Luis Garzón , Julián Arellana , Luis Bravo-Moncayo , Juan de Dios Ortúzar , Jairo Ortega
{"title":"The role of audio-visual elements in Residential Location Choice","authors":"Luis Garzón , Julián Arellana , Luis Bravo-Moncayo , Juan de Dios Ortúzar , Jairo Ortega","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103516","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103516","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding how individuals perceive and value audiovisual elements in the urban environment is challenging but essential to model people's residential location choices. We investigate the willingness to pay for improved audiovisual attributes in a residential choice context, considering the effect of three latent constructs: noise sensitivity, sound pleasantness, and visual liveability. We complement the econometric estimation using individuals' socio-demographic and place location information. Data came from a stated choice experiment using a digital survey with immersive audiovisual techniques considering a set of scenarios from 36 different residential locations. A hybrid choice modelling approach revealed significant heterogeneity in the willingness to pay for residential choice location when respondents (i) considered different spatial combinations of audiovisual metrics; (ii) demonstrated sensitivity to noise and were exposed to high-energy fluctuations in sound pressure levels; (iii) lived near a particular place condition and matched a socio-demographic characteristic and (iv) preferences were allowed to be influenced by auditory and visual perceptions. Our findings have implications for housing location and policy, demonstrating the influence of subjective perceptions and individual and physical characteristics in the choice of residence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103516"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144712924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What drives evolved commercialization and transformation of residential into mixed-use neighbourhoods?","authors":"Puneet Mishra, Uttam Kumar Roy","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103531","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103531","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the organic transformation of residential areas into mixed-use neighbourhoods through evolved commercialization, with a focus on customer attraction dynamics. While mixed-use development has been extensively studied, the factors driving incremental commercialization and its relationship with mixed-use formation remain underexplored, particularly in the context of developing cities. This research focuses on examining how commercial typology, clustering, local mixedness, and connectivity contribute to customer attraction and the broader evolution of mixed-use environments. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining survey-based data and spatial analysis from sixteen selected mixed-use streets in different zones of Delhi, India. Using ordinal logistic regression, it identifies significant factors influencing customer attraction, such as store size, operational hours, clustering of businesses and informal activities and level of mixedness between storekeeper's place of trade and residence. It further highlights the role of connectivity and accessibility metrics, in context of enhanced walkability and driving customer attraction. This study fills a critical gap by offering empirical insights in understanding the interaction between evolved commercialization and evolution of mixed-use neighbourhoods, particularly in the Global South, where organic transformations are prevalent.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103531"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144711846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How does the mixed-functional land use pattern suppress the cooling capacity of urban green spaces? Evidence from China","authors":"Yujie Ren , Xinyue Wang , Tianhui Fan","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103522","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103522","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Urban green spaces are widely recognized for their role in mitigating urban heat through ecological processes such as evapotranspiration and shading. However, the intensification of compact and mixed-functional land use patterns may constrain their thermal regulatory performance. This study investigates the extent to which mixed-functional land use patterns modulate the cooling capacity of urban green spaces across 287 Chinese cities, employing a multi-method framework that integrates spatial regression models, multi-scale geographically weighted regression (MGWR), and interpretable machine learning (XGBoost with SHAP values). The results indicate that mixed-functional land use significantly suppresses green space cooling through three main pathways: (1) by increasing landscape fragmentation, it disrupts spatial continuity; (2) by intensifying competition with built-up areas, it diminishes marginal cooling gains; and (3) by interacting with green space morphology, it selectively impairs the thermal performance of planned urban green spaces (PDUGS), while natural urban green spaces (NAUGS) remain relatively resilient. Empirical evidence supports these mechanisms: the MIXD (degree of mixed-functional land use pattern) × PDUGS coverage interaction yields a significantly negative coefficient (β = −0.000865) in the cold island area model, and MGWR identifies stronger suppressive effects in high-density southern cities. SHAP-based threshold analysis identifies a suboptimal MIXD range (≈55–240) associated with markedly reduced cooling capacity, and a saturation point beyond ≈405 where additional functional mixing yields diminishing returns. These findings highlight the conditional role of urban form in shaping green infrastructure performance and underscore the importance of adopting type-specific and structure-sensitive planning strategies to optimize green space effectiveness under compact urban development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103522"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144711845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rethinking the development of “left-behind” places through regional cooperation: A spatiotemporal analysis of counties in Zhejiang, China","authors":"Yuanshuo Xu , Jingyuan Li , Yan Wu , Weiwen Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103526","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103526","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Regional cooperation is a critical governing strategy to reduce spatial disparities. As the manifestation of evolving state spatiality at the city-regional scale, China's approach is characterized by a strong role of the state in orchestrating regional cooperation. However, few quantitative studies examine whether state-led regional cooperation effectively promotes development in the left-behind areas. This study analyzes 34,162 cooperation-related news articles in Zhejiang, China, using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model to categorize cooperation into various forms and fields. The results show the expansion of the regional cooperation network and its alignment with state policy agendas. Both fixed-effects regression and Geographical and Temporal Weighted Regression (GTWR) were applied to reveal the spatiotemporal patterns of regional cooperation on county development. Administrative cooperation boosts growth in less-developed counties by improving local governance capacities, while exchanges among officials show limited economic impact. Integrated planning partnerships may worsen regional inequalities due to the asymmetric politico-economic status of localities. Although industrial development collaborations are slow to yield returns, they can drive long-term growth. The success of cooperation in ecological economies depends on national policy support. Cooperation in public services and transportation fosters county development but may also exacerbate inequalities by facilitating resource outflows. Our findings provide insights for policymakers, emphasizing the need for context-specific strategies that ensure equitable benefits without worsening disparities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103526"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144703283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identifying the daily activity-travel patterns of rural residents: A case study of Guiyang, China","authors":"Yueren He, Mingwei He, Yang Liu, Qian Qian","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103529","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103529","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Rural transportation is a cornerstone for developing sustainable rural and improving resident well-being. Understanding activity-travel behavior is essential for effective rural management and transportation planning. Existing research has explored the specific activity segments and travel decisions of rural residents. However, there is limited knowledge about the clear profiles of daily activity patterns. Using the sequence analysis method (SAM) based on the 2021 Guiyang Household Travel Survey, we investigate rural residents' activity and travel time allocation and identify daily activity-travel patterns (DATPs). The characteristics of various DATPs are analyzed from the perspectives of activity participation and travel behavior, and the multinomial logit (MNL) model is applied to explore the association between DATPs and sociodemographic attributes. This study identifies six categories of DATP: Work, School, Farm, Social, Life, and Home patterns. Specifically, Work, School, and Farm patterns are dominated by livelihood activities, averaging over 6 h daily, with a morning and evening departure peak. The Social group allocates more time to visiting family or friends and exhibits the peak times before and after meals. The Life pattern involves more life-related services, while the Home group spends more on staying at home and short-duration outdoor activities. Moreover, Work and Life patterns rely more on private cars due to longer travel distances, whereas other DATP groups prefer walking. The results contribute to a better understanding of the daily pattern segmentation for rural residents and tailored transport policies to meet their travel demand.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103529"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144703285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mingzhe Wang , Houqi Shen , Zinan Xin , Yinghao Pan
{"title":"Trust and land Lease: The role of informal institutions in land market in rural China","authors":"Mingzhe Wang , Houqi Shen , Zinan Xin , Yinghao Pan","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103521","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103521","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While formal institutions have been extensively studied in land markets, the role of informal institutions, particularly interpersonal trust, remains underexplored. This study examines the impact of trust on land lease behavior, using large-scale survey data from 2012 to 2022. The findings indicate that farmers with greater trust in strangers are more likely to lease land, with this effect being particularly pronounced among men, less-educated individuals, and low-income households. Additionally, higher trust in strangers increases the likelihood of leasing land to non-acquaintances rather than to acquaintances or relatives, promoting broader market participation. However, market factors and clan networks can substitute for trust, leading to similar leasing patterns. These substitution effects exhibit variability by region, with southern and northern China demonstrating markedly divergent effects. These findings highlight the importance of trust in shaping smallholder land use and the complex interplay between formal and informal institutions, offering insights for land policy design and rural development strategies in emerging economies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103521"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144703284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring China's venture capital investment dynamics and influencing factors: a perspective of intercity flow","authors":"Delin Du , Jiaoe Wang , Jianjun Li","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103528","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103528","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Venture capital (VC) investment process involves the movement of capital, information, and knowledge, influencing the city network. China's intercity VC investments have progressively expanded, giving rise to a large and complex network. The Yangtze River Delta (YRD), Pearl River Delta (PRD), and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) regions have emerged as the core regions of the network. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou hold significant positions as VC centers in the country. As western cities like Chengdu have gained prominence, the network has gradually evolved into a diamond structure. Based on the XGBoost and SHAP algorithms, this study explored the importance of socioeconomic factors, geographical location and transportation, and administrative factors in the network evolution. Local financial markets and innovation potential, particularly the number of local VC firms, are pivotal in shaping the network evolution of intercity VC investments. The impact of transportation exhibits an initial increase, followed by a decline. In comparison to socioeconomic factors, geographical location and transportation as well as urban administrative governance, appear to have relatively limited influence. The findings contribute to a more profound understanding of the dynamics behind the evolution of financial capital flows among cities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103528"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144696399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jialv Zhu , Wenxin Liu , Shixin Zheng , Yingyue Sun
{"title":"Unraveling drivers of land use efficiency in rapidly urbanizing areas: A hybrid SBM-DDF and explainable machine learning framework","authors":"Jialv Zhu , Wenxin Liu , Shixin Zheng , Yingyue Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103518","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103518","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the acceleration of urbanization in China, improving land use efficiency has become a key priority for sustainable development. This study, based on a multi-source panel dataset covering 35 representative rapidly expanding cities from 2007 to 2022, proposes a hybrid analytical framework that integrates a Slack-Based Measure Directional Distance Function (SBM-DDF) model for measuring urban land use efficiency (ULUE) with an explainable machine learning pipeline combining CatBoost, SHAP, and Generalized Additive Models (GAM) to identify and interpret its key drivers. The results show that ULUE has generally increased over time, with more rapid improvements observed after 2015, particularly in eastern cities. Nevertheless, significant regional disparities persist: the eastern region has the highest average efficiency (0.749), followed by the central (0.737), western (0.727), and northeastern regions (0.691). Some developed cities have seen declines in efficiency, while several less-developed ones are approaching the efficiency frontier. Based on the average SHAP contributions, economic level (38 %), social development (23 %), and environmental conditions (18 %) emerge as the dominant drivers, all exhibiting strong threshold effects. ULUE in eastern cities is mainly driven by economic and industrial growth, while other regions rely more on improved public services and environmental management. Land policies and market openness show a negative impact overall. These findings underscore the need to incorporate non-linear thresholds into policy design, promote regionally differentiated land use strategies, and align spatial planning with both economic development and environmental sustainability goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103518"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144696398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qingfeng Cai , Hao Liu , Yinghao Pan , Jingxian Zou
{"title":"The innovation effects of local talent competition: The case of China's municipal “Vying for Talent” policies","authors":"Qingfeng Cai , Hao Liu , Yinghao Pan , Jingxian Zou","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103523","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how place-based talent policies shape innovation dynamics across Chinese cities. Drawing on municipal “Vying for Talent” initiatives (2009–2019), we analyze how these strategies reconfigure firms’ innovation incentives through interactions with local institutions. Our mechanism analysis reveals that these interventions enhance corporate R&D intensity primarily by amplifying expected returns through increased direct government subsidies, and by reducing innovation costs via lower effective tax rates and the enhancement of firm-level human capital. Policy effectiveness demonstrates strong complementarity with local economic conditions, generating a “Matthew effect” whereby advantaged cities achieve greater returns. This spatial differentiation, particularly pronounced among private and high-tech firms, suggests talent policies may reinforce existing geographical hierarchies of innovation capacity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103523"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feilong Yang , Hongyang Chen , Li Chen , Wenzhong Zhang
{"title":"Unifying static and dynamic perspectives to assess spatial mismatch in polycentricity: Evidence from Beijing, China","authors":"Feilong Yang , Hongyang Chen , Li Chen , Wenzhong Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103520","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103520","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Polycentric development is widely recognized as an ideal spatial model for megacities, yet its implementation often falls short in the contexts of rapid expansion and suburbanization. Addressing this discrepancy demands a critical examination of urban form and inter-centre relationships. By leveraging large-scale mobile phone data, this study integrates static density distributions with dynamic mobility patterns to establish a conceptual framework for examining the internal structure and functional interdependencies within both cores and peripheries. We propose a novel methodology that combines spatial autocorrelation and the Leiden algorithm to identify Urban Employment Centres (UECs) across weekdays and weekends. The findings reveal a dual reconfiguration of the urban system: (1) the fragmentation of a historically contiguous core into large, distinct UECs, and (2) the integration of dispersed suburban settlements into small, individual UECs. While rank-size distributions indicate balanced employment and flow densities, network analysis reveals a pronounced capability hierarchy: a minority of UECs control resource agglomeration and diffusion, confining others to peripheral roles. This indicates that the nominal polycentric strategy has not developed as anticipated, but instead perpetuates monocentric path dependence. Moreover, geographical constraints and core-city dominance continue to impede cooperative networks between centres, thereby exacerbating core-periphery disparities in evolving megacities. This study advances a scalable diagnostic framework, enabling consistent assessment of polycentricity across institutional, cultural, and developmental contexts. Its findings provide policymakers with actionable strategies to reconcile polycentric goals with compact development, fostering equitable and sustainable transitions in megacities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"164 ","pages":"Article 103520"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144679968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}