China’s urban policy unit met for the first time in nearly four decades.
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After decades of rapid urbanization, China is taking a step back and thinking more critically about the future of its booming cities. The country’s urban policy unit recently met for the first time in 38 years to craft a set of guidelines for future development.
According to City Metric, since the Central Urban Work Conference last met in 1978, China’s urban population has jumped from under 20 percent to 57 percent. That boom’s largely due to cities building hundreds of new sub-cities and towns, leading to sprawling urban areas that are difficult to navigate without a car. These cities were often thrown up fast and with little attention to sustainability; the average life span of a building in China is only 25 to 30 years. (By comparison, the average lifespan of a U.S. building is 74 years, and in the U.K. it’s 132 years.)
“The breakneck speed of urbanization during this era often outpaced quality planning,” say the authors of the City Metric article, “and China gradually became a land of single-use, car-dependent, Soviet-style superblocks.”
The new guidelines (posted in full in Chinese here; a summary in English is available here) released Feb. 21 are aimed at refocusing China’s urban areas from building as fast as possible to revitalizing existing spaces into sustainable, dynamic communities.
Key recommendations in the guidelines include:
1. Denser street networks and narrow roads
2. Historical preservation
3. Expanded public transportation networks
4. Increased public and green space
5. More energy-efficient and high-quality construction
6. Enforcing urban growth boundaries and reducing sprawl
The focus on sustainable development is in line with the country’s recently released five-year economic plan. The Diplomat reports that China aims to double its 2010 GDP and per capita income levels by 2020, primarily through new innovation and technological advances. Premier Li Keqiang’s government work report released Saturday outlined a number of policies, including tax incentives for high-tech firms and encouraging alternative methods for funding startups, including crowdsourcing, angel investors and venture capital, aimed at driving innovation.
The country’s 13th five-year plan, which covers the period from 2016-2020, also puts a focus on green development — particularly in the country’s largest cities. Li said he wants the country’s major cities to have “good or excellent” air quality for 80 percent of the year. And a few of the $800 billion renminbi ($122.7 billion U.S.) worth of major projects Li mentioned include projects that could reduce carbon emissions, such as hydropower, smart grids and urban rail transit.
However, The Diplomat argues that the environment still is by no means China’s top priority: “While China is saying all the right things about its environment — promising to cut emissions from coal use, increase the use of renewable energy, and punish polluters — the environment is not given as much emphasis as other areas of focus.”
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Kelsey E. Thomas is a writer and editor based in the most upper-left corner of the country.She writes about urban policy, equitable developmentand the outdoors (but also about nearly everything else) with a focus on solutions-oriented journalism. She is a former associate editor and current contributing editor at Next City.
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FAQs
We can see that buildings in China only last for approximately 30 years on average. There is also some statistical data on building lifespans in different countries, see Table 1 (right). It can be seen that the building lifespan in China is much shorter than that in other countries.
Are Chinese cities developed? ›
In the long run, after accomplishing the initial goal of urbanisation, Chinese cities are now entering a new stage of high-quality development.
How many cities does China build a year? ›
According to Public Radio International, for the past two decades China has built twenty new cities each year. These urban centers draw people from China's countryside and from around the world to take advantage of new economic opportunities.
What is the city cluster plan in China? ›
China's city cluster plan consists of 8 medium and 8 small sized clusters as well as 3 “super” clusters. The central government prioritises these 3 super clusters to become world-class clusters by 2020, meaning that they will be the most innovative and internationally competitive, driving national economic development.
Can a building last 1000 years? ›
The Ise Jingu temple complex in Japan has survived for well over 1000 years despite using a relatively simple timber frame structure. It remains because every 20 years, the main structures of the temple are completely rebuilt from scratch.
What was the longest structure ever built in China? ›
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states. It is the longest structure humans have ever built.
Are Chinese cities well designed? ›
On average, Chinese cities are much more expansive and much more compact than European cities. In China, there exist more than 200 cities with at least one million inhabitants. Among them, there are at least six where the population count exceeds ten million.
Are Chinese cities better than USA? ›
In Kearney's 2020 GCI, 18 Chinese cities ranked among the top 125 global cities. The US came in second with 14 cities and India came in third with seven. While there are more global cities in China, on average a global city in China ranks lower (82) compared to those in other countries (31 in the US or 33 in Germany).
Is China more advanced than the US? ›
By 2020, this had grown by approximately four-fifths to 139.2 percent. In other words, China's gross innovation capabilities (e.g., R&D expenditures, venture capital (VC) investments, advanced-industry output, patent output, etc.) are now almost 40 percent greater than those of the United States.
Why China has so many big cities? ›
China's urbanization has resulted from continuing state efforts, including municipal territory, migration from rural areas to urban areas, and the process of agricultural industrialization making increasing amounts of formerly rural labor available for urban work.
A lot of it is because China's cities are just newer, with virtually no buildings older than 30 years old and most buildings younger than 10 years.
What is considered a big city in China? ›
The five largest cities in China by population are Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou.
How many empty cities has China built? ›
This is reflected in the ghost cities in China itself: the World Economic Forum reports that there are at least 24 in the country and another 65 million vacant housing units. There are a few reasons for this over-speculation.
How many mega cities are there in China? ›
Following this standard, among the 297 cities analyzed in the Index, there are 17 megacities, 73 super large cities, 107 Type-I large cities, 79 Type-II large cities and 21 medium and small sized cities, according to China's 7th National Population Census.
What is the life expectancy of a building? ›
The average lifespan of a house in the United States is between 50 and 63 years, from construction to demolition.
How old are the oldest buildings in China? ›
The oldest building still standing in China is believed to be the Temple of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong Province. The temple was first built in 478 BC and has been rebuilt and expanded over the centuries.
How long are buildings made to last? ›
In general, the lifespan of a building based on building materials ranges anywhere from 30 to 50 years to hundreds of years in structures like cathedrals, churches, and government buildings. The longest-lasting building materials are wood, brick, stone, concrete, steel, and iron.
