FROM FUNCTIONAL TO EMOTIONAL VALUE: A STUDY ON THE COMFORT GENERATION OF BEIJIAO NEW TOWN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PLACE CONSUMERISM

ZHAI Xue-ting, CAO Shi-pei, LUO Qiu-ju, WANG Jun-yi

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2026, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (2) : 39-46.

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HUMAN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2026, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (2) : 39-46. DOI: 10.13959/j.issn.1003-2398.2026.02.005
SOCIETY

FROM FUNCTIONAL TO EMOTIONAL VALUE: A STUDY ON THE COMFORT GENERATION OF BEIJIAO NEW TOWN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PLACE CONSUMERISM

  • ZHAI Xue-ting1, CAO Shi-pei2, LUO Qiu-ju1,3, WANG Jun-yi1
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Abstract

Against the backdrop of place consumerism, comfort has become a vital strategy for new towns to attract talent and drive urbanization. Comfort is not merely a functional affordance of a place, but more profoundly a symbolic embodiment of place meaning, representing an empathetic response to individuals’ needs of modern lifestyles. Taking the Beijiao New Town as a case study, this study employs field studies and qualitative interviews to explore how comfort, as a place meaning, emerges and evolves within the interactive dynamics between human and non-human agents. Results find that amenities, as non-human agents, exhibit agency in terms of openness and cultural dimensions, stimulating and constructing the interactions between humans and non-humans in a fundamental way. The functional comfort operates as the fundamental catalyst in place consumption, manifesting through the interplay between material affordance (objective amenities provision) and embodied perception (subjective comfort internalization).

Key words

place consumerism / amenity / emotional value / non-human and human relationship agency practice

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ZHAI Xue-ting, CAO Shi-pei, LUO Qiu-ju, WANG Jun-yi. FROM FUNCTIONAL TO EMOTIONAL VALUE: A STUDY ON THE COMFORT GENERATION OF BEIJIAO NEW TOWN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PLACE CONSUMERISM[J]. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY. 2026, 41(2): 39-46 https://doi.org/10.13959/j.issn.1003-2398.2026.02.005

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