Do delivery apps reduce or enhance the attraction of cities?

As well as helping people to be more productive, and so to have higher wages, the attraction of large cities is that they give their residents access to a wider range of goods, services, experiences and social interactions. Online shopping has widened access to goods - you can buy any book and have it delivered anywhere - but most services, such as theatres, live sporting events and restaurants, are still distinct to particular places. With food delivery apps making restaurant meals available over wider areas, the question is: do these apps reduce or enhance the attraction of cities?

Where and when does the research take place?

The food delivery platform innovation has been particularly significant in China. Partly because Chinese culture is food and restaurant focused - the residents of Beijing spend twice as much of their household budget eating out than Londoners do. The platforms are much more than reservation apps. They are one-stop shops - combining all restaurant menus with delivery, tracking and payment. They have transformed urban residents' access to restaurant services, allowing the food choices and meals to be consumed at home with one-click convenience. In effect, the restaurant experience has been unpacked into two elements: the menu and meal on the one hand, and the service, ambience and sociability of dining out on the other. We use data from 2012 to 2017 to analyse the impacts of this innovation in Beijing, a 21 million population megacity with extremely high density.

What was the impact of food delivery technology?

In 2015, the roll-out year for food delivery platforms, we find having an additional 100 delivery-accessible restaurants raised housing prices by approximately 3%. But this impact was not uniform across the city. The effects were strongest near the city centre, not seen in the area 12km to 18km away and negative in the periphery. Unlike physical goods, proximity to the origin, in this case the restaurant kitchen, remains important because fresh cooked meals have a short life. A cold, congealed boeuf stroganoff, Shanghai dumplings or Beijing duck is not very palatable and a very poor substitute for straight from the pan, even ignoring the restaurant experience itself.

Who benefits?

Digital platforms can reduce costs but don't necessarily reduce inequality. If these technologies are mostly adopted and provide more value to central areas, then they can reinforce existing price gaps rather than reduce them. The wider benefits are not evenly distributed either. In Beijing, like Paris, richer residents tend to live more centrally so central homeowners benefit from rising house prices as well as more food choice, while central renters, though they may value the greater menu choice, pay higher rents. Since food delivery services are strongly valued and offerings expand with city size, our findings also suggest that such services reinforce inequality within cities - central, more affluent homeowners gain most - and widen inequality between urbanites and those living in small towns and villages.

Can this continue?

Our post-rollout window (2015-2017) captures short-run effects, in the long-run these effects may differ as the number and location of restaurants, and ultimately maybe even residents, adjusts. Just within our sample period, there are signs of attenuation in house price effects over time. In addition, we focus on restaurants, but delivery platforms increasingly serve groceries, pharmaceuticals and other goods. Whether these extensions generate similar spatial patterns remains an open question.

What does this mean for other cities?

The Beijing setting offers both advantages and limitations when generalising. It seems likely that a similar pattern would apply to other large, high-density monocentric cities, but in strongly polycentric or car-dependent cities the pattern could differ and likely be less significant in cities with weaker food cultures.

---

19 June 2026     Paper Number CEPCP741

Download PDF - Take-away findings from food delivery apps

Download Press Release

This CentrePiece article is published under the centre's Urban programme.