High-Speed Rail Network Expansion and Its Impact on Regional Economic Sustainability in the Yangtze River Delta, China, 2009–2018

Abstract

The rapid expansion of high-speed rail (HSR) has significantly improved spatial accessibility and connectivity efficiency, and affected the reallocation of spatial resources and regional economic sustainability. This study examined 40 prefecture-level (or above) cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, and explored the evolution process of the HSR service network and its impact on the sustainability of economic development. The research results show that: (1) From the perspective of intercity travel time and service connections from 2009 to 2018, the rapid development of HSR has increased the city’s rail accessibility by about 50%, leading to closer intercity connections. (2) There are obvious regional differences in the effect of HSR on urban functional levels and the intensity of inter-city connections. Compared with 2009, the central cities play a greater role as transportation hubs in 2018, creating a significant Matthew effect of accumulated advantage. (3) The distribution pattern of regional urban intensity index is uneven, and the difference in urban intensity index in 2018 is significantly greater than that in 2009. (4) The evolution of the HSR network has significantly affected regional economic development, especially the development of tertiary industry, and increased the polarization of economic development in the YRD. This research can provide a certain reference for regional sustainable development.

Analysis of Coupling Coordination Relationship between the Accessibility and Economic Linkage of a High-Speed Railway Network Case Study in Hunan, China

“…Driven by the rapid development of high-speed railways, urban accessibility is improving, and economic links between cities are becoming more sophisticated than before. Accessibility and economic linkage promote each other and grow together [35]. Coupling is a concept in physics that is often used to indicate the extent to which two or more systems affect each other by interacting with each other [36].…”

High-Speed Rail and Urban Growth Disparity: Evidence from China

“…Although the impact of HSR has been studied extensively, previous works have largely focused on comparing the spatial configurations in HSR networks, airline networks, or inter-city coach networks [15,16] or have discussed the effects of HSR on housing and land prices [17,18]; access, connectivity, and centrality [19,20]; aviation [21]; urban growth [22]; land-use efficiency [23,24]; regional equity [25]; city size [26]; knowledge spillover [27]; innovation performance [28]; CO2 emissions [29]; entrepreneurship [30]; ecological environment pressure [31]; and regional economic sustainability [32]. Existing studies have ignored the effects of HSR on the growth disparity within and across cities.…”

Spatial Structure Evolution and Economic Benefits of Rapidly Expanding the High-Speed Rail Network in Developing Regions: A Case Study in Western China

“…The network structure characteristics of HSR city networks have become a factor to change the location conditions of cities, including the topological structure, hierarchical structure, and spatial structure of HSR network [49][50][51][52][53]. In recent years, China has formed a large-scale HSR network, and the network structure characteristics such as network density [54], accessibility, and connectivity [55] have changed significantly, which has greatly affected the economic development of cities and neighboring cities [56,57]. In addition to centrality, Xie et al [58] explored the social network analysis model in depth and analyzed the hierarchical location of HSR cities using the non-Markov high-order model and multi-layer network analysis method.…”