Transit-oriented built environment, accessibility and the intra-urban geography of innovation in Hong Kong

This study examines the relationship between transit-oriented development (TOD) and innovation outcomes at the intra-urban scale, using Hong Kong as an example. Patent data are applied to measure the level of innovation activities at the neighbourhood scale and further differentiated into high-tech/medium-to-high-tech manufacturing, knowledge-intensive service and other traditional sectors. Both a zero-inflated negative binomial regression and a spatial econometric framework are applied to explore the innovation impacts of rail-based transit accessibility and a full set of transit-orient built environment features, while accounting for the potential endogeneity of transit accessibility using an instrumental variable approach. The results indicate that neighbourhoods with higher rail-based transit network accessibility measured at the regional scale are observed with higher innovation outputs of all sectors except the traditional sectors. Local intensity of science and technology infrastructure and other TOD built environment features, including higher density in manufacturing sector, mixed land use development, better street connectivity and local access to cooked food centres, are associated with higher neighbourhood innovation outputs of all sectors. The results provide useful suggestions on future transport and land use planning in Hong Kong to improve the spatial allocation of resources, service and amenities in the context of TOD to facilitate the city’ transformation into an innovation hub.