The rebirth of urban subcenters: How subway expansion impacts the spatial structure and mix of amenities in European cities

Abstract

Why do some neighborhoods thrive, and others do not? While the importance of the local amenity mix has been established as a key determinant of local livability, its link to urban transport infrastructure remains understudied, partially due to a lack of data. Using spatiotemporal social media data from Foursquare, we analyze the impact of metro stations which opened between 2014 and 2017 on the amenity mix of surrounding neighborhoods in nine European cities: Rome, Milan, Barcelona, Budapest, Warsaw, Sofia, Vienna, Helsinki, and Stuttgart. Thereby, we study three properties of the local amenity mix: its density, multifunctionality, and the heterogeneity between amenity types. For this purpose, we propose a new measurement of multifunctionality, which calculates the entropy of the locally present amenity set incorporating the degree of similarity between amenity types. For causal inference, we use Difference-in-Difference Regression based on Propensity Score Matching and Entropy Balancing. Our findings show that in most cities, subway expansion had a significant positive impact on the local amenity density and multifunctionality and that especially the social amenities—Arts & Entertainment, Restaurants and Nightlife—responded strongly. Moreover, considerable agglomeration forces seem to prevail, causing existing subcenters to benefit most from new metro stations.

An amenity‐based approach to excellent returning scientists' location choice in China

“…Especially, intra‐urban transports , such as the subway, has the largest coefficient (0.461) in model 3, which means that as the subway mileage increases by 1% in the respective urban location, the probability of it being chosen increases by 46.1 percentage points on average. This is not merely because it provides a convenient and fast form of transport for residents in big cities (Duranton & Turner, 2012; He & Huang, 2018), but more importantly, subway plays an important role in fostering local social amenities such as arts & entertainment, restaurants, and nightlife (Sonnenschein et al, 2021). Further, both models 1 and 2 suggest that healthcare matters greatly to returning scientists.…”

The Spatial Pattern and Influencing Factors of China’s Nighttime Economy Utilizing POI and Remote Sensing Data

“…The NTE interacts with regional infrastructure; government supervision and management stimulate the effectiveness of private sector investment in infrastructure and increase the impact of building it on the economy [53]. The building of infrastructure is a decisive factor in regional livability, and urban transport infrastructure has a significant positive impact on nighttime economic growth [54][55][56]. The construction of commercial and entertainment infrastructure influences the time and spatial distribution of nighttime activities [57].…”

Economic development of Russia’s north-western regions and migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration

“…The expansion of agglomerations is also linked to the rapid expansion of financial services, transportation, commerce, real estate transactions, construction, and warehousing [2; 3]. Notably, transport plays a pivotal role in agglomeration development, and the infrastructure required for transport comes with substantial and ever-increasing costs [4]. Larger cities generally exhibit improved economic productivity, except in polycentric urban configurations where their growth reportedly has minimal impact on productivity [5].…”