Shaoguan: facing challenges brought by new high-speed rail

(the following is an abstract from a course essay I wrote this year, it is attached)
China is making the largest metro and high-speed rail construction scene in the worlds’ transportation history, which will soon prove to dramatically reshape its urban network and urban structure. This breakthrough infrastructure development urgently calls for an integral action plan to release its underlying opportunities and resolve rising financial challenges, of which one is illustrated as follow.

Municipalities stationed with high-speed rail are subject to punctuated-changed external environment which often goes out of their estimation and prepare, presenting both opportunities and challenges.

for example, following the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed rail put into use on December 2009, Shaoguang, a northern Guangdong city, with a stop on this line, has witness 530% more enterprises and 599.7% more investment fluxed into its territory in 2010, compared with 2009 (Huang and Zhang, 2010).

Shaoguang was caught unprepared for this punctuated change, and considering that the high-speed rail station is located 2 kilometres outside of the Shaoguang city, urban sprawling would probably soon mushroom.

reference:
Huang, J et Zhang, A., 2010, Shaoguang towards High-speed Rail: from reluctant to embracing, July 29, Nanfang Daily
http://nf.nfdaily.cn/epaper/nfzm/content/20100729/ArticelD21002FM.htm.