Commuting versus consumption: The role of core city in a metropolitan area

The concept of “consumer city” has reshaped the growth and prosperity of major cities in the world. Although the literature has extensively documented the role of central cities in generating jobs, there has been limited empirical evidence on how those cities have developed into agglomerations of consumption opportunities by offering metropolitan residents high-quality consumer goods and services. We use large-scale cellular signaling data to distinguish commuting and consumption connections between the Shanghai City and a suburban town Huaqiao. Through the clustering algorithm, we categorize residents of Huaqiao into groups according to their frequency of visiting Shanghai and length of the visits. Results show that while travel time does not differ across the three groups of trips, non-commuters' consumption trips are more spatially expansive and intensive than the others. The average per capita visit frequencies also indicate the outstanding role of consumption-oriented travel. Spatial lag models suggest that although non-commuters are more sensitive to travel time than commuters, they are still willing to make long consumption trips to access the consumer goods and services the central city can provide. The findings would encourage city managers and planners to reconsider the roles of major cities, and redefine them as space that best match the changing demand of people.