Technical Papers
Oct 18, 2024

From Neighborhood Life Circles to Commuting Life Circles: Insights into the Job–Housing Imbalance in China

Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 151, Issue 1

Abstract

Global disparities in housing and job availability pose a serious threat to urban sustainable development. This study presents a new concept of a 15-min commuting life circle, which is based on four job categories and four specific travel modes. Utilizing workplace-centric areas and travel modes as radius parameters, the study measures and compares these life circles. Results reveal substantial regional imbalances in job–housing ratios, especially in government-represented functional areas, while office building-represented functional areas face the most severe imbalances. Based on these findings, this study underlines the possibility of developing 15-min commuting life circles appropriate to various workplace-centric areas.

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Data Availability Statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China (No. YQ2020G001), the Scientific Research Foundation for Heilongjiang Postdoctoral (No. LBH-Q21054), and the Education and Teaching Research Project of Northeast Forestry University (Grant Number DGYGJ2021-05).
Author contributions: Yufeng Jin: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing—original draft; Di Lu: Software, Validation, Visualization; Hossein Azadi: Supervision; Jie Liu: Funding acquisition, Writing—review and editing.

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Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 151Issue 1March 2025

History

Received: Jan 13, 2024
Accepted: Aug 7, 2024
Published online: Oct 18, 2024
Published in print: Mar 1, 2025
Discussion open until: Mar 18, 2025

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Ph.D. Candidate, School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, Northeast Forestry Univ., Harbin 150040, China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-9038-0248.
Di Lu
Investment and Financing Consulting Business Dept., China International Engineering Consulting Corporation, Beijing 100048, China.
Hossein Azadi
Professor, Dept. of Economics and Rural Development, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Univ. of Liège, Liège 5030, Belgium.
Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, Northeast Forestry Univ., Harbin 150040, China (corresponding author). Email: [email protected]

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