Housing prices are a topic of significant social concern, and public services are a crucial factor influencing migrants’ return intentions. Based on the China Labour Force Dynamics Survey and China Real Estate Index database from 2012 to 2018, this study adopts probit model to explore the influence mechanism of housing prices on migrants’ return intentions and the moderating effect of public services. The results indicate that housing prices have a significant positive impact on migrants’ return intentions, and the level of public services negatively moderates the relationship between housing prices and migrants’ return intentions. Moreover, employing an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity of housing prices, the modeling results provide robust evidence of the significant and heterogenous impact of housing prices on return intentions among migrants. In particular, the positive impact of housing prices is mainly concentrated among single urban migrants without housing. Additionally, public services negatively moderate the positive impact of housing prices on return intentions among single rural migrants without housing. By elucidating the correlation between housing prices, public services, and return intentions among migrants, this study offers recommendations for policymakers regarding migration issues in urban development.

Under the burgeoning development of urbanization in China, the low-income groups have received attention recently. By applying a linear regression model and utilizing the date from the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey, this study has explored the effects of urban environments on the community trust in low-income groups, paying particular attention to the difference between local residents and migrants in the Pearl River Delta (PRD). The empirical findings suggest the following: (1) community trust in low-income groups is influenced by social environment dimension, urban space dimension, and sociodemographic characteristics. Specifically, urbanization rate, population density, POl density, land development intensity, social contact, self-rated health, and age have significant effects on the community trust of low-income groups. (2) For local residents, social environment dimension (social contact), urban space dimension (urbanization rate), and sociodemographic characteristics (political status, hukou status, age, and self-rated health) have significant effects on community trust. (3) In the case of migrants, only the sociodemographic characteristics (working in private enterprises or organizations and in agriculture) have a significant impact on community trust. According to the empirical results, the optimization of physical space and social space should consider low-income groups’ needs in livable community planning.