Urbachina

The members of the Harvard Medical School Class of '08 were exceedingly ambitious -- even by Harvard standards. Not content merely to graduate from America's top med school, a small group of them set out to found an entirely new campus of their alma mater abroad. As they looked out across a world knit together by instant communications and intercontinental travel whose center of gravity was shifting to the rising Pacific Rim, there could be only one choice: Shanghai. China's financial hub and international gateway seemed destined to blossom into the leading global city of the new century. The get-rich-quick schemer's paradise that had grabbed the world's attention as an Asian El Dorado now had its sights set on becoming a cultured and cosmopolitan Paris of the East.[...] En ligne, site consulté le : 17/08/2012 En ligne, site consulté le : 17/08/2012

In the last five years, China has built 20,000 miles of expressways, finishing the construction of 12 national highways a whopping 13 years ahead of schedule and at a pace four times faster than the United States built its interstate highway system. Over the last decade, Shanghai alone has built some 1,500 miles of road, the equivalent of three Manhattans. China's urban population is projected to grow by 350 million people by 2020, effectively adding today's entire U.S. population to its cities in less than a decade. China has already passed the United States as the world's largest car market, and by 2025, the country will need to pave up to an estimated 5 billion square meters of road just to keep moving. [...] En ligne, site consulté le : 17/08/2012

The East Is Rising Meet the 29 Chinese cities powering global growth. BY ELIAS GROLL | SEPT/OCT 2012 Keren Su/Getty Images 1 / 30 Foreign Policy's index of the 75 most dynamic global cities contains more than a few surprises, but perhaps none more so than the fact that 29 of these cities are in China -- far and away the most of any country on the list. As part of its mad dash toward modernization, China has rapidly urbanized, spawning a slew of massive cities whose size is only tempered by the surprising fact that most people in the West have never heard of them. Despite their relative anonymity, these are the cities likely to drive the world economy during coming decades. Some are high-tech manufacturers; others are bathed in smoke produced by the factories that not long ago were a common sight in Western countries. Meet the 29 Chinese cities powering global growth. Shanghai: Although Shanghai had no skyscrapers in 1980, it now has at least 4,000 -- more than twice as many as New York. In 2010, 208 million square feet of real estate, nearly 80 times the square footage of New York's massive One World Trade Center, was constructed in the city. Above, the Jinmao Building and Oriental Pearl TV Tower can be seen dominating the Shanghai skyline as its rises from the banks of Huangpu River. [...] En ligne, site consulté le 17/08/2012

Urbanization today is powering a transformation in the prosperity of billions of people in the world's emerging economies. The global consuming classes -- made up of people with incomes of more than $10 a day, sufficient for discretionary spending on goods and services beyond the basics of food, shelter and clothes -- will grow to 4.2 billion in 2025, up from about 1.2 billion in 1990. And more than half of those 4.2 billion will live in only about 440 mostly mid-sized cities in emerging markets. Consumers living in cities could spend an additional $20 trillion a year by 2025, a powerful growth opportunity for companies and the global economy.[...] En ligne, site consulté le : 17/08/2012

Authors : Richard Dobbs (Director of the McKinsey Global Institute) Jaana Remes (McKinsey Global Institute senior fellow) In : The Cities issue. A "Foreign policy" special report, 17 Sept/Oct. 2012 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/introducing_the_most_dynamic_cities_of_2025 (site consulté le 17/08/2012) Introducing … The Most Dynamic Cities of 2025 An exclusive look at the 75 powerhouses of the urban revolution. BY RICHARD DOBBS, JAANA REMES | SEPT/OCT 2012 The list of the world's most dynamic cities is here. If there's any bright spot in an otherwise dim outlook for the global economy, it's the rise of cities. With fragile growth in Europe and the United States, the shift in economic balance toward the East and South is happening with unprecedented speed and scale -- and it's happening through urbanization. Quite simply, we are witnessing the biggest economic transformation the world has ever seen as the populations of cities in emerging markets expand and see their incomes rise as never before, producing massive geopolitical shifts and a wave of new consumers whose spending power will change the way the world shops and invests. COMMENTS (4) SHARE: Share on twitter Twitter Share on reddit Reddit Bookmark and Share More... More than ever, cities matter. Today, just 600 urban centers generate about 60 percent of global GDP. But though 600 cities will continue to account for the same share of global GDP in 2025, this elite group will have a very different membership. Over the next 15 years, the urban world's center of gravity will move farther south and, even more decisively, east. [...]

Authors: Chao Li (University of Waikato) John Gibson (University of Waikato) Abstract China's local populations can be counted in two ways; by how many people have hukou household registration from each place and by how many people actually reside in each place. The counts differ by the non-hukou migrants - people that move from their place of registration - who have grown from fewer than five million when reform began in 1978 to over 200 million by 2010. For most of the first three decades of the reform era, the hukou count was used to produce per capita GDP figures. In coastal provinces the resident count is many millions more than the hukou count, while for migrant-sending provinces it is the reverse, creating a systematic and time-varying distortion in provincial GDP per capita. Moreover, a sharp discontinuity occurred when provinces recently switched from the hukou count to the resident count when reporting GDP per capita. A double-count also resulted because some provinces switched before others and initial resident counts were incomplete. This paper describes the changing definition of provincial populations in China and their impact on inequality in provincial GDP per capita. We show that much of the apparent increase in inter-provincial inequality disappears once a consistent series of GDP per resident is used.

2/08/2012 The Urban China Initiative will hold the 2012 Annual Forum on September 7 (8:40am - 6:00pm) at Wenjin Hotel in Beijing. The forum will feature leading urban experts, government officials and practitioners to cover a broad range of topics. UCI hopes to inspire enlightening discussions to address China's prominent urban challenges. (Click here for full brochure) The forum is free, but registration is required. To enroll for the forum, please complete the following registration form. Note that your registration will not guarantee access to the forum, we will send confirmation letter by August 31. Thank you! Please note that the agenda is subject to further minor adjustments. UCI will make timely updates. Please contact us via contact@urbanchinainitiative.org or (86)10 8525-5245 for inquiry.

China's Urban New Area September 7, Wenjin Hotel, Beijing The year 2011 marks a milestone in China's urbanization. For the first time in history, China's urban population surpassed that of rural areas. According to the World Bank, China's urbanization is poised to grow dramatically over the coming two decades. And the increase in the urban population will be the equivalent of more than one Tokyo (over 13 million) each year as the share of urban dwellers in the total population climbs to two-thirds in 2030. The Chinese government has been reiterating that urbanization is a key driver of China's domestic consumption and a long-lasting engine of China' economic powerhouse. How should China continue its urbanization process? How should China cope with challenges rising from political, social, economic and technological fields? What international experiences and local pilot explorations are worth spreading? By hosting the 2012 Annual Forum, the Urban China Initiative hopes to inspire enlightening discussions among participants from public, private and academic sectors to find clues that will help address those above questions.

Zhang Chun Wang Haotong August 03, 2012 China's low-carbon city programmes are doing well on public awareness, but an NGO survey finds little evidence of greener habits. Only a small proportion of people in China's low-carbon pilot cities are living "low-carbon lives" in spite of widespread knowledge of the green agenda, a year-long survey of household energy consumption carried out by Beijing-based NGO Green Beagle suggests. The study of habits in eight Chinese cities identified as green leaders by China's top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, involved 3,200 questionnaires and interviews with three to five households in different income brackets in each region. The NGO wanted to find out if inhabitants of these places had heard about "low-carbon" lifestyles and whether they were making efforts to reduce their own environmental footprint through their daily choices. Under the "low-carbon" pilot scheme, which launched in 2010, the eight cities - Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding - are trying to find ways of reducing carbon emissions while continuing to grow economically (Beijing and Shanghai were added to the list in 2011, but are treated as a separate category). Five provinces are charged with the same task: Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shanxi and Yunnan. If they perform well, they will be treated as an example for the rest of the country.[...]

Data gaps hobbling trial carbon markets Xu Nan Liu Shuang August 09, 2012 Seven Chinese regions are due to launch emissions-trading schemes next year. They will struggle to do so, write Liu Shuang and Xu Nan. Late last October, China's top economic planning body - the National Development and Reform Commission - instructed the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen, plus Hubei and Guangdong provinces, to get ready to run carbon-trading trials. These are not China's first experiments with emissions trading. In fact, the country has of late seen a proliferation of exchanges: according to Chinese newspaper 21st Century Business Herald, by the time of last year's announcement, many provinces and cities were already setting up their own carbon exchanges, or "energy and environment exchanges" - which in almost all cases include trading of emissions rights. But to date, the platforms up and running are either voluntary or tied into the UN clean development mechanism. Some places, including Chengdu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, are either considering similar exchanges, or planning to host branches of the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange, though these tend to mean nothing more than one employee in a single office. The seven Beijing-backed, mandatory trials kick-started last October represent a new level of ambition, however. Ten months on, how are they progressing? The short answer is: slowly. [...]

Anna Lora-Wainwright, Yiyun Zhang, Yunmei Wu, and Benjamin Van Rooij DOI: 10.1086/666582 The China Journal July 2012, No. 68: 106-124. Available on JSTOR

L'Organisation mondiale du commerce met en place un groupe de concertation pour régler le différend qui oppose la Chine à un front constitué des États-Unis, du Japon et de l'Union européenne sur la question des terres rares. Pékin est accusé d'imposer des quotas et des restrictions d'exportation en violation des règlements de l'OMC. Entre 90 et 97% des terres rares sont produites en Chine, qui dispose également d'un monopole total dans la production des terres dites "lourdes", utilisées dans de nombreuses industries de haute technologie.

Full Text available. As some of the most rapidly urbanizing places in the world, China's cities have a unique relationship with global climate change. The economies found in Chinese cities are extremely resource and energy intensive; as a result, they produce significant levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This article provides comprehensive and detailed emissions inventories for Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin, which were found to be responsible for 12.8, 10.7, and 11.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita (t CO2-eq/capita), respectively, in 2006. The majority of emissions were from electricity production, heating and industrial fuel use, and ground transportation. The prevalence of coal in the energy supply mix (including up to 98% in Tianjin) was a fundamental cause of high energy emissions. Non-energy emissions from industrial processes were also significant, including emissions from cement and steel production. The GHG inventories for Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin point to sectors requiring the most attention in terms of low-carbon growth. Compared to ten other global cities, Chinese cities are among the highest per capita emitters, alluding to the important challenge China faces of reducing emissions while improving the quality of life for urban residents. Accordingly, this article concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and issues concerning low-carbon growth in China, including the potential for renewable energy and the difficulties associated with emissions relocation and policy adoption.

Abstract: Threatened by the huge pressure caused by climate change, low-carbon cities have become an inevitable part of urban evolution. It is essential to evaluate urban low-carbon development levels to smoothly promote the construction of low-carbon cities. This paper proposes an evaluation index system for urban low-carbon development from the points of view of economic development and social progress, energy structure and usage efficiency, living consumption, and development surroundings. A weighted sum model was also established. Selecting 12 typical Chinese cities as cases studies, an integrated evaluation was conducted based on the index system and the assessment model. The development speed and limiting factors of different cities were also analyzed. The 12 cities were ultimately classified into three groups in terms of their low-carbon development patterns by integrating all of the analysis results. Furthermore, suitable regulation and management for different patterns were suggested. This study both aids in assessing the executive effect of low-carbon city construction and helps to determine existing problems and suggest effective solutions.

The aim of this paper is to understand the sustainability of urban spatial transformation in the process of rapid urbanization, and calls for future research on the demographic and economic dimensions of climate change. Shanghai towards its transformation to a metropolis has experienced vast socioeconomic and ecological change and calls for future research on the impacts of demographic and economic dimensions on climate change. We look at the major questions (1) to explore economic and demographic growth, land use and land-cover changes in the context of rapid economic and city growth, and (2) to analyze how the demography and economic growth have been associated with the local air temperature and vegetation.

The 2011 Urban Sustainability Index is one of the inaugural studies of the Urban China Initiative (UCI), a think-tank founded in 2010 by Columbia University, McKinsey & Company, and Tsinghua University. UCI was created to help solve some of China's most difficult urbanization challenges. In particular, UCI aspires to three goals: ** Solutions: Provide the best and most innovative solutions to urban development issues in China. ** Talent: Convene China's leading domestic and international urban thinkers and professionals, and serve as a magnet for the best global thinkers. ** Dialogue: Host China's leading national, provincial, and local dialogues on urban issues. With these complementary goals, UCI aims not only to play a role in advancing the academic discussion of China's rapid urbanization, but also to provide insights and tools that may be directly useful to national and local policy makers, who will have a profound impact on the nature of China's urban development. The 2011 Urban Sustainability Index builds on the work published in 2010, The Urban Sustainability Index: A New Tool for Measuring China's Cities, and is designed to be the first of yearly updates to the Index and analyses.1

Authors(s): Adriana Akers, Anthony Gao, Xiujun Li, and Molly Lindsay et al. (China Urban Initiative) 2011 Urban Sustainability Index April 1, 2012 The 2011 Urban Sustainability updates data from the inaugural report and further develops insights into the relative sustainability of China's rapidly growing cities while highlighting case studies of successful policies and outcomes. Analysis revealed a positive correlation between a city's income level and its sustainability scores, indicating that in some cases China's continued economic development may have a positive impact on sustainable urbanization.

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

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 strate

[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.

[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 [...]