Differentiated Design Strategies and Sustainable Benefit Evaluation of Urban Agriculture in Urban Residential Areas Based on Cluster Analysis

In the current era of accelerated urbanization, food security is facing unprecedented challenges. Urban agriculture, as a complex system integrating ecological, social and economic values, has become one of the effective solutions. Urban agriculture helps ensure food security, provides health benefits for the population, promotes social inclusiveness, and enhances people’s happiness. From a planning perspective, residential areas, as an important component of urban space, their integration with urban agriculture is an important way to alleviate urban food problems and enhance urban sustainability. However, existing studies mostly adopt uniform and homogeneous design methods and strategies, ignoring the differences between different types of residential areas, resulting in resource waste and insufficient implementation. Therefore, our study takes Nankai District of Tianjin as an example, uses the K-means clustering algorithm to classify residential areas, further proposes strategies for integrating spatial elements and management and operation mechanisms of different types of residential areas, and conducts a quantitative assessment of the sustainable benefits of the updated urban agriculture in residential areas. This study aims to break through the homogeneous design paradigm and provides a theoretical basis and practical references for promoting the update of urban agriculture in residential areas and sustainable urban development. The results show that differentiated urban agriculture updates in four types of residential areas can significantly improve the sustainable benefits of the residential areas.