Impacts of High Speed Railway Station on non-metropolitan Cities in China：A Case Study of Wuhan-Guangzhou Line

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High Speed Railways (HSR) is regarded as the main tool for achieving redistribution of population and economic activities in mainland China. With precedent success in many countries, the HSR are expected to have advantages of reducing transport cost and improving inter-city connection, which would provide great developing opportunities for cities have HSR station construction. However, many small and middle cities along HSR that planned station new town resulted in "ghost city", while the metropolitan central cities are becoming more and more crowded. That is to say, the economic impact of HSR is different on cities according to their developing degree. Because of the regional imbalance and disparity of market size between metropolitan central cities and periphery cities in China, population and economic activities would shift to larger market with reducing transportation cost by HSR. This paper discusses economic impacts HSR on cities based on the empirical study of Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR. A prospective analysis investigating the case shows the differentiation in urban population and economic development related to developing degree of cities along HSR. Reminding the fact that not all cities could benefit from the HSR project, small and middle cities which connected to the metropolitan central cities are actually the most vulnerable group. Helping these authorities making right developing strategy for HSR.

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