International Journal of Sustainable Transportation

ISSN: 1556-8318 (Print) 1556-8334 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujst20

Urban spatial structure and commute duration: An

empirical study of China
Bindong Sun, Zhou He, Tinglin Zhang & Rui Wang
To cite this article: Bindong Sun, Zhou He, Tinglin Zhang & Rui Wang (2016) Urban spatial
structure and commute duration: An empirical study of China, International Journal of
Sustainable Transportation, 10:7, 638-644, DOI: 10.1080/15568318.2015.1042175
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15568318.2015.1042175

Accepted author version posted online: 17

Aug 2015.
Published online: 17 Aug 2015.
Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 156

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ujst20
Download by: [School of Planning & Architecture, Delhi], [pradip sharma]

Date: 16 January 2017, At: 05:10

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION

2016, VOL. 10, NO. 7, 638644
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15568318.2015.1042175

Urban spatial structure and commute duration: An empirical study of China

Bindong Suna, Zhou Hea, Tinglin Zhanga, and Rui Wangb
a
The Center for Modern Chinese City Studies & School of Urban and Regional Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; bLuskin School of
Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

Urban trafc is embedded in and fundamentally shaped by the spatial pattern of urban land use, such as
city size, density, extent of polycentricity, and the relationship between employment and residential
locations. Previous evidence, mainly from European and American cities, suggests that the duration of
commute trips increases with city size and the spatial separation between jobs and housing. On the other
hand, the inuences of density and polycentricity are less clear. Using data from 164 cities in China, this
study empirically analyzes the relationship between city average commute duration and multiple
dimensions of urban spatial structure. Controlling for economic, demographic, and infrastructure
characteristics, we nd that commute duration correlates positively with city size and jobshousing
separation but negatively with density and polycentricity. As one of the earliest studies on commute cost
in the rapidly urbanizing and motorizing Chinese cities, this study can help Chinese decision makers
improve urban economic and environmental efciency through spatial planning and policy making.
Specically, compact, mixed-use, and polycentric spatial development may ease the burden of commute,
and thus substitute for unnecessary infrastructure investment and energy consumption during a period of
rapid urban expansion in China.

Received 25 July 2014

Revised 13 April 2015
Accepted 14 April 2015
KEYWORDS

China; city size; commute

duration; jobshousing
balance; polycentricity; urban
spatial structure

1. Introduction
Urban trafc is embedded in and fundamentally shaped by
the spatial pattern of urban land use, such as city size, density, extent of polycentricity, and the relationship between
employment and residential locations. Trafc congestion,
particularly during peak commuting hours, is perhaps the
most economically and environmentally costly among all
problems of urban transportation. Previous evidence, mainly
from European and American cities, suggests that the duration of commute trips increases with city size (e.g., Schwanen, 2002; Schwanen, Dieleman, & Dijst, 2004; Lee,
Gordon, Richardson, & Moore, 2009) and the spatial separation between jobs and housing (e.g., Levinson & Kumar,
1994; Levinson, 1998; Sultana, 2002; Modarres, 2011). On
the other hand, the inuence of density and polycentricity
are less clear. However, there is much less research available
of other cities around the world.
As the largest developing country, China has experienced rapid economic and income growth since late 1970s.
The rise of China as a global economic heavyweight is
accompanied by an unprecedented urbanization in human
historythe proportion of population living in cities
increased from less than 20% in 1980 to more than half
today. Dramatic changes in urban transportation have
occurred along with the rise in urbanization. Residents in
Chinese cities are traveling longer distances, making more
trips, and relying more on fossil-fuel-based modes.

Recently China became the worlds biggest CO2 emitter

and leading market for new automobiles (Wang & Yuan,
2013). In particular, the transition from the socialist workunit system, in which workers often live next to where
they work, to an urban space determined by labor, land,
and housing markets has greatly inuenced the need for
and cost of commute (Wang, 2010).
An important question for urban planners and policy
makers is whether urban trafc problems can be mitigated
by strategically shaping the structure of urban space. While
this question has been attempted by many in the Western
developed societies, little has been done in China, the
worlds largest emerging economy. Using data from 164 cities in China, this study empirically analyzes the relationship
between city average commute duration and multiple
dimensions of urban spatial structure. Besides providing an
important benchmark analysis in a rapidly urbanizing and
motorizing developing economy, this study can help Chinas
decision makers improve urban transportation through spatial planning and policy making instead of simply expanding road infrastructure and promoting mass transit. The
rest of this article begins with a review of relevant literature
in Section 2 and is followed by a detailed discussion on the
measurement of urban spatial structure in Section 3. Section
4 describes the statistical model and data used. Section 5
reports and discusses the results. Finally, Section 6

CONTACT Rui Wang

ruiwang@ucla.edu
Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California, Box 951656, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Color versions of one or more of the gures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/ujst.
2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION

concludes the article with limitations and future research

questions.

2. Literature review
Passenger commute trips have long been a focus in urban
transportation research due to their direct relation to labor productivity, contribution to peak hour congestion, and impact on
urban quality of life. Theoretical hypotheses and empirical evidence on the relationship between commute duration and characteristics of urban spatial structure have mainly touched upon
four dimensions of urban space: city size, density (and sprawl),
degree of polycentricity, and the balance (mixture) between
jobs and housing.
It can be complicated to derive the effect of city population
size on commute time theoretically (e.g., Gordon, Kumar, &
Richardson, 1989a), as the growth of city population typically
involves the development of polycentricity and simultaneous
changes in travel distance, speed, and traveler characteristics
(e.g., income level). Without controlling the internal structure
of a city, what one observes is a net result of all forces, which
can be unclear (e.g., Gordon, Kumar, & Richardson, 1989b).
However, with reasonable controls of these factors, recent
empirical studies suggest that commute time tends to be longer
for cities with larger populations (Schwanen, 2002; Schwanen
et al., 2004; Lee et al., 2009).
Urban density has at least two opposite effects on commute
time. Higher density means an overall reduction in travel distance, so compact cities may reduce commute time (Schwanen,
2002; Lee et al., 2009). However, density may induce congestion, which makes commutes slower (Levinson & Kumar, 1997;
Loo & Chow, 2011a; Melia, Parkhurst, & Barton, 2011; Yang
et al., 2012). The combined result of the two effects may vary
when different density measures (e.g., residential density,
employment density in commercial vs. industrial sectors) are
considered in isolation (Gordon et al., 1989a). Overall, recent
studies have shown that it is difcult to draw a universal conclusion between urban density and commute time (Levinson &
Kumar, 1997; Schwanen et al., 2004; Antipova, Wang, &
Wilmot, 2011; Grunfelder & Nielsen, 2012).
In the past two decades, the spatial relationship between residential and employment locations received much attention of
scholars in the western countries and in China. Many studies
support the intuition that a balance (match) between jobs and
housing in subareas of a city will result in a shorter commute
(Levinson & Kumar, 1994; Levinson, 1998; Sultana, 2002;
Wang & Chai, 2009; Sun, Li, Song, & Wu, 2010; Zhao, Lu, &
Roo, 2011; Modarres, 2011; Loo & Chow, 2011b; Zhao, 2013).
Nevertheless, from the perspective of policy prescriptions,
scholars have long been debating about the cost of realizing
jobshousing balance and the mechanism and potential of
reducing wasteful commutes (Giuliano, 1991; Giuliano &
Small, 1993; Wachs, Taylor, Levine, & One, 1993; Peng, 1997;
Levine, 1998; Wang, 2000; Antipova, et al. 2011).
Unlike jobshousing balance, researchers have not reached
an agreement about whether spatial polycentricity in urban
employment will shorten commute trips. Gordons colocation
hypothesis (Gordon & Wong, 1985) argues that multiple centers of employment may reduce commute distance and the

639

congestion at the main center and thus reduce commute time.

Many studies found evidence in support of this hypothesis
(Gordon, Richardson, & Jun, 1991; Giuliano & Small, 1993;
Levinson & Kumar, 1994; Gordon & Richardson, 1997; Wang,
2000; Sultana, 2002; Aguilera & Mignot, 2004; Ma & Banister,
2007; Sun, Tu, Shi, & Guo, 2013). However, using evidence
from the Netherlands, Schwanen et al. (2004) argue that polycentricity may not actually reduce travel demand because of
insufcient adjustment in the employee residential location.
There are at least two potential causes of the discrepancy in the
literature: the absence of a unied measurement of urban polycentricity and whether the degree of jobshousing balance is
simultaneously controlled for in analysis (Sun & Pan, 2008;
Sun et al., 2013).
Aside from spatial structure, studies of urban commutes
have also included other factors as control variables, such as
infrastructure service level, public transit provision, sociodemographics, and other characteristics of the urban economy. For
example, Lee et al. (2009) and Zhao et al. (2011) suggest that
road infrastructure and transit service provision are relevant to
commute time, although their empirical ndings and explanations were different. Income levels impact on commute time
could be either positive or negative, depending on whether
wealthy commuters care more about time savings (Dargay &
Ommeren, 2005) or the size and quality of residence (Ong &
Blumenberg, 1998). Cross-city empirical ndings are inconsistent on the effect of income on commute (Gordon et al., 1989a;
Lee et al., 2009; Antipova et al., 2011). Among other demographic characteristics, education level is often considered a
close proxy of income, while gender and age are usually more
important in individual-level analysis than in cross-city comparisons. Some also suggest that the characteristics of urban
economy or governance matters. Gordon et al. (1989b) argue
that the relative importance of the service sector compared to
the industrial sector can affect urban commute since industrial
land uses tend to generate negative environmental externalities
that reduce the value of surrounding area to residents, especially to those who do not work there. On the other hand,
urban centers dominated by service jobs may enhance the value
and development density of surrounding area because of workers preference to reside near jobs. Government policies may
affect commute through their land use and rm/household
location choice consequences. Giuliano (1991) points out that
the pursuit of scal revenue may results in jobshousing separation, while Schwanen et al. (2004) suggest that the Dutch regulation of the real estate market resulted in the mismatch
between jobs and housing.

3. Measuring urban spatial structure

Based on the existing knowledge of the different dimensions of
urban spatial structure, this study adopts four important measures of urban spatial structure according to data availability
and the characteristics of Chinese cities. The rst measure is
city population size, which indicates the scale of agglomeration.
The second measure is average urban population density,
dened by the number of urban residents (both residence permit holders and migrants working and living in a city) per
square kilometer in urban built-up area. The third measure is

640

B. SUN ET AL.

the extent of jobshousing separation. We follow Horner and

Marion (2009) to use a spatial dissimilarity index (also called
the Duncan and Duncan index) dened by

Spatial Dissimilarity Index D 0:5

Polycentricity Index Two D

n 
X

pi



 ei 
P
E

in which i indexes urban subareas, pi is subarea is population,

P is total urban population, ei is subarea is number of employers, and E is the total number of employers in the city. The spatial dissimilarity index calculates the absolute difference
between subarea is share of urban employment and the subareas share of urban residential population, summed across all
subareas of a city. This index is larger where employment and
population are more spatially separated. Given data constraints,
the calculated index in this study reects the spatial mismatch
between employment (approximately measured by the number
of employers) and residential population at the urban district
level.
The fourth and most complicated measure of urban spatial
structure is polycentricity, which is related to the degree of variation in density. We follow previous studies (Lee & Gordon,
2007) to dene polycentricity based on the clustering of
employment instead of population since employment centers
are generally more closely associated with spatial clusters of a
citys physical and human capital. Given the relatively small
numbers of urban districts in the sample cities, this study
denes employment centers somewhat differently from the various methods used in previous studies (Giuliano & Small, 1991;
McDonald, 1987; McMillen & Smith, 2003), which detect
employment centers using ner geographic units. In this study,
the urban district with the highest density of employment is
dened as a citys main employment center, which almost
always turns out to be one of the older, central districts. As
described in Wang (2010), in Chinese cities, the older, central
districts are often more developed than districts toward the
fringe, which differs from many of the Western postindustrial
cities with decayed downtown areas.
Given the lack of a unied formula to calculate the index of
urban polycentricity, this study adopts ve alternative calculation methods. The rst polycentricity index is calculated as

Polycentricity Index One D

in the rst index. So we have

v
uX n
u
2
.di xi /
t

uX n
u
2
.ln.di C 1/ xi /
t

Polycentricity Index Three D

iD1

vX

u
n
u
.di xi 2 /
t
iD1

Alternatively, we use the weighted average distance from

CBD (Lee 2007) to reect the spatial departure of employment
from a monocentric city. So we have

Polycentricity Index Four D

n
X
ei
iD1

distance i

in which distance_i is the absolute straight-line distance of each

district from the main center. Using di to replace distance_i in
the fourth index, we further construct a fth index as below to
eliminate the impact of city size:

Polycentricity Index Five D

n
X
ei
iD1

di

4. Model and data

Based on the existing literature on travel and urban spatial
structure, we regress commute duration (COMMUTE) on city
size (POP) and spatial structure variables (POPD, D, and P),
controlling for variables on the supply side of transportation
such as road infrastructure (ROAD) and transit eet size
(BUS),1 sociodemographics such as income and education levels (WAGE and EDU), and characteristics of urban economy
such as economic structure (TERTIARY) and the importance
of public expenditure relative to GDP (GOV). Table 1 presents
the denitions and descriptive statistics of the variables mentioned. This is the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression

iD1

n
1

where di is the ratio between district is straight-line distance to

the main center and the farthest districts distance to the main
center; and xi is the ratio between district is employment and
the main centers employment. To capture the potential diminishing effect of distance, we use ln(di C1) and di1/2 to replace di

The two dominant modes of public transit are bus and rail in Chinese cities. We
reported results including only the bus mode because only 12 cities in our sample had rail transit in 2010 and also because we consider buses per ten thousand
people as a general indicator of transit infrastructure/service availability (even
cities with rail transit still rely heavily on bus service). In fact, we did try by adding a rail transit dummy variable, but the results across model specications suggested insignicant effect of rail transit and fairly consistent estimated
coefcients of other variables (results available upon request). Thus we chose to
report the results without controlling for rail transit availability.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION

641

Table 1. Variable denition and descriptive statistics (obs. D 164).

Name
COMMUTE
POP
POPD
D
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
ROAD
BUS
WAGE
EDU
TERTIARY
GOV

Description

Mean

Std. dev.

Min

Max

ln(average one-way commute time in minutes) (walking trips excluded)

ln(urban population in persons)
ln(average population density in persons/km2)
ln(spatial dissimilarity index)
ln(polycentric index one)
ln(polycentric index two)
ln(polycentric index three)
ln(polycentric index four)
ln(polycentric index ve)
ln(per employee urban road area in m2/person)
ln(number of buses per ten thousand people)
ln(average annual salary of urban employees in yuan)
Average years of education among urban population older than 15 years
Percentage urban employees in tertiary industries
Percentage of government spending (excluding education
expenditure) in urban Gross Domestic Product

3.155
13.657
9.193
0.062
0.270
0.206
0.299
6.334
0.211
3.981
1.888
10.431
10.040
50.450
0.124

0.187
0.896
0.293
0.056
0.234
0.181
0.244
3.700
0.152
0.473
0.656
0.222
0.841
13.496
0.059

2.705
11.776
8.221
0
0
0
0
0
0
6.027
0.844
9.967
7.640
20.480
0.029

3.666
16.616
10.076
0.237
1.163
0.983
1.294
11.737
0.542
2.084
4.636
11.104
12.172
89.720
0.550

Note. When calculating D and P1P5, we add one to the original index values before taking the natural logs, as cities with only one district have original index values of zero.

year 2010. The sample cities come from 26 out of the 31 provincial-level jurisdictions in China, missing data from Shanghai, Shaanxi Province, and the remote provinces of Xizang
(Tibet), Qinghai, and Hainan. Figure 1 maps the 164 sample
COMMUTE D b0 C b1 POP C b2 POPD C b3 D
cities, located across most of the well-populated areas in Mainland China. The dependent variable COMMUTE is obtained
C b4 P C b5 ROAD C b6 BUS
from the 2010 Urban Household Survey. Other data come
C b7 WAGE C b8 EDU C b9 TERTIARY from ofcial statistics in year 2010 (i.e., 2010 Population Census, 2011 Urban Statistical Yearbook), except D and P, which
C b10 GOV C error
are calculated based on the Second Economic Census in 2008.
model used:

in which P (ln polycentricity index) has ve alternative measures P1 through P5.

Restricted by the available data on commute time and
employment at the urban district level, our sample includes 164
out of the 287 prefecture-and-above level cities in China as of

Figure 1. Spatial distribution of sample cities.

5. Results
Table 2 presents the core regression results. Models 1
through 5 correspond to the alternative polycentricity

642

B. SUN ET AL.

Table 2. OLS regression results (dependent variable: COMMUTE; obs. D 164).

POP
POPD
D
P
ROAD
BUS
WAGE
EDU
TERTIARY
GOV
Constant
F
Adj. R2
p (White test)
Max VIF

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

0.094 (0.019)
0.110 (0.050)
0.406 (0.236)
0.111 (0.050)
0.073 (0.030)
0.047 (0.025)
0.069 (0.061)
0.042 (0.019)
0.001 (0.001)
0.563 (0.203)
1.379 (0.728)
15.09
0.464
0.208
1.74

0.094 (0.019)
0.111 (0.050)
0.395 (0.237)
0.134 (0.064)
0.073 (0.030)
0.047 (0.025)
0.069 (0.061)
0.043 (0.019)
0.001 (0.001)
0.562 (0.203)
1.368 (0.729)
14.97
0.461
0.222
1.74

0.096 (0.019)
0.113 (0.050)
0.391 (0.238)
0.095 (0.049)
0.074 (0.030)
0.046 (0.025)
0.068 (0.061)
0.044 (0.019)
0.001 (0.001)
0.566 (0.204)
1.348 (0.731)
14.86
0.460
0.243
1.75

0.103 (0.021)
0.111 (0.051)
0.458 (0.268)
0.006 (0.004)
0.071 (0.030)
0.045 (0.025)
0.063 (0.061)
0.043 (0.019)
0.001 (0.001)
0.600 (0.205)
1.334 (0.735)
14.52
0.454
0.234
1.94

0.097 (0.019)
0.105 (0.050)
0.447 (0.245)
0.172 (0.084)
0.068 (0.030)
0.047 (0.025)
0.066 (0.061)
0.041 (0.019)
0.001 (0.001)
0.576 (0.203)
1.334 (0.730)
14.93
0.461
0.179
1.79

p < .1; p < .05; p < .01.

indexes used (P1 through P5). All models pass the heteroskedasticity (White) test and none suffers serious multicollinearity problem, as indicated by the maximum variance
ination factor (VIF) values. The model results are quite
stable across the alternative polycentricity indexes used.
Consistent with our conceptual understanding of the relationship between urban trafc and spatial structure, city size and
other spatial structure variables indeed correlate with average
urban commute duration. All else equal, a 1% increase in urban
population size (POP) is related to about 0.1% longer commute.
This estimate is similar to what Lee et al. (2009) nd in the United
States and also shares the same sign with the coefcients estimated by Gordon et al. (1989a) and Schwanen (2002). Average
population density (POPD) negatively correlates with commute
duration, suggesting that densitys distance-shortening effect
dominates the congestion effect in our sample of Chinese cities.
This result differs from some earlier studies (Izraeli & McCarthy,
1985; Gordon, Kumar, & Richardson 1989a) but concurs with
several more recent studies (Schwanen, 2002; Schwanen et al.,
2004; Levinson & Kumar, 1997; Zhao et al., 2011; Zhao, 2013;
Yang et al., 2012; Grunfelder & Nielsen, 2012). Furthermore, it is
interesting to observe that the estimated density elasticity is
slightly larger in magnitude than the population size elasticity.
This seems to suggest that at the margin, commute duration will
remain the same, or even be slightly reduced, if the Chinese cities
grow simply by in-lling the existing built area. As expected,
jobshousing dissimilarity positively correlates with commute
duration (statistically signicant in all models except in model 3,
in which it is near signicant). Results also show that polycentricity negatively correlates with commute time, suggesting that
polycentric distribution of urban employment is likely to reduce
commute time in Chinese cities. This nding is robust to alternative measures of polycentricity at the urban district level in all
models except model 4, which is the only polycentricity measure
depending on the size of urban area. Our nding is also consistent with previous ndings in other countries such as Giuliano
and Small (1993), Levinson and Kumar (1994), Gordon et al.
(1989a), and Sultana (2002). Overall, city size and spatial structure characteristics all matter for average commute duration.
There are also interesting ndings related to the control variables. Road area per urban employee negatively associates with

commute time, while per capita bus ownership increases with

commute duration. Both results are consistent with Lee et al.s
(2009) ndings for the US cities during the 1990s. It is reasonable to consider that, all being else equal, more roads can
improve trafc speed, especially in Chinese cities, which are
known for smaller shares of land devoted to roads (Wang
2011). On the other hand, the cross-city correlation between
bus eet size and commute time perhaps reect some kind of
endogenous relationship among the two variables and unobserved factors. For example, the increase in bus service may
actually result from congestion. Given this concern over endogeneity, we also ran the regression without the variable BUS
separately. The results of other variables essentially remained
the same.
Another likely endogenous relationship is the positive correlation between commute duration and city average employee
education/salary level. As a citys workforce is better educated
(paid), the longer the average commute becomes. Although
there could be other potential mechanisms behind the correlation, such as the richs preference for larger homes and/or cars
(given city size and density), it makes sense from the cross-city
spatial equilibrium perspectivethe individual location choices
of mobile workers eventually equalize the utility of different cities (Oates, 1969). The estimated coefcient of EDU is statistically more signicant than that of WAGE, an intuitive result
given that education is often a more accurate measure of true
income than reported salary (Lee & McDonald, 2003), especially in China, where income statistics can be seriously biased.
Given this concern, we also ran separate regressions with either
variable at a time, and the results were basically the same as
what we report here.
Our results cannot reject Gordon et al.s (1989a) nding of
shorter commutes in cities with higher shares of employees
working in the tertiary sector. However, our estimated coefcients are neither economically or statistically signicant, with
p values slightly above 0.1. As a proxy for the degree of market
transition from the socialist planned urban economy, the share
of governmental expenditure in local GDP has a signicant
positive correlation with commute duration. Even controlling
for the urban district-level extent of jobshousing balance (D),
one could still interpret this result generally as the efciency

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION

consequence of governmental intervention in urban labor and

housing markets.
Previous studies by Lee et al. (2009) and Gordon and Lee
(2013) have included such sociodemographic variables as proportions of multiworker households, households with children,
and female workers to study commuting in US cities. To test
the effects of such aggregate sociodemographic variables, we
also obtain variables such as sex ratio, average household size,
the proportion of working-age residents, and the proportion of
rental households among population living in urban districts in
our sample cities. We then include some or all of these variables
in our regression models in various ways to see if they are signicant and/or inuence estimated coefcients of other variables. Overall, the conclusion seems quite clear that they are
insignicant and not inuential. Results are available upon
request.

6. Conclusion
For the rapidly urbanizing and motorizing Chinese cities, it is
important to identify policy alternatives that reduce the cost of
travel. Based upon existing theories and empirical evidence
from cities in the United States and Europe, this study quanties the impact of urban spatial structure on average commute
duration using data from 164 Chinese cities. After controlling
for urban economic, infrastructure, and sociodemographic
characteristics, results suggest that average commute duration
increases with city size and the degree of jobshousing separation, while decreases with average population density and the
degree of employment polycentricity. These ndings are unambiguous and robust to alternative measures of polycentricity
and additional controlling variables. Compared to the previous
American and European studies, our ndings are consistent
with regard to the effects of city size and jobshousing balance,
while contribute to the knowledge and debate on the effects of
density and polycentricity. As perhaps the earliest study on a
large sample of cities in China, this study has important policy
implications for urban planners and policy makers who want
to improve urban productivity, environment, and quality of
life. Specically, compact, mixed-use, and polycentric spatial
development may ease the commute pain during a period of
rapid urban expansion in China without unduly burdening cities and the environment with road and transit infrastructure
investment and energy consumption.
As one of the rst to quantify the spatial structure of a large
set of Chinese cities and link it to city-level travel time statistics
estimated from a newly available national dataset of urban
households, this study relies on a relatively simple statistical
model as most previous studies did. Results from such a
reduced-form model have to be cautiously interpreted, especially with regard to the variables that are likely endogeneous.
In addition, the use of urban districts as the spatial unit to calculate the jobshousing balance and employment polycentricity
measures would ideally be complemented by calculations based
on ner and more equalized spatial units if data are available.
Future research can benet from compiling street-ofce (Jiedao) or postal-code level employment and housing data and
statistical models with more structural relationship among the
variables.

643

Funding
We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No.41471139), the Shanghai Social Science Foundation (No.
2014BCK003), the Ministry of Education of China Key Research Projects
in Social and Humanities Program (No. 11JJDZH004) and the UCLA
Ziman Center for Real Estate through its faculty research grant. Opinions,
ndings, and errors in this article are those of the authors.

References
Aguilera, A., & Mignot, D. (2004). Urban sprawl, polycentrism, and commuting: A comparison of seven French urban areas. Urban Public Economics Review, 1, 93113.
Antipova, A., Wang, F., & Wilmot, C. (2011). Urban land uses, sociodemographic attributes and commuting: A multilevel modeling
approach. Applied Geography, 31(3), 10101018.
Dargay, J. M., & Ommeren, J. (2005, 2327 August). The effect of income
on commuting time using panel data. Paper presented at the 45th Conference of the European Regional Science Association at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Giuliano, G. (1991). Is jobs-housing balance a transportation issue? Transportation Research Record, 1305, 305312.
Giuliano, G., & Small, K. A. (1991). Subcenters in the Los Angeles region.
Regional Science and Urban Economics, 21(2), 163182.
Giuliano, G., & Small, K. A. (1993). Is the journey to work explained by
urban structure? Urban Studies, 30(9), 14851500.
Gordon, P., Kumar, A., & Richardson, H. W. (1989a). The inuence of
metropolitan spatial structure on commuting time. Journal of Urban
Economics, 26(2), 138151.
Gordon, P., Kumar, A., & Richardson, H. W. (1989b). Congestion, changing metropolitan structure, and city size in the United States. International Regional Science Review, 12(1), 4556.
Gordon, P., & Lee, B. (2013). Spatial structure and travel trends in commuting and non-commuting travel in US metropolitan areas. In R.
Hickman, D. Bonilla, M. Givoni, and D. Banister, The International
Handbook on Transport and Development (Chapter 4). Cheltenham,
UK: Edward Elgar.
Gordon, P., & Richardson, H. W. (1997). Are compact cities a desirable
planning goal? Journal of the American Planning Association, 63(1),
95106.
Gordon, P., Richardson, H. W., & Jun, M. J. (1991). The commuting paradox evidence from the top 20. Journal of the American Planning Association, 57(4), 416420.
Gordon, P., & Wong, H. L. (1985). The costs of urban sprawl: Some new
evidence. Environment and Planning A, 17(5), 661666.
Grunfelder, J., & Nielsen, T S. (2012). Commuting behavior and urban
form: A longitudinal study of a polycentric urban region in Denmark.
Geogrask Tidsskrift [Danish Journal of Geography], 112(1), 214.
Horner, M. W., & Marion, B. M. (2009). Development of a spatial dissimilarity-based index of jobs-housing balance: Conceptual framework and
empirical tests. Urban Studies, 46(3), 499517.
Izraeli, O., & McCarthy, T. R. (1985). Variations in travel distance, travel
time, and model choice among SMSAs. Journal of Transport Economics
and Policy, 19(2), 139160.
Lee, B. (2007). Edge or edgeless cities? Urban spatial structure in US
metropolitan areas, 1980 to 2000. Journal of Regional Science, 47(3),
479515.
Lee, B., & Gordon, P. (2007, February). Urban spatial structure and economic growth in U.S. metropolitan areas. Paper presented at the 46th
Annual Meetings of the Western Regional Science Association, Newport Beach, CA.
Lee, B., Gordon, P., Richardson, H. W., & Moore II, J. E. (2009). Commuting trends in US cities in the 1990s. Journal of Planning Education and
Research, 29(1), 7889.
Lee, B. S., & McDonald, J. F. (2003). Determinants of commuting time and
distance for Seoul residents: The impact of family status on the commuting of women. Urban Studies, 40(7), 12831302.
Levine, J. (1998). Rethinking accessibility and jobs-housing balance. Journal of the American Planning Association, 64(2), 133149.

644

B. SUN ET AL.

Levinson, D. M. (1998). Accessibility and the journey to work. Journal of

Transport Geography, 6(1), 1121.
Levinson, D. M., & Kumar, A. (1994). The rational locator: Why travel
times have remained stable. Journal of the American Planning Association, 60(3), 319332.
Levinson, D. M., & Kumar, A. (1997). Density and the journey to work.
Growth and Change, 28(2), 147172.
Loo, B. P. Y., & Chow, A. S. Y. (2011a). Spatial restructuring to facilitate
shorter commuting: An example of the relocation of Hong Kong International Airport. Urban Studies, 48(8), 16811694.
Loo, B. P. Y., & Chow, A. S. Y. (2011b). Jobs-housing balance in an era of
population decentralization: An analytical framework and a case study.
Journal of Transport Geography, 19(4), 552562.
Ma, K. R., & Banister, D. (2007). Urban spatial change and excess commuting. Environment and Planning A, 39(3), 630646.
McDonald, J. F. (1987). The identication of urban employment subcenters. Journal of Urban Economics, 21(2), 242258.
McMillen, D. P., & Smith, S. C. (2003). The number of subcenters in large
urban areas. Journal of Urban Economics, 53(3), 321338.
Melia, S., Parkhurst, G., & Barton, H. (2011). The paradox of intensication. Transport Policy, 18(1), 4652.
Modarres, A. (2011). Polycentricity, commuting pattern, urban form: The
case of Southern California. International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, 35(6), 11931211.
Oates, W. E. (1969). The effects of property taxes and local public
services on property values: An empirical study of tax capitalization and the Tiebout hypothesis. Journal of Political Economy, 77,
957971.
Ong, P., & Blumenberg, E. (1998). Job access, commute, and travel burden
among welfare recipients. Urban Studies, 35(1), 7793.
Peng, Z. R. (1997). The jobs-housing balance and urban commuting.
Urban Studies, 34(8), 12151235.
Schwanen, T. (2002). Urban form and commuting behaviour: A crossEuropean perspective. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geograe,
93(3), 336343.
Schwanen, T., Dieleman, F. M., & Dijst, M. (2004). The impact of metropolitan structure on commute behavior in the Netherlands: A multilevel approach. Growth and Change, 35(3), 304333.

Sultana, S. (2002). Job/housing imbalance and commuting time in the

Atlanta metropolitan area: Exploration of causes of longer commuting
time. Urban Geography, 23(8), 728749.
Sun, B., Li, N., Song, J., & Wu, X. (2010). A study on the impact of jobhousing balance on commuting travels: An empirical test of a traditional idea in the eld of urban planning. Urban Planning Forum, 6,
5560 (in Chinese).
Sun, B., & Pan, X. (2008). The impact research on daily travel by urban
spatial structure: From the points of view of mono-centric and polycentric. Urban Problems, 1, 3537 (in Chinese).
Sun, B., Tu, T., Shi, W., & Guo, Y. (2013). Test on the performance of polycentric spatial structure as a measure of congestion reduction in megacities:
The case study of Shanghai. Urban Planning Forum, 2, 6369 (in Chinese).
Wachs, M., Taylor, B. D., Levine, N., & One, P. (1993). The changing commute: A case study of the jobs-housing relationship over time. Urban
Studies, 30(10), 17111729.
Wang, D., & Chai, Y. (2009). The jobs-housing relationship and commuting in Beijing, China: The legacy of Danwei. Journal of Transport Geography, 17(1), 3038.
Wang, F. (2000). Modeling commuting patterns in Chicago in a GIS environment: A job accessibility perspective. Professional Geographer, 52
(1), 120133.
Wang, R. (2010). Shaping urban transport policies in China: Will copying
foreign policies work? Transport Policy, 17(3), 147152.
Wang, R. (2011). Shaping carpool policies under rapid motorization: The
case of Chinese cities. Transport Policy, 18(4), 631635.
Wang, R., & Yuan, Q. (2013). Parking policies and practices under
rapid motorization: The case of China. Transport Policy, 30,
109116.
Yang, J., Shen, Q., Shen, J.,et al. (2012). Transport impacts of clustered
development in Beijing: Compact development versus overconcentration. Urban Studies, 49(6), 13151331.
Zhao, P. (2013). The impact of the built environment on individual workers commuting behavior in Beijing. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 7(5), 389415.
Zhao, P., Lu, B., & Roo, G. (2011). Impact of the jobs-housing balance on
urban commuting in Beijing in the transformation era. Journal of
Transport Geography, 19(1), 5969.