High-Speed Railway Network, City Heterogeneity, and City Innovation

Abstract

The emergence of the time–space contraction effect from the high-speed railway (HSR) network in China has been beneficial in breaking down regional divisions, thus facilitating the circulation of resources and optimizing resource distribution and production efficiency. However, research has not adequately addressed the city disparities of the HSR network and their effects on city innovation. Through the heterogeneity perspective of ‘New’ new economic geography, this study employs the 2008–2019 panel data at the city level in China and builds a spatial Durbin model based on continuous spatial difference in differences to investigate the mechanism of the HSR network on city innovation and to analyze its agglomeration and diffusion effect of innovative factors under different city sizes and spatial perspectives. This study revealed that the HSR network could significantly increase the innovation of local cities and neighboring cities, yet there is a certain threshold of city size that affects city innovation. Large cities covered by HSRs can take advantage of gathering talent, financial capital, and industry from nearby regions, thus constructing a new spatial pattern of innovative development. This study also found that the innovation accelerative effect gradually decreases as the distance from the city covered by HSRs increases and completely disappears at the distance of 400 km. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the HSR network and increase the mobility and agglomeration of innovative elements between cities, thus deepening the collaboration between cities through differentiated strategies. This will enhance the spatial spillover effect of innovation, thus ultimately achieving a balanced spatial pattern of city innovation.