New Town Demonstrations Gain Momentum | February 2007
In the coming two decades, it is projected that 300 million + people in China will migrate to urban areas. China’s national goal is to develop new towns within major municipalities that build upon existing communities and embody the principles of a circular economy and a resource conservation society.
The China US Center is assisting in this movement by demonstrating how the sustainable design of new towns and their development can generate multiple economic opportunities while protecting ecosystems and building vibrant communities. A team of China US Center representatives recently conducted site tours and reviews of projects proposed by local governments and developers to evaluate their potential as new town demonstrations.
The evaluation team was led by Madame Nie Meisheng, President of the China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce, and included Zhang Xuezhou, Secretary General of CRECC, Dr. Peng Sizhen, Director of the Clean Technology Development Division for the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21 – the Center’s China Secretariat, and Miansheng Wang, Managing Director of the Center’s US Secretariat.
The team’s schedule included detailed evaluation of the demonstration opportunity for the New High Tech Industrial Zone in Liuzhou, Guangxi Autonomous Region, and review of new proposals from Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Municipality of Tianjin in Eastern China.
Key criteria in considering the suitability of the proposed projects are their potential to demonstrate design standards for:
- social engagement and community
- water and soil quality
- habitat and biodiversity
- sustainable energy use and generation
- land use
- urban environment and health
- transfer of sustainable technologies and products
China is rapidly urbanizing and the consequences of design choices for new towns are enormous – not just for China but for the entire planet. The design and development of new towns can either repeat the mistakes of the past or be an arena of profound and positive economic, environmental and social change. The Center’s initiative in new towns aims to support this positive change by helping to set the standards for sustainable design and building the human and organizational capacity to take these standards to scale.
For further information, please contact the Center at info@chinauscenter.org.