Textual Analysis–Based Cognitive evaluation of places of memory in Nanjing’s Riverside Urban District

Balancing urban development with the continuity of cultural and memory has become a critical issue in contemporary urban studies. In the context of digitalization, digital platforms have emerged as key arenas for collective memory, enabling the identification and evaluation of places of memory. Existing research tends to conceptualize places of memory primarily through spatial elements and geographic distributions, limiting its ability to capture relationships and multidimensional experiential evaluations. This study addresses these limitations by examining the cognitive structure and affective evaluation of places of memory in a digital context using multi-platform textual data. Focusing on the Xiaguan Riverside Urban District and the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, the analysis employs topic modeling, semantic network analysis, and affective cognition across perceptual, functional, symbolic, and physical dimensions. The findings reveal that collective memory in the Xiaguan Riverside Urban District is organized around historical events, personal experiences, and riverside development, with places of memory forming river-oriented patterns and semantic networks centred on historical events, Multidimensional evaluation of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge further demonstrates stable positive symbolic meanings alongside negative functional experiences. This study offers a textual analysis–based framework for extracting and evaluating cultural memory in the regeneration of riverside urban districts.