City Beautification: Does It Boost Urban Fairness?

Ever wondered if making cities look nice and civilized actually helps everyone in the city? A recent study looked into this using China's "National Civilized City" program as a test case. They checked out 272 cities from 2003 to 2020 and found some interesting stuff. First off, making cities civilized seems to help everyone in the city. It's like when you clean up your room, everyone in the house benefits, right? The study used a special method called time-varying DID to make sure their findings were solid. Here's where it gets even more interesting. In cities with more people and better money situations, the benefits were even bigger. Also, cities that were already great for tourism saw even more gains. So, how does this civilized city thing work? It's like a three-layer cake. On the top, the government makes rules to keep things fair. In the middle, the city's industries get better. And at the bottom, smart people come to the city, and the city's infrastructure gets a boost. The study's findings are important because they show how making cities look nice can really help everyone. It's like a roadmap for other cities trying to do the same thing.