Scores of such projects in the works, some with foreign partners
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
BEIJING - HOME to polluted rivers, smog-filled cities and factories belching out Earth-warming carbon emissions, China often grabs headlines for its notorious environmental problems.
But what is less known is that the country is also at the forefront of bold experiments to build ecological cities that could show the way forward in sustainable urban living for the rest of the world.
Architects and urban planners told The Straits Times that scores of such projects are in the works here locally, as well as with foreign partners including those from Britain, Germany, Finland and Singapore.
They are looking to build small 'eco-cities' in China where vibrant economic activity and growth will not exact the toll that energy-guzzling, car-filled modern cities inflict on the environment. In other words, urban design, buildings, road layouts, modes of transportation and clean technology will all meet strict green requirements.
Nowhere else in the world was there more activity in developing eco-cities than in China, said Mr Paul Downton, principal architect and urban ecologist of Adelaide-based Ecopolis Architects.
'China is the absolute visionary leader in this field. Lots of people elsewhere are talking about eco-cities but China is actually doing it,' he told The Straits Times.
Beyond China, experts say the only other project making waves is the 'zero-carbon' city known as the 'Masdar' project in the United Arab Emirates, designed by renowned British architect Norman Foster, in the desert outside Abu Dhabi for 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city will run on renewable, mostly solar, energy and have no cars.
The feasibility of eco-cities has been debated since the 1970s, said Mr Richard Register, founder and president of California-based non-profit educational group Ecocity Builders.
But actual projects have largely not taken off because of 'business approaches that have given us the wild idea that we can have human economic growth forever on a finite planet', said Mr Register, 64, the author of books on ecological city design and planning.
'In the 1970s, there was the beginning of a wake-up about the environment. But people preferred to have more cars and prosperity of the strictly human, not ecologically inclusive sort,' he said.
Now, growing environmental awareness, climate change and road congestion are reviving those ideas.
In China, an environmental change of heart among top leaders, and the resulting political will to tackle the problems, is also helping eco-city projects take off faster than elsewhere, said experts.
Among the many green issues facing Beijing is the breakneck rate of urbanisation, which is putting immense strain on cities.
China's urban population surged from less than 18 per cent of the total population in 1978, the year sweeping economic reforms launched blistering growth, to 44 per cent (577 million out of 1.3 billion people) in 2006.
By 2035, some 70 per cent of Chinese will live in urban areas. The rise stems not only from a rural-urban migration due to better employment opportunities and living standards in cities but also the re-designation of large counties and towns.
Although China's urbanisation rate is below the world average of about 50 per cent, the speed at which rural populations are moving into cities here is unprecedented.
This had pushed China's environment to breaking point, said the World Wildlife Fund's Beijing-based climate expert Chen Dongmei.
Expanding cities are devouring arable land and forests. Growing enough food to feed a growing and increasingly wealthy population is straining land resources.
A surging car population is polluting the air. Soaring consumption of natural resources such as oil is putting pressure on domestic as well as global supplies.
To carry on this way spells doom, said Ms Chen: 'It's a matter of survival that we rethink the way we live and build cities so that there is a more balanced interaction with the environment.'
A joint Singapore-China project to build an eco-city for 300,000 people on 30 sq km of salt pans and marsh in the northern port city of Tianjin will attempt to do just that.
It intends to stand out from other projects by putting an emphasis on building a strong sense of community among residents, leveraging on 40 years of experience in fostering bonds between people from disparate backgrounds.
'It's not just the hardware, but changing the mindsets of people and inculcating in them a whole new way of thinking where they give the environment priority,' said a source close to the project.
The People's Association, which oversees grassroots organisations in Singapore, will set up community centres and other grassroots mechanisms that will draw the community closer.
But eco-cities are not the solution to all green problems, cautioned Mr Christopher Choa, of the London office of Edaw, an architecture and environmental consulting firm.
'Eco-cities make the news as test beds for new planning strategies and green technologies, but risk being new-age potemkin villages,' said Mr Choa, who was formerly based in Shanghai. 'They might distract attention from other issues that need fixing and aren't quite as trendy.'
To reduce its carbon emissions and resource consumption, Shanghai, for example, might be better off improving mass transit than ploughing billions of yuan into an 'idealistic' eco-city, said Mr Choa.
Others, however, say there are no alternatives.
'Eco-cities are the only way we've got to fix the impact we've made on the planet,' said Mr Downton. 'There really isn't anything else out there.'
