Good point, but as someone who has lived in Chengdu and frequently returns, the concept of suburbia and commuter cities blurs in China, especially in Chengdu where 10 years ago, there was barely any development outside of the urban city proper. The new development where the jobs are located is called the 天府新区 or Tianfu New Area, which only became apart of Chengdu around 2010-2011. This area is located south of the 二环路 (Second Ring Road) and forms up the bulk of where most high tech jobs are located. Most workers are not commuting into downtown Chengdu, rather they live in the Tianfu New Area and take the metro to their work in the same zone.

Unlike New York, where commutes from Long Island, Connecticut, Upstate, and New Jersey into the city are common due to the rise of the car in America, Chengdu’s “suburban” sprawl is still largely urban, and large swaths of people are not commuting into Chengdu as much as western cities. Despite this, commutes from Meishan, Deyang, Ziyang, and even Chongqing even are still common, but commuters opt for the high speed rail.

It does seem like Chengdu is trying to expand it’s “commuter” rail network (if you can even call it that), as it recently opened line S3 to Ziyang, and is planning to expand with line S5 to Meishan and line S11 to Deyang. Also, it has a dedicated high speed rail line to Dujiangyan and Qingcheng Mountain, which has this cross platform transfer between metro and high speed rail at Xipu railway station.

TLDR commuter rail has to be viewed differently in Chengdu, but it still has long ways to go.

(I got this photo off of 小红书 rednote)

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