Assessing the Sustainability of Urban Community Renewal Projects in Southern China Based on a Hybrid MADM Approach

: Urban renewal is extensively practiced around the world and has attracted substantial attention among scholars and the public. To ensure that urban renewal is directed toward sustainable development goals, sustainability assessments for urban renewal projects have become critical topics. Simultaneously, the ex ante evaluation research of urban renewal projects has not received enough academic attention, and most results have not fully considered the localization of criteria and the internal correlation between criteria/dimensions. Therefore, this paper proposes an ex ante decision model for the sustainability assessment of urban renewal projects based on a hybrid multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) approach, which includes 3 dimensions and 16 criteria. It uses a case in Guangzhou to assess the sustainable potential of the project and explore relevant improvement strategies. Empirical results from the Decision Testing and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) indicate that the economic ( D 1 ) and environment ( D 2 ) dimensions both impact the social and cultural ( D 3 ) dimensions, with the environment ( D 2 ) dimension being impacted by the economic ( D 1 ) dimension. The criteria occupying the “cause” position include reducing construction costs and materials expenses ( C 5 ), increasing greening conﬁguration and open space ( C 6 ), reducing resource consumption and waste ( C 8 ), improving existing land-use efﬁciency ( C 2 ), promoting the biodiversity of space ( C 9 ), and strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents ( C 15 ), where increasing greening conﬁgurations and open space ( C 6 ) and reducing resource consumption and waste ( C 5 ) are considered the key criteria based on the results of DEMATEL and the DEMATEL-Analytic Network Process (DANP). The modiﬁed VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method revealed that the economic ( D 1 ) dimension has poor performance, and its improvement needs to be prioritized. Further improvement strategies are proposed based on the inﬂuence network relationship graph (INRM). In conclusion, our results show that urban community renewal projects in Guangzhou are steadily progressing toward a sustainable vision.

Generally, urban renewal is a process that aims at focusing on the improvement of various aspects of urban areas via behavior and subjective norms [3].It has been elaborated in different terminologies and approaches during the last decades, such as "renewal", "regeneration", "redevelopment", "rehabilitation", and so on [41].The study by Zheng et al. [3] pointed out that "urban renewal" is similar to "urban regeneration" as both involve large-scale operations.In comparison, the term "redevelopment" is more focused on a specific land type or smaller-scale operations, and it comprises redevelopment actions on a site that has already formed, is older, or comprises the declining sections of a city [42].In contrast, the "rehabilitation" concept mainly refers to the process of replacing or rehabilitating integral or partially dilapidated buildings [43].In summary, a variety of urban renewal terms and scales reflect the response to rapid changes in societies and cities [42].In terms of the spatial perspective, the neighborhood scale is often identified as the appropriate scale for reflecting holistic urban renewal [25,30,44].Thus, the focus of this paper is a neighborhood-scale urban renewal project.
The inherent complexity of urban renewal often makes it difficult for projects to translate potential into sustainable benefits or to aim toward sustainable development goals [3,22,45].Urban renewal driven by economic interests has also been criticized for degrading various socio-environmental qualities via the neglect of urban fabric complexities [26,46].To tackle the aforementioned challenges, introducing the ex ante assessments of sustainability into urban renewal is necessary [16,22,47] because it provides policy makers with a future-based approach that can be used to address complex challenges from a holistic perspective [3].From a policy perspective, there was widespread acceptability that early, persistent, and rigorous assessments could ensure improvements while operations are in progress or could be terminated promptly upon failure [6].From the viewpoint of the stakeholder, those assessments provide potential opportunities to integrate disciplinary insights and stakeholders' perspectives in various dimensions of urban space [30,45], and most importantly, it is conducive to proposing appropriate solutions toward implementing sustainable urban renewal [3,47].In brief, an ex ante assessment is mainly facilitated to provide a more comprehensive solution that avoids costly or inefficient solutions as much as possible [48].
Indicator-based approaches for assessing urban renewal projects are widely used [6,7].They have also been considered to be of vital importance to enhance the sustainability of renewal projects [22,33].Most of the body of literature involves ex post assessments on cases/regions around the world [6,25,33,49,50], while ex ante studies are still not very fruitful [22].Some studies only focus on land asset values or potential evaluation and the lack of integrated improvement strategies [51].Several studies only focus on a few incomplete dimensions with respect to evaluating sustainability [52], while others ignore the importance of a comprehensive assessment in the model [3].Although some research studies are aware of this problem, the models introduced by these studies, such as those with a lack of baseline evaluation datasets/models or numerical hybrid methods for case applications [53,54], the AHP model [26,49], or special indicators under project-oriented concerns [55], failed to establish a comprehensive method [3] or to identify the interdependencies between the dimensions/criteria [22,55].
To overcome the abovementioned defect, we further localized the criteria on the basis of Lin et al.'s studies [22] and examined the new results from a case study in order to propose reliable evidence for enhancing the sustainability of the neighborhood-scale project.The weighting and impact analysis's results obtained from the model were used in assessing the sustainability of cases.This paper focuses on a real project in Guangzhou, China, as a case study.This study was conducted because of rapid Chinese urbanization and the dilemma of limited urban resources [56], and the relevant authorities are revisiting urban renewal strategies via regulations, measures, standards, and rules to promote desirable results of the urban renewal project [57].Nevertheless, the current model of urban renewal projects in China is still obviously unsustainable under interventions from local authorities [58][59][60][61].Hence, introducing an ex ante assessment model to assess and promote the sustainability of urban renewal projects from a different perspective is necessary.
This paper presents a hybrid model by employing the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)-based analytic network process (D-ANP) in conjunction with the modified VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR).The case of the South China Agricultural University Residential Area in Guangzhou was selected to assess the sustainability potential of the project.The sections of this paper are outlined as follows.In Section 2, we briefly review some of the literature.In Section 3, the framework for the ex ante assessment approach of the study case is described.The empirical results and discussion are separately revealed in Sections 4 and 5, and the conclusion is provided in Section 6.

Literature Review
Urban renewal can be treated as a complex process with dynamic driving factors involving economic, environmental, and social aspects from different scales [3,19,48].This makes the sustainable assessment of urban renewal a complex process [22], especially when multiple stakeholders struggle to reach a consensus among interest conflicts or various indicators [3,26].The indicator-based approaches received extensive attention and application [6,7,50] because they provide a clear prioritization and a method for identifying differences to resolve the complexity of urban renewal projects [6,7,48].Most studies focus on the ex post sustainability assessment of urban renewal projects [22,50].One of the most widely recognized studies is proposed by Hemphill et al. [6,7], who introduced a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework for cases in Europe.Other studies from Ankara and Istanbul [33,62], Taipei [63], Hong Kong [25,50], Nanjing [64], Shenzhen [57], and Guangzhou [65] also separately explored ex post sustainability assessments.Existing accreditation/assessment systems are also considered to be generally aimed toward sustainable goals, for example, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Building Rating System (LEED, US), the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM, UK), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB, DEU), Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE, JPN), Haute Qualité Environnementale (HQE, FR), and the assessment standard for green building (GB/T 50378-2014, CN).Moreover, most of the above certification/assessment systems mainly focus on ex post assessments.
Compared with the tremendous amount of research on ex post assessments, the existing results with respect to ex ante studies are relatively deficient in the literature [22,30].Manitiu and Pedrini [66] defined a set of indicators for assessing European outcomes in an ex ante perspective based on the DPSIR model (Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impact, Response) and selected indicators from three relevant sustainability domains; however, it is inadequate for actual case assessment because it ignored the interrelationship within the indicators.Buzási and Szalmáné Csete [48] developed a climate-adaptation-led sustainability assessment framework based on three dimensions (adaptation, mitigation, and sustainability) and used it to assess the renewal proposals of the Rákospalota-Újpest railway station in Budapest.However, it limited support for on-the-ground decisions and improvement strategies for cases, and the framework has a limited scope of applicability.
Recently, some studies used a decision-making framework based on a hybrid assessment model composed of limited dimensions/criteria and have successfully introduced them into further empirical studies.For instance, Zhu et al. [64] established a framework for evaluating the relative performance of urban renewal projects via the AHP-Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) hybrid MCDM method and used it to evaluate an old renewal neighborhood (ONR) project in Nanjing to propose further improvement suggestions.Other scholars formed an indicator system for assessing the sustainability of urban renewal projects based on standardized indicator sets and the decision-making matrix from four dimensions (social, economic, environmental, and land use) and conducted case studies on eight neighborhood samples in Qixinggang Street, Chongqing [30].
The validity of models in some studies is being increasingly questioned, especially when it involves the relative influence of assessment criteria/dimensions.Yildiz conducted research that used the classical analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method to determine the factor weights affecting the sustainability of urban renewal projects in Turkey [67].As a classical analysis method proposed by Saaty [68,69], AHP has been extensively applied in ex ante and ex post assessments [16,26,49,63,64,67,[70][71][72], while its assumption of independence has not been completely considered in the complex interrelationships within dimensions/criteria and the effect of the actual decision-making environment [22, [73][74][75][76].Many scholars tried to construct a system/frame that covers subjective and objective evaluations with different aspects of the project based on using the questionnaires of traditional linear models or indicator sets [25,30,33,48,50].Nonetheless, the practical problem of describing the complex interrelationships in urban renewal projects remains unstudied [22,33].
Many studies turn to more sophisticated assessment methods or hybrid approaches assessments [77].Some studies introduce the analytic network process (ANP) into assessments in order to identify the interrelationship between dimensions/criteria [78,79].However, it still lacks a systematic method for describing interdependencies between dimensions/criteria and further suggestions need to be proposed [80,81].Other researchers attempted to introduce other evaluation methods (i.e., DEMATEL or TOPSIS) [64,[82][83][84] or proposed hybrid models to analyze issues that are relevant to urban renewal projects [22,36,85], while the results of most obtained interdependencies have not been fully applied for assessing actual cases [22].Hence, it is necessary to further explore the impact of the interrelationship between dimensions/criteria on urban renewal projects and to promote the emergence of more empirical evidence.In summary, the abovementioned issues and gaps have not yet been refined and studied in urban renewal research.

The Case for Empirical Study: South China Agricultural University Residential Area, Guangzhou
China is one of the most rapidly urbanizing regions around the world.Due to the limited land resources caused by high-speed urbanization, the old urban areas became obstacles to urban redevelopment and brought about negative effects on the living quality of human settlements.Urban renewal proved to be an effective means of improving old urban areas and enhancing the environmental quality of human settlements [65].The urban renewal of Guangzhou is at the forefront of the application field of urban renewal in China.As the national pilot city for the urban renewal of old urban areas, local authorities issued the Guangzhou Urban Renewal Policy (Decree of the Municipal Government No. 134) in 2016 and simultaneously promulgated three sets of supporting measures, namely the Implementation Measures of Guangzhou Old Village Renewal (2016), Implementation Measures for the Renewal of Guangzhou Old Factory Buildings (2016), and Implementation Measures of Guangzhou Old Town Renewal (2016).Measures based on the concepts of intensive land-use have also been experimentally implemented, with administrative support from the Opinions of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government on Improving the Level of Urban Renewal and Promoting Conservation and Intensive Land Use (2017).Meanwhile, local authorities are also seeking to introduce more social benefits to regional redevelopments by using urban renewal projects to update regional infrastructure.In the latest Guangzhou Urban Renewal Special Planning (2021-2035), the localization strategy under systematic study is one of the focuses of the urban renewal project of Guangzhou.Nonetheless, the current ex ante stage of the process does not include a synthesis framework to examine and maximize the sustainable goal of urban renewal projects; therefore, this study explored this aspect.
The government has played a predominant role in the urban renewal projects of Guangzhou, but local authorities are still actively seeking the participation of multiple indigenous stakeholders.Since local authorities implemented the Decree of the Municipal Government No. 134 in 2016 by introducing the approach of "Weigaizao" [86], 779 old neighborhoods have been selected for renewal planning as demonstration cases.In 2017, the Guangzhou Yuexiu Group, as a representative of local enterprises, led the establishment of the Guangzhou Urban Renewal Fund with a total scale of CNY 200 billion, marking the application of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) agreement in the urban renewal field.With the development of regional government reforms, some government actors in urban renewal completed the transformation toward being private/public, and the local government only acts in a regulatory capacity, which further reflects the long-term deployment and determination of the local authorities to introduce multiple stakeholders.However, "Current attempts to bring in multiple stakeholders have had difficulties" said one departmental director of the Guangzhou Urban Renewal Planning Research Institute(GURPRI) during an interview, "Exploring and balancing the conflict of multiple stakeholders is a long-term game, especially when each side holds their own claim."For this reason, planning empowerment under the leadership of local authorities is still emphasized within Guangzhou Urban Renewal Special Planning (2021-2035).In short, from the perspective of policy impacts, administrative policy and government leadership still play a leading role in this city.This study focuses on government-led urban renewal projects.
The reliability of a case study increases with the number of cases [22] but obtaining convincing results is still necessary by prudently selecting cases [87].The South China Agricultural University Residential Area Project is a suitable case with phased characteristics for evaluating whether urban planning and design are moving towards a sustainable development strategy.It belongs to "old urban areas micro-renovation", and it is one of the old neighborhood renewal projects in 779 urban renewal projects led by the local government.As the organizers, the Guangzhou municipal government and Tianhe District government are revising the planning content and making inquiries according to its planning scheme.This project is located in Wushan Street, Tianhe District, with a total land area of about 76,000 square meters, including a total building area of 62,338 square meters, a total road area of 17,725 square meters, and a total green area of 22,324 square meters.It faces many obstacles with respect to redevelopment, such as a lack of public infrastructure, the serious aging of existing infrastructure, a shortage of disaster prevention ability, fire safety hazards, etc.The pavement used in public and pedestrian roads is substantially damaged, and the drainage system relies only on small, aging gutters that lack covers (Figure 1).In accordance with the scheme, this project will be divided into three areas separately: A-1, A-2, and A-3 (Figure 2).The selected areas will implement repairs and increase infrastructure in order to enhance the quality of the total living environment.The complexity of establishing an effective set of indicators makes it seem challenging [30,88], while it is still necessary for the valid application of the framework [71].Researchers compiled several studies of frameworks for assessing urban renewal projects (Supplementary Table S1).According to the summary of the existing literature, the evaluation indicators obtained from most of the literature tend to be highly adaptive or versatile, which is fully reflected in ex ante or ex post studies.From a broader point of view, the majority of studies tend to obtain evaluation indicators from the extensive literature [22].Some recent results that involve the establishment of assessment frameworks provided a relatively accomplished knowledge base for our works [22,25,30,32,50,64], while other localized case studies provided us with targeted knowledge [61].However, there is a thorny balance in the conflict between localized indicators-such as localized community indicators or localized knowledge indicators-and existing interoperable indicators, and these require more in-depth research on urban renewal.Meanwhile, coping with the interference from excessive indicators to establish a concise or even a dynamic indicator system for decision makers is another issue that requires resolution [22,89].
Currently, there is a large body of research that is attempting to conceptualize sustainable urban renewal in complex contexts [3].In general, it is widely acknowledged that the sustainable urban renewal concept could be grouped in common principles under three pillars: economic, environmental, and social [22,33].Among them, the cultural dimension has been repeatedly recognized as an essential aspect of culture-led urban regeneration [66,70,85].Here, with the above generalization of previous achievements, recent development, and the bottlenecks in the sustainability assessment of an urban renewal project, this paper proposes a framework that covers the 3 dimensions (economic, environmental, and social and cultural) with 16 relevant criteria (Table 1).The assignment of each criterion under the three dimensions is explained in the following sections.
Table 1.The framework elements for assessing the urban renewal project 1 .

Dimensions/Criteria Definition Reference
Promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ) The project aims to promote the distribution and conservation of the biodiversity of habitats and species in the region.[33,36,44,54].
Improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 ) The project aims to provide emergency measures and places for surrounding residents in disasters or major events and to improve the emergency response capability of the region.

Social and cultural (D 3 )
Improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ) The project aims to provide adequate infrastructure, including educational, medical, cultural, and elderly care facilities, and aims to enhance their convenience. [

Economic dimension (D 1 )
Promoting the development of local economics is a key indicator for measuring the sustainable development of urban renewal within the economic dimension.Urban renewal is frequently described as an important component in creating sustainable economic development [22].From the perspective of the government and the public, the urban renewal project is intimately connected to employment, assets, and the housing aspects of sustainable economic development goals [44].Economy-based urban renewal tends to focus on delivering economic benefits to the community [49].The results proposed by Hemphill, Zheng, and Korkmaz incorporated a diverse set of indicators for assessing economic benefits, such as labor force participation rate, disposable income per capita, local employment, and the diversity of business activities [6,7,33,50].Moreover, the jobs and potential transformation opportunities for industrial structures created by urban renewal projects in the local area might provide further economic profits [82].Hence, this paper selects "Promoting local economic development (C 4 )" as an indicator in the economic dimension.
Sustainable land redevelopment is an essential part of sustainable urban renewal projects [22].As a form of resource reuse [3], the existing land-use efficiency can be improved via rational allocations and a mixed redevelopment of land [6].For instance, Chan and Lee pointed out that Hong Kong should adopt compact designs and intensive development according to the actual situation and focus on a proper mix and balance of different land uses [26].These types of rational suggestions for land redevelopment and utilization will assist in the improvement of land-use efficiency, thereby improving the quality of life and increasing land values [29,44,64].Therefore, "Improving the efficiency of existing land use (C 2 )" was selected as an indicator.Additionally, the implementation of urban renewal projects in the regulation of land resources is usually bound with the value of assets.For the designated districts of urban renewal projects, it often encourages the direct expectations of increasing land and property prices [16].From the perspective of local governments, as a tool used by the authorities, urban renewal projects have been applied to intervene/regulate with the price, quantity, and quality of local assets in order to promote regional renewal strategies [34].In view of private investors, the substantial enhancement in project value is directly related to the economic benefits introduced by the price market of land and assets [58].From the above, "Increasing the total value of land and assets (C 3 )" should be selected as a critical indicator of economic dimensions.
Urban renewal projects will incur many financial considerations and cost burdens.Decision makers often use a range of financial indicators to examine an individual urban renewal project under financial constraints [71].In urban renewal projects led by local governments, conducting prudent investment and financial reviews with limited funds is more prevalent [22].In pursuit of long-term fiscal balances and higher project viabilities [44], attempts to introduce financial instruments and private investors are receiving widespread attention and implementation from around the world [34,58,65,89].Based on these trends, "Reducing the local financial burden (C 1 )" is listed as one of the criteria.Furthermore, the unsustainability of the construction industry has drawn substantial attention with respect to material and energy consumption within urban renewal projects from academics [63].Relying on existing building structures for renewal projects can reduce material consumption and waste generation, thus reaching an optimum balance among investments, low energy consumption, minimization affection, local cultural heritage preservation, and renewal planning [82].Xu et al. indicated the issues of waste and pollution caused by large-scale demolition-reconstruction projects in China and expounded upon the necessity of implementing an ex ante assessment of resource consumption [32].Thus, "Reducing construction costs and material costs (C 5 )" was also selected as an important indicator.

Environmental dimension (D 2 )
Rapid urbanization imposes tremendous pressure on the urban environment, and achieving environmental sustainability has become an important goal in assessing urban renewal projects [33].It is therefore essential to achieve a judicious balance between two fundamental goals, acceptable living standards and the rational usage of natural resources, in order to realize sustainable development [54].Increasing green space coverage is classically thought to be an efficient and crucial method for ensuring urban environments and relieving resource pressure at the city scale [36].At the neighborhood scale, the visual contact and the promotion of pollution reduction on physical and mental health provided by greening are the focus of surrounding residents [32,44].In addition, open spaces that serve the public alongside greening are also reduced or lost in some urban areas [62].This also predisposes people to adopting specific vision-driven urban renewal projects to resolve the problem of inadequate open spaces [30,33,55].The above context reflects the essentiality of greening and open spaces as buffers within high-density population areas for the health and socialization of urban dwellers [22,26].Thus, "Increasing greening configuration and open space (C 6 )" is included in the environment (D 2 ) dimension of the framework.
"Improving environmental quality (C 7 )" was also chosen as one of the criteria under the environment (D 2 ) dimension.A notable reason for considering the concept of sustainability when preparing urban renewal proposals is to achieve better environmental quality [26,33].Considering that environmental quality is an important attribute of the living quality of residents [22], some studies suggest adopting environmentally friendly practices to improve the environmental sustainability of urban renewal projects [54,88].Another closely interlinked criterion in the same dimension is related to the rational usage of resources.As a concept of integrating both environmental quality and reducing the consumption of resources, green design received attention in decision making and implementations in Europe [6,48], Mainland China [30,64], and Hong Kong [26,88].Measures including adopting sustainable energy, material recycling, and waste disposal/management infrastructure were also evaluated in urban renewal projects [33,36,54,55].Associated international planning norms/concepts, such as green building standard certification or smart city, are frequently introduced in the design guidelines of urban renewal projects [36,54].Zhu et al. proposed that the rational use of resources should be deservedly viewed as a prolonged work for evaluating urban renewal projects [82].Thus, it is necessary to add the criteria of "Reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 )" into the environment (D 2 ) dimension.
Conserving the diversity of urban biology and its habitats has been a lesser concern than other criteria.In recent decades, it has been recognized that even within regions with a high scale/degree of human intervention, such as cities, assessing ecosystem performance and promoting ecological corridor protection in urban renewal projects are still crucial [44].In some urban renewal studies for objects at different scales, strategies for the expansion and enhancement of urban ecosystem structure have been mentioned by some researchers [54,90,91].For example, Korkmaz introduced the corresponding criteria for assessing wildlife and its habitats to evaluate urban renewal projects in North Ankara [33].Therefore, "Promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 )" was also included in the environment (D 2 ) dimension of this study.
"Improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 )" is also included in the criteria for environmental sustainability.At the community scale, most residential environment studies in urban renewal projects highlight the safety of natural disasters or criminal issues [16,89].Hence, a consideration of public and regional security in the assessment is necessary in order to guarantee the acceptable living quality for local citizens [26].Furthermore, because most high-density settlements in East Asia (e.g., South Korea, Japan, Eastern China, and Taiwan) are vulnerable to natural disasters, such as typhoons, tsunamis, and earthquakes, strategies to further expand emergency preparedness capabilities to deal with regional natural disasters should be emphasized [22].Briefly speaking, given the effect of the existing major public health risks and extreme climate events on urban redevelopment, an ex ante assessment of the emergency response capacity of urban renewal projects is essential.

Social and cultural dimension (D 3 )
In addition to the improvement of living quality brought by the development of urban renewal projects, another crucial point is whether the project will entail social justice for the local community, especially for guaranteeing that the project can benefit vulnerable groups [62].Infrastructure is one of the warranted components in urban renewal projects [22,55], and providing infrastructure and public services contributes to improving the living quality of different groups [92].As the basis for the public to enjoy infrastructure and services [6], accessibility has always been the focus of researchers, and a range of issues such as barrier-free environments or regional connection facilities have also been the concern of urban renewal projects [26,33].abovementioned focusing on the accessibility of infrastructure, the study of Huang et al. revealed the problem of poor services provided in high-accessibility infrastructure [30].Some other research frameworks also highlighted the essential need of providing diversified services within indicators or strategies [62].For social justice, ensuring diverse public infrastructure and urban services (such as hospitals, schools, community centers, sports facilities, etc.) can also reduce social inequalities and promote social development [30,55,92].Considering the above, two criteria, "Improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 )" and "Provide various types of public facilities and community services (C 12 )", are included in the social dimension of the framework.
The convenience of urban transport systems has been a constant focus of urban renewal projects for achieving social sustainability.Transportation and mobility are the main factors informing the decision-making process for urban renewal projects [32].Among the indicators in studies by Pérez et al., the quality of public transport was considered to be strongly associated with a community's attractiveness [44].From the space perspective of a neighborhood, since the location of a region undergoing urban renewal project is fixed [26], urban renewal projects should consider more ways in the inter and intra-regional linkage to ensure that the entire transportation system becomes more efficient and convenient.Moreover, it provides promising opportunities for shifting their regional development patterns toward a sustainable development perspective by offering potential possibilities for sustainable public transport projects [82].Therefore, "Improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 )" is included as one of the evaluation criteria.
Additionally, the criteria of the preservation of local community culture should also be considered within the urban renewal project.From the planning of an urban renewal project, culture has been one of the main factors involved in thorough considerations [3].Distinct neighborhoods have different histories, residents, and cultural backgrounds, and the actual conditions of community often vary from place to place [64].Neighborhood cultural identity and retention have always been an important component of social sustainability discussions [62,89,93], and they are often referred to in the framework of urban renewal projects [48,50,88].In some culture-led urban renewal studies, such measures of preserving historical or cultural heritage are believed to shape the corresponding community's identity via cultural self-awareness and regional self-esteem [70], which are crucial for gaining community recognition in urban renewal projects [94].Those measures for maintaining existing social and cultural structures can be successful strategies for improving community awareness [16] and promoting the sustainability of urban renewal projects in their social and cultural dimensions [48].Therefore, this study selected "Preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 )" as the criterion.Safety is one of the basic goals of achieving regional sustainable development [62,95], which has prompted many studies to consider providing a safe and pleasant settlement environment as a goal [32,49,82].From the perspective of residents themselves, a sense of security is the basis for maintaining a community's cohesion and ensuring the life quality for citizens [62].The source of this sense of security is not only limited to the narrow description of residential environment safety, but it also includes other factors, such as criminal activities, building safety, open space safety, and pedestrian safety [16,32,48,88].The sense of belonging to the community brought by the increasing sense of safety is also conducive for more social benefits [65], so using safety-related criteria to assess the performance of neighborhood-scale projects on the social dimension is reasonable.In Zhu et al.'s evaluation of renewal projects in China's old neighborhoods, safety was included in the social dimension of project performance evaluation [65].Therefore, "Strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 )" was also included in the framework of this study.
Since urban renewal is a critical approach for attaining the objectives of regional sustainable development, "Reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 )" has also been involved in this framework.The design and planning of a city need to consider its own development plan [22].Achieving a long-term and complex vision, such as sustainability, depends not only on the actual situation and the foresight of managers but also on the particular challenges faced by the city itself [66].As a means toward achieving a country/region-specific vision [34,54], urban renewal should be considered under a more holistic approach in order to achieve regional sustainable development goals [33].Hence, building foresight decision-support systems are necessary in order to achieve a longer-term sustainable goal for neighborhood-scale projects [44].

Procedure for Assessing within a Hybrid MADM Model
Tackling the consideration of insufficient research on ex ante assessments, this study proposes a hybrid MADM model with localized criteria.According to the existing literature [96], compared with the primitive method, this hybrid approach reflects more advantages in opinion formation and is more engaging for deciders.Such hybrid models based on the MADM approach have been proven to be effective in evaluating neighborhoodscale urban renewal projects [22,97] and are also conducive for proposing a relatively comprehensive framework [64].
The DEMATEL method was first introduced in order to obtain the interdependency relationships between criteria/dimensions used in the process of sustainability assessments.Then, these relations are introduced into ANP to realize the hybrid use of D-ANP, and factor weights are obtained.The advantage of D-ANP is that compared with the classical AHP or ANP method, it can more comprehensively assess the scheme under complex realistic conditions by providing interdependency relationships [36,98].Lastly, the obtained weights were utilized in the modified VIKOR model to support the ex ante assessment and decision making.As a popular method in application fields [99], the modified VIKOR model has advantages of providing policymakers with improvement strategies and directions [22].Based on previous studies [22,97], this study proposes an expectation alignment index, which provides an additional rank reference for decision makers.In general, the modeling process consists of the following steps (Figure 3).(

1). Expert questionnaire preliminary collection
The model of this paper adopts an evaluation method based on expert opinions.A set of exclusive questionnaires targeting Chinese experts was developed.The formation of questionnaires refers to Lin et al. and other works [97,100] (Supplementary Tables S2-S6).A 5-point evaluation scale, which is easier for forming a common consensus [36], was mainly adopted to evaluate the dependency relationship of 16 criteria under 3 dimensions (economic, environmental, and social and cultural).Based on the information from Table A1, the sustainability of the case in Guangzhou was evaluated by experts by using a 10-point isometric evaluation scale [22].The expert decision-making method proposed in this study does not require a sizable sample [73], so this paper adopts a small group of people (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15) as suggested by the previous body of literature [9,36,97,101].The author team first invited 20 experts from Chinese academic institutions, research institutions, and government sectors via mobile apps, mail, and phone calls.
After informed consent from experts had been obtained, the corresponding questionnaire content, the overall design scheme, and other relevant contents were delivered and explained to the experts.After signing the corresponding confidentiality agreement and signature agreement, the respondents were told that if they had any questions, they could contact the relevant personnel from the author team at any time.This survey was conducted from August to October 2022.The authors collected the opinions of 17 experts.All interviewees held an master's degree or higher, and half of them had a Ph.D.All respondents had expertise in at least one aspect of land resource management, environmental science, urban planning, landscape design, or architecture and knowledge of sustainable development policies and urban renewal in China.Table A2 provides information about the mentioned experts.
Although there may be suspicion about the credibility of a small group of experts, parts of the previous literature have used similar small sample combinations.For example, Manupati et [65,70,82,96].The conducted consistency test of the questionnaire was based on Cronbach's coefficient, with the consistency results of 0.988 and 0.934.Therefore, all results of the experts' opinions were consistent and were applied in the next steps of the modeling program.
(2). Analysis of influence relationship based on DEMATEL Since the DEMATEL technique was proposed, it has been widely used in the decisionmaking processes of complicated issues around the world [82].As a widely used representation, an influential network relationship map (INRM) is used to identify the interdependence and causation relationships in these issues [22].This method has received considerable attention from the field of sustainability assessments [77].The specific modeling process of the sustainable assessment of the case in this study is as follows.
Step 1: Building the direct influential relation matrix The original direct influential relation matrix A was built based upon specialists' advice; a ij represents the direct influence degree of criterion i on criterion j under a pairwise comparison of two criteria.
Step 2: Normalizing the obtained direct influential relation matrix where A is normalized to obtain the normalized direct influential relation matrix N.
Step 3: Obtaining the total influential relation matrix based on power treatments Based on the power treatment of the normalized direct influential relation matrix lim h→∞ N h = [0] n×n , the total influential relation matrix of criteria (T C ) and the total influential relation matrix of dimensions (T D ) were obtained.
Step 4: Obtaining row sum vectors and column sum vectors to plot the INRM Based on Equations ( 6) and ( 7), the sum of row/column in the matrix T can be presented as vector r (the row sum in the matrix T) and vector c (the column sum in the matrix T).Then, r + c indicates the degree of total influence.Additionally, r − c represents the causal attribute among criteria/dimensions.If r-c is a positive value, the criterion/dimension i belongs to the cause attribute group; r − c is a negative value that represents the effect attribute group of criterion/dimension i. Lastly, r + c and r − c are both used for plotting the INRM map to further describe the causality interrelationship.
(3).Acquiring impact factor weightings on the DANP-based approach With the results of the static interdependence relationship from the previous step, step three aims to obtain weightings for the assessment.Although the ANP eliminated the limitation of the deficiency of interdependency in AHP [74,81] (that is, the static interdependence relationship is obtained by assuming that the diagonal matrix is independent or self-related [81]), it still lacks more systematic procedures for obtaining the interdependence [22].The existing literature indicates that the introduction of DEMATEL's interdependency in ANP will contribute to improving the testability of the method and expand the usable applications [81].The above steps of this study provided key dimensions/criteria for the assessment of DANP as preconditions.From the procedure of the model, the hybrid application step of DEMATEL-ANP is described as follows.
Step 1: Normalizing the total influential relation matrix By normalizing Equation (4), the normalized total influential relation matrix of criteria (T α C ) was acquired.
The normalized total influential relation matrix of dimensions (T α D ) was calculated following similar steps as for the matrix of the criteria (T α C ).
Step 2: Acquiring the unweighted supermatrix by transposing the normalized total influence relation matrix The normalized total influence relation matrix of criteria (T α C ) is transposed to obtain the unweighted super matrix of the criteria (W C ).
Step 3: Determining the weighted supermatrix of the criteria We multiply the total influential relation matrix of criteria (T α C ) by an unweighted supermatrix (W C ) to obtain the weighted supermatrix of the criteria (W α C ).
Step 4: Converging a finite supermatrix of criteria By introducing Ou Yang et al.'s studies on Markov chains [102], the limitation of power, ϕ, is set to 100 times, and it converges to obtain the finite supermatrix of the criteria.

(4). Modified VIKOR application in the ex ante performance assessment of the case in Guanghzhou
The final step is to evaluate the sustainability and expectation gap of the case using the weighted results and the improved VIKOR model.The traditional VIKOR can only be applied to two or more alternatives and is limited in application to a single alternative [22,99].This traditional method cannot provide decision makers with rational suggestions for improving strategies or programs in urban renewal proposals [73].Based on the work of Hsu et al. [23] and others, Lin et al. used the modified VIKOR to establish an evaluation model based on actual cases in Taiwan [22].This method can validly evaluate a specific quantity of alternatives, and the expected gap of each criterion can also be captured.The modeling steps for the case study are as follows.
Step 1: Calculating the total gap and expected maximum gap Firstly, the total gap (S k ) and the maximum gap (Q k ) were calculated based on Equations ( 15) and ( 16) [103]; k represents the quantity of alternatives; f * j and f − j represent the highest and lowest level of aspiration, respectively; and j represents the above 16 criteria.In Equation ( 15); w j represents the weightings from DANP.
Step 2: Obtaining the integrated value for alternatives S * = min k S k (i.e., S * = 0) (18) Secondly, by setting v as the trade-off parameter, R k can be acquired using Equation (17).Then, the principles of min k S k and min k Q k are introduced, and Equation ( 17) can be rewritten as Equation ( 22) according to Equations ( 18)- (21).
Step 3: Determining trade-off parameters In the calculations, v was introduced as a decision-making trade-off parameter.It was determined by decision makers according to specific evaluation needs [103].Favoring the group utility maximization strategy, the value of v is higher than 0.5.Conversely, the personal utility maximization strategy is preferred when v is close to 0.
Step 4: Introducing expected gap ranking and Finally, the R k ranking and urban renewal sustainability index (URSDI ) [22] were introduced to provide a performance-based description of the sustainability of urban renewal project decisions.

Interdependent Relationship Analysis Based the DEMATEL's Calculations Results and INRM Map
Refer to the Appendix A for further details of the DEMATEL's calculation results.Table A3 shows the calculated results of the original direct influence on relation matrix A. Table A4 demonstrates the calculated results of the normalized influence relation matrix N. Table A5 reports the detailed calculation results for the total influence relation matrix T. In addition, r i and c i , representing the row and column vectors, respectively (see Tables 2 and 3), were used to establish the INRM (see Figures 4 and 5).
The interdependence and causality of dimensions are discussed in the calculation's results.Vector r i represents the influence degree of one dimension exerted on other dimensions, and they are sorted by scale as follows: economic (D 1 ), environment (D 2 ), and social and cultural (D 3 ).The value of economic (D 1 ) is significantly higher than the others, with a value of 17.424, indicating that economic (D 1 ) is the strongest dimension influencing the other dimensions within the model.In vector c i , which represents one dimension, the influence is imposed by other dimensions, and social and cultural (D 3 ) has the largest value, indicating that it is the largest severely affected dimension with respect to the other dimensions.This is followed by environment (D 2 ) with 16.753.Finally, economic (D 1 ) has a value of 16.423.According to the total influential degree r i + c i , the value of economic (D 1 ) is the highest, indicating it has the strongest total influence, followed by environment (D 2 ) with 33.635 and lastly by social and cultural (D 3 ) with a value of 33.060.Strikingly, in the result of r i − c i describing the causality position, social and cultural (D 3 ) is the negative value alone, and it occupies only the "effect" position amongst the dimensions.Both economic (D 1 ) and environment (D 2 ) have positive values.Economic (D1) has the greatest value, occupying the "cause" position amongst the other two dimensions.Environment (D 2 ) is slightly smaller than economic (D 1 ), only occupying the "cause" position relative to the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension and the "effect" position relative to the economic (D 1 ) dimension.Figure 4 illustrates the interdependency and causality position of each dimension.
The values of the vector r i based on the criteria are shown in Table 3.Among them, reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ), improve environmental quality (C 7 ), and reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ) are the three criteria with the highest priority, while preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ), reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ), and strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ) are the three criteria with the lowest priority.According to the result of vector c i , the three criteria with the highest priority are improve environmental quality (C 7 ), reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ), and increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ).The three lowest criteria, by contrast, are preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ), reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ), and strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ).According to the results of r i + c i , among the 16 criteria, the 4 criteria with the strongest total influence capacity are as follows: improving environmental quality (C 7 ), reducing construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ), reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ), and increasing the total value of land and assets (C 3 ).Preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ) is the lowest of all the criteria values.Finally, according to the results of the standard r i − c i , a total of six criteria occupies the "cause" position.Ranked by value size, they include reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ), increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), reduce resource consumption and waste(C 8 ), improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ), and strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ).Other criteria occupy the "effect" position, among which the three criteria most easily affected by other criteria are listed by size: improve environmental quality (C 7 ), reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ), and preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ). Figure 5 illustrates the interdependency and causality position of each criterion.The ranking of criteria is as follows: improve environmental quality (C 7 ), reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ), increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ), improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), promote the development of local economics (C 4 ), provide various types of public facilities and community services (C 12 ), reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ), improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ), improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 ), increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 ), reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ), strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ), promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ), preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ), and reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ).A6 and A7 in the Appendix A, respectively.The DANP weight results of dimensions and criteria (see Table 4) are used as the evaluation basis for actual cases.According to the results of the DANP weights in each dimension, they are followed by economic (D 1 ), environment (D 2 ), and social and cultural (D 3 ).In the economic (D 1 ) dimension, increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ) and improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ) are the most prominent.In terms of the environment (D 2 ) dimension, improve environmental quality (C 7 ) and increase greening configurations and open space (C 6 ) are of the strongest importance, while reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ) is the most notable in the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension.

The Ex Ante Assessment and Analysis of the Guanghzou Case by the Modified VIKOR Method
Table 4 lists the modified VIKOR model's results based on the DANP weightings for assessing the case.The total performance is 6.853, in which the maximum gap, Q k , is located at reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ) and promote the development of local economics (C 4 ), with a value of 0.4058.From the view of a group optimal strategy (i.e., when v = 1), the integrated value, R k , is 0.3146, and the URSDI index is 0.6854.By listing the v value from the individual optimal strategy (i.e., when v = 0) relative to the group's optimal strategy, this paper purposes different R k values for varying decision tendencies.When the decision maker considers the individual optimal strategy, the value of R k is 0.4059.The integrated value R k decreased slightly to 0.3603 when the v value increased to 0.5, with the presence of the URSDI index slightly enhanced toward 0.6397 (see Table 5).According to the calculation results of the three dimensions, the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension shows the best potential performance, with a value of 7.3921.This is followed by the environment (D 2 ) at 6.7529.Lastly, the economic (D 1 ) dimension has a value of 6.3058.The result from the gap indicates the distance of each dimension relative to the aspirational level.The economic (D 1 ) dimension has the largest value, 0.3694, followed by the environment (D 2 ) dimension at 0.3247.Moreover, the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension has the lowest gap with a value of 0.2608.Regarding criteria performances, there are nine criteria with satisfactory performances (above the average of criteria), which are followed by reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ), with a value of 7.7647; improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ), with a value of 7.6471; strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ), with a value of 7.3529; improve environmental quality (C 7 ), with a value of 7.3529; improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 ), with a value of 7.2352; increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ), with a value of 7.1176; increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), with a value of 7.0588; and preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ), with a value of 7.0.The five criteria with the poorest performances include reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ), with a value of 5.9412; promote the development of local economics (C 4 ), with a value of 5.9412; improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), with a value of 6.2353; reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ), with a value of 6.2941; and promoting the biodiversity of space (C 9 ), with a value of 6.2941.The result of the gap ratio also revealed similar results, with the largest gap observed in reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ) and the promote the development of local economics (C 4 ) dimension possessing a value of 0.4059.The smallest distance is located in reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ), with a value of 0.2235.

Analysis of Interdependency Relationship and Key Criteria of the Case in Guanghzou
Based on the summarized results from DEMATEL and INRM, the economic (D 1 ) and environment (D 2 ) dimension both occupy the "cause" position.Similarly, DANP weights indicate the importance of the economic (D 1 ) dimension, which has the highest value, followed by the environment (D 2 ) dimension, and lastly the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension.The majority of experts interviewed voiced that reinforcing the sustainable economic potential of this project should be an essential point in further steps.The improvement of the economic (D 1 ) dimension will contribute to both the environment (D 2 ) and the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimensions by following the influence transitivity assumption.Collectively, it was concluded that attention should be focused on promoting sustainable development in the economic dimension to ensure the imperative of realizing sustainable urban renewal projects.
The proposed results with their significance are compatible with some existing evidence; that is, the influence from the economic dimension is stronger on the other dimen-sions [36,82].Our work also corroborates the view of Hemphill in that, for the government, the benefits of urban renewal within high-density population areas should focus on economic factors, such as the core financial budget of the public department or the ratio of the risk return of the private department [6,7].Simultaneously, this paper also echoes some studies in reflecting culture-centered policies [52], and this paper raises doubts as to whether a social/culture-led urban renewal strategy should be considered as a dominant driver occurring in sustainable economic growth.As the antecedent results show, the economic dimension, as the core dimension that occupies the "cause" role of other dimensions, should be further emphasized and considered as the basis of urban renewal projects.This is based on previous viewpoints presented by Lee and Lim, who suggest that focusing on economic sustainability can help small-scale community-oriented urban renewal projects in producing more benefits [49].Thus, from the perspective of local authorities, giving priority to economic aspects within the urban renewal strategy will contribute to other aspects and can effectively promote the improvement of economic conditions and the quality of life for local residents [36].
A total of six criteria are situated at the "cause" position, as evidence has shown above.According to the individual degree of influence, they are ranked as follows: reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ), increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ), improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ), and strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ).In contrast, improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 ) and reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ) capture the "effect" position because their values in r i + c i are slightly lower than zero.However, because of the higher r i − c i value, their importance still cannot be ignored.The weights of DEMATEL and ANP were synthesized to determine the key criteria, which indicate that increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ) and reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ) are key criteria for the sustainable development of urban renewal projects.Additionally, although the weighting of reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ) is not high, it still has a significant effect on the other criteria.There are several criteria occupying the "cause" position, and they have relatively less apparent total influence/weight, but they are easily affected by key criteria, such as increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ), improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ), and strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ).Focusing on the improvement measures/strategies of those criteria is a proper method for improving the goal of effectively enhancing the sustainability of neighborhood-scale urban renewal projects.
The proposed key criteria are roughly consistent with the results expounded from the existing literature.For instance, in line with the finding presented by Manupati et al., achieving a sustainable urban environment is a key factor, especially in improving green coverage and waste disposal systems [36].The proposed results also correspond to evidence from local studies, including per capita disposable income, living conditions improvement, and the perfection degree of base and public infrastructure [104].The key criteria of the assessment also echoed the works of Zheng et al. in Hong Kong [25], where land-use forms and building conditions comprise the core criteria for evaluating urban renewal projects.The slight differences between the study and the partial literature reveal the bias of project heterogeneity in the applicability of the ex ante assessment process, namely, the applicability of the assessment criteria depending on the region, development stage, and other potential factors.However, the proposed key criteria within this study may still satisfy the expectations of multi-stakeholders in the urban renewal projects in Mainland China [60].The local government focuses on regional development and land-use policies [22], thereby emphasizing the fact that prospects of regional development should remain the key criteria for meeting the majority of expectations.

Strategies/Paths for Improving the Sustainable Potential of the Case in Guangzhou
Prioritizing and determining improvement strategies/paths may be highly beneficial for pursuing the practical realization of sustainable urban renewal projects.Despite the observation that some of the relevant ex ante literature reported corresponding assessment frames attempting to form strategies in practice, most results fail to consider the defects of weightings or propose targeted strategies/paths for the cases [55,85].To solve the dilemma mentioned above, the present study combined the DANP weights determined by DEMATEL's results with the modified VIKOR method for the sustainability assessment of the case.While the method involved in this paper cannot solve the problem of the subjective influence of indicators (which can be solved by the entropy weight method or other fuzzy evaluation methods) [104] or the marginal optimum point problem (usually solved by adopting a model that concurrently tackled numerous objectives) [11,24], the results coupled with DEMATEL and INRM can still introduce improvements to some limited extent of the classic VIKOR method.
Decision makers should pay attention to the underperforming dimensions/criteria and the dimensions/criteria that occupy the "cause" position.More efficient strategies/paths for improving these underperforming dimensions/criteria can be obtained from the results of the DEMATEL and INRM's diagrams.These previous results indicated that the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension performed relatively well.Since it occupied the "effects" dimension, it was not the first priority for the improvement strategies/paths.In contrast, we suggested that local policy makers should focus first on improving the economic (D 1 ) dimension in this case.In fact, as a key dimension with poor performance and the fact that it occupies the "cause" position, its improvement will promote the improvement of other dimensions.Suboptimal strategies should focus on the environment (D 2 ) dimension, which, as a weaker dimension occupying the "cause" position, can still be improved to further improve the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension.
With the case-based logistics, concrete improvement paths were raised for the criteria that performed less well.Take reduce resource consumption and waste(C 8 ) as an example.In order to further reduce the waste of resources, reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ) and increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ) may be considered as prioritized improvement strategies for directly improving the performance of the reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ) dimension: two chain-forming strategies (C 5 →C 8 and C 6 →C 8 ) both constitute operable improvement paths.The other paths for improvement are as follows: ( (2) Reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ): In general, increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ), improving existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), and promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ) can be considered the core of urban renewal strategies in this case.Therefore, strengthening the construction of greening, open space, and waste disposal facilities is encouraged in order to improve the quality of life of local residents.Moreover, improving the existing land-use efficiency by establishing a more efficient and convenient transportation network is encouraged.Additionally, due to the poor performance of the economic (D 1 ) dimension, decision makers should consider introducing multi-stakeholders, such as private investors, into the project, such as providing small business facilities within the community to provide more employment and business activities.Regarding the key criteria, which is increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), it is important to consider what type of measures can increase green coverage rather than following the basic indicators of the Guangzhou Greening Regulation and the Guangdong Urban Greening Regulation.Hence, measures based on green infrastructure (such as grass-planting bricks, rain garden, or vertical planting) can be considered and implemented.

Conclusions
The proposed decision model can be used to assess the sustainability of the structure of urban renewal projects, which comprise three pillars (economic, environment, and social and cultural) and sixteen criteria.This model provides an extended approach to understanding the interdependences between dimensions/criteria and key criteria identification in the existing literature, and it provides an approach for eliminating defects of lacking interdependence analysis in traditional decision methods.The DANP and the modified VIKOR were used in the Guangzhou case to identify the aspirational level at the ex ante stage and to establish subsequent improvement strategies/paths.
Based on the results of DANP, INRM, and VIKOR, which are separately proposed in this paper, this study indicates that economy (D 1 ) and environment (D 2 ) occupy the "cause" position of the three dimensions, and economy (D 1 ) has an impact on the other two dimensions.The environment (D 2 ) dimension can only affect the social and cultural (D 3 ) dimension but not the economy (D 1 ) dimension.On the other hand, the weight result of the DANP demonstrates that the economic (D 1 ) dimension has a significantly higher value.Therefore, it can be easily speculated that policy makers should be suggested to give priority consideration to the economic (D 1 ) aspect when implementing this project.With a combination of results from the DANP and INRM map, the decision maker should focus on four key criteria that occupy the "cause" position, which may contribute to higher project performances and increased efficiency with respect to the improvement of strategies.The four key criteria include the following: improving existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), increasing greening configuration and open space (C 6 ), reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ), and promote biodiversity of space (C 9 ).With the assessment of the South China Agricultural University Residential Area Project via the modified VIKOR model, it was revealed that the potential performance of the economic (D 1 ) dimension is the poorest and should receive the highest priority when enhancing the potential for sustainability.With respect to the criteria, our results suggest strengthening the three criteria as follows: improving existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ), reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ), and promote biodiversity of space (C 9 ).
This study also reflects the urban renewal policy reform and practice in Guangzhou in recent years.In the course of urban renewal, Guangzhou reconsidered the policy of large demolition and reconstruction and turned to the "micro-regeneration" pathway.Since 2016, with the reform of the urban renewal strategy in Guangzhou, urban planning thinking with micro-transformation mode as the core has been incorporated into urban renewal to promote the intensive utilization of resources and maximize protecting the public health and interest.Moreover, local authorities are also actively implementing the PPP model to seek the involvement of private capital and provide more economic development opportunities for the project in the future.Guangzhou's relevant policies also actively promote the participation of residents and their autonomous bodies in the urban renewal project to ensure that benefits can be more evenly dispersed among multi-stakeholders.Those reforms reflect Guangzhou's attempt to explore a more sustainable path of urban renewal.
Future studies will investigate this case in the ex post stage and address the existing deficiency of the model.Fuzzy semantics will be introduced to filter the disturbing factors within the decision model in order to reduce the inauthenticity of the decision process.Then, a more statistically significant model will be introduced to holistically overcome the limitations and defects in the existing model if systemic changes are necessary.Lastly, the model of this study can also be modified appropriately for the ex post stage of the case.In addition, it is also necessary to apply the model to a comparative study of distinct cases in different countries or regions, which is particularly critical for the validation of the model's universality.Simultaneously, according to the existence of stakeholder groups in different cities, it is also crucial to properly adapt the model with local differentiation.

Supplementary Materials:
The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/su15043023/s1, Table S1: Summary of the literature review, Table S2: Description about the criteria for assessing the case, Table S3: Real filled case example, Table S4: Dimension impact level filling form, Table S5: Criteria impact level filling form, Table S6: Criteria performance evaluation filling form.References [105][106][107]  Appendix A Table A1.Description about the criteria for assessing the case.

Dimensions/Criteria Description
Economic (D 1 ) Reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ) In contrast to the previous large-scale demolition and reconstruction process, the project was limited to the scale of three sites (A-1, A-2, A-3) in a special neighborhood.It is estimated to save a large sum of the local government's financial budget for reconstruction and resettlement.
Improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ) This project is expected to reuse part of the public space by renovation or small-scale reconstruction, and transform particular of the public space that has been illegally seized by residents into leisure facilities or public fitness equipment.Increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ) This project will improve the total value of land and assets within the study site by improving the internal (such as stairs, corridors, public spaces) and external environmental quality of existing buildings.

Promote the development of local economics (C 4 )
This project tries to attract more people to move into this neighborhood/district by enhancing the quality of buildings and neighborhood environment, in order to promote the prosperity of the local labor force and trade market and boost the local economic development level.
Reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ) This project is expected to retain the existing building structure and infrastructure body, and implement corresponding renewal measures (such as replacing the canopy and repairing the facade) only through micro reconstruction or replacement of partial buildings for reducing the cost and waste of building materials.

Environment (D 2 )
Increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ) The project will repair and maintain the existing green space in three sites (A-1, A-2, A-3), remove dead vegetation with diseases or pests, and on this basis, increase the greening cover rate by adding the configuration of pocket gardens or simply expanding the scope of green space.

Improve environmental quality (C 7 )
This project is expected to improve the quality of the local human settlements through small-scale demolition or reconstruction in terms of the environmental health of residents, landscape aesthetics, and neighborhood safety.Reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ) The project is estimated to reduce the potential waste behavior within the project process by controlling the costs of economic and material, in order to save the resources consumed by the project.
Promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ) This project is expected to systemically increase diversity with indirect measures to increase the diversity of species within the study site (e.g., by adding more local plant types or culling invasive alien species).
Improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 ) By improving the planning of existing drainage systems and public space, the project provides local residents with the guarantee of public infrastructure (such as providing better drainage systems, space for residents' activities and escape routes) in case of natural disasters (such as typhoon, heavy rain, or flood) and major public events.

Social and Cultural (D 3 )
Improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ) The project is expected to remove some walls and doors illegally constructed by residents on the first floor, and use the illegally seized public space to supplement public service facilities (such as public seats, greenways, or parking spaces), to increase the accessibility of corresponding public infrastructure.Provide various types of public facilities and community services (C 12 ) This project is estimated that some of the existing vacant spaces will be transformed into public spaces for all-age activities, such as adding badminton courts in A-2 and hydrophilic platforms in A-3.

Improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 )
This project is expected to improve the convenience of transportation within this region by improving the infrastructure in the existing transportation system (repairing or replacing the damaged and aged pavement) and route planning (implementing the route design of separating people from vehicles).Preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ) The project aims to maintain community identity and local culture by avoiding large-scale demolition or forced relocation of local residents.Strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ) This project will improve the safety factor in the community by increasing the monitoring spots in public areas and blind spots and maintaining the current closed-circuit television system.Reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ) As one of the projects in the reconstruction sequence of 779 old residential areas in Guangzhou, this project is one of the objectives of the regional planning to reach the micro-transformation of old communities.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Field photograph of the study case.(source from GURPRI).

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. The current plan of the case study (source from GURPRI).

3. 2 .
Model Building and Procedure of Hybrid MADM Model 3.2.1.Identify Dimensions/Criteria and Building a Framework for the Hybrid MADM Model

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The proposed hybrid MADM decision-making model procedure.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. INRM map for 16 criteria.Notes: reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ); improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ); increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ); promote the development of local economics (C 4 ); reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ); increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ); improve environmental quality (C 7 ); reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ); promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ); improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 ); improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ); provide various types of public facilities and community services (C 12 ); improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 ); preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ); strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ); reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ).

Table 2 .
The results of DEMATEL for dimensions.

Table 3 .
The results of DEMATEL for criteria.

Table 4 .
Summary of the calculation results of criteria/dimensions based on the DANP and VIKOR model.

Table 5 .
Intergraded value R k and URSDI results with different values of trade-off parameter v.
are cited in the supplementary materials.Conceptualization, J.C.; methodology, J.C.; software, J.C. and Y.C.; validation, J.C. and Y.C.; formal analysis, J.C.; investigation, J.C., Y.C., Y.Z., M.X. and H.Y.; resources, J.C.; data curation, J.C. and Y.C.; writing-original draft preparation, J.C.; writing-review and editing, J.C., Y.C. and L.L.; visualization, J.C. and Y.C.; supervision, J.C., L.L. and H.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.This work was funded by the Young Scholar of Humanity and Social Science Grants from the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, grant number 20YJC760044, and the Higher Education Young Scholar Innovative Programs of Guangdong Province, grant number 2018WQNCX022.
Funding:Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.

Table A2 .
Demographic of the respondents of the questionnaire.

Table A3 .
Initial direct influential relation matrix A 1 .

Table A4 .
Normalized influential relation matrix N 1 .Reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ); improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ); increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ); promote the development of local economics (C 4 ); reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ); increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ); improve environmental quality (C 7 ); reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ); promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ); improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 ); improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ); provide various types of public facilities and community services (C 12 ); improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 ), preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ); strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ); reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ).

Table A5 .
Total influential relation matrix of criteria T 1 ..2286 0.2382 0.2342 0.1965 0.2155 0.2949 0.2109 0.1967 0.2196 0.2199 0.2211 0.2260 0.1995 0.1602 0.2495 C 16 0.2500 0.2664 0.2819 0.2690 0.2340 0.2533 0.3406 0.2506 0.2384 0.2497 0.2647 0.2635 0.2609 0.2492 0.2458 0.2265 1 Notes: Reducing the financial cost burden for local authorities (C 1 ); improve existing land-use efficiency (C 2 ); increase the total value of land and assets (C 3 ); promote the development of local economics (C 4 ); reduce construction costs and materials expenses (C 5 ); increase greening configuration and open space (C 6 ); improve environmental quality (C 7 ); reduce resource consumption and waste (C 8 ); promoting biodiversity of space (C 9 ); improve emergency preparedness for disasters or major events (C 10 ); improve accessibility of existing public infrastructure (C 11 ); provide various types of public facilities and community services (C 12 ); improve the convenience of transportation (C 13 ), preserving the culture of the local community (C 14 ); strengthening the safety of pedestrians and residents (C 15 ); reaching regional planning and development goals (C 16 ).

Table A7 .
The weighted supermatrix of criteria W α