Evaluating the equity of affordable housing residents' transport accessibility in Nanjing, China

Keywords: Transport equity, Accessibility, Minimum acceptable accessibility, Affordable housing, China
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The distribution of accessibility is one of the significant concerns of transport equity in both developed and developing countries. However, the existing literature in this field is dominated by evidence from developed and some developing countries while lacking evidence from China. Moreover, equity of accessibility for disadvantaged groups in developing countries needs more attention, as a large proportion of the population in these countries still suffers from transport inequities. This research takes a large Chinese city, Nanjing, as an example to evaluate the equity of accessibility and aims to provide new evidence for studying transport equity in developing countries, using an online survey to obtain the actual accessibility and minimum acceptable accessibility of residents. 664 affordable housing residents and 828 commercial housing residents were analyzed. The analysis results show that there are accessibility gaps between residents of affordable housing and commercial housing. More specifically, the accessibility of commercial housing residents is higher than that of affordable housing residents. Comparing the Gini index of the two groups shows that the accessibility distribution of commercial housing residents is more equitable than that of affordable residents. A measure based on sufficientarianism is obtained by comparing people's actual accessibility with the minimum acceptable accessibility. A higher percentage of affordable housing residents do not meet the minimum acceptable accessibility. Therefore, the policies designed to improve equity of accessibility in China should focus on the distribution among different groups of people, especially those in socially disadvantaged positions.