ArticlePublisher preview available

Exploring the Heterogenous Impacts of the Accessibility on Urban–Rural Disparity in Mountainous Regions of China

Authors:
Yelyu Tu
Yelyu Tu
Yelyu Tu
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Fanrong Jiang
Fanrong Jiang
Fanrong Jiang
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Tao Li
Tao Li
Tao Li
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Zhiping Chen
Zhiping Chen
Zhiping Chen
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

Most studies have explored the association between transportation and urban–rural disparity. However, research focusing on the impact of transportation accessibility on these issues has been relatively scarce. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the spatially varying impacts of multiscale accessibility on urban–rural income disparity (URID) in the Qinba mountainous region (QBM) of China. The results further highlight the differing impacts of county-level, prefecture-level, and provincial-level accessibility on URID. The MGWR model confirms that the effects of multiscale accessibility on URID are spatially heterogeneous. Specifically, county-level accessibility has a significantly negative effect on URID. In contrast, the impacts of prefecture-level and provincial-level accessibility are significantly positive in narrowing the URID, leading to a “diffusion effect.” The narrowing effect of prefecture-level and provincial-level accessibility on URID is more pronounced in the eastern and northern parts of QBM, respectively. In the western mountainous areas of QBM, where most counties experience relatively low accessibility and high URID, prioritizing the expansion of connectivity between mountainous and well-developed areas, optimizing the layouts of villages and towns, and improving overall accessibility is essential. The findings suggest that the implementation of accessibility improvements and transport plans should be place-specific, considering the geographical and socio-economic contexts.
Figures - available from: Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
Learn more
Content available from Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Vol.:(0123456789)
Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy (2025) 18:24
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-024-09633-3
Exploring theHeterogenous Impacts oftheAccessibility
onUrban–Rural Disparity inMountainous Regions ofChina
YelyuTu1,2· FanrongJiang1· TaoLi1· ZhipingChen2
Received: 14 September 2024 / Accepted: 25 December 2024 / Published online: 6 January 2025
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2025
Abstract
Most studies have explored the association between transportation and urban–rural
disparity. However, research focusing on the impact of transportation accessibility
on these issues has been relatively scarce. This paper contributes to the literature
by examining the spatially varying impacts of multiscale accessibility on urban–
rural income disparity (URID) in the Qinba mountainous region (QBM) of China.
The results further highlight the differing impacts of county-level, prefecture-level,
and provincial-level accessibility on URID. The MGWR model confirms that the
effects of multiscale accessibility on URID are spatially heterogeneous. Specifically,
county-level accessibility has a significantly negative effect on URID. In contrast,
the impacts of prefecture-level and provincial-level accessibility are significantly
positive in narrowing the URID, leading to a “diffusion effect.” The narrowing effect
of prefecture-level and provincial-level accessibility on URID is more pronounced
in the eastern and northern parts of QBM, respectively. In the western mountainous
areas of QBM, where most counties experience relatively low accessibility and high
URID, prioritizing the expansion of connectivity between mountainous and well-
developed areas, optimizing the layouts of villages and towns, and improving overall
accessibility is essential. The findings suggest that the implementation of accessibil-
ity improvements and transport plans should be place-specific, considering the geo-
graphical and socio-economic contexts.
Keywords Urban rural disparity· Accessibility· Transport infrastructures·
Multiscale geographically weighted regression analysis (MGWR )· Qinba
Mountainous Regions (QBM)
Introduction
Urban–rural inequality is a long-standing topic in the era of “Planetary Urbaniza-
tion” (Sun etal., 2023). Reducing urban–rural disparity (URD) and eradicating pov-
erty are not only challenges to global urbanization but also key objectives of the
Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Examining the Relationship between Transportation Infrastructure, Urbanization Level and Rural-Urban Income Gap in China
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2023
The development of transportation infrastructure plays a pivotal role in the regional economy from multiple dimensions. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between transportation infrastructure development and income inequality in urban and rural areas of China. The study utilizes panel data from 30 provinces, spanning the years 2010 to 2020, and employs the spatial Dubin model to measure and test the impact of transportation infrastructure on the urban-rural income gap. Furthermore, an intermediary effect test method is used to investigate the potential mediating effect of urbanization in this relationship. The results indicate that transportation infrastructure has a significantly negative direct, indirect, and total effect on the urban-rural income gap, with the indirect effect being greater than the direct effect. This suggests that transportation infrastructure can effectively reduce income disparities, with a noticeable spatial spillover effect. The level of urbanization plays a significant intermediary effect on the effect of transportation infrastructure on the urban-rural income gap, highlighting the role of transportation infrastructure in improving urbanization and narrowing income disparities. These findings underscore the importance of enhancing both the level of urbanization and cooperation between neighbouring regions in order to maximize the benefits of transportation infrastructure development for reducing income disparities and promoting regional balance in China.
View
Space-time Models and Personal Accessibility to Educational Facilities. Case Study of Space-time Accessibility to Schools in the City of Valencia
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2023
Society nowadays makes intensive use of time and extensive use of space. This has implications for spatial planning of facilities and services since it is now essential to look at personal accessibility (in terms of time and choice) and not just physical distance. Over and above spatial accessibility (distance or cost of travel to the facility or service), location models based on space-time accessibility also consider personal accessibility with respect to the time available to access a facility or service. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the practical usefulness of the theoretical approach grounded in the Geography of Time in enhancing personal accessibility to facilities and services which are provided in a specific space and at a specific time and have fixed start and end times, as is the case with schools. To this end, an ad hoc tool was developed to generate a number of scenarios simulating actual and hypothetical conditions for space-time accessibility to schools in the city of Valencia. The results showed how studying space-time accessibility may be extremely useful in drawing up proposals designed to increase personal accessibility to core services such as education and thereby helping to improve work-life balance.
View
Challenging terrains: socio-spatial analysis of Primary Health Care Access Disparities in West Virginia
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2022
Existing measures of health care access were inadequate for guiding policy decisions in West Virginia, as they identified the entire state as having limited access. To address this, we compiled a comprehensive database of primary health care providers and facilities in the state, developed a modified E2SFCA tool to measure spatial access in the context of West Virginia’s rural and mountainous nature, and integrated this with an index of socio-economic barriers to access. The integrated index revealed that the rural areas, especially in the southern part of the state, have especially limited access to primary health care. 1. Introduction. An emerging public health issue which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is that of healthcare deserts, which are places where basic affordable health care is not accessible for residents. This problem has become worse in rural areas as rural hospitals close. In these areas, including West Virginia, scattered populations suffer from limited access to primary healthcare services. Uneven geographic and socio-economic barriers to accessing primary health care are major contributing factors to these health disparities. West Virginia’s unique rural and mountainous settlement patterns, aging population, and economic crisis over the past two decades have resulted in unequal access to the primary healthcare services for its residents. The rural nature of the state makes it difficult to maintain medical facilities accessible to much of the population, especially as rural hospitals have been closing, such as the one in Williamson, WV (Jarvie, 2020). The mountainous terrain slows down travel across winding roads, lengthening travel times to the nearest hospital, while an aging population has increased health care needs. Lastly, an economic crisis and higher poverty rate makes West Virginians less able to pay for health care. As a result, West Virginians are confronting a health crisis. According to a recent report by the West Virginia Health Statistics Center (2019), West Virginians rank first in the country for heart attacks, have the second-highest obesity rate and prevalence of mental health problems in the country, along with the fourth-highest rate of diabetes and fifth-highest rate of cancer. An issue faced by West Virginia’s policymakers is the limitations of tools for identifying and assessing healthcare deserts, as they are poorly suited for the unique challenges in West Virginia. Academic research has not analyzed comprehensive primary healthcare accessibility in WV, although previous studies have focused on Appalachia (e.g., Behringer & Friedell 2006; Smith & Holloman, 2011; Elnicki et al., 1995; Donohoe et al., 2015, 2016a, 2016b), and others focus on access to more specialized services (Valvi et al., 2019; Donohoe, 2016a). Existing approaches to identify the healthcare deprived areas, such as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA), are not suitable for guiding West Virginia policies, because every one of the 55 counties within the state has several HPSAs, which makes prioritizing resources difficult. The lack of easily accessible, comprehensive, and up-to-date physician and healthcare facility database creates additional difficulties. Physician license datasets were found to often include inconsistent, misleading, and out-of-date information. The last limitation of the HPSA designation is that it is based on zip code areas and census tracts, which are not ideal as zip code areas lack spatial context and much covariate data, while rural census tracts are too large to capture spatial variation of access. In this context, the WV HealthLink project was begun with joint effort with WV Rural Health Initiative (RHI) to fill gaps in research and support decision making for primary healthcare access in West Virginia. The goals of the projects are: (1) to help West Virginia’s three medical schools provide specialized professional training in rural healthcare; (2) to address health disparities by investing in clinical projects in underserved areas; and (3) to retain health professionals in WV. In 2018, to support these goals, HealthLink was invited by the RHI’s leadership to analyze disparities in primary health care access in West Virginia and develop tools for rural healthcare decision-making. These goals also create a comprehensive and up-to-date physician and facility database, new analysis tools, and new visualization tools for decision support. The goals of this paper are to assess the spatial and social accessibility of primary health care in West Virginia, and to understand spatial and social determinants that shape this access. To achieve these goals, this paper completes the following objectives: (1) define primary healthcare and access; (2) build an extensive and up-to-date primary healthcare database; (3) develop an assessment framework for WV; and (4) visualize the results for policy makers and practitioners. The structure of this paper is as follows. First, we describe three methodological problems encountered as we define primary health care access. Second, we present the methods used to resolve these problems, and conclude by presenting our modified enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2FCA hereafter) approach and its results for WV. Our foci in this modification were improving the accuracy of the analysis regarding measuring distance, considering distance decay effect, and more precisely representing the location of supply and demand.
View
Urban expansion and the urban-rural income gap: Empirical evidence from China
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2022
  • CITIES
Developing countries tend to exhibit evident urban-rural income divergence as urban areas rapidly expand into adjoining land. However, Western-centric urban theories and studies of spatial inequality have not paid sufficient attention to the connection between income divergence and urban expansion. This paper employed a panel quantile regression model to investigate this relationship in 220 prefecture-level Chinese cities in 2006-2014. To identify potential spatiotemporal effects, we conducted additional robustness checks using the spatial Durbin model and geographical and temporal weighted regression. The results show that a 1 % expansion of urban land decreases the urban-rural income gap by 0.005 % to 0.011 %. This narrowing effect is particularly prominent in the eastern and central regions and in areas that are less urbanized overall. It also varies within regions that have a more pronounced difference between the lowest and highest quantiles in northeastern China and cities with urbanization rates of >50 %. Finally, we find evidence for an inverted U-shaped relationship between urban expansion and the urban-rural income gap. Our results entail suggestions for improved urban-rural development policies aimed toward greater integration and efficiency in urban expansion.
View
View
Influence of Transportation Accessibility on Urban-rural Income Disparity and Its Spatial Heterogeneity
Article
  • Mar 2024
  • CHINESE GEOGR SCI
Transportation accessibility has been treated as an important means of reducing the urban-rural income disparity. However, only a few studies have examined the effects of different types of transportation accessibility on urban-rural income disparity and their spatial heterogeneity. Based on data from 285 prefecture-level (and above) Chinese cities in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020, this study uses spatial econometric models to examine how highway accessibility and railway accessibility influence the urban-rural income disparity and to identify their spatial heterogeneity. The result reveals that highway accessibility and railway accessibility have ‘coreperiphery’ ring-like circle structures. The urban-rural income disparity exhibits strong spatial clustering effects. Both highway accessibility and railway accessibility are negatively associated with urban-rural income disparity, and the former having a greater effect size. Moreover, there is a substitution effect between highway accessibility and railway accessibility in the whole sample. Furthermore, these associations differ in geographic regions. In the central region, highway accessibility is more important in reducing the urban-rural income disparity, but its effect is weakened with the increase of railway accessibility. In the western region, railway accessibility has a larger effect on narrowing the urban-rural income disparity, and this effect is strengthened by the increase of highway accessibility. We conclude that improving transportation accessibility is conducive to reducing the urban-rural income disparity but its effect is spatial heterogenetic. Highways and railways should be developed in a coordinated manner to promote an integrated transport network system.
View
View
View
Revealing the heterogeneous effects of new urbanization on urban-rural inequality using geographically weighted quantile regression
Article
  • Aug 2023
  • APPL GEOGR
China's new urbanization (NU) plan prioritizes reducing urban-rural inequality (URI) and promoting urban-rural integration. Although previous studies have examined the impact of NU on URI, the heterogeneity of this impact has not been extensively considered. This paper establishes an analytical framework to explore the impacts of NU on URI while accounting for spatial and response heterogeneities. By using data collected from 286 Chinese cities, we assessed the performances of NU first, and measure the degree of URI second, and accordingly estimated the heterogenous impacts of NU on URI using geographically weighted quantile regression (GWQR) model. We found that URI and NU are spatially uneven and both show skewed distributions. The benchmark regression model shows that NU tends to reduce URI, while the GWQR model confirms that the impacts of NU on URI are spatially heterogeneous and change with the degree of inequality. Specifically, the narrowing impacts of NU on URI are more profound in western China than in eastern China and such impacts become stronger as URI increases. These findings suggest that the implementation of NU should be tailored to the local geographical and socioeconomic conditions.
View
View