Transportation choices and regional development in the Pearl River Delta

Abstract

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) has been one of the fastest growing regions in China for the past 15 years. This tremendous economic expansion, fueled by the opening of Chinese markets to foreign investment, has created a number of complex planning issues in the region. While the PRD has become more urbanized, and its local economies more interdependent, planning functions within the region, for the most part, lack coordination and regional focus. Instead, the autonomy granted to PRD municipalities over local economic development decisions has intensified competition among localities. This drive by officials to maximize development opportunities leaves little room for regional planning initiatives. Fortunately, there has been an increasing awareness among some PRD stakeholders that the fundamental undertakings necessary to improve living standards across the region, such as infrastructure construction, economic development, housing, and environmental regulation, transcend municipal boundaries and are most efficiently addressed through the adoption of regional strategies. One of the most important regional planning decisions facing the PRD centers on inter-regional mobility. Compared to other regions of its land size and population, the PRD lacks a highly developed road and rail network. The absence of transportation infrastructure offers PRD decision-makers the unique opportunity to plan regional growth around a transportation network that offers the greatest potential for systematic and measured development. This research will examine the impact that land-use and transportation planning have on the spatial development and form of the urban region. Through a review of the literature on four topics directly connected to land-use and transportation planning-urban and regional decentralization, sprawl, transitoriented development, and automobile policies-the interaction between land-use and transportation planning, as they pertain to regional development, will be examined. Next, transportation and land-use planning will be examined in two regions-metropolitan Tokyo and New York City-to highlight the impact that varying policies have had on the spatial development of these regions. It is hoped that PRD decision-makers can draw lessons from the literature review and the policy decisions made in the two case study regions.