Impact Analysis of High-Speed Railway on Urban Spatial Structure: A Case Study of Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity High-Speed Railway

High-speed railway (HSR) plays an important role in the process of urbanization. The development of HSR impacts social and economic activities, and then gradually reshapes the urban spatial structure. This work analyzes the impact mechanism of HSR on urban spatial structure from the perspectives of the HSR corridor and HSR station. An evaluation model is proposed for quantifying the city connection. The kernel density analysis based on ArcGIS is applied to compare the variation of urban spatial structure elements. A case study of the Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway verifies the improvement of city connection. However, the pattern of economic connection between cities has changed. The operation of HSR significantly promotes the development of the tertiary industry and accelerates the industrial transformation in Nanjing. The distribution and density of land use in Nanjing also change a lot.