Development of Suburban New Towns in Shanghai: Jobs-Housing Spatial Relationship Analysis

摘要

This paper identifies the employment and housing locations of residents in Shanghai based on mobile phone signaling data, so as to obtain the employment density and commuting data and analyze the development of nine suburban new towns from the perspective of jobs-housing spatial relationship. Firstly, the paper defines employment-intensive areas and gets the average employment density of each new town according to the employment density data. Then it marks out the scope of the employment influence through analyzing the sources of workers in each new town in accordance with the commuting data. Finally, it analyzes the jobs-housing balance of each new town using independence index, finding that suburban new towns in Shanghai have become main clusters of economic activities, while the scope of employment influence in each new town is still concentrated in its administrative area, with less attraction to residents in other areas. The independence index demonstrates a law that the suburban new town which is farther from the central city sees a higher degree of jobs-housing balance. Among them, new towns located in the outer suburbs with a low independence index indicate their special development situation, the reason of which is worth further study.