Impact of High-Speed Rail on Social Sustainability in China A Bottom-up Research by Xize Wu A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Department of Supply Chain Management I.H. Asper School of Business University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Copyright © 2020 by Xize Wu i ABSTRACT The state-owned high-speed rail (HSR) network, which connects major cities all over China, is playing an important part in lives of ordinary Chinese people in the last twelve years. Rapid development of the high-speed rail benefits the country on economic, environment and social aspects. The development also helps forming tightly knit city clusters and improve accessibility within these city clusters. In the last years, the Chinese government seeks to build a “four verticals, four horizontals” high- speed rail network, in order to reduce regional inequality and improve regional agglomeration. The impact of this network on people’s lives is an interesting topic to study. Most existing studies use statistics to show the HSR has done its work and can be considered as sustainable from a general image. However, smaller narratives are also important when studying social impacts, and a grass-root study can provide some new ideas about the impact of HSR on social sustainability. Based on the sustainability theory and metrics of evaluation, we chose two of these city clusters and conducted an in depth, cross case studies. By conducting these studies, we aim to probe into everyday lives of the participants, study how are their lives changed (or not changed) by the construction of HSR, and what are their feelings toward these changes. Keywords: High-Speed Rail; Social Sustainability; Grass-Root Researches i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Adolf K. Y. Ng., for supporting me financially and academically through the three years of my masters program. I am also thankful for him guiding me out of difficult situations, which I landed myself in because of sheer stupidity and ignorance. I could never finish the thesis without his help. Dr. Changmin Jiang and Dr. Lukas Neville served on my thesis committee and provided me with advices throughout the project and helped me with refining my thesis. I am very grateful toward their wise suggestions and kind words. The thesis includes two cases studies in different Chinese city clusters. I deeply appreciate the help of the fifty-two participants, whose name I cannot reveal due to confidentiality concerns, for their precious time and deep trust. I would also like to thank Miss Xie and Miss Zhang for the help in identifying and recruiting these participants. Last but not least, I want to say thank you to my family and friends for their support. I am so lucky to have them in my life. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................... 1 1.1 Development of high-speed rail in China .................................................................... 1 1.2 Special Characteristic of Chinese HSR ....................................................................... 3 1.3 Question Development .................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Proposition ..................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 8 2.1 Elements that affects the impact of high-speed rail .................................................... 8 2.2 Impacts of High-Speed Rail on Social Sustainability ................................................. 9 2.2.1 Accessibility .................................................................................................. 9 2.2.2 Social Influence .......................................................................................... 11 2.2.3 Regional Equality ...................................................................................... 12 2.2.4 Cooperation and competition with air transportation ........................... 13 2.3 Social Sustainability .................................................................................................... 14 2.3.1 Public Health Issues................................................................................... 16 2.4 Measurements of Social Sustainability ...................................................................... 16 2.5 Concept model and metrics ........................................................................................ 17 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 19 3.1 Two Groups of Participants ....................................................................................... 20 3.2 Designing the Case Study ............................................................................................ 21 3.2.1 The main part............................................................................................. 21 3.2.2 Follow-up interview .................................................................................................. 22 3.3 Conducting the interview ............................................................................................ 23 3.4 Coding and analyzing the data ................................................................................... 26 iii CHAPTER 4 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF REGULAR HIGH-SPEED RAIL PASSENGERS ....................................................................................................................... 29 4.1 Age Group .................................................................................................................... 29 4.2 Gender .......................................................................................................................... 30 4.3 Occupation ................................................................................................................... 30 4.4 Level of income ............................................................................................................ 33 4.5 Level of Education ....................................................................................................... 34 4.6 Place of Living ............................................................................................................. 35 4.7 General Description of High-Speed Rail Passengers ................................................ 35 CHAPTER 5. IMPLICATIONS OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL CONSTRUCTION ON REGULAR PASSENGERS' LIVES .................................................................................... 37 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 37 5.2 Common characteristics of the two cases .................................................................. 37 5.2.1 Relevancy of construction of HSR and relocation of human resources varies according to travel motivation ............................................................... 37 5.2.2 Strengthening family ties .......................................................................... 44 5.3 What set the two cases apart? .................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER 6 EVALUATION OF SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY..................................... 50 6.1 Basic needs and the quality of life .............................................................................. 50 6.1.1 Wealth ......................................................................................................... 50 6.1.2 Education .................................................................................................... 51 6.1.3 Mental and physical health ....................................................................... 52 6.2 Satisfaction of basic needs and the quality of life ..................................................... 54 6.3 Claim of social justice .................................................................................................. 54 6.4 Social Coherence .......................................................................................................... 55 CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY .................................................................................................... 57 7.1 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 57 7.2 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 59 7.3 Contribution and limitation .......................................................................................