Gentrification has been extensively studied on a global scale since 2000 (Atkinson et al., 2004; Lees et al., 2016). The connotations surrounding this concept range from early-stage residential substitution to the upward filtering of urban socio-spatial structures. The literature on gentrification has developed various analytical concepts, including school-district gentrification, rural gentrification, and commercial gentrification (Huang and Yang, 2012). Commercial gentrification is the transformation of residential, commercial, or industrial spaces into spaces with higher-value retail businesses; this process often entails the displacement of original residents and business owners (Gonzalez and Waley, 2003; Zukin et al., 2009).

In general, commercial gentrification entails emerging consumption activities and the advancement of retail industries within a city. Without a precise definition, the existing literature refers to emerging consumption as those activities cultivated in the formation of new consumer culture and consumption patterns (Bird and Macedo, 2021). However, while traditional consumption meets the necessary material and service demands of residents in daily life, emerging consumption creates and satisfies their higher-level demands, such as those for cultural capital and social status (Zhu, 2020; Areiza-Padilla and Manzi-Puertas, 2021). Moreover, the application of new technologies (e.g., internet technology and social media platforms) in transactions further distinguishes emerging from traditional consumption (Sun and Wang, 2021; Xiang et al., 2021). Emerging consumption gives rise to new consumption spaces and brings about the evolution of urban space. In particular, both commercial and residential gentrification can be contextualized in the emerging consumption of the new middle class, who, in Western cities, denotes a particular segment of the service classes with greater access to cultural and economic capital in post-industrial society (Zukin et al., 2009; Sun et al., 2018).

In China, commercial gentrification emerged amid unique social and political dynamics. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, urban society in the country has been production-oriented, with individual consumption substituted by collective consumption. Since the country’s process of reform and opening-up, its market economy grew dramatically, leading to sharp increases in citizens’ average income; and Chinese society has gradually shifted from a production-oriented society to a consumption-oriented society (Davis, 2000; Tomba, 2004). The 2010s witnessed a significant acceleration in the post-industrial social transformation of large Chinese cities and, in turn, in the growth of the Chinese middle class through the development of new tech-heavy industries. International urban development strategies have encouraged intercity labor competition, boosting human capital development. However, given the lack of equitable development across China’s regions, many major cities still struggle to use high-skilled workers (Yang and Zhou, 2018).

Furthermore, China’s central and local governments have played a significant role in the development of a consumption-oriented society and economy. In 2015, the State Council released Guidelines on Accelerated Cultivation of New Supply Power by Actively Exerting the Leading Effect of Emerging Consumption (hereafter, the 2015 policy of Guidelines on Emerging Consumption) to accelerate the development of emerging consumption styles. The 14th Five-Year Plan, released on 11 March 2021, proclaimed the promotion of domestic consumption to be the main objective of social and economic development. The plan includes a series of national strategies, such as upgrading traditional consumption, encouraging new consumption types, and developing international central cities of consumption.

Hence, research into commercial gentrification is theoretically important for explaining the spatial characteristics of emerging consumption and their effects on urban transformation in the unique context of major Chinese cities. Furthermore, it can enrich comparative analyses between commercial and residential gentrification. In more practical terms, it generates implications for the optimization of commercial spatial planning. In this paper, Chengdu—a representative consumption-oriented city in southwest China—is used as a case study to assess the spatial evolution of commercial gentrification in Chinese cities, especially concerning the relevant spatial correlations and effects of commercial gentrification.

In the Western literature on this subject, commercial gentrification is considered an accompanying neighborhood phenomenon to residential gentrification (Sun and Song, 2021). Residential gentrification results from the housing choices of the emerging middle class in inner cities (Yang et al., 2019a; Yang et al., 2019b). These housing choices then influence the resource-allocation decisions of business owners, leading to commercial gentrification as a second-hand phenomenon (Davidson and Loretta, 2010; Pastak et al., 2019). Therefore, the forces of commercial gentrification have been explained by two traditional theories of residential gentrification focusing on the demand side or the supply side. On the one hand, humanist scholars represented by David Ley (Ley, 1996) assert that gentrification in Western cities since the 1980s has mainly stemmed from a dramatic increase in high-skilled, middle-class individuals and their consumption patterns (Zukin, 1982; Hamnett, 2003). The new middle-class residents may also accelerate the restructuring of the community retail industries through local marketing strategies (Keatinge and Deborah, 2016). On the other hand, scholars like Neil Smith (Smith, 1996) argue that both residential and commercial gentrification are the result of basic capitalist economic dynamics (i.e., the deprivation and agglomeration of surplus values). From this perspective, gentrification essentially comprises the plundering of rent gaps by reinvesting in recession-affected inner-city areas with high economic potential. A few studies in urban China emphasize that the pursuit of rent gaps of commercial land by local governments and capitalists is the main reason for commercial gentrification in large cities (Wang, 2011; Liu and Chen, 2018; Song et al., 2020).

On this basis, the spatial characteristics of commercial gentrification have largely been investigated by focusing on individual cases, lacking proper assessments of city-level laws (Liu et al., 2019). For instance, the literature has spatially characterized commercial gentrification in Western cities with the following three aspects: 1) increasing “boutiques” featuring leisure experiences and cultural attributes; 2) growing large corporate chain; and 3) the declining of localized retail formats (Zukin et al., 2009; Pastak et al., 2019; Sun and Song, 2021). Still, commercial gentrification generally occurs in inner-city areas and on certain historically or culturally significant blocks (Pratt, 2009). Song et al. (2020) creatively characterize the commercial gentrification of Nanjing from 2008 to 2018, proposing a corresponding development pattern: leaping-type diffusion from traditional business centers to surrounding emerging business districts. This development pattern comprises three spatial types: overall implantation type, invasive succession type, and transformation and upgrading type.

In addition to research explicitly focusing on commercial gentrification, research on spaces for emerging consumption in Chinese cities is gaining prominence with a particular focus on e-commerce spaces and web celebrity shops. More specifically, researchers have proposed that the distribution of e-commerce spaces has a macro-agglomerated and multi-core structure (Sun and Wang, 2021). Web celebrity shops also present a structure of multi-core agglomeration, and they have developed from central areas to the urban periphery (Xiang et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021). While these new retail places have distribution laws identical to traditional retail places (i.e., invisible consumption spaces still present a mode of large-scale development and are greatly affected by traditional urban commercial centers), they also present unique characteristics (e.g., the distribution of online celebrity spaces is more even, and invisible consumption spaces harbor more low-rent commercial and residential buildings in central areas). Furthermore, new consumption types have boosted the development of rural consumption economies, bridging the divide between urban and rural areas (Xu et al., 2021). In summary, the literature has largely focused on spaces for the individual type of consumption; but it lacks systematic research on spaces for emerging consumption.

The social influence of gentrification—a major research topic in critical geography—has risen greatly in recent years. Increasingly, research has begun to focus on how gentrification excludes ethnic minority groups and other disadvantaged groups (Sakzlolu and Lees, 2020; Huang and Liu, 2022). Both commercial gentrification and residential gentrification are generally seen as squeezing the survival space for original residents and traditional industries by driving retail shop/house prices higher, forcing outward migration (Gonzalez and Waley, 2003; Zukin, 2008; Ferm, 2016; Song et al., 2020), and destroying the authenticity of the city (Martinez, 2016). Startlingly, the effect of commercial gentrification on urban spatial evolution has scarcely been explored. According to some studies, commercial gentrification can revitalize the economies, improve built environments, and stimulate new employment opportunities in inner-city areas (Bridge and Dowling, 2001; Meltzer, 2016; Sun et al., 2018). Creative industries and historical streets generally interact with the spaces for emerging consumption in a bidirectional causal relationship (Wang et al., 2019). Furthermore, commercial gentrification boosts the globalization of consumer culture (Mermet, 2017).

Based on the insight provided by the studies detailed above, this study screens out the sorts of retail places that signify the advent of commercial gentrification. It then quantitatively analyzes the spatial distribution of these new retail places in 2010, 2015, and 2020 in the sub-districts of Chengdu, which is called Street (jiedao) in China. Street (Jiedao) refers to the lowest level of administrative units in Chinese cities. Next, this study measures the development levels of commercial gentrification in different Streets using the location quotient (LQ) index. Then, it reveals the correlations between commercial gentrification and urban spatial evolution from five major perspectives: knowledge-intensive industrial space, manufacturing space, ordinary office space, commercial space, and residential space. In this way, the study depicts the characteristics of commercial gentrification at a city level against the context of urban China and offers a comparison between the commercial gentrification of Chengdu with that of Western cities.

Residential gentrification has been traditionally measured by socioeconomic and housing indicators. However, retail industry indicators for measuring commercial gentrification have not yet been established (Kosta, 2019). This study proposes categories of retail places representing commercial gentrification by considering areas for emerging consumption in general, and the consumer culture of China’s new middle class in particular. In the 2015 policy of Guidelines on Emerging Consumption, the types of emerging consumption were defined as service consumption, information consumption, green consumption, fashion consumption, quality consumption, and rural consumption, all of which respond to the changing consumer culture that values meaningful experience, health, knowledge, individualization, quality, and environmental protection (Yin, 2005).

The new middle class relevant to gentrification research in Western literature generally comprises professional and managerial personnel workers—members of the professional and managerial class (PMC)—in the service industry aged 30–45 years. Relative to that in the West, China’s new middle class is both smaller and younger (Li, 2010). Additionally, personal consumption has only recently begun to be promoted in Chinese cities, meaning that the consumer culture of the new middle class is forming and has a low internal homogeneity (Wang and Lau, 2009). Given these dynamics, China’s emerging middle class often engages in consumption with the aim of achieving greater social distinction and status. Therefore, its consumption pattern is characterized by “international brand consumption, hedonic consumption and conspicuous consumption” (Yu, 2005). Given the rapid growth of the new middle class in recent years, branding-oriented material consumption patterns are increasingly being overshadowed by rational and personalized consumption patterns. Middle-class consumers tend to appreciate the quality, experience, and pursuit of knowledge through consumption (Zhu, 2020).

In their investigation of Nanjing’s commercial gentrification, Song et al. (2020) considered six classes of high-end commercial places, including exotic cuisine, coffee and tea, cosmetology and body care, yoga and fitness, business clubs, and bars. Wang and Gao (2008) divided businesses targeting the middle class into experience-type entertainment places (e.g., golf, coffee and tea, and cultural shows) and stimulant entertainment places (e.g., nightclubs and bars).

The above research has shown that the new middle class is drawn to medium- and high-end individual consumption with a focus on high-quality, entertaining experiences as well as cultural consumption that effectively indicates social status. Based on the classification of the point of interest (POI) data in Chengdu, this study identified four categories (and 22 sub-categories) of retail places targeting the new middle-class consumers in China: 1) catering services, 2) cultural and educational services, 3) sports services, and 4) entertainment services (Table 1).

The above study sought to understand the distribution, development characteristics, and spatial correlations of commercial gentrification in a major Chinese city. Following its analysis, the three sets of distinctions of commercial gentrification in the city can be drawn.

Through unfolding the conditions of commercial gentrification in Chengdu, the current study provides certain theoretical and practical implications for commercial gentrification and spatial planning for new retail industries. First, commercial gentrification is representative of industrial gentrification in major Chinese cities. Its developmental path and spatial effects differ from those of residential gentrification. On the one hand, commercial gentrification is characterized by variegated geographies. It is compatible with diverse locational conditions and may develop away from traditional commercial centers. On the other hand, the phenomenon accompanies urban industrial spatial change—especially post-industrial transformation. Second, the study also sheds light on the developmental characteristics of new retail industries for emerging consumption in large Chinese cities. As far as Chengdu is concerned, the development of emerging consumption remains moderate. The main types of emerging consumption are sports and entertainment (which satisfy sensory stimulation), whereas cultural consumption that meets consumers’ spiritual and knowledge demands is immature.

This study has implications for the layout of emerging commercial spaces. Since 2011, the rate of urbanization in China has been over 50%. Policies of urban renewal at the national and sub-national levels have shifted their focus to the quality improvement of built environments and the economic revitalization of old city areas. The mode of large-scale urban redevelopment—a strategy widely used by municipal governments in the 2000s, and which triggered the wave of newly-built residential gentrification—has been intensively criticized. In this case, commercial gentrification is expected to receive even more overt state intervention. Planning for emerging commercial spaces would do well to more thoroughly investigate the diversified location advantages in the city, break the spatial limits of existing commercial spaces, coordinate with financial, high-tech, and cultural industries, and minimize the unreasonable the exclusion of traditionally secondary and tertiary industries. At the same time, local governments should encourage retailing development in cultural and educational services both prudently and gradually in order to reach an active interaction between the supply and demand side of the consumer market.