Pengjun Zhao

Urban Expansion and Transportation: The Impact of Urban form on Commuting Patterns on the City Fringe of Beijing

A key issue in the development of Chinas growing megacities in the transport-related environmental costs due to rapid urban expansion. In light of this issue, the authors examine the impact of urban form on commuting patterns on the city fringe of Beijing. Based on household-survey data, the results of the analysis suggest that the forms of land use adopted in the suburbs have a significant impact on commuting distance when a workers socioeconomic characteristics and the level of transport accessibility are taken into account. Sprawling expansion, characterized by a low degree of self-contained development and low-density land use, tends to increase the need for long-distance commuting to the central urban area. In contrast, compact urban development in the suburbs, particularly in the peripheral constellations of Beijing, would reduce the probability of long-distance commuting. The current trend in improving transport accessibility on the city fringe is likely to lead to further long-distance commuting. In particular, huge road projects could cause more traffic congestion in the centre. The findings suggest that land-development management on the city fringe could have significant implications with respect to containing the dramatic costs to the environment entailed by transportation in the context of the rapid process of motorization. Reducing travel needs through the integration of land use and transport-infrastructure provision is likely to be the key to sustainable urban expansion.

The Impact of the Built Environment on Individual Workers’ Commuting Behavior in Beijing

ABSTRACT The increasing emission of transport-related pollutants has become a key issue in relation to climate change mitigation and the improvement of air quality in Chinas cities. This article aims to examine the effects of changes in the built environment on transportation by examining the case of Beijing. Looking at household survey data, the analysis found that individual workers’ commuting behavior (concerning travel destination, mode choice and travel time) is significantly related to some aspects of the built environment when socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are taken into account. There are obvious differences in the effects of the built environment on commuting across income groups, occupations and industries.

Performance and dilemmas of urban containment strategies in the transformation context of Beijing

The implementation of urban containment policies is increasingly attracting attention in environment management. Rapid urban growth and the coexistence of decentralisation and marketisation challenge containment strategies that are implemented to control urban sprawl. This challenge is likely to be greater in a transformation country than in developed countries. This paper evaluates the performance of containment strategies in Beijing. The analysis shows that, to a large extent, containment strategies perform well; however, the decreased compactness of the fringes of the inter-suburban areas, caused by dispersed and illegal development, suggest that municipal containment strategies are being challenged by new trends towards local autonomy. Two similar dilemmas to those faced by developed countries are confronting those involved in the implementation of containment strategies in the current transformation process in Beijing: first, the municipal environmental goal might not be achieved by all local jurisdictions when local economic motivations are involved; and second, macro-scale containment policies are unlikely to control an urban sprawl fuelled by the growing power of market forces.

The Effects of Transport Accessibility and Jobs-Housing Balance on Commuting Time : Evidence from Beijing

Increases in commuting time have caused serious social and environmental problems in a physically fragmentizing mega-city. Some policy-makers attend to solve commuting-related problems through alternative land-use policies, in particular mixed land use and multi-functional structures, rather than mere transport programmes. This paper investigates the effects of the jobs–housing balance on commuting time at the community level in Beijing. The paper puts forward a new indicator of home-based job proximity to measure the jobs–housing balance. A 1500 household-based travel data set was used to aggregate the average commuting time of the 60 communities studied. Based on the results of a correlation analysis, findings suggest that home-based job proximity has the strongest significantly negative relationship with average community commuting time. In fact, the results of a two-step regression analysis suggest that 68.6% of the changes in average commuting time are explained overwhelmingly by the home-based job proximity variable. However, there are no significant associations between average commuting time and the variables of local public transport accessibility and private vehicle transport accessibility. Obviously, current urban policy, which relies predominantly on ambitious and expensive programmes of transport infrastructure provision must be rethought in Beijing. Improving the jobs–housing balance through the implemention of compact land development may be an alternative to reducing overall commuting duration.

The determinants of the commuting burden of low-income workers: evidence from Beijing

The commuting burdens of disadvantaged groups have recently become a renewed topic of concern with social inequities and just city. It is widely believed that social restrictions and individual’s self-etermined actions become more important determinants of low-income workers’ commuting costs than spatial constraints. However, it is doubtable to recognise the belief as a ‘universal’ truth since the evidences for this are still fragmented and particularly are dominated by cases from the Western-developed countries. This paper reports on an initial investigation into low-income workers’ commuting burden and its determinants in a rapidly developing city, looking at the case of Beijing. Spatial constraints caused by uncontrolled urban sprawl, an insufficiency of affordable housing and lower levels of public transport services are still major factors leading to additional commuting time for low-income workers, in particular, for those who travel by public transit. Individuals’ preferences for housing have effects on low-income workers’ commuting times. For the car users, the effects are greater than that spatial constraints have. However, a preference for greater proximity to the workplace rather than a better quality living environment in a community has a significant influence on low-income workers’ commuting times. It suggests the basic need for housing and jobs explains the greater commuting burden on low-income workers. Thus, today’s commuting burden in China for low-income workers could be generally understood by social–spatial structure rather than social–cultural forces. But it seems that the impacts of individual’s self-determined actions on commuting burden will increase in the context of individualisation of the society in China.

Implementation of the Metropolitan Growth Management in the Transition Era: Evidence from Beijing

Abstract Macro-scale urban growth management at the metropolitan level in a transitional and developing country is often criticized because of its weak performances in controlling local development activities that are fuelled by autonomous decisions of local actors and market forces. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the implementation of urban growth management in Beijing, a typical transitional city. The results suggest that the objectives of municipal growth management have partly been achieved through local district and county development. Some unexpected and illegal local developments are counterproductive from the perspective of municipal growth management. The findings suggest that there are problems in the implementation of macro-scale growth management in the context of new trends towards political decentralization and marketization, although the continuing centrally planned system still plays a vital role in policy formation. In the interest of future policy, the institutional capacity of municipal growth management should be enhanced to enable the planning system to control the increasing local autonomy and market forces in urban development in the transition process.