Change in Urban Land Use Efficiency in China: Does the High-Speed Rail Make a Difference?

Wenyi Qiao,Xianjin Huang

doi:10.3390/ijerph181910043

Abstract

High-speed rail (HSR) increases the non-local connections in cities and plays an essential role in urban land use efficiency. This paper uses a multi-period difference-in-difference model and a threshold model based on sample data that cover 284 Chinese cities from 2003–2018 to investigate the impact of HSR on urban land use efficiency. The results show that there is a 0.021 increase in urban land use efficiency after opening the HSR. The number of HSR stations and routes can increase the urban land use efficiency by 0.004 and 0.013, respectively. Compared with the cities in the East, the midwestern ones are more vulnerable to the impact of HSR. In particular, the positive impact of the number of HSR stations on the urban land use efficiency in cities with an urban population density exceeding 795 person/km2 is two times larger than cities with an urban population density of less than 795 person/km2. In addition, the impact of the number of HSR routes on urban land use efficiency in cities with an urban population density of less than 1003 person/km2 is five times larger than that of cities with an urban population density exceeding 1003 person/km2.

Highlights

In order to examine whether there is a statistically significant causal relationship between highspeed rail (HSR) and urban land use efficiency (ULUE), an econometric model was used for further analysis
The results indicate that the opening of HSR and the adding of a HSR station and route are associated with an increase in ULUE in a city by 0.021, 0.004, and
In order to enrich the discussion between them, this paper investigates the impact of high-speed rail on urban land use efficiency

Summary

Introduction

The rapid development of urbanization makes cities face huge challenges, such as how to keep urban growth under limited land supply and resource constraints. In this regard, the straightforward idea is to raise the urban land use efficiency (ULUE) [1]. The improvement of ULUE isn’t just a purely urban endogenous process that is more dependent on the non-local connections. Non-local connections represent the exchange process of elements between one city and other cities [3], reflecting the resource reallocation that conforms to the spatial division of labor [4], thereby greatly improving the input and output efficiency of urban land use. In order to further strengthen resource reallocation between regions, China has formulated a grand strategy for a national highspeed rail (HSR) system connecting 250 cities with a total mileage of 45,000 km by 2030

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Results

Conclusion