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The continuous improvement of transportation infrastructure is an important support for achieving high-quality development, while the high-quality characteristics of development will inevitably promote the process of economic and social sustainability. From the dual perspectives of economic transformation and people’s social livelihoods, we regard the opening of a high-speed railway (HSR) in China’s cities as a quasi-natural experiment, and utilize the difference-in-difference (DID) method to examine the impact of improved transportation infrastructure on the high-quality development of prefecture-level cities and its action mechanism. This study is the first to incorporate HSR openings and environmental regulation into the same framework, focusing on the high-quality development problem of cities. The empirical results reveal that: (1) the opening of an HSR can advance industrial structure upgrading and increase social employment level, thereby promoting the high-quality development of cities; (2) the intensity of environmental regulation is an important action mechanism that affects such relationships, but it presents two different influences on an HSR’s industrial effect and employment effect, that is, inhibition and reinforcement, respectively; and (3) urban heterogeneity tests illustrate that an HSR opening plays a more significant role in promoting the high-quality development of China’s eastern region cities and non-resource-based cities. Our findings are beneficial to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of decision-makers’ investment in transportation infrastructure as well as to facilitate the benign interaction between the national HSR policy and local environmental regulation strategies, thereby achieving the high-quality and sustainable development of urban economy and society.

High-Speed Railway Opening and High-Quality Development of Cities in China: Does Environmental Regulation Enhance the Effects?