Healthy growth of cities
James JaoChina Daily  Updated: 2005-11-05 06:22

As China moves towards becoming a modern and developed nation, its cities will be the measure to gauge the country's success or failure.

The planning, building, and management of cities are issues that should be at the top of every society's agenda.

One of the major tasks within China's 11th five-year programme calls for the narrowing of planning between city and counties, as well as rapidly promoting better living quality for the urban residents. My career as an architect and planner, both in China and the United States, has shown me first hand the critical role that well planned and built cities play in the health and welfare of people, economies, and the environment.

Cities are the defining symbol of modern civilization. They are the engines of a nation's economy. They are the centres of politics, culture and thought. And they provide the goods, infrastructure and services that make modern life possible.

During the previous planned economy, there was very little housing added to the Chinese market between 1949 and 1979, yet the population had grown from 400 million to 1 billion in the same period. Subsequently, with its open door policy, China's rapid economic development has driven this increase in urbanization.

China now needs to add some 500 million square metres of new residential buildings each year in order to meet with its urbanization growth from the current 39 per cent to 50 per cent by 2020. They are not asking too much as the United States has had an urbanization rate of 72 per cent ever since 1960. That is why China constructs more buildings in a year than the entire European Union would add in a decade.

The current pace of urbanization in China is nothing short of miraculous. Ten million people move to cities in China each year. In Beijing alone, the city must add 10 million square metres of new housing every year. Never in the history of modern civilization has something like this happened.

The latest statistics show that in 2005, China has an urban population of 542 million people. Of a total of 660 cities across the nation, 171 are mega cities with more than 1 million people, 279 are big cities with half to 1 million people, and 210 are small and medium cities with populations between 200 thousand and half a million people. Already, Chinese cities account for 70 per cent of the nation's GDP and 80 per cent of contributions to the national coffers.

As such, the Chinese Government has placed a heavy emphasis on urban planning and development. China stands alone as the only nation in the world to have placed its urban planning regulations, promulgated in December 1989, as national law. It enjoys a legal status second to the Chinese Constitution. I often tell my Western friends that this is one of the great wisdoms of the Chinese leadership.

Yet the current thinking that is in these laws and edicts is not good enough to accommodate the coming urban growth, which is only in the early stages.

In the next five years, China expects to build over 300 new cities - bringing the total number of cities in China with populations over 200,000 residents to 1,000. The country will have close to 200 cities with a population of 1 million residents or more in 2010, with a combined urban population of over 600 million - about 45 per cent of the total population. By 2050, the United Nations estimates that 7 out of 10 Chinese will live in cities.

Accommodating all this growth is a difficult task that will test the creativity and capacity of China's leaders and practitioners. For every 1 per cent increase in the nation's urbanization rate (the ratio of the population living in cities), China must add some 300 to 400 million square metres of housing, consume some 1,800 square kilometres of land, pump 140 million cubic metres of potable water, generate 640 million kilowatts of energy, and expend some 270 to 260 billion yuan (US$35 billion) of capital; not to mention dispose of 1.14 billion cubic metres of wastewater each year.

At the same time, in order to improve the quality of life of its 500 million urban residents, the Chinese Government needs to resolve housing shortages, build cultural, sports and commercial facilities, as well as roads, parks, water reservoirs, wastewater treatment plants, and garbage disposal facilities. The government also needs to address many remaining environmental issues. The challenges facing China on preserving water, energy, and land resources alone appear overwhelming.

There is much that China can learn from the experience of the United States - particularly from its mistakes.

During its own post World War II boom, the United States followed a pattern of urban growth that created low density suburban neighbourhoods that consumed a lot of land and were dependent on the private automobile. The consequences of this planning has been congested roads, polluted air, loss of farmland and a crippling dependence on petroleum.

China has the rare opportunity to learn from these mistakes.

Today Chinese citizens, like their American counterparts a half century ago, are buying more cars. But too many cars will create traffic, consume more petrol, and produce more pollutants. Rather than repeating the missteps of the United States and planning in an auto-oriented fashion, China can integrate cars into the urban fabric of more people-oriented cities.

How to build cities that put people before cars is just one of the areas where China can be a pioneer.

Because of the enormous growth pressures, China will need to develop solutions for a host of urban problems - from providing quality affordable housing to designing eco-friendly cities.

Due to this unique circumstance, China has the potential to become the world leader in sustainable development.

The author, chief executive officer of the J.A.O. Design International, is a consultant with the State Council.

(China Daily 11/05/2005 page4)

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