by Neysa Pranger, Director of Public Affairs, RPA and Spotlight on the Region guest editor (Alex Marshall is on vacation)
In three short weeks, with the start of the Beijing Olympics, television sets across the U.S. and around the globe will be tuned to all things China. Undoubtedly, amidst images of world-class athletes springing onto balance beams, diving off high platforms and racing around tracks, there will be stories about the country--how it has changed as a nation and how it is shaping the face of the world. In recent months, three RPA staff--Bob Yaro, Jeff Zupan and Sharath Vallabhajosyula--have each travelled to this storied land and brought back very different, and sometimes contradictory, accounts. In anticipation of conversations turning to China in the coming weeks, we thought we'd share their stories with you.
Keeping up with the Pearl River Delta
by Bob Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association
I recently had a chance to visit China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) Megaregion, encompassing much of Guangdong Province and the cities of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Macau. The PRD has a population of 50 million, about the same as the Northeast Megaregion between Boston and Washington, with its 48 million residents.
The PRD is China's economic and manufacturing powerhouse, providing many of the consumer products found on the shelves of America's big box retail, discount and hardware stores. The region has industrialized at a breakneck pace over the past 30 years, while its cities have urbanized at an even more dramatic pace.
Since 1980, for example, Shenzhen has evolved from a small fishing community with 30,000 residents to a world-class city of 13 million, nearly twice the size of New York City. And, despite its rapid growth, the city is remarkably well serviced by modern road and rail infrastructure and parks, and appears to be quite livable.
Several aspects of the growth of this dynamic place caught my attention:
Despite its rapid pace of growth, the city has done an extraordinary job of building modern urban infrastructure. The Chinese government is now investing $50 billion in new high-speed passenger rail and goods movement networks for the PRD over a five-year period. By contrast, our federal government has disinvested in the Northeast corridor rail system for years, as Congress and the White House dither over whether we ought to have any national rail system at all.
The PRD is making major investments in expanded universities and research centers and urban quality of life. Their goal is to move up the value chain to higher value products and services produced by higher skilled labor. At the same time the government is consciously pushing lower value, heavily polluting industries to other regions of China and overseas. They are well aware that to attract and retain skilled workers they will need to improve the region's quality of life and environment, including the current dismal air and water quality. They are beginning to invest heavily in these improvements.
Hong Kong has already replaced nearly all of its manufacturing base with finance and service sector employment. Its expressed goal is to become the financial and commercial hub not only for the PRD, but for all of China and East Asia. It is competing with Shanghai for this role, betting that the rule of law, a highly skilled, English-speaking labor force, advanced infrastructure, and quality of life will give them an edge.
The stakes in this competition are high, given that China is expected to have a larger economy than either the U.S. or Europe within a couple of decades.
As a nation and as a region we should take heed of the aggressive economic development, infrastructure, education and quality-of- life investments being made in the Pearl River Delta and China as a whole. Our ability to compete globally will hinge on our willingness to make similar investments here.
Nee How
by Jeffrey Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation, RPA
Three weeks in China this past May visiting the usual tourist spots didn't stop me from the proverbial bus-man's holiday to Beijing, Wuhan, the Yangtze River and Three Gorges Dam, Chongqing, Xian, Kunming, Lijiang, Guilin and Shanghai.
As expected, traffic in the major cities--all cities are major cities in China--is congealing. In our only trip in a taxi we were stopped dead for 20 minutes on the streets of Shanghai. Expressways in urban areas are elevated (can you imagine building one of those in America in the 21st century?). Registering a vehicle in Shanghai costs $6,000 but that has not stopped the booming economy from adding new cars to the road at a rapid pace.
Bikes are still everywhere, and many boulevards have bike lanes, but rising affluence appears to be threatening the two-wheel transport. And walking is getting harder too, as urban space has been given to cars at the expense of pedestrians. Vehicles are given more space at major intersections, relegating pedestrians to elevated walkways, accessible by steep stairs or (often broken) escalators. In short, China is copying America's fealty to cars and taking it one step further by actually removing pedestrians, who are seen as barriers.
In Beijing, the land use-transit connection has not been made: high rises that are at least forty stories for offices and hotels and thirty for apartments, are going up everywhere, even where there are no subways to carry the added density of trips. Subway construction lags leading to high bus use, yet there is little sign of bus rapid transit.
Beijing's steroidal growth is quickly obliterating the Hutongs, the 19th Century residential areas. If you want to see China as it was, go soon and go to the smaller cities in the west as we did, and visit the villages in the countryside. But stay away from the earthquake fault lines. We were 400 miles away from the epicenter in the Three Gorges Dam locks when it hit and yet saw one ship rock wildly.
Last Stop: Yangtze River Delta
by Sharath Vallabhajosyula, Associate Planner, Regional Plan Association
Shanghai is growing, big time. For the last ten years, it has experienced double-digit economic growth and, as one of the great port cities of the world, today captures one-fourth of China's trade--about $140 billion dollars per year. The railway network is significantly expanding as eight light rail lines are in full operation, with another four expected to begin in the next two years. Urban development has been ramped up: numerous hubs and networks to expand and integrate the larger metro region have been completed or are under construction, the Huangpu River waterfront area is being developed and green space coverage has nearly doubled.
But problems loom, the primary of which is that the city is plagued with regional division amongst its nineteen districts. The lack of coordinated development plans and investments is resulting in inequitable expansion and creating social hierarchies not previously seen. Leaders in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) recognize that this disconnectedness is paralyzing movement and production that only integrated development plans can overcome.
Perhaps as a sign that Shanghai is taking to heart its responsibility to manage its growth and understand its challenges, the city's Mayor hosted a symposium last fall on the development of the Yangtze River Delta, at the mouth of which sits Shanghai, its economic center. The more than 1,000-person event brought scholars and planners from across the globe to discuss how growth can be better managed and integrated.
It was here that I presented a paper (2010 Expo Shanghai: A Yangtze River Delta (YRD) Megaregion Framework) proposing a Megaregion framework for the YRD--similar to that of RPA's America 2050 framework (www.America2050.org)--that urges a unified growth strategy that cuts across political boundaries. The paper also outlined how the 2010 World Exposition, entitled "Better City--Better Life," could be a catalyst for economic development. The Expo, designed to showcase the recent growth and development Shanghai has experienced, is expected to attract record-breaking numbers of visitors, will be an opportunity to attract international investments and secure Shanghai as a leader in the world's economy.
Growing pains for Shanghai are inevitable while it undergoes rapid expansion, development, as well as economic and social progress. But the city is well positioned to harness its growth and become a prime example of how forward-thinking and sustainable development can help communities become more efficient and generate opportunities as Shanghai, and the rest of China, sprints to the top of the global economic ladder.
@RegionalPlan