Diagnosing Relational Mismatches and Relative Renewal Priorities for Street Segments in Historic Urban Areas: A Case Study of Hefei, China

Street renewal in historic centres requires prioritisation that retains the different reasons for intervention. This study develops a relational diagnostic framework linking service opportunity, walking-environment support, and traffic exposure across 106 street segments in the historic centre of Hefei, China. Opportunity–support typologies are combined with a continuous, sample-relative ranking using POI, functional-area, transport, and archived street-view data. Sidewalk, vegetation, and motor-vehicle visibility enter as distinct components. The 27 selected segments comprise 20 with high opportunity and low support, 6 with high values on both dimensions, and 1 with low values on both. The full framework shares 13 candidates with environment-only screening; adding traffic exposure to service–environment screening introduces ten candidates. Jinzhai Road rises from 48th to 12th when traffic exposure is included, illustrating how transport conditions distinguish a street with relatively favourable environmental support. Varying individual priority coefficients by ±20% retains 25–27 candidates, while adding building visibility retains 19, showing that candidate selection is more sensitive to component interpretation than to moderate coefficient changes. By linking each candidate’s relative rank to its relational type and component profile, the framework distinguishes intervention emphases within a common screening process and supports coordinated renewal across neighbouring streets and nodes.