Urban regeneration as a mobility intervention: Evidence on travel behavior shifts

Abstract

Urban regeneration reshapes urban space and population composition, yet its effects on daily travel behavior remains unclear. This study examines how urban regeneration influences residents' travel behavior using repeated cross-sectional Household Travel Survey data from Shenzhen, China. Treating regeneration projects implemented between 2016 and 2020 as a quasi-natural experiment, we apply a machine-learning-enhanced doubly robust difference-in-differences framework to estimate the effects of urban regeneration. The results show that urban regeneration has no significant impact on commuting time, while its effect on commuting distance remains indeterminate. In contrast, urban regeneration is found to have significantly positive effects on the shares of private car and bus travel, measured by both trip frequency and travel distance, with no significant effects on metro use. These findings suggest that, besides local accessibility improvements and built environment transformations, urban regeneration may also shape mobility choices through changes in population composition and travel preferences, highlighting the need to integrate transport and social considerations into regeneration policies. The empirical evidence underscores the importance of viewing urban regeneration as a multidimensional process, in which physical alteration, population restructuring and their mobility implications should be jointly considered in regeneration practice to support more sustainable and equitable urban mobility systems.