Urban clusters to ease transport woes

The nation will accelerate the development of world-class urban clusters, in an effort to address issues such as overcrowded large cities and the unbalanced allocation of public resources among big and smaller cities, urban planning officials and experts said on Thursday.

Chen Yajun, director of the National Development Reform Commission's development planning department, said that China will select qualified core cities to develop high-quality urban areas, and to further improve regional transport infrastructure and public services.

Some urban planners have suggested that the country should adopt the urban agglomeration approach to revolutionize the country's urbanization process. The idea is to develop metropolitan areas according to the socioeconomic connections between core urban cities and their satellite cities, as well as neighboring rural areas.