8/05/2012 On May 3, Gengtian Zhang, Director of Research at the Urban China Initiative (UCI), gave a lecture on how to promote healthy urbanization for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in Sichuan Province. Most of the 100 delegates at the talk were urban planning and policy directors and professionals, mainly from the NDRC offices for Sichuan Province, Kuoquan County, and individual cities in Sichuan. Zhang's lecture described the direction and focus of urbanization development inChina, including some research results from an international perspective, and proposed how to promote healthy urban development in China's cities. The lecture focused on six main ideas critical to China's continuing urbanization, including promoting a healthy model of urban development, improving the quality of urban planning, promoting the welfare of migrant workers and their integration into urban areas, improving China's city layouts, advancing urban agglomeration and megaregion development, and improving urbanization policies and regulations. Zhang opened by discussing the significance of promoting the urbanization process from the perspective of expanding domestic demand and enhancing economic and social development. He also described the main findings of UCI's recent report, "The 2011 Urban Sustainability Index", particularly relating to its implications for sustainable development. He stressed that we should regard migrant worker integration into cities as most important task in the next phase of China's urbanization. In regards to urban layout and physical planning, he described the future Functional Area Plan for Chinese cities, including the "two horizontal and three vertical" urbanization strategy pattern (to make Lianyungang-Urumqi channel and Yangtze channel two horizontal axis, and make coastal line, Haerbin-Beijing-Guangzhou channel and Baotou-Kunming channel three vertical axis of Urbanization zoning strategy

[From: Scientific.net] Author(s): Cai Gui Zheng et al. Source: Advanced Materials Research. Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 472-475, p. 231-238, 2012. DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.472-475.231 ABSTRACT: This paper, based on the current state and problems of saving and intensive land use system of urban-rural integration in Chongqing, in which methods of theoretical approach and system analysis are applied, brings up three mechanisms as: (1) the connecting of the increase of urban construction and the decrease of rural residential area; (2) the connecting of sprawling and farmland consolidation; (3) the connecting of intensive land-use in urban-rural area. At last, the paper builds up the saving and intensive land use system of urban-rural integration follow as: (1) perfecting land surveying system; (2) strengthening land statistics system; (3) perfecting land evaluation system; (4) clearing land property right system; (5) improving land registration system; (6) refining land use system; (7) building land tax system; (8) explicating land consolidation system.

Author(s): Xu Yuhui)1; Lv Yanke; HuangYing Source: ADVANCES IN CIVIL ENGINEERING, PTS 1-6 Book Series: Advanced Materials Research Volume: 255-260 Pages: 1607-1611 DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.255-260.1607 Part: Part 1-6 Published: 2011 Conference: International Conference on Civil Engineering and Building Materials (CEBM) Location: Kunming, PEOPLES R CHINA Date: JUL 29-31, 2011 Sponsor(s): Kunming Univ Sci & Technol; Int Assoc Sci & High Technol Abstract: Along with the Reform and opening-up and the establishment of Market Economy, the economy and living standards of our citizen are improving, nonetheless the gap between rich and poor is widening in the society, so the social groups is gradually getting differentiation. Especially the perspective of residential segregation with live position and live quality for represent. At the same time, the construction of the public rental housing which become the current social hot point usually neglect the social influence resulted by residential segregation. Taking the public rental housing in metropolitan area of Chongqing as an example, the paper tallies up the successful strategy of the construction of public rental housing from address and construct mode, land and funds cost, guarantee object and facilities kit in order to guide the construction of the public rental housing from residential segregation to residential introjection.

May 18th, 2012 Authors: Jonathan Unger, ANU, and Him Chung, HKBU Across China, ongoing industrialisation and urbanisation has led to many local villagers being pushed off their land, sometimes with inadequate compensation. But in some parts of the country - and especially in the southern province of Guangdong - rural communities retain collective ownership of much of their land when it is converted into urban neighbourhoods or industrial zones. In these areas, Mao-era rural collectives have not disappeared. Instead, they have been able to convert themselves into property companies that sometimes generate very sizeable incomes from industrial zones and urban property. Every native villager owns a share in the property company, which is really the old rural collective with a new title [...]

Authors: Cai, Jianming; Yang, Zhenshan; Webster, Douglas; Song, Tao; Gulbrandson, Andrew Source: Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Volume 53, Number 1, 1 April 2012 , pp. 38-55(18) Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Abstract: Abstract The spectacular growth of Chinese cities since the 1980s is often theorised as reflecting the advantages of latecomer development (ALD). ALD has been more effective in cosmopolitan, globally accessible coastal cities than outer cities. As leading cities, like Shanghai, close the development gap, the potential for `easy' ALD growth falls off rapidly. Because institution building is more difficult than firm-based growth, ALD strategies may generate rapid short-term economic growth but not sustainable development. Accordingly, Chongqing municipality, with a population of 33 million, in West China, is pursuing a beyond latecomer advantage model. This is characterised by: (i) reducing poverty and rural-urban disparity through accelerated urbanisation, rural-urban integration and emphasising human resource development; (ii) upgrading the value added of Chongqing's economy through targeting of FDI and incentives to local start-ups; (iii) endogenous development, reducing risks from external shocks; (iv) Hukou reform; (v) establishing a land use conversion certificate market to rationalise land use; (vi) emphasis on morality to address crime/corruption; (vii) recognition of the importance of amenity in attracting investment and talent; and (viii) establishing a longer developmental time perspective. This paper explores this Chongqing model in detail. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8373.2012.01474.x

"Building local ties and creating a long-term future in Chongqing is the goal of BritCham's development forum, notes Thomas Vincent. Chongqing is urbanising at a tremendous rate. Two thousand people a day are moving into built up areas across the Municipality, maintaining a steady stream of demand for the construction of residential and commercial property. It could be said that Chongqing is currently at the forefront of urbanisation in the entire world, and so there is nowhere more fitting to educate and inform people about the need for sustainability."

August 19th, 2011 Author: Kam Wing Chan, University of Washington "In the popular media and the business world, urbanisation is often cited as the fundamental driver of global economic growth, especially for the next few decades. The assumption is that a rural-urban shift will transform poor farmers into industrial and office workers, raising their incomes and creating a massive consumer class. Imagine farmers who once led simple, subsistence lives becoming workers in the city, buying up apartments and furnishing them with appliances."

June 23rd, 2012 Author: Kam Wing Chan, University of Washington "Last year, for the first time in Chinese history more people lived in cities and towns than in the countryside. Some 690 million urban dwellers now account for 51.3 per cent of China's total population. Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz has said this urban transition will be one of the two main forces shaping the world in the 21st century...."

[ScienceDirect, via BiblioSHS] Auteurs : Cai Jianming, Yang Zhenshan, Webster Douglas, Song Tao, Gulbrandson Andrew Paru dans : ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT Volume: 53 Issue: 1 Special Issue: SI Pages: 38-55 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2012.01474.x ABSTRACT: The spectacular growth of Chinese cities since the 1980s is often theorised as reflecting the advantages of latecomer development (ALD). ALD has been more effective in cosmopolitan, globally accessible coastal cities than outer cities. As leading cities, like Shanghai, close the development gap, the potential for easy ALD growth falls off rapidly. Because institution building is more difficult than firm-based growth, ALD strategies may generate rapid short-term economic growth but not sustainable development. Accordingly, Chongqing municipality, with a population of 33 million, in West China, is pursuing a beyond latecomer advantage model. This is characterised by: (i) reducing poverty and rural-urban disparity through accelerated urbanisation, rural-urban integration and emphasising human resource development; (ii) upgrading the value added of Chongqing's economy through targeting of FDI and incentives to local start-ups; (iii) endogenous development, reducing risks from external shocks; (iv) Hukou reform; (v) establishing a land use conversion certificate market to rationalise land use; (vi) emphasis on morality to address crime/corruption; (vii) recognition of the importance of amenity in attracting investment and talent; and (viii) establishing a longer developmental time perspective. This paper explores this Chongqing model in detail.

English.news.cn 2012-07-01 13:48:39 YICHANG, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The Hanyi Railway, a section of a major high-speed rail corridor between the eastern metropolis of Shanghai and southwest China's city of Chengdu, opened on Sunday. The 293-km Hanyi Railway links Wuhan and Yichang, two large cities in central China's Hubei province. The railway will reduce travel time between the cities to one hour and 39 minutes, said Yang Tao, an official with the Wuhan railway bureau. The Hanyi Railway is part of the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu Railway, or Huhanrong Railway, a major east-west high-speed rail corridor outlined in China's national high-speed railway development plan. The 2,078-km railway will travel though four provinces and two municipalities, connecting the cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, Hefei, Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu. Most sections of the Huhanrong Railway are in operation, with construction on the last section slated to be completed in 2013 [...]

UPDATE: China Average Housing Price Rises in June After 9 Months of Decline - CREIS - China housing prices rebounded for the first time in June on month after nine months of decline, according to a private data provider -- Average housing price in June was CNY8,688 a square meter, rising 0.05% from CNY8,684 in May, reversing from May's 0.31% decline -- Housing prices in Inner Mongolia's Baotou city and Beijing rose by the widest margin, at 2.6% and 2.3%, respectively -- Sales have improved as China eases monetary policy, and prices are rising as developers have started to reduce discounts, analysts say (Adds comments from analysts in third to fourth paragraphs, 13th to 14th paragraphs, a homebuyer's comment in 10th to 12th paragraphs and background onrecent property easing moves by local governments in the final paragraphs.) By Esther Fung SHANGHAI--The average price of housing in 100 major Chinese cities recorded its first sequential rise in June after nine straight months of decline, in a further sign that the housing market is turning a corner, though analysts say a robust rebound in prices remains unlikely. A survey of property developers and real-estate firms showed the average price of housing in June was CNY8,688 a square meter, rising 0.05% from CNY8,684 in May, and overturning May's 0.31% decline, data provider China Real Estate Index System said Monday. "I believe the housing market has bottomed out," said Nicole Wong, a property analyst from CLSA. She also said that inventory will likely peak in the third quarter and prices will rise by a modest 5% by the fourth quarter, as demand for new launches has been strengthening in the past few months and developers don't need to lower their prices too much to attract buyers. On an on-year basis, the average housing price fell for a third consecutive month, sliding 1.90% from CNY8,856 booked in June 2011, and accelerating from May's 1.53% decline. The survey, compiled wi

China Stories - Street Art Diaporama de 11 photos sur l'art de rue, prises à Chongqing et Pékin

China Stories - City Architecture Diaporama de 7 photos prises à Chongqing et Pékin

By Ruth Alexander, BBC News 29 January 2012 Which is the biggest city in the world? And why is such a simple question so difficult to answer? If you search on the internet for the world's biggest city, you'll find various different candidates: Tokyo, Seoul, Chongqing, Shanghai... Which one you regard as the holder of the title, all depends on what you mean by "city". Most experts will tell you that Tokyo is the world's largest metropolis, with a population of about 36 million people. But the core of the city has only eight million people living in it. The reason it gets into the record books is that the surrounding region - which includes the country's second city Yokohama, as well as 86 other towns and cities - has become so built up that it is now one huge continuous urbanised area.

JOHANNESBURG, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A high-powered delegation from South Africa's richest province Gauteng is on way to China to seek more investment in infrastructure projects, it was announced on Tuesday [3 July]. The delegation, led by Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane, is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Chongqing Municipality, according to Khulu Radebe, Gauteng head of the Department of Economic Development. The MoU was intended to boost Gauteng's economic infrastructure, green economy and skills transfer, amongst other things, Radebe said. Through the visit, Gauteng was hoping to learn from China as South Africa plans to roll-out massive infrastructure projects in line with the priorities of the national government, he said. "As a developing economy, the Gauteng province is hoping to learn a lot from Chongqing. They are leaders in the manufacturing sector." "We are also hopin! g to attract more Chinese investors to Gauteng. As soon as Mokonyane signs the MoU, residents of Gauteng can look forward to projects that will create jobs and boost Gauteng's growth to maintain the province's status as an economic hub of South Africa," he said. Tshwane Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, who is also part of the delegation, said partnership with China was significant in many fields. "Our people's lives will improve because after this partnership is sealed, we will see a massive roll-out of infrastructure projects. Already in Tshwane, we have a number of flagship projects in the pipeline including the construction of the Tshwane International Conference Center and Rainbow Junction, amongst others," said Ramokgopa. During the visit, Mokonyane is expected to visit Chongqing's Urban Planning Gallery and a Rail Transit Manufacturing Company, and will also address the Chongqing-Gauteng Economic and Trade Seminar, according to the So! uth African Government Communication and Information System. Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in

Author: Zhou, Nan Publication Date: 05-15-2012 Publication Info: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Texte intégral téléchargeable sur le site des archives ouvertes de l'Université de Californie : http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/1sp9m82g Executive Summary "Local level actions and leadership are crucial for achieving national energy-saving or greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction targets. Local level actions can also assist in proving the effectiveness of new policies or initiatives by demonstrating them at a smaller scale. It is often also shown that innovative policies or practices can be relatively easily implemented at the local level because of the reduced scale and the possibility of exemption from some national legislative bureaucracy. Following success at the local level, the pilot policies or practices could be replicated to other localities or expanded to a national program. For example, China's Top-1000 Enterprise Program was drawn upon the successful experience from a demonstration program implemented in two steel mills in Shandong province that was modeled after the voluntary agreements program in The Netherlands (Price et al. 2003)."

Auteur : Chang Cheng Paru le : June 21, 2012 "New laws to boost the citizen role in green governance are major gains for Chinese civil society - at least on paper. Chang Cheng looks at highs and lows of the last decade."

Auteur : David Pilling December 26, 2011 "By 2050, 75% of the world will live in cities. Faced with this inexorable shift, humanity's goal should be to manage our future in a metropolis, not to succumb to it, writes David Pilling"

DOI: http://dx.doi.org.gate3.inist.fr/10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.11.010 [ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : Jing Wang et al. Paru dans : Land Use Policy, Volume 29, Issue 4, October 2012, Pages 737-749 Abstract China has extremely scarce land resources compared to the world average. There is an urgent need for studies of the current situation and the trends in land-use change and assessment of the performance of land policies in China. Assessment of land-use change has long been hindered by a lack of accurate and reliable data. This paper uses the data obtained from the national land surveys of 1996 and land-use change surveys from 1997 to 2008, to analyze changes in land use and the policy dimension driving forces related to the changes, especially cultivated land, forestry land, grassland, as well as developed land. The aim of this analysis will be to derive the physical, social and economical driving forces of those changes to grasp the trends in land-use change and the effects of land policies and to formulate strategies for the protection and sustainable use of agricultural land. The results indicate that, although the overall change in land use was not large, cultivated land was significantly reduced and developed land rapidly increased. A great deal of high quality cultivated land was changed to developed land and low quality cultivated land generated from unused land, which has resulted in a serious threat to food supplies in China. Predictions using the methods of linear extrapolation and a BP neural network indicate that it is impossible to keep to a target of 0.12 billion hectares of cultivated land in the future under the mode of economic development used between 1996 and 2008. The results also indicate that the implementation of the laws and regulations about controlling the developed land and preserving cultivated land had significant effects on changes in land use, especially cultivated land and developed land. The results sugges

DOI : http://dx.doi.org.gate3.inist.fr/10.1016/j.proenv.2012.01.113 [ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : Gengyuan Liu, Zhifeng Yang, Bin Chen, Meirong Su (State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing) Paru dans : Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13, 2012, Pages 1189-1203, 18th Biennial ISEM Conference on Ecological Modelling for Global Change and Coupled Human and Natural System Abstract In this paper, a dynamic low-carbon model was developed to show a quantitative and consistent future snapshot. This study presents three scenarios for Chongqing's energy consumption and related CO2 emissions up to 2020, which includes basic development scenario, macro-policy control development scenario and low carbon development scenario. It explains the crucial technologies for Chongqing city as it leaves a business-as-usual trajectory and embarks on a low carbon pathway. A major finding from the scenario analysis is that low carbon and energy-saving policies can dramatically improve Chongqing's position. Under the low carbon scenario, several suggestions for policy making are proposed. This dynamic low-carbon model would benefit from the allocation of decision-making powers in the areas of regulation, policy-making and planning for low carbon development.