Beijing needs rethink on development

Beijing will indeed shift some of its administrative bodies and industries to Baoding, a city in neighboring Hebei province. But before doing so, which will divide its highly concentrated resources, Beijing needs to change its development model and promote balanced development in its own districts.

The "small districts for big cities" model is something big cities cannot do without during their development period. Almost all the world's big cities have adopted the "from concentration to dispersion, from big to small" model. Cities will continue to grow bigger and their functions will keep becoming more complex during their initial development period because of their need for concentrated use of resources.

But with the passage of time such a model will overburden them with ever-deteriorating traffic, environmental, and safety and security problems, forcing them to transfer some of their excessively concentrated functions and industries to neighboring or satellite towns.