Microlevel Evaluation of Land Use Efficiency in an Urban Renewal Context: The Case of Shenzhen, China

The uncontrolled exploitation of land in early urbanization has led to the inefficient use of numerous tracts of land. Urban renewal activities, as an important path to revitalize the used land, have become a major consideration of urban development all around the world. The development intensity of urban renewal (URDI) is an important index to reflect land use efficiency in urban renewal activities, and can serve to control development in a sustainable way. However, research related to URDI and its influencing factors remains scarce in the current literature. Therefore, following a bottom-up paradigm, in this research, the URDI was studied with project data to reveal spatiotemporal distribution characteristics and influencing factors from a microscopic perspective. Specifically, in this study, spatial autocorrelation analysis and a standard deviational ellipse were used to explore spatiotemporal heterogeneity of 483 urban renewal units for 2011–2021 in Shenzhen, one of the major cities implementing urban renewal in China, and influencing factors of the URDI were explored using a panel regression model. The findings reveal that: (1) the URDI is on the rise, presenting a developing trend from core districts to node districts; (2) there was local space mismatch in Shenzhen, with overcrowded or underutilized space in various regions; and (3) the variations in URDI in different regions can be attributed to such factors as investment activity and fiscal revenue. This research provides theoretical foundations for governments to formulate and evaluate land use and urban renewal policies that are beneficial for sustainable urban development.