Recently, a research team led by Associate Professor XU Haiyun from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at BUCEA published a paper titled “Mapping hot routes and perceived landscape values of ‘City Walk’ in Beijing’s historical neighbourhoods in the social media era” in  Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. This journal is the only humanities and social sciences title under the Nature Portfolio, and is indexed in both SSCI and A&HCI. It is ranked Q1 in the JCR category of interdisciplinary social sciences and placed in the top tier of the Chinese Academy of Sciences classification for humanities. The journal holds broad and significant academic influence worldwide. This marks the first time BUCEA has published a paper in  Humanities and Social Sciences Communications as the lead institution, representing a major breakthrough for BUCEA in the humanities and social sciences.

BUCEA’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning is the primary affiliated institution for the paper, with Dr. XU Haiyun as the first author. The study was supported by the Young Scientists Fund, National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The study shows that traditional urban perception followed a “whole–part–whole” model, while in the social media era it has shifted to a process of “fragment–walk–re-fragment–share”. This transformation enables continuous, crowdsourced production of urban narratives.

Spatial pattern of hot routes for City Walk routs use intensity

Heat maps of the spatial distribution (A –H) of individual landscape values

After analysis, the research team identified five most intensively used City Walk routes in Beijing’s historic districts, i.e. Wudaoying Hutong, Dongjiaominxiang, Shichahai Hutong, Gulou–Nanluoguxiang, and Baitasi Hutong, largely distributed along Beijing’s Central Axis.

The contribution of built environment indicators to City Walk use intensity

Random Forest regression analysis of public-perceived landscape values and POI features

This study offers new perspectives for urban renewal and historic district conservation in the capital city. It suggests that beyond preserving physical spaces, it is equally important to understand how people assign new meanings to these spaces through digital media, allowing historic urban areas to remain relevant in contemporary life.

Dr. XU Haiyun is an associate professor at BUCEA School of Architecture and Urban Planning. She holds a PhD in Landscape and Urban Planning from the University of Copenhagen, where she studied under Tobias Plieninger, Member of the European Academy of Sciences. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Social-Ecological Interactions Research Center of the University of G?ttingen and University of Kassel.