Is China’s Urban Development Planning Sustainable? Evidence from the Transportation Sector in Cities Along the Belt and Road Initiative Route

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been implemented for over a decade; however, research on its impact on China’s transport sector remains relatively scarce. It is imperative to investigate whether the BRI has greatly enhanced the growth of Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP) in the transport sector across provinces along its route because the logistics hub is crucial for sustainable land development of the local economy. To address this missing link, this study examined the GTFP of the transport sector in cities along the BRI by employing the global Luenberger nonradial directional distance function (GLNDDF). Subsequently, a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model was applied to evaluate the policy impact of the BRI on the regional GTFP of the transport sector. The key results of this study were as follows: (1) our empirical findings indicated that the BRI has a statistically significant, yet very weak governance of the GTFP of the transportation sector, with an average increase of 0.0265 units in total factor productivity, implying that the direction of the BRI seems right, but much stronger governance is needed for differentiated city planning; (2) the BRI has two wings in its implementation policies and regulatory and promotional policies. In this study, active environmental regulation may have a more substantial impact than promotional policies, implying that oversupply issues arising from financial promotions along the BRI routes should be avoided for city planning, even with its political importance. (3) There are notable regional variations, with the policy effect being relatively weak in the central region, implying that the grand industrial transition from the east coastal cities to the western region should be cautiously harmonized between market demand and infrastructure-oriented government-led policies. These findings provide valuable insights into urban environments, city planning, and urban–rural interactions, emphasizing the importance of land-related tradeoffs in resource management to foster sustainable governance in developing countries.