Cultural Reinforcement or Commercial Reconfiguration? Unraveling how historical district regeneration reshapes Place Attachment via cross-city multi-modal analysis

Historical district regeneration faces a persistent paradox: heritage preservation and commercial vitalization often pull in opposite directions. While we often see in regeneration practice the coexistence of cultural enhancement and commercial development, we have not fully understood their relative contributions to Place Attachment - i.e., people's emotional and cognitive bonds with places. Conventional survey- and interview-based approaches are often limited in temporal coverage and sample size, highlighting the need for scalable and dynamic measurement methods. To address this gap, we integrate user-generated content (UGC) and large language models (LLMs) to construct multidimensional indicators of Place Attachment, cultural engagement, and commercial activity for regeneration projects in Shanghai, London, and Boston. Difference-in-Differences (DID) models estimate changes in Place Attachment associated with regeneration, while Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) regression models assess the relative associations of cultural and commercial processes. Findings reveal that (1) historical district regeneration significantly enhances Place Attachment, with effects varying across cities. (2) Both Cultural Reinforcement and Commercial Reconfiguration are positively associated with Place Attachment, with cultural processes exhibiting consistently stronger associations. Their interaction is negative in Shanghai and Boston but significantly positive in London. (3) Distinct regeneration patterns are observed across the three governance contexts: Shanghai shows a more culture-oriented pattern, London emphasizes commercialization, while the estimated effects of regeneration on Cultural Reinforcement and Commercial Reconfiguration are not statistically significant in Boston. Collectively, these results suggest that Place Attachment reflects both cultural meaning-making and place-specific experiences, including commercial activity, public-space improvements, and environmental enhancements. These findings offer empirically grounded, context-sensitive guidance for planners seeking to coordinate heritage conservation and commercial vitality across different governance contexts-a core challenge in sustainable urban regeneration.