With the acceleration of urbanization, public spaces in suburban villages and towns of large cities are encountering issues such as a loss of locality and the homogenization of landscapes. Consequently, residents’ sense of belonging to their hometowns is gradually diminishing, exacerbating conflicts between people and places. Place attachment and landscape preference, which represent emotional responses and subjective evaluations based on human-land interaction in public spaces, are highly valuable in guiding the governance of villages and towns, as well as in the protection and development of local landscapes. In this study, we employed the subjective measure of the Place Attachment Perception Scale (PAPS) in An’gu Village, Beijing, alongside an objective measure that tracked and recorded users’ visual attention through an eye-tracking device, combining both qualitative and quantitative analyses. By exploring the correlation between place attachment and elements of public space landscapes, the study aims to investigate the differences in residents’ attachment to various types of public spaces, analyze the underlying reasons for these differences, and identify local landscape elements in village public spaces that can evoke strong place attachment and hold potential for optimization. Based on these findings, we propose suggestions and strategies for enhancing the locality of public space landscapes in villages and towns to strengthen attachment. The study's results contribute to exploring innovative pathways for the transformation and upgrading of village and town public spaces through the lens of attachment, providing scientific guidance for improving the human environment.