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| THE CHARACTERISTICS OF RESIDENT COMMUTING AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH URBAN SPATIAL STRUCTURE IN LARGE CITIES OF WESTERN CHINA: A CASE STUDY OF CHENGDU |
| LIU Ding-hui1, ZHU Chao-hong2, YANG Yong-chun2 |
1. College of Urban and Environment, Hubei Normal University, Huangshi 435002, China;
2. College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China |
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Abstract This paper chooses Chengdu City as a case to study the characteristics of resident commuting in big cities of western China. It was based on the questionnaire answered by nearly 2000 people in 2012. The Geographic Information System(GIS) and spatial analysis were used to analyze the characteristics of resident commuting in large cities of western China. The contradiction between supply and demand of transportation has become increasingly prominent. Most of the residents travel less than half an hour and 5 km. The separation between jobs and residential locations is not that critical as in big cities of eastern China, such as Beijing, Guangzhou et al. However, as the city sizes of western China expand constantly, the separation between jobs and residential locations will become more and more obvious and the commuting cost will increases too. The empirical research shows that, there's no difference of commuting times between male and female. But there's difference between people who has different age, education, income, job and property type. It shows that urban space has formed a structural impediment that constrains the disadvantaged people's ability to commuting, information search, migration, which affects the opportunities of jobs and housing. The phenomenon of social spatial inequality stated by spatial mismatch hypothesis in western countries also exists in large cities of western China. It highlights the requirement for urban geographers to pay attention to the extent of spatial inequality in big cities of China. The characteristics of commuting space are closely related with urban structure and urban function partition.
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Received: 18 October 2012
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2014, Vol. 29 
