Heterogeneous effects of urban transport infrastructure on population distribution: The role of educational access

This article investigates the heterogeneous effects of urban transport infrastructure on population distribution within a city. I focus on the case of Xiamen—a coastal city in China—where two bridges and a tunnel have been built to promote population growth on the city’s periphery. I first show that although population share increased substantially on the bridges-connected periphery, no significant growth in the population share was observed on the tunnel-connected periphery. This pattern is surprising, given that the reduction in the commuting distance enabled by the tunnel is more than five times as large as that enabled by the bridges. I then calibrate a quantitative urban model to demonstrate the importance of access to high-quality schools in explaining the distinct effects of the infrastructures. Counterfactual exercises suggest that increasing educational resources on the tunnel-connected periphery or relaxing the restriction on cross-district school enrollment may facilitate the intended population growth effect of the tunnel.