Evolving public perceptions of the renewal of Suzhou neighborhood centers: An integrated sentiment and topic modeling framework

As a pivotal carrier of community services and a representative product of the independent new cities emerging since China’s Reform and Opening-up, the effectiveness of the construction and operation of Suzhou Neighborhood Centers (SNCs) is increasingly mirrored in the accumulating body of public reviews. This study develops a public perception evaluation framework based on online reviews, integrating multi-model sentiment analysis, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, and visualization techniques to quantitatively explore the dynamic relationship between SNCs and public perceptions. The results indicate that the renewal of SNCs, regarding community services, living amenities, and environmental quality, is significantly associated with an increased proportion of positive public sentiment. In contrast, issues such as aging facilities, homogenization of commercial formats, and rigid operational management tend to trigger the accumulation of negative sentiment, thereby undermining long-term public evaluations of SNCs. Accordingly, this study proposes targeted improvement suggestions focusing on service refinement, spatial renewal, and differentiated supply. It introduces a dynamic evaluation based on public perception to support coordinated functional optimization and adaptive operational adjustments. This study not only provides empirical evidence for the renewal of SNCs but also offers a reusable technical pathway for public perception evaluation in future community development.