This study aims to investigate an urban subway expansion's effects on population and employment distribution in the Seoul metropolitan area (SMA). The study employed generalized spatial two-stage least square (GS2SLS) models for analyzing the subway c...
This study aims to investigate an urban subway expansion's effects on population and employment distribution in the Seoul metropolitan area (SMA). The study employed generalized spatial two-stage least square (GS2SLS) models for analyzing the subway catchment area's (SCA) role in determining residential and firm locations by dividing subway stations opened before (existing stations) and after 2000 (new stations), while considering endogeneity and spatial dependence of data. The analysis results indicated that existing and new SCAs played different roles in the population and employment distribution. New stations contributed to population suburbanization, while existing stations attracted jobs to the central city, thus worsening jobs-housing imbalance. In other words, new subway stations had a strong centrifugal force dispersing the population to the suburbs, while existing subway stations had a strong centripetal force causing concentration of employment in the central city. This imbalance increased subway commuting times during the 2000-2015 period.