Life-Cycle Evolution and Adaptive Governance of Everyday Micro Spaces in an Old Urban District: The Case of Xi’an, China

As China’s urban renewal shifts comprehensively toward stock optimisation, everyday micro spaces in high-density old districts have emerged as critical yet underexplored carriers for rebuilding grassroots social capital. However, existing research remains largely confined to static assessments of physical form, lacking systematic insight into the process-based evolution of micro spaces and their governance implications. The aim of this study is to develop a process-based analytical framework that explains how everyday micro spaces emerge, evolve, and stabilise in high-density old urban districts, and to translate that explanation into stage- and type-differentiated governance pathways. Drawing on purposive sampling observation of over 170 micro spaces and snowball-sampled in-depth interviews with 45 residents in Xi’an’s walled historic district, this study employs thematic analysis to examine micro space formation, activation, and governance dynamics. A three-dimensional analytical framework of “Spatial Type–Perceived Need–Life Cycle” is constructed, classifying micro spaces into three categories, identifying a three-tier, nine-level perceived needs spectrum, and tracing a five-stage evolutionary process of Discovery–Activity–Renovation–Management–Identity. The findings reveal that residents’ spontaneous practices and psychological ownership formation are the core endogenous drivers of micro space evolution. The primary structural constraints are ambiguous property rights, institutional vacuums, and a structural rupture at the Renovation-to-Management transition, which we conceptualise as the “high-risk window period”. This study proposes a full life-cycle adaptive governance paradigm. Through phased, type-differentiated interventions, it matches governance supply to the evolving demands of each stage. The paradigm offers both theoretical and practical guidance for stimulating the endogenous vitality of everyday micro spaces in old urban districts.