In Australia, a new role is promoted for high speed rail (HSR), shifting the focus from interstate travel to connections between major cities and their regional satellites, to address population pressures in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and to stimulate regional economies. What can international experience tell us about connecting regional cities to a larger metropolis (大都市)? Successes in connecting similar-sized and complementary cities, such as Osaka and Tokyo, are not relevant to Australia, given the size imbalance between the capital and regional cities. Where HSR connects imbalanced cities, opinion tends to the view that it advantages the larger city more than the regional cities, as evidenced by the cases of Paris and London. In the UK Prof John Tomaney concluded that the regional benefits of a planned High Speed 2 network are “ambiguous at best and negative at worst”.
Any redistribution of population that is large enough to mitigate metropolitan congestion and growth issues will create similar infrastructure demands and population pressures in regional cities. If growth slowed in Melbourne or Sydney by 200,000 people over 20 years it would not markedly change those cities, but such numbers moving to regional cities would create huge disruption.
While it may be cheaper to provide infrastructure in regional cities, the difference would need to compensate for the high cost of the HSR line and the likely convergence in land values between the two cities. This also calls into question whether the regional advantages listed in the Faster Rail program could be retained: The regional centres have cheaper housing, more open spaces and other lifestyle comforts such as less congestion. This makes them attractive destinations.
A final observation concerns employment. Regional population growth will generate some demand for population-based services, thus strengthening regional economies. But population growth alone won’t necessarily generate the development of a higher value-added economy, as exists in Sydney or Melbourne. For higher skilled workers, accessing cheap regional housing but commuting back to the metropolis where high skill jobs predominate will be an attractive option. Without efforts to develop a deeper economic base within regional cities, HSR risks creating highly subsidised long-distance commuters.
The increasing concentration of population in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane is a result of where the jobs and opportunities are, where most business, institutions and administration are located, where transport networks converge, and where decades of economic rationalist cost-cutting have centralised services. HSR does not alter this economic dynamic—and may make it worse. In the absence of an interventionist (干涉主义的) regional economic development program, HSR is unlikely to be a fix for the population pressures and infrastructure shortfalls in our major cities. How do young Britons feel about the current housing market?
6. What is one new purpose of Australian high speed rail?
A) To boost interstate tourism.
B) To lift the economy from recession.
C) To alleviate metropolitan congestion.
D) To kill the size imbalance among cities.
7. What is people’s opinion about HSR connecting imbalanced cities?
A) It is doomed to be a failure.
B) It benefits regional cities less.
C) It reduces the regional disparity.
D) It brings no metropolitan benefits.
8. What may cancel out regional advantages listed in the Faster Rail program?
A) The cheap regional infrastructure.
B) The regional unaffordability of HSRs.
C) The regional economic stagnation.
D) The potential rise in regional land values.
9. What risk does HSR pose to regional cities?
A) A lower value-added economy.
B) A dirt cheap housing market.
C) A mere population dormitory.
D) A dense human population.
10. In the author’s view, HSR’s role in addressing urban problems is .
A) unclear
B) feeble
C) mixed
D) desirable
