives, public spaces in rural communities are of great significance to the development of rural communities. Theoretically, rural public space is the core of community design and plays an important role in the relationship between various groups of people [
9,
10]. Hence, community public spaces need to be consciously established to address the environmental needs of various groups of people to enhance space vitality.
In order to address the aforementioned needs, this study introduces “space vitality” to measure the public space, which is constituted by group behaviors and the spatial environment [
11]. Current studies on space vitality mostly focus on urban space [
12,
13]. There are also some studies on rural communities in general [
14,
15]. However, studies of suburban rural communities focus more on industry and tourism [
16,
17] and less on the vitality of the suburban rural public space itself. Space is a carrier of people and their behaviors, which are affected by the physical difference and environment of space. Tourists and residents are key sources of public space vitality in suburban rural communities. Since they have different positions and conclusions [
18,
19], rural public space planning should address the needs of both hosts and guests [
20]. For instance, the need for key space planning (the activity space for residents, the integrated space for residents and tourists, and the experiential space for tourists) was proposed based on the renewal of Gu-Ryong Village in South Korea according to Kim and Choi’s proposal [
21]. The preference of residents and tourists for public space landscape is a strong stimulator for the formation of the vitality of rural communities [
19]. The ability of groups to use public spaces and the public space vitality are artificially controlled through arrangements suitable for the space environment [
22,
23].
However, the variation and development of public spaces in rural communities are dynamic. It has been a challenge to determine the vitality of rural public space. The study approach for assessing the vitality of rural space included principally traditional field observation and questionnaires. However, such approaches require a lot of time and manpower. Moreover, questionnaire data may be biased by the subjectivity of respondents. With the rapid development of the internet and big data, the spatiotemporal behaviors of groups, the state of rural operations, etc., can be monitored in real-time. For instance, cellular signaling data [
24], Baidu heat map [
25], GPS [
26] and night light data [
27] could effectively and efficiently record spatial locations, time, etc., of rural group activities, thereby offering new vision and technical support for current studies on the vitality of suburban rural communities. On the other hand, figuring out what factors affect the vitality of public space in suburban rural communities is an important issue for sustainable rural development. At present, many studies have found that both physical attributes (such as spatial scale, accessibility, and spatial quality) are associated with space vitality [
28,
29], although describing space vitality around “human activities” and exploring the influencing factors of space vitality has become the main research path for studying space vitality [
30,
31]. While describing space vitality around “human activities” and exploring the factors influencing space vitality have become the main research paths in studying space vitality. However, few studies focus on public spaces in suburban rural communities and explore the relationship between different groups of people and spatial environments.
Therefore, the relationship between the vitality of public space and the environment in suburban rural communities was explored from the perspectives of residents and tourists in the study. With Shecun Community, Jiangning District, Nanjing as an example, the study evaluated the public space vitality in suburban rural communities from the perspective of residents and tourists, probed into the relationship between public space vitality and environmental impact factors through the ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regressions (GWR), and discussed the vitality optimization strategy for public spaces in suburban rural communities on this basis. The study is focused on the following: (1) Spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics of tourists and residents in public spaces of suburban rural communities; (2) The effects of various environmental factors of public spaces on activities of various groups in suburban rural communities; and (3) How to build public spaces that meet the needs of residents and tourists.
5. Conclusions
The rapid development of urbanization has led to the formation of a complex and varied area in suburban rural communities. It should particularly be noted that, with the intervention of rural tourism, the imbalance in the needs of different groups of people and landscape configuration in public spaces in suburban rural communities brought about the vitality imbalance in public spaces of suburban rural communities. However, the real needs of tourists and residents are ignored in the current planning of suburban rural communities in China, and more research focuses on tourists. Accordingly, the study proposes a method to reveal the characteristics of space vitality based on tourists and residents by using GPS data and cognitive map data for long-term tracking. In addition, OLS and GWR were used to probe into leading factors affecting the vitality of tourists and residents in four aspects, i.e., space form, plant landscape, topography and geomorphology, and related facilities. The balance of space vitality was maximized by comparing residents’ and tourists’ demand for spaces to propose differentiated strategies for balancing the vitality of public space.
Findings of the present study: (1) There were obvious seasonal changes and spatial distribution differences in the space vitality of tourists, while residents were concentrated in fixed public spaces regardless of season and time. (2) For tourists, the public space vitality in suburban rural communities was affected by seven factors, including accessibility, seats, green looking ratio, recreational facilities, water area, plant species richness, and plant color composition. The accessibility, plant species richness, color composition, seats, and recreational facilities positively affected the tourist vitality in public space, while green looking ratio and water area negatively affected the tourist vitality in public space. For residents, five factors, including shelter facilities, seats, accessibility, space type, fitness facilities, had significant effects on the public space vitality in suburban rural communities. The accessibility, space type, seats, and shelter facilities positively affected the resident vitality in public spaces, and only fitness facilities had negative effects. Such results were of great importance since they can be used by administrators and planners to make improvements. The information on public spaces attracting the most tourists and residents may help formulate and adjust the space configuration, facilities and services. Such results may also determine the actions to reduce the negative effects on various groups in support of more sustainable tourism in cities and rural revitalization. Therefore, it is vital that strategies for optimizing the public space vitality in suburban rural communities are established.
The contribution of this study is to propose a method to evaluate the public space vitality in suburban rural communities from the perspective of tourists and residents and to explore the environmental factors affecting the space vitality through GWR and OLS. Studying a large number of insights can inform policymakers and planners for future work, which has important implications for the vibration-oriented planning of suburban rural communities.