Bina, O., Balula, L., Ricci, A., Ma, Z. (2013) Sustainability dimension of urban infrastructure and services - URBACHINA State of the Art Report. Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS), Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems (ISIS), and Renmin University of China (RENDA), February 2013. (original) (raw)
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2018
Cities are places of social innovation and engines of economic growth. They attract dynamic groups of society, they provide vast opportunities of inter-action, communication and exchange of knowledge, and they thereby lay the foundation for attracting large shares of R&D investment and an innovative service sector. Thus, social integration is directly linked with economic prosperity of cities. This is true for European and Chinese urban development but especially relevant for China as, promoted by vari-ous levels of governments, the country is transitioning from a less urban to a more urbanized society with increasingly intensi ed land use and higher quality of life.
Strategies for sustainable urban development: towards green(er) Chinese cities?
Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 2014
An important driving force behind urban expansion is the growth of the urban population. But for Europe, this is not a sufficient explanation. The major trend is that European cities have become much less compact. Since the mid-1950s European cities have expanded on average by 78%, whereas the population has grown by only 33%. In the PLUREL project-an integrated project within the EU's 6th Research Framework Programme-more than 100 researchers from 15 countries analysed the impacts of urban land consumption at a pan-European level and, through six European and one Chinese case studies, identified how land use conflicts and the pressure towards periurban areas can be strategically managed in different development and regulatory contexts. To summarise, the following strategies were identified as important steps towards more sustainable urban-rural futures: (i) better coordination of transport, land use and open space planning; (ii) urban containment and densificationdevelopment of a green compact city; (iii) preservation of blue and green infrastructure; and (iv) preservation of agricultural land and the promotion of local production. The need also remains to strengthen governance at the regional level while at the pan-European level there is clearly a need for more policy attention to be given to urban-rural linkages.
Remaking Sustainable Urbanism: Space, Scale and Governance in the New Urban Era, 2018
This chapter opens with the contrasting vignette of a small Irish new town and a highly urbanised Chinese mega-city for two reasons: the first is to highlight the at times fuzzy but nevertheless real links and networks across space and time that tie different modes of urban, economic and environmental development together. Indeed, Shannon and Shenzhen are linked not just to each other, but to the hundreds if not thousands of other SEZS worldwide that have been built since the 1950s as experimental spaces. At heart, the fact that networks focused on future city visions and projects exist in and between China and other countries is testament to the enduring allure of thinking about urban, and therefore societal, futures.
The Global Studies Journal Modern City Re-invented A Conceptual Model for Sustainable Urban Form
With the world population reaching 7.2 billion today and, according to the United Nations Population Division, expected to mushroom to 9.6 billion by 2050, the need has never been more crucial for developing an urban model that accommodates the inherent problems of rapidly increasing population growth. The solutions for creating environments that can successfully deal with this massive urban expansion lie in an urban form defined by public transportation and high-density/mixed use development overseen by a modern management system, combined with a focus on sustainability including close-in agriculture and food production. In addition to natural population growth, the pressure on cities will also come from the migration of rural populations to urban areas, particularly in developing countries. Today, 50 percent of the world's population or 3.6 billion people live in urban areas of which 1.8 billion live in the 527 largest cities from Tokyo, Japan to Salem, India. By 2050, it is projected that 75 percent or 7.2 billion people will be living in urban areas. This means that 3.6 billion people will have to be accommodated in existing and new urban settlements. If we assume that the 527 largest urban cities will act as major population magnets, they will double their size absorbing 1.8 billion people. This will still leave a need for new settlements to accommodate the 1.8 billion remaining people. This paper provides solutions for a sustainable urban form based on an infrastructure framework, which will allow other forms of sustainability to take place. This proposal can have a substantial impact on international applications particularly in China and India.
Sustainable Cities and Society, 2012
In 2011, China announced that it has reached an urbanisation rate of 50%. If we take rapid urbanisation as a given and that it is already well underway, it is still widely unclear what research needs to be conducted and policy changes made to support municipalities of fast transforming cities and to avoid repeating the development mistakes that have occurred in industrialised nations, i.e. driving urban growth with high consumption patterns without fully considering the environmental and social needs and occupants' behaviour and aspirations. The scale and pace of change requires a solid systems approach of urban development.
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE URBANISATION IN FUTURE CHINA
putting huge pressure on the society, environment and services in the existing cities. The growth of large regional centres is usually seen as an unwelcome but unavoidable both source and result of the Chinese urbanisation. The paper disputes this 'unavoidability' claim. The reasons for the present day urbanisation and concurrent 'de-ruralisation' processes in China are outlined. Opportunities arising from IT-age technologies as life style-generating agents are presented. They are matched with the corresponding characteristics of the rural setting. The paper examines a possibility of urbanisation based on the existing village networks. A brief presentation of various possible social and economic benefits, derived from the village urbanisation, follows. The offered solution could adequately address issues of accommodation and job provision without losing energy expenditure and sustainable use of scarce resources from its focus. Environmental benefits stemming from this different approach to problems of development are then discussed. The paper is concluded with an attempt to predict whether (if at all) and to what extent the proposal of the urban village is a feasible alternative to the current trends in the most populous country in the world.