Impact and Spatial Spillover Effect of Transport Infrastructure on Urban Environment

This paper expounds the influence of transport infrastructure on environment as spatial agglomerative, economic growth, innovation and technology diffusion effects. Within the STIRPAT model, we use a spatial Durbin model to estimate the impact of transport infrastructure on the environment in 281 Chinese cities during 2003-2013. The results show that transport infrastructure, technical progress, and energy intensity have negative direct effects on urban environment. Additionally, we find an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between GDP per capita and urban environment. As spatial effect, transport infrastructure has negative impacts, while technical progress has a positive effect.