Evidence for a Spatial-Structural Interpretation of the U-Shaped Relationship Between Commuting Costs and Recreational Mobility Conditions

Weekday commuting and weekend recreation are two mobility domains through which urban spatial structure affects residents’ daily experience and urban functioning. Although commuting and recreational mobility are theoretically related, whether their spatial relationship creates scope for coordinated improvement in both domains remains insufficiently understood. A preceding study in Chongqing identified a U-shaped relationship between weekday commuting costs and weekend recreational mobility costs at the individual level, but its proposed spatial-structural interpretation remained untested. This study examines whether the same relationship emerges across residential locations and whether the resulting mobility-cost structure corresponds to the spatial configuration of employment and recreational opportunities. Using location-based services data from the central urban area of Chongqing, individual mobility records were aggregated to residential grids and analysed through a three-stage framework examining the grid-level U-shaped relationship, multivariate dependence between the opportunity and cost structures, and their curve-based correspondence. The U-shaped relationship was reproduced at the grid level. The opportunity and cost structures exhibited multivariate dependence, and the curve-based analysis showed a positive correspondence between residential grids’ positions relative to the fitted opportunity and cost reference points. These findings support the interpretation that the U-shaped relationship partly reflects how residential locations are positioned relative to multiple employment centres and spatially distributed recreational destinations. The findings indicate that commuting and recreational mobility should be considered jointly in jobs–housing–recreation planning and suggest potential scope for coordinated improvement across both domains.