Abstract: With the rapid urbanization in China over recent years, urban space and land resources have been gradually saturated, and the urban construction, which was mainly based on incremental land, has changed to the urban renewal, which is mainly based on the revitalization of stock space. It is of strong contemporary significance to explore the impact on Chinese residents’ happiness in the process of urban renewal. On the basis of constructing the evaluation indexes of residents’ happiness, this paper measures the level of residents’ happiness in China (from 2006 to 2020) by using the comprehensive genetic algorithm projection pursuit evaluation model; and the different impacts of urban renewal on residents’ happiness at different quantile points are discussed considering spatial differences. The results show that: the level of residents’ happiness in China shows an upward trend, with significant differences among regions; the spatial impact of neighboring provinces positively promotes residents’ happiness, and the provinces and cities with strong residents’ happiness have a greater impact on the surrounding provinces and cities; and urban renewal has a significant promoting effect on residents’ happiness, and the effect shows a V-shaped trend as the quantile rises.

Key words: urban renewal, residents’ happiness, genetic algorithm projection, panel spatial quantile model