A little help with living in the city

China has valuable experience to share with Africa's latest big challenge: rapid urbanization

Despite being the place where Homo sapiens and human civilization first appeared, Africa now has the planet's lowest level of economic development. With a population of 1 billion, Africa comprises only 1 percent of the world's trade volume.

However, in parts of Africa, that situation is changing. The growth rate of the fastest developing African economies is well above the global average.

Given that growth, many African states' next immediate struggle is likely to be urbanization - a population shift from rural to urban areas, and the ways in which society adapts to the change. Its essence is the changes of economic structure, social structure and spatial structure. As an inevitable consequence of socioeconomic development, it indicates the progress of human society.

Africa's urbanization, which had a late start, is capturing the world's attention. It is characterized by its rapid urban expansion, lagging modernization, uneven regional development and high population density. The imbalanced progress in urbanization and economic growth has caused a number of "urban diseases" such as an urban housing shortage, large slum population, high unemployment rate and weak infrastructure.

China experienced similar conditions during its modern history. Thanks to 30 years of rapid economic growth, China reported $9 trillion in GDP in 2013, becoming the world's second-largest economy after the United States. In 2014, it became the largest economy measured by purchasing power parity, based on what people can buy with their money. However, China's GDP per capita is still at an intermediate level in absolute terms.

We can determine China's urbanization with tools based on the historical observation of worldwide urbanization. It was determined that the process of urbanization follows a flat S shape and can be divided into three stages: the initial stage with less than 30 percent urbanization, the acceleration stage with 30 percent to 70 percent, and the stationary stage with above 70 percent.

At present, China has entered the acceleration stage, reaching 53.7 percent in 2013, which is slightly above the world's average. Although China's urbanization is still far behind developed countries, China has acquired a large amount of experience to share with Africa.

The urbanization level can be further analyzed from three aspects: economic, social and land urbanization.

Economic urbanization mainly reflects the transition away from agriculture in the economic structure. China's focus on developing its services industry can be an effective remedy for cities with surging populations. Africa's urbanization, however, relies too much on agriculture. In some cities, the unemployment rate is as high as 80 percent. African countries need to consider the challenge of how to adjust their industrial structure.

Social urbanization leads to improvement in living standards in areas such as education, medicine and sanitation. In many African countries, only about 4 percent of school age children have access to secondary education. Furthermore, only 3 percent of medical workers in the world are in Africa.

By contrast, China has achieved remarkable progress in social urbanization in the past few decades. With the spread of compulsory education, the illiteracy rate decreased from 33.58 percent to 4.08 percent from 1964 to 2010. Medical health service reform has yielded initial results in improving national health security.

While heightened local measures and international aid have had an effect on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, new cases were still being reported at year's end. In the three worst hit countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the outbreak had killed about 7,842 people of 20,081 cases, according to the World Health Organization, which added that under-reporting meant deaths and cases were probably much greater, according to a Reuters report. The epidemic has caused not only a public health crisis, but also economic and social problems in some African countries. With rapid economic growth, improving education, medical care and sanitation has become a top priority.

Land urbanization includes urban area expansion, infrastructure construction and environmental protection. Chinese cities had successful experiences in seeking breakthroughs in spatial expansion. For example, the "replacing county with district" planning policy centered in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province reduced a lack of intercity administrative coordination, which demonstrated the paramount role of governmental support in the urbanization process. In addition, the construction of new urban areas moves cities closer to their social and economic goals. Nevertheless, China's "ghost town" phenomenon, in which large urban areas were built but remain mostly unoccupied, was a lesson learned from a blind pursuit of urban expansion.

Secondly, construction in transportation systems forms the basis for economic development and provides important guidance in the urbanization process, for which China proposed the "two vertical and three horizontal" railway system. The land-bridge channel and Yangtze River Tunnel are horizontals. Coastal, Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Guangzhou, and Baotou-Kunming channels are verticals.

Meanwhile, substantial parts of Africa are suffering from poor infrastructure. Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, has not yet established a street number system, let alone the construction of municipal infrastructure and transportation systems. To this end, there is vast potential for cooperation between China and Africa in the transportation sector.

The environmental cost of China's urbanization process is also growing with the country's GDP. As the second largest CO2 emitter, China will employ a long-term eco-development strategy. Similarly, Africa has urgent needs for industrial development, and therefore the evolutionary view on eco-friendly cities will also have a profound impact on Africa's future urbanization.

Renovation of old towns and construction of new cities are important parts of urbanization. As Lewis Mumford, an American modern philosopher and planner, pointed out, "The city is the cultural container". That is, its precise and compact structure is perfect for preserving and bequeathing achievements of human civilization.

How do you protect traditional culture and reserve modern spaces in the renovation of old towns? How do you inject local elements and avoid the absence of cultural identity in the construction of new cities? These are challenging questions that have not yet been solved during China's urbanization. Although the Chinese government has enforced stronger protection of historical sites, they still need fulfillment on the legislative and planning level. As the origin of human civilization, Africa should also incorporate the protection of local traditional culture into its urban construction.

In the past 60 years, China has made contributions to Africa's urbanization in various ways, including Chinese-aided projects such as the Tazara Railway, which linked Tanzania and Zambia in the 1970s; the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa; hospitals and schools, as well as a large number of cooperative projects such as the planning of the Luanda Administration Center in Angola.

The Sharm el-Sheikh Action Plan adopted by the China-Africa Cooperation Forum in 2009 specifically placed urbanization cooperation in the framework of the forum. The urbanization process in Africa offers new opportunities for exchange and cooperation between China and Africa.

The author is deputy president and chief architect at Tong Ji Architectural Design (Group) Co Ltd. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/02/2015 page11)