Abstract Urban vitality and social cohesion both provide multiple benefits in cities. While it has been argued that urban vitality – the liveliness of cities – may strengthen social cohesion, this has not been sufficiently examined by empirical research. This paper presents and tests a model in which urban vitality mediates the relationship between built environment characteristics and neighborhood social cohesion, using survey and geospatial data from the Oslo metropolitan area. We find that neighborhood density and land use mix are positive predictors of urban vitality, but are negatively associated with social cohesion. Green space is found to be associated with lower urban vitality, while public transport accessibility is associated with higher social cohesion. Results indicate seemingly contradictory relationships between the built environment, urban vitality and social cohesion. On the one hand, although compact urban form has higher levels of urban vitality, it has lower levels of social cohesion compared to low-density, single-use urban form. On the other hand, for similar urban form types, urban vitality is found to be positively associated with social cohesion, suggesting that local initiatives and interventions aiming to increase residents’ walking and social activity within their neighborhood could also strengthen social cohesion.

中文翻译：

---

建筑环境、城市活力和社会凝聚力：充满活力的社区是否会培养强大的社区？

摘要 城市活力和社会凝聚力都为城市带来多重效益。虽然有人认为城市活力——城市的活力——可能会加强社会凝聚力，但这并没有得到实证研究的充分检验。本文使用奥斯陆大都市区的调查和地理空间数据，提出并测试了一个模型，在该模型中，城市活力在建成环境特征与社区社会凝聚力之间起中介作用。我们发现邻里密度和土地利用组合是城市活力的积极预测因素，但与社会凝聚力呈负相关。发现绿色空间与较低的城市活力相关，而公共交通可达性与较高的社会凝聚力相关。结果表明，建筑环境、城市活力和社会凝聚力之间看似矛盾的关系。一方面，紧凑型城市形态虽然具有较高的城市活力水平，但与低密度、一次性使用的城市形态相比，其社会凝聚力水平较低。另一方面，对于相似的城市形态类型，发现城市活力与社会凝聚力呈正相关，这表明旨在增加社区内居民步行和社交活动的地方举措和干预措施也可以加强社会凝聚力。