Spatiotemporal Evolution and Cause Analysis of Urban Housing Investment Resilience: An Empirical Study of 35 Large and Medium-Sized Cities in China

Abstract

In this study, we explore the evolution and formation mechanism of urban housing investment resilience from three perspectives: theoretical analysis, model construction, and empirical testing. Based on the three-element theory of investment decision making and urban resilience system theory, a theoretical framework of urban housing investment resilience is constructed. Spatiotemporal analysis and qualitative comparison methods are used to divide 35 large and medium-sized cities into two categories, first-tier and non-first-tier cities, and their spatiotemporal characteristics and differences in terms of formation mechanism differences then explored. The results show that (1) the overall housing investment resilience of the 35 investigated cities is low, with the characteristics of periodic evolution, and there are obvious differences between the first-tier and non-first-tier cities as well as unbalanced development problems. (2) The three internal investment decision factors of returns, costs, and expectations and the five external support factors of economic growth, infrastructure development, labor market, policy regulation, and monetary policy do not, by themselves, constitute the necessary conditions for high levels of urban housing investment resilience, and there are three paths for the development of high levels of housing investment resilience in both first-tier and non-first-tier cities. (3) The twos types of cities have the same conformational path of "return- and cost-driven" but different dedicated conformational paths, including "cost-driven", "expectation- driven", and "return- and expectation-driven", and the core conditions in their driving paths are different, with real estate policy being the core condition in the path of first-tier cities and infrastructure development and labor markets being the core conditions in the path of non-first-tier cities. (4) There is a potential substitution relationship between the three configuration paths of first-tier and non-first-tier cities, and the substitution relationship between the two types of cities is also different. The findings of this study reveal that the complex interaction between the urban resilience system, represented by infrastructure construction, and multiple factors, including the three elements of investment, can have an impact on the resilience of real estate investment.