Job-worker spatial dynamics in Beijing: Insights from Smart Card Data

Jie Huang, David Levinson, Jiaoe Wang and Haitao Jin

No 2019-01, Working Papers from University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group

Abstract: As a megacity, Beijing has experienced traffic congestion, unaffordable housing issues and jobs-housing imbalance. Recent decades have seen policies and projects aiming at decentralizing urban structure and job-worker patterns, such as subway network expansion, the suburbanization of housing and firms. But it is unclear whether these changes produced a more balanced spatial configuration of jobs and workers. To answer this question, this paper evaluated the ratio of jobs to workers from Smart Card Data at the transit station level and offered a longitudinal study for regular transit commuters. The method identifies the most preferred station around each commuter's workpalce and home location from individual smart datasets according to their travel regularity, then the amounts of jobs and workers around each station are estimated. A year-to-year evolution of job to worker ratios at the station level is conducted. We classify general cases of steepening and flattening job-worker dynamics, and they can be used in the study of other cities. The paper finds that (1) only temporary balance appears around a few stations; (2) job-worker ratios tend to be steepening rather than flattening, influencing commute patterns; (3) the polycentric configuration of Beijing can be seen from the spatial pattern of job centers identified.

Keywords: Jobs-housing balance; Smart Card Data; Spatial dynamics; Longitudinal analysis; Urban subway network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R14 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published in Cities 86, 89-93.

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http://hdl.handle.net/2123/21180 First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nex:wpaper:beijingsmartcard

DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2018.11.021

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