China wants sustainable cities and in March it published a new urbanisation plan for 2014 to 2020, according to the China Dialogue.
The plan calls for “urban space to be optimised through public transport, high-capacity infrastructure and mixed-use development. These ideas are closely linked to China’s energy-saving and emissions-reduction needs.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly these ideas are not at all unfamiliar in Australia. What might be unfamiliar is the rapidity with which China might implement common sense and logic in its cities – unlike the Abbott government, which ditched its major cities unit as one of its first acts of environmental vandalism.
In China, new concepts include: transport-oriented development, mixed communities, urban growth boundaries and intensive urban development.
Download China Dialogue’s special publication, Reimagining China’s Cities.
Read the whole story.