Understanding Beijing’s Urban Land Use Development from 2004–2013 Through Online Administrative Data Sources

Abstract

From 2004–2013 Beijing saw one of the most rapid urban expansions in its history. During this period, the resident population in the municipality grew by nearly 50 %. Urban land use also grew at a similar rate in the form of greenfield expansion and densification – although no existing sources give a clear indication of the extent of this land use growth. A significant gap between what takes place on the ground and statistical data exists. This gap hampers effective policy analysis in many areas of urban development where a rapid policy response is needed. The intent of this paper is to present findings from our recent research that examined the effectiveness and potential of using online administrative data sources published by the municipal government bureaus/commissions to better understand Beijing’s urban expansion from 2004 to 2013. We show that the timely reporting of government administrative records for urban development permissions and urban land transactions which arose from the Open Government initiative, has opened up new opportunities to monitor and analyse the emerging patterns of urban land use development. Specifically, the paper uses urban land plot transaction data collected from the website of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources, focuses on the patterns of land supply for housing and employment, which is a particularly weak area in the field. It first reports the assembly of administrative data sources through web and GIS techniques, and then analyses the growth pattern of Beijing’s land supply through statistical analysis and mapping. Through a comparison of the new data with published statistics, the paper assesses the strength and weaknesses of available online data. The analysis suggests that housing land is decentralising at a faster pace than employment land, in particular developments for offices and institutions tend to focus on the central area of the city. In time this may worsen the job/housing balance across the municipality and exacerbate the pressure on radial transport corridors from the city centre.