Feasibility study on the construction of skyway in commercial center of typical extreme cold cities in China

Abstract: Cold weather greatly reduces willingness and comfort of urban residents, especially in pedestrian experience and business vitality, which has brought negative impacts on cities in the extreme cold region. Urban construction in China has characterized with wide roads and huge blocks. One of the urgent problems in planning and construction of cold cities in China is how to build skyways with climate protection function in the central areas of typical extreme cold cities in China. This paper takes Minneapolis of the USA and Harbin of China as typical cases in the cold regions. Based on Arcgis10.4 platform, this paper analyzes open data such as OpenStreetMap and POI, and expounds the typical characteristics of the air corridor system construction from two aspects of the urban external space support and the land use support. In the aspect of the urban external space support of the city, the comparative analysis is carried out from three dimensions, namely, the macro, the meso and the micro scale, including the building density, the space between the building Street walls, the corridor length and the connection form. In the aspect of land use support, the paper makes a comparative analysis from the aspects of the functional relationship between blocks and the degree of land use mix. This study reveals the characteristics of the outer space and land use function suitable for the construction of skyway, and draws the suitability evaluation of the air corridor system construction in the eight commercial centers in Harbin, scopes the suitable area for the construction of the skyway, and determines the preliminary plan of the planning and construction. The purpose is to promote the pedestrian friendly and enhance the vitality of commercial center in extreme cold cities.