Chris Blattman

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Roads, rails and Chinese urban sprawl

This paper investigates how the extent and configuration of Chinese road and railroad networks has shaped the spatial transformation and degree of compactness of Chinese urban regions in the last 20 years, a period in which central cities were experiencing strong population inflows but relative losses of industry to the urban periphery.

We find strong evidence that the presence of radial roads and ring roads outside of the central city reduce central city population density. However radial roads have no effect on the spatial distribution of economic activity (GDP) in urban regions, though ring roads outside of central cities may contribute to industrial decentralization.

Rather in a country where inter-city trade relies heavily on rails, rail networks have significant impacts on the extent to which economic activity decentralizes.

A new paper from Matt Turner.

One Response

  1. Chris,
    Can you please provide a working link? I can only see the seminar speaker list and every website that has a link either links back to your blog or the link is not working. Thanks.

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