Conservation oriented accessibility assessment for historical and cultural towns: Taking Zhouzhuang town as an example

Zhouzhuang is a township of water. It is located within Kunshan county-level city, 30 km southeast of Suzhou. In the long history, surrounded by water, it has survived due to the traffic inconvenience. However, since the discovery of the wonderland, that kind of tranquility has been broken, no longer exists. Currently, the phenomenon of over-commercialization as well as overload tourism in Zhouzhuang have provoked the denunciation and thinking of people of insight. It is found that traffic accessibility has a close relation with the unique characteristics of historical and cultural towns in our country. Therefore, we take Zhouzhuang as an example to elaborate the significance of traffic accessibility in the conservation process of historical and cultural towns. During the selection process of historical and cultural towns (villages), the historical vicissitude of traffic accessibility should also be considered as an important factor.