Planning High-speed Railway System in Urban China

The high-speed railway (HSR) network expansion and the subsequent urbanization processes are extremely rapid in China. However, the internal logics of the HSR system planning and its correlations with the urban system remain unknown to us. In this research we respond to this problem through more transdisciplinary, multiscale, and process-oriented perceptions. To break down interdisciplinary barriers, the study conducts debates on an integrated narrative involving multi-disciplines, including Transport Engineering, Geography, Planning, Urbanism, Architecture, Landscape, Social and Economic Studies. To transcend the scale limitations, the research focuses on four key research subjects at three different research levels, namely, the HSR network planning at the national level, the HSR alignment design at the regional level, and the HSR station design and core station area planning at the local level. It argues that the Chinese HSR system planning dominated by the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) is essentially hierarchical and transport-efficiency oriented, which is significantly determined by the spatial polarization of urban populations and social and economic activities in China, whereas the HSR-induced urban planning conducted by the local government is more related to land speculation. The splintered HSR system and urban system in China shows a remarkable lack of horizontal coordination among major actors who control these systems.