Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
are still in the early stages of motorization, with an average of just 47 vehicles per
1,000 people in 2009 compared with 802 in the United States (World Bank
2011
).
However, China's automobile industry boom and highway construction will further
encourage private motor vehicle ownership. It is critical to avoid the formation
of car-dependent travel attitudes and lifestyles in this stage of city “restructuring”
(Zacharias and Tang
2010
).
5.5.1.2
Public Ownership and Institutional Intervention
Different from Western cities, urban land in China is under public ownership.
Although the transformation of land use from a planning economy to a market
economy has replaced numerous urban administrative procedures, the municipal
government is still fundamentally in charge of making and implementing detailed
land use plans and infrastructure investment strategies, taxing users of urban land
and licensing various kinds of urban activities (Shen
1997
). Yang et al. (
2011
) point
out that the continuous expansion of Beijing's central built-up area and the absorp-
tion of the suburbs are not purely market-based processes but processes conditioned
by government-formulated spatial planning and infrastructure investment strategies.
The highest quality infrastructure and social services are supplied in the central part,
while suburban communities are relatively neglected in terms of receiving municipal
investment (Jiawen Yang et al.
2011
). If polices are centralized, it is hard to form
decentralized self-sustainable centers with working, living, education, shopping and
entertainment units, all of which are believed beneficial to encouraging short trips
and non-motorized movement.
In the transformation process of Chinese cities, old institutions and new institu-
tional factors coexist and have a mixed effect on individual travel patterns.
Danwei,
with its successors
xiaoqu
and
shequ
, atomizes the structure of trip sets and urban
life at the neighborhood scale (Yang and Gakenheimer
2007
; Wang and Chai
2009
;
Bray
2005
). Zhao and Lu (
2010
) argue that in the case of China, the housing pro-
vision system and labor mobility management have played important roles in influ-
encing job accessibility and hence commuter behavior (Zhao and Lu
2010
). They
conclude that in addition to controlled household income, individuals' occupations
and the transport mode, the interaction of the housing provision system (welfare-
oriented housing versus market-oriented housing (Li
2000
)), the market system
(labor market institution), the
Hukou
system (urban
Hukou
versus rural
Hukou
)and
the urban life unit (
xiaoqu
or
shequ
) have had a significant effect on individual
commuting behavior. More attention should be paid to these institutional factors
when researching the built environment's influence on walking behavior in China.
5.5.1.3
High Density and Overconcentration
Contemporary urban China is conducting the same strategies as Western cities,
such as new urbanism, smart growth and TOD, but in high-density urban areas.
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