Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy最新文献

{"title":"Regional Disparities and Mobility in the European Space (2000–2024): A Spatial Markov Analysis","authors":"Leonidas Doukissas,&nbsp;Panayotis Pantazis","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09977-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09977-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper examines the spatio-temporal dynamics of regional income disparities in the European Union over the period 2000–2024 at the NUTS-3 level. Using GDP per capita expressed relative to the EU27 average, the analysis combines unconditional Markov chains, Spatial Markov chains, and LISA Markov methods to assess regional income-state persistence, neighbourhood-conditioned mobility, and the durability of local spatial regimes. The results reveal strong persistence across the regional income distribution, with particularly limited upward mobility among low-income regions embedded in disadvantaged neighbourhood environments. Spatial Markov evidence shows that transition probabilities vary systematically across neighbourhood income regimes, consistent with spatially conditioned mobility barriers. The LISA Markov results provide especially strong evidence of structurally embedded spatial inequality, revealing persistent Low-Low and High-High local spatial-association regimes over time. Robustness checks across alternative state partitions, spatial weights matrices, and policy-relevant subperiods confirm that the main patterns are not driven by a single discretization, neighbourhood specification, or pooled time window. The findings highlight the importance of place-sensitive and spatially coordinated cohesion policies, while preserving a diagnostic rather than causal interpretation of the results.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148838023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"China’s Ecological Conservation Redline and Regional Ecosystem Service Value: Based on Machine Learning and the Quasi-Natural Experimental Evidence of Staggered DID","authors":"Guangcheng Ma,&nbsp;Junhong Bai,&nbsp;Yiru Chen","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09984-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09984-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Quantifying the causal effect of place-based ecological policies on ecosystem service value remains challenging due to the multidimensional nature of ecological benefits and the endogeneity of policy adoption. This paper addresses these challenges by proposing a two-stage analytical framework. In the first stage, a machine-learning-based aggregation approach is applied to panel data covering 280 Chinese prefecture-level cities over the period 2000–2024, generating a composite ecosystem service value index that jointly reflects provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting functions. In the second stage, a staggered Difference-in-Differences design exploits the phased rollout of the ecological conservation redline policy across regions to identify its causal effect on the composite index. The results show that the policy generates a statistically significant and progressively increasing improvement in regional ecosystem service value. Mechanism analysis indicates that this effect operates through three partial mediation channels: green technology innovation, ecological spatial reconstruction, and ecological fiscal transfer incentives. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effect is stronger in cities with higher local governmental environmental attention and in regions with greater ecosystem vulnerability. Moderating effect tests further reveal that policy coordination across administrative departments and local governance capacity both amplify the baseline treatment effect. This study contributes to the literature by linking a machine-learning-driven measurement framework with quasi-experimental causal inference, offering actionable evidence for the refinement of national land spatial planning and ecological governance in China.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148838197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Building a Digital Smart City Index System for Urban Planning and Governance","authors":"Zhichang Cai,&nbsp;Guangyu Wu,&nbsp;Ying Li,&nbsp;ChengHe Guan","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09988-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09988-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Smart city index systems are widely used to guide and evaluate urban digital transformation, yet many remain constrained by static indicators, sectoral silos, and weak ties to real-world governance needs. This paper examines how a smart city index system can be designed to connect data, analytics, institutions, and users to support timely, coordinated, and context-sensitive urban decision-making. We present the Digital Smart City (DISC) Index System, a modular framework developed through a design-oriented, application-based process rooted in municipal digital initiatives in China. The system consists of three interlinked components: a Data Resource System for multi-source integration; a City Algorithm System that generates spatially and temporally grounded indicators; and an Interactive City Dashboard that facilitates scenario-based analysis for different user groups. We demonstrate the system’s application through three cases in mobility, safety, and livability that illustrate how it can organize data flows and decision support in practice. By aligning digital infrastructure with the operational priorities of urban governance, the paper advances a transferable design logic for integrated and responsive smart city planning. We further outline a tiered implementation model, citizen participation mechanisms, and an evaluation agenda through which the DISC design logic can be adapted to lower-resource and institutionally fragmented urban contexts.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148838278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"All Roads Lead to Rome in Shrinking Cities? Evidence from Northeast China","authors":"Xinyu Li,&nbsp;Hao Yuan,&nbsp;Wuxu Tong,&nbsp;Yuanjing Zhang,&nbsp;Guoqiang Shen","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09978-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09978-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Urban shrinkage threatens fiscal stability, public-service provision, and spatial equity. Existing studies have advanced the understanding of shrinkage drivers, but many still treat these drivers as additive or separately observed factors, leaving limited evidence on recurrent mechanism cores beneath heterogeneous city trajectories. This paper develops a multi-path diagnostic framework for 34 shrinking cities in Northeast China from 2010 to 2021. The framework compares three complementary paths: a conceptual efficiency path, a supervised machine-learning path, and an unsupervised neural-network path. We use this design to examine whether diagnostically different paths converge on common mechanism structures rather than merely producing path-specific variable rankings. The results show that, despite differences in modeling logic and city-type performance, all three paths converge on recurrent mechanism backbones across city types. These backbones cluster around investment and labor conditions, human capital, economic and employment states, fiscal-output formation, and public response or reinvestment. The findings suggest that shrinkage in Northeast China is not only a problem of population loss or spatial downsizing, but also a fiscal-industrial coupling process shaped by industrial path dependence, tax-base formation, land-finance reliance, and public-expenditure obligations. The city typology further shows that shared mechanisms are expressed through different weak conversion points, requiring type-sensitive policy sequencing rather than uniform intervention. By translating stable structural units into short-term adjustment, medium-term structural repair, and long-term coordination monitoring, the framework provides a reproducible and structure-aware decision-support approach for shrinking cities beyond Northeast China.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urban AI Adoption and the Settlement Intentions of High-Skilled Workers: Evidence from China","authors":"Siyu Meng,&nbsp;Xuan Zou","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09992-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09992-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Enhancing talent retention has become a critical pathway for cities to strengthen their core competitiveness and achieve sustainable development. Using data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), this study examines how urban artificial intelligence (AI) adoption influences the long-term settlement intentions of high-skilled workers. The findings suggest that AI adoption is likely to enhance the settlement intentions of high-skilled workers. The mechanism analysis suggests that AI may influence settlement intentions through three channels—the income effect, the livability effect, and the career development effect. The positive effect is more pronounced among long-term migrants, interprovincial migrants, and those employed in state-owned enterprises. At the city level, the effect is stronger in large cities, in cities outside urban agglomerations, and in cities with higher administrative status. These findings provide useful insights for cities seeking to develop differentiated AI strategies and more targeted talent policies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Impact of Urban Renewal on Neighborhood Housing Prices: A Spatial Effects and Differential Analysis in Nanjing City, China","authors":"Lifang Zhang,&nbsp;Jiajia Liao,&nbsp;Ying Li,&nbsp;Pinhua Jin,&nbsp;Shuqi Li,&nbsp;Yeting Fan","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09990-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09990-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Urban renewal generates significant externalities and serves as a vital strategic instrument for sustainable urban development. Its impact on neighborhood housing prices is directly linked to the attributes of a specific region and influences the local residential market. This study employed a difference-in-difference model combined with the Hedonic price framework and geographically weighted regression model to explore the impact of urban renewal on housing prices, by investigating 60 urban renewal projects initiated in Nanjing City between 2014 and 2022. The study explores the heterogeneous effects of different types of urban renewal projects on housing prices and investigates the spatial scope of their influence. The results showed that urban renewal projects have significantly driven up housing prices within a 1.5 km radius. This impact varies depending on the types of urban renewal, the specific locations, and the distance from urban renewal projects. Specifically, commercial-type urban renewal projects yield the greatest increase in housing prices, compared with industrial and residential projects. Projects in the central urban districts exert a stronger influence on neighborhood housing prices than those in suburban districts, which significantly boost housing prices by 28.57% within 1.5 km. Urban renewal effects on housing prices vary by distance, with stronger impacts closer to projects. Both residential and commercial renewal exert positive price effects on surrounding housing across all distance bands; however, commercial projects demonstrate the most pronounced impact within 500 m. Residential and industrial renewals show statistically significant price effects within 500-1,000 m. A deeper insight into how urban renewal intricately influences housing prices would enable more effective policy development for managing renewal initiatives within dynamic housing market contexts.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effect of Public Infrastructure on Interregional Agricultural Trade in Burkina Faso","authors":"Ladioum Bienvenue Drabo,&nbsp;Tibi Didier Zoungrana","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09993-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09993-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This research examines the impact of public infrastructure on interregional agricultural trade in Burkina Faso using panel data for the country’s 13 regions over the period 2011–2020. Because observed interregional trade flow data are unavailable, trade flows are reconstructed using a spatial equilibrium approach before being estimated within a gravity framework using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood with high-dimensional fixed effects (HDFE-PPML). The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in infrastructure effects. Road infrastructure in origin regions significantly promotes agricultural trade, whereas road infrastructure in destination regions exerts a negative effect, suggesting that infrastructure impacts depend on its spatial location within the trade network. Information and communication technologies stimulate trade in destination regions but reduce it in origin regions, while electricity infrastructure mainly benefits importing regions. Overall, the findings highlight that interregional agricultural trade depends not only on infrastructure availability but also on how transport, communication, and energy infrastructures interact across regions. These findings suggest that infrastructure policies should account for the heterogeneous effects of transport, communication, and electricity infrastructure across origin and destination regions to better promote interregional agricultural trade.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Investigating Spatially Heterogeneous and Nonlinear Associations Between Urban Context and Taxi Related Emissions","authors":"Yu Gong,&nbsp;Wei Yang,&nbsp;Yingpeng Li,&nbsp;Jiaming Sun","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09981-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09981-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Taxi carbon emissions (TCE) contribute significantly to air pollution and climate change. However, the nonlinear and spatially heterogeneous relationships between environmental factors and TCE remain insufficiently understood. Therefore, this study investigates the spatially heterogeneous and nonlinear associations between environmental factors and TCE using taxi GPS trajectories and multisource urban data. Specifically, a Geographically Weighted Random Forest (GW-RF) model is employed to capture nonlinear relationships while accounting for spatial non-stationarity, and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) mode is used to interpret feature importance and nonlinear marginal effect patterns. Using Chongqing, China, as a case study, this study yields the following key findings: (1) Neighborhood-level built environment factors dominated TCE, accounting for 64.5% of total explanatory importance, with transit accessibility, population density, and intersection density emerging as the most influential factors. (2) All examined factors exhibit significant nonlinear marginal effect, revealing complex environment-emission association patterns. (3) The importance and marginal effects of key factors such as bus station density, street enclosure, varied markedly across temporal periods and occupancy statuses. (4) Spatial heterogeneity was evident in both variable importance and local effects, particularly for population density, transit accessibility, and street visual characteristics. The findings provide valuable evidence to inform spatially differentiated, nonlinear-sensitive urban and transport planning policies aimed at sustainable mobility and emissions reduction.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measurement, Spatio-Temporal Pattern and Regional Differences of the Evolution Level in Digital Industry Innovation Ecosystem","authors":"Yabing Ma,&nbsp;Yongheng Fang","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09979-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09979-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The digital industry is not only an important carrier and platform for developing new quality productive forces, but also a significant engine for driving economic growth. The development of the digital industry has also shifted from traditional linear innovation to a new paradigm of the digital industry innovation ecosystem (DIIE). Scientifically measuring the evolution level of the DIIE is of great significance for assessing the development status of the system, identifying regional collaboration paths, and optimizing policy supply. This study focuses on the evolution of the DIIE. By using the Meta-analysis method, a measurement model for the evolution level of the DIIE is constructed. The CRITIC- entropy weight method is adopted to calculate the evolution level of the DIIE in 30 provinces across the country from 2010 to 2022. Furthermore, methods such as the standard deviation ellipse, kernel density estimation, Markov chain, Dagum Gini coefficient and its decomposition are employed to reveal the spatiotemporal pattern, dynamic evolution and regional differences of the system evolution level. The research results show that: (1) From 2010 to 2022, the evolution level of the national DIIE continued to rise and the regional gap tended to narrow. The increase rates in each dimension were as follows: factors, environment, functions and structure. The increase rates in each region were as follows: eastern region, central region, western region and northeastern region. (2) There is a significant spatial imbalance in the evolution level of the national DIIE. The standard deviation ellipse shows a \"northeast-southwest\" trend, and the area continues to shrink, with the center moving towards the southwest. (3) The evolution level of the national DIIE tends to be concentrated, but the internal morphology of each region is clearly differentiated. The eastern region shows a single peak convergence, the central region shows a single or double peak alternation, and the northeastern region shows a double peak fixation. There are significant \"club convergence\" and asymmetric spatial spillover effects. (4) The overall difference first decreased and then increased, but the overall decline occurred. The contribution rate of regional differences remained dominant. Among them, the difference between the eastern and northeastern regions was the largest, and the difference within the eastern region showed an upward trend.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Community De-gating, Streetscape Environment, and Governance: Impacts on Residents’ Perception of Safety in Beijing, China","authors":"Ju He,&nbsp;Jingcheng Cai,&nbsp;Li Chen,&nbsp;Meng Yang,&nbsp;Yunxiao Dang,&nbsp;Wenzhong Zhang","doi":"10.1007/s12061-026-09982-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12061-026-09982-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Gated communities are widespread in Chinese cities. With the promotion of community de-gating in urban renewal, it is important to examine how different forms of community enclosure affect residents’ perception of safety (RPS). This study leverages data from 1,188 valid questionnaires and community street-view imagery, collected across eight communities in Beijing in 2021, to explore the influence of the community streetscape environment on RPS and to identify the moderating impact of community governance on RPS within communities undergoing de-gating. The findings indicate that: (1) The RPS among residents of gated communities is markedly higher than that of those in communities that have undergone de-gating, with a pronounced divergence in the streetscape environments between de-gated and gated configurations. (2) The flow of vehicles and pedestrians, architectural structures, and road intersections are identified as pivotal environmental factors that tend to erode RPS. (3) The level of community governance exerts a significant moderating influence on RPS when a community transitions to an open state, notably augmenting the perception of safety. This study provides empirical evidence for community de-gating policies and highlights the need to integrate spatial design with community governance to maintain RPS.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148783433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}