Transit-oriented development in China: Literature review and evaluation of TOD potential across 50 Chinese cities

Abstract

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been widely accepted in recent years as an important urban development policy. This article reviews the existing TOD literature pertinent to conditions in China, introduces TOD practices in China, and evaluates land development impacts of TOD across 50 Chinese cities that either have metro systems already or expect to have operating metro systems by 2020. The evaluation analysis contributes to the existing literature because most research on TOD in Chinese cities has focused on large, national or provincial capitals such as Beijing, Shanghai, and/or Guangzhou. Based on simulation analysis, we evaluate TOD’s land development impacts across all Chinese cities that are expected to have metro systems by 2020. Our results show that the second- as well as the third-class cities of China will have more potential for TOD implementation than the first-class cities in the next five years.