Chinese universities are expanding outward, with more campuses now located on the urban fringe. Their boundaries are often open, and the surrounding land uses are mixed. This study examines four spatial attributes, edge definition, night-time lighting, visibility, and environmental maintenance, and how they relate to students’ perceived safety and environmental satisfaction. We draw on crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework to develop a mediation model: spatial attributes are associated with satisfaction through perceived safety. Survey data were collected from 411 students across two suburban campuses and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Visibility and environmental maintenance both strengthen perceived safety, whereas edge definition and night-time lighting do not exhibit significant effects. Perceived safety, in turn, strongly predicts environmental satisfaction and serves as a key design priority in rapidly urbanizing campus settings, and is further translated into reusable spatial design patterns for campus safety assessment and targeted environmental intervention, and may also inform broader discussions of urban wellbeing in suburban contexts.
Niu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.