Digital Service Substitution and Social Networks: Implications for Sustainable Urban Development

Considering the rapid integration of digital services into daily life, it is crucial to analyze the impacts of the substitutability of physical services with digital alternatives. Limited studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between service substitution and social networks and assess their impact on urban structure. Therefore, this study fills the gap by investigating how digital service substitution and social networks influence residential location choices and urban structure, aiming to support future sustainable urban modeling and planning tools. The study, through a comprehensive analysis incorporating cluster analysis, factor analysis, and binomial logistic regression on a web-based questionnaire survey ( n = 6210), finds that socio-demographic factors significantly influence digital alternatives, and that digital service substitution and social networks impact sustainable urban structure. Younger individuals showed significantly higher adoption of digital alternatives, with age negatively associated with relocation likelihood. In urban areas, each additional year of age reduces the likelihood of relocation by approximately 4.4%, and individuals with high shopping substitution are 3.12 times more likely to consider relocation. These findings suggest that urban planners and policymakers to balancing physical and digital service provision to maintain a higher quality of life aligned with the SDGs and ensure sustainable urban development.