Compact development and metropolitan growth : exploring the impact of urban land development on job accessibility in Beijing

Abstract

China's urban spatial policy has been stick to the containment development model for the purpose of more sustainable metropolitan growth since the early 1980s. In the model, intensive and compact land use are emphasized to be the primary principle of urban planning and development. This project aims to examine in what way and to what extend the development of urban form correspond to the political guidelines regarding the concept of compact metropolitan growth in the municipality of Beijing, the capital of China. Based on the compact city theory, this research give the empirical case study to examine the compact development policy in Beijing by exploring urban compactness and its consequences at the metropolitan scale (Haidian District), local new town scale (Yizhuang) and street scale (Jiaodaokou Street). GIS mapping and quantitative analysis of the case study areas are used to examine the urban compactness in Beijing. Then the consequences of the compact development is evaluated quantitatively in the perspectives of containyability, accessibility, mobility and livability.