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The concept of "consumer city" has reshaped the growth and prosperity of major cities in the world. Although the literature has extensively documented the role of central cities in generating jobs, there has been limited empirical evidence on how those cities have developed into agglomerations of consumption opportunities by offering metropolitan residents high-quality consumer goods and services. We use large-scale cellular signaling data to distinguish commuting and consumption connections between the Shanghai City and a suburban town Huaqiao. Through the clustering algorithm, we categorize residents of Huaqiao into groups according to their frequency of visiting Shanghai and length of the visits. Results show that while travel time does not differ across the three groups of trips, non-commuters' consumption trips are more spatially expansive and intensive than the others. The average per capita visit frequencies also indicate the outstanding role of consumption-oriented travel. Spatial lag models suggest that although non-commuters are more sensitive to travel time than commuters, they are still willing to make long consumption trips to access the consumer goods and services the central city can provide. The findings would encourage city managers and planners to reconsider the roles of major cities, and redefine them as space that best match the changing demand of people. • Concept of "consumer city" is tested with cellular signaling data in Shanghai. • Commuting and consumption travel of residents in a suburban town are studied. • Core city accommodates demand for accessing various socioeconomic opportunities. • Non-commuters' consumption trips are more expansive and intensive than commuting trips. • Non-commuters are willing to make long consumption trips to the core city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To combat urban challenges such as air pollution stemming from excessive vehicle use, policy makers have adopted various driving restriction policies (DRPs) worldwide. Although previous studies have extensively justified the effects of citywide DRPs on air quality, little attention has been paid to urban core-focused license-plate-based DRPs (UCLDRPs), which have gained increasing popularity among major cities. To bridge this gap, we carried out an empirical evaluation of the short-run effectiveness of Shanghai's UCLDRPs in improving air quality using difference-in-differences (DID) modeling approaches on high-frequency air quality data. The results show that UCLDRPs did not lead to any reduction of air pollutants including NO 2 , PM 2.5 , and PM 10 during peak hours (the restricted time window) in the inner ring area (the restricted area), while contributing to a 14% increase in the concentration of CO. Moreover, the air quality of surrounding zones (the 5 km buffer area) got worse as the concentration of CO and PM 10 raised by 16% and 8% respectively. Results also justified the temporal-spatial spillover effects in the dynamics: the concentrations of CO and PM 10 got increased by 10%-20% in the 5 km buffer area within time periods right before or after the restricted time windows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]