Which urban form factor most affects household electricity consumption? This study investigated the relationships between urban density, community layout, and land use factors and household electricity consumption simultaneously, along with building characteristics and demographic indicators. The study site involved 231 communities located in the former provincial area of Tainan City, Taiwan. Due to the area’s subtropical climate, air conditioning accounts for approximately 40% of the total yearly household electricity consumption. Of the urban form factors examined, greater population density was most strongly associated with lower household electricity consumption, followed respectively by greater urban canyon narrowness, or higher height to width ratios, and greater percentages of vacant space and building land use. Notably, both urban canyons and building land use percentages were associated with decreased consumption only after increasing past threshold levels, specifically a 1.5 height to width ratio and 40.7%, respectively. In addition, building characteristics, namely smaller household living areas and greater building age, were most strongly connected with lower household electricity consumption. In contrast, larger household living areas were linked with decreased household electricity consumption/floor area, revealing the importance of lower energy intensities of sizable scales. Of the demographic indicators studied, higher percentages of older adults were associated with lower household electricity consumption. Concerning urban form, the findings suggest that to reduce residential energy usage in a subtropical climate, buildings should be clustered to maximize the inter-building shadows resulting from narrower urban canyons, while simultaneously increasing non-built land use percentages in the adjacent areas.

The continuous change process in the impact of differences in public transport accessibility has not been explained specifically in previous studies. This study reveals that the interaction between two continuous explanatory variables has a significant impact on the explained variable in the hedonic model. The study takes the accessibility variable in the house price model as an instance, dividing the accessibility variable of the residential community into two parts. The first part is the rail accessibility defined by the Euclidean distance from the residential community to the nearest rail transportation station. The second part is the road accessibility defined by two Space Syntax indicators, connectivity and carrying capacity, according to the spatial pattern of the road network. As demonstrated by the spatial interactive regression model, this research finds that road connectivity has a significant regulating effect on the impact of the distance to the closest rail station on house prices based on the empirical evidence from Fuzhou, China.

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Constructing multimodal stations is one of the considered ways to implement transit-oriented development (TOD), with the goal of synergizing land use and transportation to promote both greater transit accessibility and sustainability in urban areas. Improvements in such accessibility have led to an uplift in land value and housing prices. These price changes have been primarily studied by analyzing the effects of proximity to stations of a single line or multi-line mass rapid transit (MRT) system. However, little attention has been paid to investigating the effects of different types of multimodal MRTs and railway joined stations. The aim of this study is to investigate the different types of multimodal stations in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. We use publicly available housing transaction data to construct hedonic price models. The results show that in the Kaohsiung MRT stations, an increase of 100 m in distance from the stations results in a TWD 258,000 decrease in the average housing price. The housing price elasticity with respect to a 1% increase in distance from these stations is -0.067%.

Mobility barriers can impede physical activity, increase the fear of falling, and pose a threat to the ability of older adults to live independently. This study investigated outdoor mobility barriers within a nonretirement public housing community located in Tainan, Taiwan. Site observations and interviews with older adult residents determined that parked motor scooters, potted plants, the rubber tiles of play areas, and a set of steps were the most important barriers. In addition, the space syntax parameters of control value and mean depth were effectively able to quantitatively measure improvements in walkability resulting from the hypothesized removal of these four barriers. These measures of improved walkability can be included in a cost-benefit analysis of spatial improvement factors to help policymakers address the mobility and accessibility needs of older adults.