empirical evidence of cities’ performances with HSR
and without HSR, which had been used as a control
group, in order to study the effects of HSR in countries
like Japan, France, Spain and the UK. For example, in
1991, Brotchie researched the social and economic
impact of the Japanese Shinkansen by comparing
population growth, employment and economic activity
in cities that had an HSR station versus those that did not
(Brotchie, 1991). The results showed that the cities
connected with the Shinkansen performed better on
average, especially for employment in information-
based industries. In a more recent example from the UK,
Chen and Hall (2011) investigated six London-based
long distance railway lines – all of them over 150 km, of
which two are HSR and four are non-HSR in order to
compare performance of the local economy and
knowledge-intensive development in cities served by
the different lines. They classified the effects of HSR
into three influential zones, namely cities within 1 h of
London, within 2 h, or greater than 2 h. Cities connected
to HSR within 1 h of London saw a strong impact on
private and knowledge-intensive activities and seemed
to gain from the spillover effects of value-added
activities from London. By contrast, in cities not
connected with HSR, urban development remained
focused on local service activities and a solid knowl-
edge economy did not develop. Of the cities within 2 h
travelling time from London and connected to HSR,