Road versus Rail: Assessing the Implications of Transport Infrastructure for Spatial Growth Pattern in China’s Megaregions

Abstract

The exacerbation of the concentration of population and economic activities in a few core metropolitan areas has become an urgent issue for China’s regional development, and necessitates a more polycentric spatial development pattern. Transportation infrastructure improvement can serve as a vital instrument to achieve the objective of polycentric spatial development. Focusing on the 10 megaregions of China, this research examines a fundamental issue for China’s urban and regional development in the context of massive investment in highway and railway: the impacts of road and rail network on the spatial pattern of growth and development. Using the county-level national censuses of 1982, 1990, 2000, and 2010 and the historical transport network geographic information system (GIS) data, this paper analyzes the differentiated effects of road and rail for population growth. The research results revealed the stronger positive growth impacts of rail compared with road, and further examination indicates that railway has stronger positive impacts for regional growth in the less-developed areas.