China reveals plan for better cities
Print Edition
CHINA has revealed plans to make its sprawling cities more inclusive, safer and better to live in as it outlined its urban planning vision yesterday.
In a statement released after a two-day Central Urban Work Conference, which ended on Monday and was attended by President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, policy-makers pledged to transform urban development and improve city management.
The last time China held such a high-level meeting was in 1978, when only 18 percent of the population lived in cities. By the end of 2011, more than 50 percent of the population was calling the city home.
While the “triumph of the city,” which characterized the past decades, has brought about significant social and economic change, it has also spawned problems such as traffic congestion, air and water pollution and a stretched public safety network.
Yesterday, 40 cities in north China issued alerts for air pollution.
Such urban ills have provoked public anger, piling pressure on city planners to find workable solutions.
The conference said livable cities should be the central goal of urban planning, and urban development should focus on creating environments where people can live in harmony with each other and nature.
The government will take a more sophisticated approach to urban planning, and encourage enterprises and citizens to participate in creating the cities of the future, according to the statement.
Specifically, the country will complete renovation of rundown urban areas and dilapidated housing by 2020, the statement said. Renovation is a crucial part of providing low-income residents with affordable housing.
Construction standards and project quality will be raised and energy conservation stressed with safety the top priority.
“Safety should underpin every aspect of urban work,” the statement said.
The emphasis comes in the wake of accidents that have sent shockwaves through planning departments across the country.
A landslide hit an industrial park in Shenzhen on Sunday after a huge pile of construction waste collapsed, killing one person and leaving 76 people missing.
On August 12, two explosions ripped through a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals at Tianjin Port. The blast claimed 173 lives, including 104 firefighters.
Teng Wuxiao, director of Fudan University public safety research center, said: “In China, the government can deal with the aftermath very well, but more must be done to detect risks and prevent accidents.”
China’s urbanization drive will integrate rural residents into cities by granting migrant workers household registration, as long as they have lived and worked steadily there for a set period, the statement said.
While nearly 55 percent of the population lives in cities, fewer than 40 percent are registered urban residents. Many migrant workers are not entitled to equal education, employment rights and social security services.
China plans to raise the number of registered urban residents to around 45 percent by 2020 and will promote equal access to basic public services to all permanent city residents, the statement said.
The size of a city shall not exceed the available resources and environment, it added. Currently, Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing all have populations exceeding 20 million.
The statement said China will control city development in a bid to address aimless expansion. More will be done to upgrade city clusters in the eastern region, such as encouraging migration to central and western regions, according to the statement.
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