Economic valuation of industrial heritage: A choice experiment on Shanghai Baosteel industrial site

Industrial heritage has in recent years become an important component in land use and urban development policies. Yet, assessing the economic value associated with the preservation and reuse of industrial complexes remains an open question. In this paper, we apply a discrete choice experiment (DCE) method to assess the economic valuation of the Baosteel steel factory, an industrial brownfield in Shanghai planned to be transformed into an arts and entertainment hub. By eliciting the preferences of locals for the preservation and reuse of distinct attributes of the site, our findings suggest that the preservation of significant landmarks and the intangible component of the industrial site are the two most relevant attributes worth protection. Moreover, we add evidence on the relationship between respondents' economic preferences and their attitude toward the cultural value conveyed by industrial heritage by showing how distinct groups of respondents express different preferences for single attributes of the industrial heritage. The paper contributes to the heritage valuation literature by illustrating the implications and challenges of assessing the demand for industrial heritage rehabilitation projects. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )