The more walkable, the more livable? -- can urban attractiveness improve urban vitality?

As one of the walkability attributes, attractiveness seems to play an essential role in improving urban vitality and is highly correlated with urban redevelopment. This paper aims to examine whether and to what extent the improvement of the level of attractiveness can encourage urban vitality. Four squares from the “Open Squares” project in Milan are selected as cases. This project transformed several neighborhood squares into attractive nodes by a series of similar low-cost interventions to encourage urban vitality. The methodology is subdivided into four steps. First of all, the spatial features of the squares were measured before and after the transformation. Then, several relevant walkability attributes of the surroundings, where the squares locate, were measured incorporating GIS (Geographic information system) and semantic segmentation of street view data. Thirdly, urban vitality levels before and after the transformation were evaluated based on the analysis of posts, photos, and textual contents of the squares posted on social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram). Finally, with comprehensive comparisons between the results of walkability assessment and social media data in different periods, the potentiality of attractiveness in improving urban vitality was evaluated.