Does urban renewal program increase urban vitality? Causal evidence from Beijing City, China

Abstract

After decades of rapid urban expansion, urban renewal programs have emerged as a vital urban policy across cities worldwide and their effect have obtained increasing attention. However, existing research has largely overlooked the effect of urban renewal programs on urban vitality and have not adequately accounted for potential selection bias. To address these gaps, we use propensity score matching (PSM) method to overcome the selection bias and estimate the causal effect of urban renewal programs on urban vitality across 712 blocks in Beijing City, China. Our findings indicate that these programs significantly increase urban vitality, with urban renewal blocks experiencing an average gain of 18.23 %. Furthermore, the PSM effectively addresses the risks of an exaggerated effect of urban renewal program on urban vitality (inflating the positive effect to 670.68 %), thereby mitigating bias in the program evaluations. These results underscore the importance of accounting for selection bias in programs evaluations and highlight the need to consider non-material dimensions of urban renewal.