High-Speed Rail and Rural Livelihood: The Wuhan-Guangzhou Line and Qiya Village

摘要

China has started to develop the world's largest high-speed rail network in the twenty-first century with the general aims of developing the economy and increasing environmental sustainability. Meanwhile economic reforms have created massive movements of rural workers towards urban labour markets. The co-existence of these movements with a HSR network raises the question about the impacts of the HSR on rural migrants and the livelihoods in their villages. This paper seeks to analyse these impacts from a livelihood perspective. Two main roles of transport are analysed: transport as delivering access to new economic opportunities and transport as an industry providing employment. Statistical data and fieldwork evidence in Qiya, a small village in Hunan province, show that the opening of the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR line decreased their access to places of employment both in terms of cost and time, but the HSR construction created employment opportunities for the villagers.