Examining the relationship between socio-spatial attributes and everyday activities at the street edges of urban villages in Wuhan, China

Street edges in Chinese urban villages constitute intricate socio-spatial interfaces where everyday practices unfold amid material variation and ongoing appropriation; conditions that exceed the conventional binary of “objective environment” versus “subjective behaviour” common to urban street studies. Drawing upon six socio-spatial attributes (i.e., distinctiveness, temporality, articulation, openness, occupation, and appropriation) and three types of everyday activities (i.e., necessary, optional, and social behaviours), this study examines the nuanced relationships along the ground-floor interfaces of street edges within the context of urban villages in Wuhan, China. Four urban scholars independently assessed 110 territorially defined segments across six street edges within two urban villages for their socio-spatial attributes, and video recordings were used to document the activity types and duration (n = 6576). Results show that all six socio-spatial attributes were significantly associated with activity duration, with temporality and appropriation showing comparatively stronger associations than the other attributes. These findings offer insight into the significance of small-scale, fine-grained interventions that promote everyday activities within street-edge segments, providing an empirical framework for understanding diverse everyday activities along the street edges, particularly in Chinese urban-village contexts. Such fine-grained relationships, in turn, highlight the need to focus theoretical and empirical interest towards everyday activities and their social-spatial contexts within these complex urban settings.