The proposal of modern people's city is the inheritance and innovation of Chinese modernization to Marxist urban theory. It realizes the theoretical writing of the new form of human urban civilization with the integrity of position and the originality of theory. Focusing on the paradigm crisis and narrative dilemma of western urban civilization and the era context of China's new urban‐ization entering the transition of practical paradigm, the modern people's city has realized the narrative turn of human urban civiliza‐tion. The modern people's city adheres to the position of Marxist urban theory, the direction of Chinese-style modernization, and the cultural source of Chinese excellent traditional urban civilization. It expands and deepens the' affinity to the people', and innovates the value narrative of urban civilization ; in order to respond to the topic of the times, draw a" six in one" urban development picture, and innovate the target narrative of urban civilization ; with the reconstruction of governance reform and spatial justice, it innovates the functional narrative of urban civilization. The three narratives are interconnected to form a narrative system of urban civilization with the concept of" modern people's city" as the symbolic concept, which provides a Chinese answer to the new form of human urban civilization.

The Modern Capital Metropolitan Area serves as a core spatial platform for advancing the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in greater depth in the new era. Promoting its development is an important practice for safeguarding the functions of the capital, advancing coordinated regional development, and improving the system of cross-jurisdictional spatial governance. From the perspective of endogenous metropolitan evolution, this study constructs an analytical framework, and systematically examines the formation basis, evolutionary dynamics, practical constraints, and optimization pathways of the Modern Capital Metropolitan Area. The findings show that the endogenous evolution of the Modern Capital Metropolitan Area follows the “green-smart-resilient symbiosis law” and is jointly driven by six endogenous variables: the endowments of production, living, and ecological elements; flow distance; the law of scale; technological innovation; dynamic preferences; and institutional innovation. A comparative analysis with the Shanghai Metropolitan Area, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Area reveals that the Modern Capital Metropolitan Area still faces a number of constraints, including insufficient coordination among production, living, and ecological endowments, relatively strong flow-distance constraints, an underdeveloped polycentric spatial structure, weak coordination along innovation chains, inadequate guidance of dynamic preferences, and lagging provision of institutional innovation. Future development should therefore improve the endogenous evolutionary mechanism by promoting complementarity among production, living, and ecological endowments, advancing spatial integration, fostering clustered agglomeration structured around “one core, two central cities, three strategic poles, and multiple nodes,” strengthening the integration of “quality-talent-innovation,” guiding dynamic preferences, and promoting institutional innovation, thereby facilitating the formation of a high-quality and coordinated development pattern driven by endogenous evolution in the Modern Capital Metropolitan Area.

Using panel data for Chinese districts and counties from 2013 to 2023, this study identifies their centers of economic activity based on the brightest nighttime-light pixel in each year. It integrates multisource micro-geospatial big data on road networks, commercial points of interest, and gridded population, and employs two-way fixed effects models to examine the effects of road network morphology on commercial agglomeration in district and county centers. The results show that increases in road density, coverage uniformity, and directional diversity significantly promote commercial agglomeration in these centers. Mechanism tests provide support for population agglomeration as a channel through which road network morphology influences commercial agglomeration. Smart transformation at the district and county level further strengthens these positive effects. Further analysis shows that road network morphology significantly promotes agglomeration across different types of commercial establishments, with its effects extending to surrounding rings. These findings provide empirical evidence to inform efforts to upgrade county-level commerce and improve the provision of consumer services.

As place-based public service provision improves, local embeddedness offers a useful framework for understanding migrants’ urban hukou settlement intentions. Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this study examines migrants with children of compulsory-school age and employs Logit models to analyze the associations between different dimensions of local embeddedness and settlement intentions. The results show that both child education service embeddedness and local social ties are positively associated with settlement intentions, but exhibit a pattern of “cumulative overall gains with diminishing marginal increments.” Dual embeddedness is associated with a higher predicted probability of settlement intention than single embeddedness, while the additional association of one form of embeddedness weakens when the other is present. This suggests that the joint advantages of local embeddedness are not simply additive but depend on the combination of embeddedness dimensions. Place attachment is also significantly associated with both forms of embeddedness and settlement intentions. These findings highlight the importance of coordinating place-based service provision with community integration support and tailoring assistance to migrant families’ service needs and local social ties.

Using the dual-pilot policy of AI experimental zones and low-carbon cities as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper employs a double machine learning method on panel data from 284 prefecture-level cities (2000-2024) to examine the effects and mechanisms of"smart-green integration" on urban green innovation efficiency. Results show: The dual-pilot policy significantly improves green innovation efficiency, remaining robust after alternative dependent variables, outlier exclusion, model re-specification, and controlling for parallel policies. The policy indirectly boosts efficiency through three channels: talent structure optimization, digital-real technology integration, and industry-university-research collaborative innovation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals stronger effects in the commercialization stage (vs. R&D stage), central cities (vs. non-central), non-resource-based cities (vs. resource-based), and high-digital-base cities (vs. low-digital-base). The dual-policy effect significantly outperforms single policies, exhibiting a"1+1>2" synergy.

Based on the data of 274 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2023 and relevant data from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, this paper constructs a multi-period difference-in-differences model, and empirically investigates the impact and mechanism of the institutional opening-up of Pilot Free Trade Zones on the unified ecological environment market from the perspective of balancing dual control of carbon emissions and carbon equity. The study finds that institutional opening-up can balance efficiency and equity, and alleviate the intra-urban carbon emission inequality on the premise of realizing the dual control of carbon emissions. This impact effect is mainly manifested in cities with weaker environmental regulations and higher development level of digital economy. The mechanism analysis shows that, on the one hand, institutional opening-up empowers the dual control of urban carbon emissions through institutional innovation and green economic agglomeration, and on the other hand, it eliminates market segmentation, promotes collaborative emission reduction in “regulatory depressions” such as urban administrative border areas and townships, and alleviates intra-urban carbon emission inequality. The research results indicate that institutional opening-up is conducive to the construction of a unified urban ecological environment market. Accordingly, policy suggestions for fostering and developing a national unified ecological environment market and promoting the realization of the"Dual Carbon" goals are put forward.

Refined governance is a new governance paradigm that promotes high-quality development, efficient governance, and a high-quality life in megacities. Taking Chengdu as an empirical case, this study reveals the intrinsic mechanisms by which digital and intelligent technologies drive Refined governance in megacities. The findings show that digital intelligence technologies enhance governance actors' cognitive capacities—including social perception, understanding, and anticipation—through information empowerment mechanisms such as information production, processing, and integration. Meanwhile, these technologies achieve virtual aggregation, elastic restructuring, and dynamic control of actors across different levels and departments via digital integration mechanisms, including task flow, institutional codification, and algorithmic regulation, thereby enabling agile responses to governance demands. The technologically oriented refined governance of megacities represents an active attempt by the state to reconnect with people's daily lives through technological tools, fostering its social relational ties. However, it may also lead to practical tensions such as imbalances between state informational capabilities and social autonomy, as well as formalized compliance at the grassroots level under digital control.

Drawing on 821 policy documents on residential urban regeneration issued by 35 Chinese cities between 1998 and 2025, this study develops an analytical framework encompassing constituent elements and temporal dynamics. It combines Grounded Theory, Machine Learning, and Cluster Analysis to identify the instruments used and compare the structures and phase changes of policy instrument mixes across cities. The findings show that local governments primarily employ 23 policy instruments grouped into four categories: resource allocation; institutional safeguards; process regulation; and collaborative mobilization. These policy instrument mixes can be grouped into four patterns with distinct structural and dynamic characteristics. In the resource dominance with continuity pattern, most cities consistently prioritize resource allocation across stages. The balanced coordination with adaptation pattern features relatively balanced instrument configurations, typically involving a single transition between configuration states. The resource input and regulation with fluctuations pattern emphasizes both resource allocation and process regulation, with pronounced fluctuations and diverse transition pathways. The transition toward process governance pattern places greater emphasis on process regulation and exhibits a shift in governance focus across policy stages amid pronounced fluctuations. The applicability of these patterns requires further assessment in light of local governance conditions and urban regeneration needs; their relative merits should not be judged independently of context.