The Effects Of Compact City Form On Transportation Energy Consumption And Air Pollution

Nowadays as the pollution brought by the high-speed urbanization of big cities worldwide becomes more and more serious, the sustainable development of the city turns to be a balanced concept between economic growth and environmental protection. The theory of Compact City is one of the most remarkable solutions in the level of environmental protection and resources saving. But, the density of development of most big cities in Asia has become relatively high, so we need to further examine whether this shape of Compact City can be positively effective to Chinese and Korean cities.This research can be divided into three parts besides the introduction and conclusion: first part, the literature review of the features of Compact City and its elements of shape; second part, the current situation analysis on the atmospheric environment and energy consumption in main cities of China and Korea; third part, empirical research of 48 Korean cities along with Seoul and Beijing.Main shape elements which improve the sustainable development of Compact City include: Scale and Density/ Spatial Arrangement/ Land Utilization/ Traffic Pattern/ Travel mode etc. After the examination of the previous research, the main structure of research hypothesis, analytic method and index is settled.The research into the current situation on the atmospheric environment and energy consumption in Chinese and Korean cities indicates, the pollution of NO2 and PM10 in the city atmospheric environment is the most serious, and in big city’s energy consumption, transportation contributes the most. Besides, transportation on the road owns a big percentage in the emission of air pollution, especially the original emission of vehicles.The verification results of empirical research hypotheses are as follows:Firstly, the density increase improves the effect of decreasing transportation energy consumption. However, if overcrowded, its negative effect on the environment is greater.Secondly, to its appropriate extent, decentralized polycentric city development form has the highest efficiency of transportation energy consumption. However, over-decentralization can also decrease efficiency of transportation and energy, and brings more air pollution.Thirdly, intensive, mixed- use development within suitable strength can save construction land and also can reduce transportation energy consumption.Fourthly, transit and pedestrian-oriented development will reduce using private car, and also the efficiency of transportation energy can be improved.Fifthly, the public transportation-dominating travel pattern has positive effect on improving the efficiency of transportation energy consumption. But improving job-housing balance has to be first by which we can fundamentally reduce traffic demand and improves efficiency of energy and environment.In the end, based on the empirical analysis result, analysis of the urban form characteristics and development trend of Beijing is given; several suggestions on the development of compact city in Beijing are proposed.