Urban land use change and regional access: A case study in Beijing, China

• The relationship between urban land use change and regional access was investigated.
• Access is estimated through time distance to major centers by road and subway.
• A binary auto-logistic model of land use change, was estimated using accessibility to major centers within the city as predictors.
• The implications of the results are discussed with respect to Beijing and other rapidly growing cities in the developing world.

In the recent past Beijing has experienced rapid development. This growth has been accompanied by many problems including traffic congestion and air pollution. Understanding what stimulates urban growth is important for sustainable development in the coming years. In this paper, we first estimate a binary auto-logistic model of land use change, using physical and socioeconomic characteristics of the location and its access to major centers within the city as predictors. We find that variables determining regional access, like time distance to the city center, the Central Business District (CBD), industrial centers, employment centers, and the transportation system, significantly impact urban land conversion. By using measures of access to predict land use change we believe that we can better understand the planning implications of urban growth not only in Beijing but other rapidly developing cities.