The Effects of Residents’ Sense of Place on Their Willingness to Support Urban Renewal: A Case Study of Century-Old East Street Renewal Project in Shaoguan, China

Abstract

With the improvement of urbanization in China, urban renewal has become the main way to meet the increasing demand of residents for urban space and facilities. In this context, this study takes “sense of place” as the theoretical starting point, takes Shaoguan Century-old East Street as the case, and constructs a relationship model between local residents’ sense of place and their willingness to support urban business district reconstruction from a multiscale perspective. By introducing community concern as a mediating variable, this study uses a structural equation model to analyze the influence of residents’ sense of place, including place attachment and place identity, on their intention to support commercial district reconstruction. The results show that residents’ sense of place is significantly different on the scales of block, community, and urban area, and the difference is only in place attachment, not in place identity. Second, the enhancement of residents’ sense of place can not only directly strengthen their willingness to support the renovation of commercial areas, but indirectly improve their willingness to support the renovation of urban commercial areas by enhancing their attention to the community. The conclusion of this study is of great significance to promote the regeneration of historical and cultural blocks and the process of urban renewal.

1. Introduction

Urbanization has been one of the main drivers of rapid social and economic changes in China since the reform and opening up in 1978. After China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, its economic structure was greatly adjusted, and the importance of expanding its economic aggregate became increasingly prominent, prompting most cities in China to optimize their construction to attract investment and boost domestic demand to enhance competitiveness and stimulate regional economic vitality [1]. In this context, urban expansion and renewal has become the main way to adapt to the increasing demand of residents for urban space and facilities. However, in the early urban expansion process, the old buildings and backward facilities in the old cities were abandoned due to the continuous updating of macroeconomic layouts and local development policies. The resulting waste of resources and imbalance between supply and demand indirectly intensified the potential social contradictions, resulting in great pressure for the improvement of people’s livelihood and the sustainable development of the city. Different from the simple “increase and increase” construction, urban renewal focuses on improving the quality and efficiency of the existing stock, aiming at improving the urban living environment, inheriting the historical context of the city, optimizing the industrial structure of the city, promoting the play of urban functions, and safeguarding urban public interests [2,3]. Among them, as the main method of urban renewal, commercial district reconstruction is widely regarded as the “panacea” to solve urban and social problems in the development of many Western cities [4,5].

After the reform and opening up, the transformation of urban business districts in China experienced a rapid change from an economic orientation to a sustainable and cultural orientation. Increasing evidence shows that culture-led commercial district renovation can provide relatively lasting environmental, economic, social, and cultural benefits overall [6]. There are successful examples of culture-oriented transformation in commercial areas, such as Pingjiang Road in Suzhou and Tianzifang in Shanghai, China. The regeneration of historical blocks has been included in the development outline of many urban plans with historical and cultural deposits. On the basis of protecting the historical structure of the area, the culture-led renewal of the business district is used as an important means to attract investment and consumption to revive economic vitality and promote steady economic growth. With the increasing demand for the reconstruction of historic blocks, analyzing the impact of the reconstruction of historic blocks based on existing reconstruction cases has become a hot research issue.

However, as for the research topic of the reconstruction of historic blocks, existing research mainly focuses on the stakeholders, mechanisms, modes, processes, and impact effects of the block redevelopment projects [7]. Among them, most of the relevant studies on the transformation effect of commercial districts focus on the evaluation of its economic effect, ignoring the influence effect from the cultural dimension. In fact, the transformation project of an historic district is faced with a more complex problem than the traditional project, that is, how to balance the relationships among culture, local community and urban development. Whether these relationships are balanced depends on residents’ subjective cognition, emotion, and communication [8]. From the perspective of “place”, the influences of these different dimensions are closely related to “sense of place”. An emotional attitude toward a place forms place attachment; when a place functionally provides a space for desired activities, people will feel satisfied with the place, resulting in place dependence [9].

This study aims to present multiple perspectives on exploring how to balance the relationships among cultural authenticity, monumental value, and historical integrity in the transformation of historic districts from the perspective of sense of place. As a typical case of the commercial transformation of an historical district in recent years, the Shaoguan Century-old East Street reconstruction project aimed to restore the original historical and cultural features of the district, which is also the famous tourist card of Dongdi Road in the Zhenjiang district. The results of this project have important research value. Therefore, based on the Shaoguan Century-old East Street reconstruction project in Shaoguan, this study first explores whether there are differences in residents’ sense of place at different levels (block, community and urban area) after the reconstruction of Century-old East Street from a multiscale perspective. Second, with the increasing necessity of urban business district reconstruction in China, it is of great significance to explore residents’ willingness to support urban business district reconstruction. Therefore, the second research question of this study is whether the change of residents’ sense of place toward Century-old East Street will affect their willingness to support the transformation of the Shaoguan business district. The answer to this question is helpful to analyze the externalities generated by block reconstruction at the micro level to understand how small-scale reconstruction further affects urban renewal and reconstruction at the macro level. Finally, Guo et al. [10] pointed out that community concern is also an important factor affecting residents’ willingness to renovate. Considering that both the sense of place in a block and community concern are residents’ perceptions at the micro level, this study will further explore whether community concern is an important mediator of the impact of the sense of place in a block on the support intention of commercial district reconstruction. The purpose of this research is to clarify the direct and indirect effects of the sense of place on the transformation of the business district.

2. Literature Review

Sense of place is a major and important concept in human geography research. It describes people’s perception of a specific environment, emotional attachment and satisfaction between people and place, and a special man-land relationship transformed by cultural and social characteristics [11]. For the dimensional identification of sense of place, Tuan [12] argued that sense of place is a universal emotional connection that can meet people’s basic needs, that is, it is a one-dimensional concept. Some scholars believe that sense of place is composed of the three dimensions of place attachment, place identity, and place dependence, among which place attachment includes the three dimensions of emotion, cognition, and behavior [9,13]. Place identity emphasizes social adaptation and is the cognition of a place as part of the self-perception of a social role [14]. Place attachment emphasizes environmental adaptation, which refers to the emotional connection established between people and a specific place to express people’s psychological state that they tend to stay in this place and feel comfortable and safe there [15]. On the other hand, place dependence emphasizes irreplaceability; its core factors are still material space attachment and emotional attachment, therefore, it has been summarized as a dimension of place attachment by some scholars in the research of place sense [16]. The sense of place can be measured through the two dimensions of place identity and place attachment [17].

Regarding the relationship between place attachment and place identity in the sense of place, scholars generally believe that place attachment affects place identity. Hernández et al. [18] argued that there is no significant difference between the two for local residents. However, for outsiders, place attachment brought by environmental perception eventually forms place identity through time development and life reinforcement. In particular, place identity can be separated from physical space and based on subjective feelings. The existing analysis of community residents in China mainly focuses on the perception measurement and feature extraction of residents’ sense of place, the difference analysis of different groups’ sense of place, and the analysis of the main influencing factors of sense of place. Regarding the main influencing factors of sense of place, the existing research has mainly explored three aspects: individual demographic characteristics, physical environment (such as natural landscape, community architecture and infrastructure, etc.) and social environment (such as culture, social capital, etc.) [19]. Existing research on sense of place lacks the exploration of its consequences.

On the other hand, the changes of urban residents’ living conditions and place perception in the process of urbanization are prominent, and the deep connection between urban renewal and the construction of a harmonious society in the new era have made urban renewal a research field of concern for domestic scholars. An increasing number of scholars have tried to analyze the demolition of old buildings and even the reconstruction practice of the whole community [20]. In the process of urban renewal, as the core content and key level of the protection system of China’s famous historical and cultural cities, historical and cultural blocks carry important historical and cultural values [21], and their transformation results have attracted academic attention. In recent decades, under the influence of policy layout and location planning, historical and cultural blocks in the city center have developed rapidly, but they are still characterized by overcrowding, lack of infrastructure, and undesirable places [22]. In past urban planning aimed at economic efficiency, these areas were mostly surrounded and replaced by high-rise office buildings, commercial centers, star-rated hotels, or buildings with other commercial functions. Therefore, most of the reconstruction activities without the protection of the cultural value of historical and cultural blocks in the past could only improve the economic benefits of the area but failed to achieve cultural appreciation, which is inconsistent with the planning concept of harmonious and sustainable development between man and land in the new era. To alleviate this contradiction, Chinese authorities have approved the establishment of “traditional historical districts” and proposed protection objects through relevant policies. At the present stage, the renewal of historical and cultural blocks combines protection, renewal and reconstruction and is an effective protection method for historical and cultural blocks to realize the coordinated development of cultural heritage, urban development, industrial economy and local communities [23]. From this perspective, the existing research on the transformation of historical and cultural blocks focuses on its implementation mode.

According to the above literature, this study finds that the existing studies are mainly lacking in three aspects. First, the existing studies focus on the transformation mode of historical and cultural blocks but mostly ignore the unique problems faced by such projects, that is, how to balance the relationships among culture, local community and urban development in commercial transformation. An important factor in maintaining these balanced relationships is the willingness of residents to support the reconstruction of commercial areas [24]. The stronger the residents’ willingness to support the renovation of commercial areas, the greater the positive externalities of renovation can be fully released to further improve the process and quality of renovation on a larger scale (such as communities and urban areas). Second, the existing studies rarely connect residents’ sense of place in urban renewal with their intention to rebuild commercial districts, and more of them explore the differences of residents’ sense of place in the context of village reconstruction in the city [25]. Compared with the reconstruction of villages in the city, the reconstruction of historic blocks bears multiple responsibilities, such as heritage protection, style maintenance, people’s livelihood improvement, and cultural inheritance. Therefore, it is more practical to introduce a sense of place under this setting. Finally, the potential mediating effect of the relationship between the two is not analyzed. The existing studies have not yet introduced intermediary variables into the relationship between the sense of place and the intention of commercial district reconstruction to explore the potential indirect influence mechanism. This study attempts to introduce the important concept of community concern to explore whether residents’ sense of place will have an impact on their willingness to support commercial district reconstruction through the variable of community concern under the background of urban renewal.

3. Hypothesis Development

The sense of place refers to people’s perception of a specific environment, is the emotional attachment and satisfaction between people and places, is the relationship between people and places with cultural and social characteristics, and is a dynamic process. Since the 1990s, scholars’ research on the sense of place has mainly focused on the empirical field, focusing on the measurement of tourists’ sense of place and antecedent variable analysis and paying less attention to the correlation of residents’ sense of place at different scales [26]. According to the definition of sense of place, place attachment is a general concept of exchange between people and the environment, emphasizing environmental adaptation. Correspondingly, place identity is a process of socialization in the interaction between individuals and places, emphasizing social adaptation. Therefore, changes in the cultural environment of a place may affect residents’ perception of the place at different scales, leading to differences in the measurement results of place sense. This study mainly involves three scales of the commercial transformation of historical and cultural blocks, communities and urban areas. Based on this, the first research hypothesis of this study is expressed as follows:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

There are significant differences in residents’ sense of place based on block, community and urban scale.

Renovation projects of historic and cultural districts face more complex problems than traditional projects because many stakeholders have different goals. The unique problem facing such projects is how to balance culture with the development of local communities and cities. The basis for maintaining these relations is the willingness of residents to support the reconstruction of commercial areas [27]. Residents’ willingness to support the renovation of commercial districts is affected by many factors, such as individual objective factors (age, gender, occupation, etc.), the degree of close relationship with the neighborhood, the degree of interest correlation, personal personality, behavior and attitude, and personal understanding of the renovation of the neighborhood [27]. Based on the close relationship with the district, this study argues that the sense of place in the historic district is an important factor affecting residents’ willingness to support the reconstruction of the commercial district. According to the definition of sense of place, a strong sense of place often means greater environmental and social adaptability. Therefore, residents with a strong sense of place are more able to understand and adapt to the transformation of commercial areas, which leads to a stronger willingness to support the transformation of commercial areas.

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

Residents’ sense of place in the historical district can enhance their willingness to support the redevelopment of the city’s business district.

As an attitude concept, sense of place and its dimensions indirectly influence residents’ willingness to support the modification of the city business district; this is because business area reconstruction support will greatly be affected by residents’ internal psychological factors, which are derived from people’s perception of the specific environment where the feeling is also one of the important factors that affect internal psychological factors. Referring to the study of Clark et al. [28], this study describes the concept of community concern to identify whether there is a mediating effect in the influence of local residents’ sense of place on their intention to support urban commercial district reconstruction. Community concern refers to the interest and participation of residents in a range of issues in their community or urban area. For example, oil and gas development can lead to environmental hazards, leading to a higher level of community concern. This study holds that community concern plays a crucial role in connecting residents’ sense of place with their willingness to support urban business district reconstruction. On the one hand, a strong sense of place means greater environmental and social resilience, so residents have an intrinsic incentive to raise their level of concern for the community. Furthermore, strong community attention usually means that residents can understand and support a series of urban renewal measures to balance the relationships among culture, local community and urban development to enhance their willingness to support the reconstruction of urban business districts. Thus, this study introduces the index of community concern to explore the mediating effect of sense of place on the intention to support the reconstruction of commercial districts.

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Residents’ sense of place in the historical district can indirectly enhance their willingness to support the redevelopment of the business district through improving residents’ attention to the community.

4. Methodology

4.1. Case Selection

Since the implementation of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area strategy, the country has been actively planning and deploying strategies to speed up integration into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Shaoguan, with its unique natural and cultural resources, has become a powerful power source for integration into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Shaoguan culture is rich, mainly including merchant culture, revolutionary culture, etc. In the process of urban transformation and renewal, it has become an important strategy for Shaoguan, as an old and industrialized city, to promote the top-level design of the cultural industry and build a historical and cultural tourism area with local characteristics. The Shaoguan Century-old East Street reconstruction project is a typical case.

The Century-old East Street is located in Zhenjiang district of Shaoguan city, which is in the north part of Guangdong province, China (Figure 1). The renovation project, as implemented in 2017, aimed at urban renewal in Shaoguan city from East Dike Road into China’s inland fisherman’s wharf, creating the atmosphere of a leisure tourism culture as the theme of the amorous riverside feelings of the commercial pedestrian street to attract and retain foreign tourists and stimulate consumption to boost the city’s development of the third industry. The project is a large-scale comprehensive commercial project invested by Shaoguan Jincai Asset Operation Co., Ltd. The total construction area of the Century-old East Street renewal project is approximately 80,000 square meters, including 48,000 square meters of aboveground commercial area and 30,000 square meters of underground parking area (Figure 2). The elongated plot is approximately 80 m wide from east to west, 50 m narrow from east to west, and 1300 m long from north to south.

Research based on the Century-old East Street reconstruction project is of great significance for two main reasons. First, the main purpose of the reconstruction of Century-old East Street is to design a dynamic development mechanism of interactions among commerce, culture, and residence, and the core of the whole mechanism is to establish a close connection between commerce and culture. Therefore, different from the general redevelopment of the traditional business district, this project has the typical characteristics of the redevelopment project of historical and cultural blocks. Under the background of the transformation of historical and cultural blocks, it is of practical significance to measure residents’ subjective feelings and explore the externalities of the commercial transformation of historical and cultural blocks. Second, the transformation of historical and cultural blocks in the new period provides a new carrier for traditional history and culture. In the process of modern leisure life returning to historical and cultural blocks and developing forward again, we need further theoretical support and corresponding experience references to gradually solve many problems in the process of historical and cultural block protection and renewal.

4.2. Questionnaire Design and Data Sources

To avoid excessive skewness in the SEM analysis, a questionnaire design was carried out with the aid of a five-point Likert scale, in which 1 indicated strongly disagree and 5 indicated strongly agree. This study uses the scale developed by prior studies to evaluate sense of place at the levels of blocks, communities, and urban areas. For example, two dimensions of sense of place were identified: place attachment and place identity. Clark et al. [28] scales were used to measure community concern and willingness to support urban commercial district reconstruction. The statistical analysis tools such as SPSS24.0 and AMOS24.0 tools were used for data analysis.

In-person interviews were adopted as a major data collection method in this study. Based on field research, 379 valid questionnaires were collected.

Table 1. Demographic distribution of the respondents.

Variable	Frequency	Proportion
Gender
Male	167	44%
Female	212	56%
Age
Under 18 years	2	1%
18 to 35	272	72%
36 to 45	72	19%
46 to 60	32	8%
More than 60	1	0%
Household registration
Registered residence in Shaoguan	261	69%
Nonregistered residence in Shaoguan	118	31%
Length of residence
Under 1 year	30	8%
1 to 5	110	29%
6 to 10	37	10%
11 to 20	59	15%
Older than 20	143	38%
Education level
Primary and below	4	1%
Junior high school	12	3%
High school or technical secondary school	50	13%
University degree or associate degree	284	75%
Postgraduate and above	29	8%
Income
≤1000 yuan	71	19%
1001–3000 yuan	52	14%
3001–5000 yuan	102	27%
5001–10,000 yuan	122	32%
>10,000 yuan	32	8%

shows the distribution of demographic characteristics among those who responded with valid questionnaires. The proportion of female respondents was higher than that of male respondents. Age was mainly concentrated between 18 and 35 years old, and 36 and 45 years old, accounting for 91% of the total respondents; 69% of the respondents had a Shaoguan household registration, and 92% had lived in Shaoguan for more than one year. Nearly 80% of the respondents have a bachelor’s degree or a college degree or above. At the same time, the effective sample data are evenly distributed in the dimension of income, which means that the respondents of this questionnaire survey cover consumers of all levels. In other words, the survey sampling for the commercialization transformation of historical and cultural blocks is random and effective to a large extent. The randomness of the sampling results ensures the generality of the research conclusions to a large extent.

5. Results

5.1. Reliability and Validity Analysis

Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaire. The larger the Cronbach’s alpha value, the higher the internal consistency of the questionnaire. The test results are shown in

Table 2. Reliability test of each variable.

Latent Variable	Observation Variable	CITC	Cronbach’s Alpha Value for the Deleted Item	Cronbach ‘s Alpha Value
Place identity	PIS1	0.694	0.816	0.855
	PIS2	0.709	0.81
	PIS3	0.606	0.851
	PIS4	0.782	0.777
Place attachment	PAS1	0.723	0.832	0.866
	PAS2	0.638	0.847
	PAS3	0.608	0.852
	PAS4	0.699	0.836
	PAS5	0.648	0.845
	PAS6	0.651	0.845
Community concern	CC1	0.693	0.811	0.848
	CC2	0.719	0.786
	CC3	0.738	0.767
Support intention	URSW1	0.803	0.824	0.889
	URSW2	0.791	0.835
	URSW3	0.755	0.866

Note: CITC indicates Corrected Item-Total Correlation.

. The Cronbach’s alpha of all items on the scale was above 0.7, indicating that the internal consistency of the questionnaire was relatively high.

In this study, the KMO sphericity test of factor analysis was used to verify the validity of the index. When the sphericity test is used for validity analysis, the first step is to determine whether the condition of factor analysis is satisfied. Two conditions are generally required for validity analysis. One is that the KMO value is greater than 0.7, and the other is that the significance of Bartlett’s sphericity test is less than 0.05. If these two conditions are met, there is a strong correlation between the observed variables, which is suitable for factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis results showed that the KMO value of the scale selected in this study was 0.887. The Bartlett’s sphericity test statistic of 3118.49, p-value of 0.000, is less than 0.05 and therefore suitable for factor analysis. Therefore, this study uses principal component analysis to extract principal components to measure residents’ sense of place, community concern and willingness to support district reconstruction. The factor loads are shown in

Table 3. Scale validity test.

Latent Variable	Indicator	Components
		1	2	3	4
Place identity	PIS1		0.774
	PIS2		0.822
	PIS3		0.738
	PIS4		0.856
Place attachment	PAS1	0.793
	PAS2	0.729
	PAS3	0.645
	PAS4	0.767
	PAS5	0.754
	PAS6	0.688
Community concern	CC1				0.808
	CC2				0.82
	CC3				0.867
Support intention	URSW1			0.874
	URSW2			0.841
	URSW3			0.844
KMO		0.887
Bartlett’s sphericity test		3118.49 (sig = 0.000)
Eigenvalue		6.314	1.818	1.636	1.438
Variance contribution rate		22.307%	17.987%	15.245%	14.498%
Cumulative contribution rate		70.037%

.

5.2. The Difference Test of Place Sense at Different Scales

This study adopts one-way ANOVA to explore whether there are significant differences in residents’ sense of place at different levels (including block, community, and urban area). The empirical analysis results are shown in

Table 4. Examining the differences between place identity and place attachment in different regions.

Variable	Block	Community	Shaoguan	F	p
	M ± SD	M ± SD	M ± SD
Place identity	3.49	3.54	3.44	1.861	0.156
Place attachment	3.80	3.66	3.30	47.044	0.000

. The original hypothesis of the difference test is that there is no significant difference in residents’ sense of place (place identity/place attachment) at different scales. The study found that for place identity, the F-statistic of the test is 1.861, and its corresponding p-value is 0.156, which means that the null hypothesis is not rejected. There was no significant difference in the place identity of residents in the dimensions of block, community and urban area. For place attachment, the F-statistic value of the test was 47.044, and the corresponding p-value was 0.000, and, thus, less than 0.05. This means that the null hypothesis is rejected, and residents have significant differences in place attachment across all dimensions. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 of this study has been verified, that is, “there are significant differences in residents’ sense of place at different levels,” and this difference is mainly reflected in the dimension of place attachment. This empirical result further reveals that the change in the cultural environment of the site will have a significant impact on residents’ environmental adaptation but not on residents’ social adaptation. The underlying reason is that place identity can be separated from specific spatial experience and attached to culture or politics. Shaoguan has rich history and culture, so residents’ place identity is largely dependent on its history and culture.

5.3. Correlation Coefficient Analysis

In this study, the Pearson correlation coefficient is used to first analyze the relationships among the sense of place, community concern, and support intention of commercial district reconstruction.

Table 5. Correlation test of all dimensions.

	Place Identity	Place Attachment	Community Concern	Support Intention
Place identity	1
Place attachment	0.444 **	1
Community concern	0.333 **	0.429 **	1
Support intention	0.358 **	0.453 **	0.398 **	1

Note: ** was significantly correlated at the 0.01 level (bilateral).

shows that the correlation coefficients of place identity, place attachment, community concern, and support intention are 0.333, 0.429, 0.358, and 0.453, respectively, which are significant at the 1% significance level, indicating that place identity, place attachment, community concern, and support intention have significant positive correlations.

5.4. Structural Equation Model (SEM) Analysis

In this study, a structural equation model (SEM) is used to analyze Hypotheses 2 and 3. The core of this hypothesis is that after the reconstruction, residents’ sense of place on Dongjie will not only directly improve the support intention of urban business district reconstruction, but also indirectly improve the community attention to further enhance the support intention. The main path analysis and normalized coefficient returns of the model are shown in Figure 3. In Figure 3, there are four latent variables: “place identity”, “place attachment”, “community concern”, and “support intention of urban business district reconstruction”. PIS1-PIS4 is the observed variable of the latent variable place identity, PAS1-PAS6 is the observed variable of the latent variable place attachment, CC1-CC3 is the observed variable of the latent variable community concern, and URSW1-URWS3 is the observed variable of the latent variable support intention of urban business district reconstruction.

Table 6. Main evaluation indices and evaluation standards of the overall fit of the model.

Statistical Test	Fitness Standard or Threshold
Chi-square degree of freedom ratio (NC value)	1 < NC < 3, good fit; NC > 5, reasonable fit
GFI	>0.8
AGFI	>0.8
NFI	>0.9
CFI	>0.9
TLI	>0.9
PNFI	>0.5
RMSEA	<0.05 (good fit) <0.08 (reasonable fit)

reports a series of adaptation test criteria; the NC ratio of Chi-square degrees of freedom should be 1–3, and the residual square and square root RMSEA (residual square error of approximation) values should be between 0.05 and 0.08. If the values are lower than 0.05, the adaptation is very good. The GFI value of the fitness index is generally considered to be greater than 0.9, and above 0.8 is acceptable. The value-added suitability index CFI value should be greater than 0.9, and the TLI value of the nonstandard adaptation index should be above 0.9. It is generally believed that the sample size should be more than 200.

Table 7. Fitting index of structural equation model.

Indicator	X2/df	GFI	AGFI	NFI	TLI	CFI	RMSEA
Statistics	1.568	0.951	0.932	0.952	0.978	0.982	0.039
Reference	<3	>0.8	>0.8	>0.9	>0.9	>0.9	<0.08
Demonstrating compliance	reach the standard	reach the standard	reach the standard	reach the standard	reach the standard	reach the standard	reach the standard

reports a series of fitting indicators of the SEM model in this study. Compared with the criteria in Table 6, this study found that the fitting indices of the model all met the requirements.

In the case that all the fitting indices of the model meet the requirements, this study further verifies the interactions among latent variables.

Table 8. Path coefficient test of structural equation model.

Hypothetical Path			Standardized Path Coefficient	Standard Error S.E	Critical Ratio C.R	p
Community concern	←	Place identity	0.17	0.055	2.658	0.008
Community concern	←	Place attachment	0.416	0.073	5.999	***
Support intention	←	Place identity	0.146	0.062	2.427	0.015
Support intention	←	Place attachment	0.317	0.088	4.626	***
Support intention	←	Community concern	0.243	0.076	3.872	***

Note: *** indicates p < 0.001.

reports standardized estimates, including normalized coefficients, standard errors, statistics, and p-values. First, Hypothesis 2 is verified: residents’ sense of place has a significant promoting effect on their intention to support urban commercial district reconstruction, and this effect is significant at the 1% significance level. The estimated coefficients of place identity and place attachment were 0.146 and 0.317, respectively, suggesting that the environmental adaptation represented by place attachment had a stronger influence. Second, Hypothesis 3 is also verified: residents’ sense of place can further improve their willingness to support the reconstruction of commercial districts by improving residents’ attention to the community. The influence coefficients of place identity and place attachment on community concern were 0.17 and 0.416, respectively, and both were significant at the 1% significance level. This means that residents’ increased sense of place helps improve their awareness of community issues. Furthermore, the improvement of community concern significantly improved residents’ willingness to support urban commercial district reconstruction, with an impact of 0.243, which was significant at the 1% significance level.

6. Conclusions and Discussion

The primary goal of this study is to explore the interactions among residents’ sense of place, community concern, and willingness to support the reconstruction of urban business district by using structural equation model analysis. The theoretical and practical contributions of this study can be summarized as follows compared with previous studies: (1) there are significant differences in residents’ sense of place at the block, community and urban levels, and this difference is reflected in place attachment rather than place identity. The main reason for this difference is that the place identity is attached to Shaoguan’s history and culture, which is different from the attachment to specific space experience. Therefore, its homogeneity is high, resulting in a low difference. (2) The enhancement of residents’ sense of place (including place attachment and place identity) will significantly directly improve their support intention for urban business district reconstruction, and the effect of place attachment is stronger than that of place identity. This difference can also be explained by the connotation of sense of place; place attachment emphasizes environmental adaptation, while place identity emphasizes social adaptation and is subjective constructivism. Shaoguan is endowed with unique and historical culture, including merchant culture, Breguet culture and revolutionary culture, which makes local residents generally have high place identity and strong homogeneity, so the marginal effect of its influence is often low. (3) Residents’ sense of place can also indirectly enhance their willingness to support the reconstruction of commercial areas by improving community concerns.

The conclusion of this study is of great significance to promote the renewal of historical and cultural blocks. With the advent of the era of urban renewal, large-scale historical and cultural block regeneration projects are constantly emerging in China. These projects are faced with more complex problems and contradictions than traditional projects, which are mainly caused by the different goals of many stakeholders in project renovation design. The unique problem facing these projects is how to balance culture with urban development, the industrial economy and local communities. From the perspective of residents’ sense of place, this study provides suggestions for strengthening this balance. In the renewal process of historical and cultural blocks, we should not only select the most suitable renewal mode but also pay attention to strengthening local residents’ sense of place to improve their participation and support for urban business district reconstruction. To a large extent, this can not only improve the success rate of the project, but also improve the economic benefits and cultural connotations of the project.