Title:An assessment of Hong Kong’s spatial planning in new towns from the perspectives of agglomeration economy, job accessibility, and travel behavioral outcomes
Presenter: Professor HE Ying, Sylvia
Time:2019.7.20 10:00-12:00
Location:A716
Abstract:Between the 1970s and 1990s, the Hong Kong government had developed a number of new towns to alleviate the pressure exerted on urban areas and to provide housing to a rapidly growing population. Yet, the impact of this town planning approach and its performance in terms of achieving more self-contained communities and influencing work-life balance has not been documented. In this presentation, I will review the development of Hong Kong’s new towns and examine the extent of agglomeration economy in new towns through the concept of sub-center. Then I will move onto the assessment of Hong Kong’s spatial planning in new towns by testingsome hypotheses that link the distribution of jobs and travel behavior of commuters: firstly, I examine the effects of job accessibility on commute and non-commute travel durations; secondly, I investigate the relationship between job accessibility and the undertaking and durations of joint travel and activities. Based on the findings, I recommend a more proactive pursuit of establishing more self-contained communities in Hong Kong, which is expected to be able to improve both commuting experience and work-life balance particularly for new-town residents.
About the presenter: Dr. HE Ying (Sylvia) is an Associate Professor in the Urban Studies Program, Department of Geography and Resource Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is an Associate Editor of Travel Behaviour and Society (SSCI journal). She is a board member and Honorary Secretary of the Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies (HKSTS) and a member of the International Scientific Committee of Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies (EASTS). Her publications appeared in leading transportation and urban studies journals such as Transportation Research Part A/C/F, Urban Studies, and Town Planning Review. She co-edited two special issues recently: 'Big data and travel behaviour' (Travel Behaviour and Society) and 'Understanding urban change in diverse contexts: experiences from Manchester and Hong Kong' (Town Planning Review). She obtained her PhD from the School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where she received the John Dyckman Award for Best Dissertation in Planning.
