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Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development and

Practices in China

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Chapter 9
Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping
Review of Eco-Cities Development
and Practices in China

Zhi Cai and Yan Tang

Abstract With the rapid development of urbanization, China is facing many chal-
lenges on environmental problems, such as air pollution, water deterioration and
urban heat island effect. To cope with the urban ecological crisis, China has paid
more attention to eco-city construction. This chapter traces the origin of eco-city
concept at the first part, and then reviews the development of eco-cities in China, in
which several typical eco-cities have been taken as case studies to illustrate the
practices of eco-city construction. The results showed that there are three periods of
eco-city practice development in China: eco-cities (1990s), low-carbon cities
(2000s) and smart-eco cities (2010s). In the period of eco-cities, the focus was paid
on ecological and environmental issues, and the concept of “harmony between
humans and nature” was widely applied to guide eco-city construction. In the period
of low-carbon cities, attention was paid to cutting greenhouse gas emissions amid
the severe domestic environmental situation and international societal pressure. In
the new trend of smart-eco city construction, great importance has been attached to
the city with green and ecological concepts, Chinese trying to combine the eco-
cities with smart technologies. It is worth noting that the eco-city construction in
China has always led by the central government and acted as a top-down approach,
which also caused some problems among the practices.

Keywords Sustainable cities · Eco-cities · Low-carbon cities · Eco-smart

cities · China

Z. Cai
Department of Urban Planning, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Y. Tang ()
School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 179

L. Bian et al. (eds.), Chinese Urban Planning and Construction,
Strategies for Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65562-4_9
180 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

9.1 Introduction

With the rapid development of urbanization, China has about 60% of the population
(800 million) living in urban areas, and the number will rise to 70% in the next few
decades, with more than 30% of the population will live in metropolitan areas. In
2019, 16 Chinese cities had a population exceeding ten million, and more cities will
reach this level in the following years. A study showed that the 35 largest Chinese
cities contribute 40% of China’s energy uses and carbon emissions (Dhakal, 2009).
As a vast amount of population and energy consumption concentrated in urban
areas, it has a high impact on the environment and caused many environmental
problems, such as extremely heavy air pollution, water deterioration and urban heat
island effect (Manoli et al., 2019; Cai et al., 2019). Thus, to cope with the urban
ecological crisis, Chinese government has been concerned more about environmen-
tal development and put forward a series of strategies like “sustainable develop-
ment” and “ecological civilization” since the 1990s (Fu and Zhang, 2017). Later,
eco-city construction was boomed in China mainland around the 2000s (Wang &
Ye, 2004). Since 2008, with the rising consensus of global climate change, Chinese
government has adopted the low-carbon emissions concept and combined it with
eco-cities (Qiu, 2009b).
To offer an overview of the Eco-city development progress in China, this chapter
firstly introduces the development of eco-city in China, and selected Shanghai city
as a case study to illustrates the practices of Chinese eco-city construction. Then it
reviews the development of the low-carbon cities in China and takes several demon-
strating low-carbon eco-city as case studies, including Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-­
city, Chongqing Yuelai Eco-city and Tangshan Bay Eco-city. In the last part, it
presents the new trends of Chinese eco-city practices: Smart-eco cities.

9.1.1 The Concept of Eco-City

In the 1960s, environmental problems outbreaks in western developed countries,

and attracted global attention. Since then, lots of scholars have focused on environ-
mental and ecological issues, and they are trying to find a sustainable development
way. In 1971, the 16th General Conference of UNESCO proposed a long-term
research plan for international scientific cooperation between human beings and the
biosphere. In the next year, the United Nations Conference on Human Environment
officially launched the “Man and the Biosphere” (MAB) plan, which shows that
human-environmental issues had been paid attention to by the international com-
munity. At the same time, the international scientific and technological community
reached a consensus on long-term and extensive cooperation on human-­
environmental issues, and put forward a research program that still has a profound
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 181

and essential impact on the twenty-first century. In the program, they especially
proposed a research project toward urban ecological problems. Moreover, MAB
plan also formed an expert working group of leading scholars in the fields of envi-
ronment and urban planning. It gradually promoted the interdisciplinary coopera-
tion of natural science and social science in the global scope with urban ecological
problems (Castries Francesco and Malcolm, 1984).
As a core member of the expert group in MAB, Oleg Yanitsky took the lead in
systematically expounding the basic concept of “ecological city” based on the
research results of urban ecology in various countries in the 1970s (Oleg, 1984).
After reviewing the research results of many scholars in the same era, Oleg pointed
out that eco-city will be the main residential area for human beings, and coordinated
with the social and ecological process. The process of eco-city development includes
five stages: fundamental research, applied research, planning and design, facilities
construction and social structure transformation. In particular, he stressed that the
process of eco-city development must be a process of interdisciplinary cooperation
and knowledge integration in social sciences, natural sciences, engineering technol-
ogy and other fields. At the same time, Register Richard, who later became presi-
dent of the American Eco-City Association, emphasized that eco-city is an
“ecologically healthy city” from the perspective of urban planning and construction,
and the compact form of urban space is convenient for human activities. Moreover,
energy and resource were efficiently utilized and had little impact on the natural
environment (Richard, 1987).
Eco-city has rapidly become a hotspot in international research areas with the
rise of environmental problems. Since 1980, the combination of the active promo-
tion of the “Man and Biosphere Project” and the advocacy of interdisciplinary coop-
eration making the eco-city concept gained worldwide recognition, and the practice
of eco-city planning and construction has been carried out in various countries.
In 1984, MAB put forward five principles of eco-city planning in a research
report. Including eco-protection strategy (e.g., natural protection, flora and resources
protection, pollution prevention), ecological infrastructure (e.g., natural landscape
and hinterland to support sustainable city development), living standards of resi-
dents, preservation of culture and history, integrating nature landscapes into
urban areas.
In 1996, based on the five principles of ecological city construction, Register put
forward ten principles of the ecological city, such as land development, transporta-
tion, natural environment, resource utilization technology, production and con-
sumption patterns, ecological awareness and social equity, government management.
In 1997, the Australian Urban Ecology Association (UEA) put forward the idea
of eco-city development (Roseland, 1997). The content refers to several aspects,
such as end urban sprawl, optimize energy structure and provide healthy and safe
communities.
182 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

9.2 Methods

In this study, we were using a multi-case analysis method to capture the develop-
ment of eco-city construction in China. The multi-case analysis is an effective
method to study the common phenomena, and help researchers have a deep under-
standing about the mechanism of phenomena or system. Which aims to find,
1. What is the development of eco-city in China,
2. What methods that Chinese used to construct an eco-city,
3. What difficulties in developing an eco-city in China?
The materials are collected and processed as following steps. Step 1: Material
collection. We searched the articles theme about “eco-city” and “ecological city” in
the website of CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), Web of science,
Google scholar and Baidu scholar; Step 2: Data analysis. Based on the material, we
were using Citespace software to analyze the core interests and development of
­eco-city in China. The results show that there are several research clusters, such as
“eco-city,” “low-carbon city” and “smart eco-city.” Since we know the core cluster
of eco-city construction in China, we expand the search scopes to other sources like
newspapers, government websites, social communication platforms (Weibo,
Wechat) and social media. For each main cluster, we list the main content of it, and
given several examples to illustrate their details.

9.3 Eco-City in China

9.3.1 The Development of Eco-City in China

China joined MAB and was elected as a member state in 1972. In 1978, Chinese
government established the National Committee of MAB. In the next year, Chinese
established the Ecological Society of China. Since then, scholars in China have
begun to study urban ecological issues systematically.
In 1982, Chinese put forward the idea of “attaching importance to urban issues
and developing urban science,” which is the first symposium on strategic thoughts
of urban development. In the same year, Chinese government drafted the sixth Five-­
Year Plan1 (1983–1985). It set the study of urban ecosystems in Beijing and Tianjin
as one of the critical scientific and technological projects.

1
The Five-year Plan, the outline of the five-year plan for national economic and social develop-
ment of the People’s Republic of China, which is an important part of Chinese national economic
plan and a long-term plan, the first Five-year Plan began in 1953. In a five-year cycle, major
national construction projects, productivity distribution and the important proportion of the
national economy are planned to set goals and directions for the development of the national
economy.
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 183

In 1984, Shanghai held the first urban ecology symposium of China, and estab-
lished the Urban Ecology Committee of the Chinese Ecology Society. In the same
year, UNESCO’s comprehensive publication International Social Science (Chinese
edition) was first published in China. The fourth special issue systematically intro-
duced the research progress in the field of International Ecology and environment
since the initiation of the MAB in 1972.
Since 1990, with the rapid development of China’s economy and urbanization,
lots of urban ecological and environmental problems have emerged. Urban ecologi-
cal and environmental issues have attracted the attention of scholars in China’s
geography, ecology, urban planning and other fields. With the advancement and
deepening of the research, Chinese researchers put forward the concepts of “land-
scape city”2 (Shang Shui city) and “garden city” based on the Chinese context, it
expanded the concept and connotation of the ecological city.

9.3.2 Eco-City Practice and Case Studies in China

As Chinese pay more attention to urban ecological issues, the construction of the
ecological cities is emerging nationwide (Wang, 2000). In 1986, the province of
Jiangxi, Yichun City, first proposed a goal of building an ecological city.
Subsequently, lots of the major cities in the Yangtze River Basin put forward the
development strategy of building ecological cities. They began to construct eco-­
cities from different levels, like ecological cities, ecological counties, ecological
demonstration areas, ecological villages and ecological districts. In 1994, Shanghai
also explicitly propose the construction of a clean, beautiful, highly harmonious
ecological city between human beings and nature. In 1996, the province of
Shandong, Weihai City, which put forward the overall construction policy of “eco-
logical environment, civilized quality of life.” Chongqing city has also positioned
its future development as an “eco-urban and rural metropolis in the twenty-first
century.” Other provincial capital cities, such as Beijing, Hangzhou and Changchun,
have also put forward the strategic objectives of eco-cities.
While, it should be noted that the eco-city construction was guided by an indica-
tor system (Table 9.1), which is proposed by the Chinese central government. There
are two kinds of indicator system of eco-city in China (Liu and Ma, 2013). One is
based on the analysis of three subsystems like society, economy and nature. The
other is based on the consideration of the structure, function and coordination
degree of the urban ecosystem. Both of them are using the expert scoring method or
weight average method to evaluate all kinds of indicators.

2
Landscape city, also known as “Shang Shui City,” which is based on the Chinese traditional cul-
ture and philosophy of harmony between human being and nature. Its purpose is to build a harmo-
nious human settlement of man-made and natural environment.
184 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

Table 9.1 The indicator system of Eco-city

Indicator 2000 2005 2010 2020
Economic level
Per capita gross domestic product (10,000 yuan) 1.05 1.8 2.8 5.8
Land output rate (10,000 yuan/km2) 711.2 1100 1850 4000
Life quality
Average life expectancy (a) 72 73 75 78
Urban house index (urban per residential area/rural per 0.67 0.75 0.85 1
residential area)
Environmental quality
The proportion of water quality above than class III 41.40% 60% 80% 95%
Air quality index 83.90% 90% 95% 95%
Forest cover ratio 15% 20% 25%
Public satisfaction with the environment 69.50% 80% 90% 95%
Economic
Annual growth rate of GDP 10.50% 11% 8% 7%
Energy output rate (industrial added value/standard coal) 0.85 1 1.6 2.8
Proportion of revenue to GDP (%) 7 10 15 20
Social dynamic
Gini index 0.31 0.34 0.38 0.34
Environmental protection dynamic
Degraded land restoration rate 80% 94% 96% 100%
Attainment rate of industrial wastewater 93.80% 95% 99% 99%
Harmless reuse rate of urban domestic waste 40% 60% 80% 100%
Reuse rate of livestock and poultry manure 35% 55% 70% 90%
Economic development ability
The certification rate of enterprise by ISO14000 10% 30% 50% 90%
The proportion of fixed assets in GDP 27% 30% 33% 38%
Ratio of scientific research 2.90% 8.00% 14% 18%
Social development ability
Average education year (a) 8 10 12 14
Average year for professional education (civil servants) 2 4 5.5 6.5
The ratio of policy and regulation fit with eco-city planning 70% 90% 100% 100%
Ecological construction ability
The proportion of environmental protection in GDP 1.69% 2.10% 2.50% 4%
Protected area ratio 5% 12% 15% 20%
Popularization rate of environmental knowledge among 35% 50% 75% 90%
citizens
Source: Wu et al., 2005

9.3.2.1 Case Studies in Shanghai

Shanghai is one of the first cities in China to enter the construction of eco-cities. In
1999, the Shanghai government set a strategic goal to build a first-class international
eco-city, the primary work is to optimize the urban layout, improve urban
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 185

infrastructure and environmental quality, promote the sustainable development of

economy and society. Its eco-city construction approach has many aspects, such as
optimize the urban structure, enhance the function of urban infrastructure and the
coordination of urban and rural areas (Wang, 2001).

9.4 Optimize urban structur

Optimize urban structure: Shanghai government set four strategies to optimizing the
urban structure. Firstly, Shanghai city needs to optimize the structure and balance
the proportion of urban land use, including increasing the proportion of transporta-
tion land and green spaces, appropriately reduce the proportion of industrial land,
strictly control the number of high-rise buildings and reduce the building density in
central urban areas. Secondly, improve the living quality of urban life and control
the population density, such as increasing the investment in primary education
(above than GDP 3%), adopt the corresponding zoning management and temporary
household registration management system for the migrant residents. Thirdly, pro-
mote clean energy and green consumption by accelerating industrial restructuring
and technological innovation. The measures include strictly control coal consump-
tion, change the original energy structure, utilize local clean energy and natural
energy, draft and promote circular economy law, popularize green consumption
awareness. Fourth, strengthen urban greening and protect bio-diversity. The mea-
sures include appropriately introduce the landscape plants with better adaptability,
enrichment of urban plant species, expansion and strengthen the construction of
natural and ecological protection areas.

9.5 Enhance the function of urban infrastructure

Enhance the function of urban infrastructure: Enhance the urban function is the
main part of promoting eco-city construction in Shanghai city, such as strengthen
the protection of the ecological environment, develop the ecological industry and
promote cleaner production, build a fast information circulation platform. While the
ecological environment aspects mainly focus on the management and treatment of
urban sewage, automobile exhaust, solid waste and urban noise, the information
platform aspects mainly focus on the construction of the internet infrastructure and
develop a GPS communication system.
186 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

9.6 Coordination of urban and rural areas3

The dualistic structure system of the urban and rural area has a significant impact on
social-economic development, and Shanghai city act the coordination of urban and
rural areas as an essential issue to promote eco-city construction. The measures
include implementing the integration of urban and rural social-economic planning,
optimizing urban/rural spaces and form a rational distribution of productive forces
and urban networks, promoting the rational distribution of urban industry and popu-
lation, and integrate urban artificial environment with the rural natural environment,
strengthening the construction of urban public service facilities to improve the qual-
ity of urban life, centralized development residential areas and service facilities,
forming a multi-level, multi-type community service network, improve the building
design and the quality of the outdoor environment. Moreover, social governance
was also considered, such as enhance the residents’ awareness of the ecological
environment, strengthen the construction of government organizations, and ensure
the orderly decision-making, supervision and management of eco-city
construction.

9.7 Low Carbon Eco-City in China

After entering the twenty-first century, the large number of greenhouse gases
(mainly carbon dioxide) emissions have led to a global consensus on climate change.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published several assess-
ment reports, and they pointed out that according to current development speed and
world national policies, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise in the fol-
lowing decades. Moreover, green gas will lead to global warming, accelerating the
melting of glaciers in the north and south poles. With the rise of sea level, lots of
coastal cities will under the risk of inundation (Fairbanks, 1989). Global society
faces tremendous challenges in mitigating climate change, and it is inevitable to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and find a sustainable development way. To deal
with the global climate crisis, IPCC suggests cutting the greenhouse gas emissions,
which have got concerns all over the world and involved more countries since
the 1970s.
Worth to note is the carbon emission. With the rapid urbanization, China’s car-
bon emissions have reached 6.071 billion tons by 2007, which accounting for
20.96% of the global total carbon emissions. It has surpassed the United States

3
China has a dualistic structure system of urban and rural area, which mainly reflects in land insti-
tution and household registration system. Where the urban land is owed by the state and the rural
land is owed by the farmers collectively. The household registration system also divides the popu-
lation into urban residents and rural residents.
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 187

(5.769 billion tons, 19.92%) and becoming the largest carbon emitter (The Global
Carbon Budget 2007, 2008).

9.7.1 The Development of Low Carbon Eco-City in China

As the most abundant carbon emission country, China faces great pressure from
international society to cut its carbon emissions (Yang and Li, 2013). Moreover,
with the grim domestic situation of the Chinese mainland, urban industry and econ-
omy in a low efficient energy consumption development way, which could not cope
with sustainable development, the low-carbon transformation is inevitable in
urban China.
In 2007, Chinese President Hu Jintao advocated the development of a low-­carbon
economy at the 15th APEC Leadership Meeting. Since then, low-carbon city con-
struction has begun in China. In 2009, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
issued the Blue Book of Cities: China’s Urban Development Report (No.2) in
Beijing, and it pointed out that low-carbon development is an inevitable choice for
China to control greenhouse gas emissions in the process of urbanization. In the
same year, Qiu Baoxing, who is the Minister of Housing and Construction of China,
put forward the concept of low-carbon eco-city in the International Forum on Urban
Planning and Development (Qiu, 2009a). Qiu pointed out that low-carbon eco-city
is the concretization of the idea of sustainable development in urban development
and the mode of low-carbon economic development (Li et al., 2010) (Fig. 9.1).
With the vigorous support and promotion of the Chinese Ministry of Housing
and Construction (CMHC), CMHC signed a cooperation framework agreement on
building a “national low-carbon ecological demonstrating city” with Shenzhen
Municipal Government in January 2010. Shenzhen became the first “national

Low-carbon city

Government use recycle Resident

energy
building lifestyle
increase energy
regional efficiency
urban
planning/
spatial transportation trip mode
community
form
planning control energy
demand
industry energy saving

carbon capture

Fig. 9.1 The frame contents of the low-carbon city in China

188 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

low-­carbon ecological demonstrating city” in China. In July 2010, the National

Development and Reform Commission of China issued a notice on the demonstra-
tive construction work of low-Carbon provinces and cities. It decided to start the
demonstrative construction work of low-carbon provinces and cities nationwide,
which covered eight cities (Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou,
Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding) and five provinces (Guangdong, Liaoning,
Hubei, Shanxi and Yunnan). In the same month, Chinese Ministry of Housing and
Construction signed the “co-construction of national low carbon eco-city” with the
government of Wuxi City in Jiangsu Province. In October 2010, Chinese Ministry
of Housing and Construction signed the Memorandum of Cooperation with Hebei
Province to Promoting the Construction of Ecological Demonstration Cities and
healthy urbanization. Those cooperations eventually making the eight awarded eco-­
cities came into being: Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, Tangshan Bay Eco-city,
Shenzhen Guangming New District, Wuxi Taihu New Town, Meixihu New Town,
Chongqing Yuelai Eco-city, Kunming Chenggong New District and Guiyang Future
Ark Eco-city. The main tasks of the demonstrative cities aimed at the following five
aspects:
1. compile a low-carbon development plan;
2. establish the supporting policies for low-carbon green development;
3. accelerate the establishment of an industrial system characterized by low carbon
emissions;
4. establish the statistical and management system of greenhouse gas emission;
5. advocate low-carbon green lifestyle and consumption behaviors.
Then, in January 2011, CMHC set up a research group to guide the healthy
development of low-carbon eco-cities in China. The group mainly focuses on the
issues of low-carbon eco-cities, such as the urban planning, policy suggestions,
demonstration technology of low-carbon eco-cities and indicator system. Lately, the
indicator system has been widely used to define, guide and assess low-carbon devel-
opment eco-city in China. The indicator system consists of 30 key performance
indicators and divides into four major categories of efficient use of resources,
friendly environment, sustainable economy and harmonious society (Table 9.2).
In 2011, China set the goal of reducing carbon emissions per unit GDP by 17%
compared with 2010 by 2015. For this goal, Chinese State Council promulgated the
work program for controlling greenhouse gas emissions in the twelfth five-year
plan. They proposed that through the low-carbon city demonstration project, many
low-carbon provinces and cities with different characteristics will be formed, and
several typical international low-carbon industry demonstrative areas and commu-
nities will be built. Technologies and products are used to control greenhouse gas
emissions in an all-round way. In addition, detailed supporting policies and emis-
sion reduction targets have been formulated for the pilot construction of low-carbon
projects. According to the plan, Chinese National Development and Reform
Commission selects about 30 cities as the second round of low-carbon ecological
demonstration projects, which covered all provinces except Tibet in China. The
second demonstration project emphasizes its feasibility, extensibility and
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 189

Table 9.2 Chinese low carbon eco-city indicator system

Indicator 2015 2020
Efficiently use of resources
 1 Recycling of water usage (%) Severe water shortage Severe water shortage
area ≥ 25 area ≥ 30
Water shortage area ≥ 15 Water shortage area ≥ 20
 2 Recycling of industrial water (%) ≥ 90 ≥ 95
 3 Rate of no-fossil energy usage (%) ≥ 15 ≥ 20
 4 Carbon emission per GDP unit ≤ 2.13 ≤ 1.67
(ton/10 k yuan)
 5 Energy consumption per GDP unit ≤ 0.87 ≤ 0.77
(ton standard coal/10 k yuan)
 6 Construction land use per capita (m2/ ≤ 85 ≤ 80
person)
 7 Percentage of green building (%) Existing building ≥15 Existing building ≥15
New building 100 New building 100
Friendly environment
 8 Days of compliance with air quality ≥ 320 ≥ 347
(SO NO PM10)
 9 Days of compliance with PM2.5 ≥ 292 ≥ 310
standard per year
 10 Water quality compliance rate of the 100 100
centralized drinking water source (%)
 11 Surface water quality compliant rate 100 100
for urban water environmental function
zones (%)
 12 Reuse rate of domestic wastes (%) ≥ 50 ≥ 50
 13 Recycling of industrial solid waste ≥ 90 ≥ 95
(%)
 14 Noise level compliance area ≥ 95 100
coverage (%)
 15 500 meters radius service coverage ≥ 80 ≥ 90
from parks and green open space (%)
 16 Bio-diversity Comprehensive index Comprehensive index
≥ 0.5 ≥ 0.5
Local species index Local species index
≥ 0.7 ≥ 0.85
Sustainable economy
 17 The percentage of value-added of the ≥ 47 ≥ 51
tertiary industry in overall GDP (%)
 18 Urban unemployment rate (%) ≤ 4.2 ≤ 3.2
 19 Percentage of R&D input to GDP ≥ 2.2 ≥ 2.6
(%)
 20 Engel’s coefficient (%) ≤ 33 ≤ 30
Harmonious society
(continued)
190 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

Table 9.2 (continued)

Indicator 2015 2020
 21 Percentage of affordable housing ≥ 20 ≥ 30
(%)
 22 The ratio of housing price/income ≤ 10 ≤6
 23 Gini coefficient 0.33 ≤ G 0.33 ≤ G
 24 Income ratio between urban citizen/ ≤ 2.54 ≤ 2.41
rural residence
 25 Percentage of green transport (%) ≥ 65 ≥ 80
 26 The coverage rate of social security ≥ 90 100
(%)
 27 Land use floor space of public 5.5 6.0
services and utilities per capita (m2/
person)
 28 Average commuting time (min) ≤ 35 ≤ 30
 29 Urban disaster prevention and Space for disaster escape Space for disaster escape
reduction per capita ≥ 3 m2 per capita ≥ 3 m2
 30 Satisfaction rate for public security ≥ 85 ≥ 90
(%)
Source: Yu, L. (2014)

Fig. 9.2 Locator map of China’s Eco-cities and low-carbon cities

9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 191

replicability. The Ministry of Finance of the central government with other minis-
tries pulled 3.7 billion dollars to encourage low carbon development. Under the dual
influence of central government financial support and local government promotion,
low-­carbon eco-city booming in China again. A statistic made by the Academic
Exchange Department of China Urban Science Research Association showed that
230 of 280 prefecture-level cities in China had proposed the goal of “eco-city” con-
struction, and 133 of those cities (46.3%) have proposed the goal of “low-carbon
city” construction (Fig. 9.2).

9.7.2  ow Carbon Eco-City Practice and Case Studies

L
in China
9.7.2.1 Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City

In November 2007, China and Singapore signed a cooperation agreement to build a

new and medium-sized eco-city in the Tianjin Binhai New Area with a planned area
of 34.2 km2. Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city started its construction in September
2008. Binhai New Area has initially been a saline-alkali wasteland with heavily pol-
luted water. In order to protect and improve the fragile ecological environment of

Fig. 9.3 (a) The master plan of Tianjin Eco-city, and (b) the current construction of Tianjin
Eco-city
192 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

the area, the plan adopts the method of “bottom-up mapping.” Firstly, they evalu-
ated the suitability of land and determined the protection of the ecological area.
Then, they calculated the carrying capacity of the natural environment, and deter-
mined the area for urban development and construction (21km2) and the carrying
capacity of the population (350,000 residents). By redeveloping and protecting the
original water wetlands, Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city finally has formed a radial
network pattern with water bodies as the core area (Fig. 9.3).
In order to guide the construction of low-carbon eco-city, an indicator control
system was set at the beginning of the construction, which refers to four aspects like
ecological environment, society, economy and regional coordination between urban
and rural areas. The system covers 22 control indicators and four guiding indicators.
The methods including implementing green building standards, strengthening
building energy efficiency, building a green transportation system, optimizing the
layout of urban land, optimizing energy structure, developing and building a low-­
carbon energy system, graded allocation of the ecological community model
(Fig. 9.4).
By 2019, the permanent population of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city has
reached 100,000 people, more than 8000 registered enterprises and institutions, the
proportion of modern service industry has reached more than 90%, and 30,000 tal-
ents introduced. The development of society, environment and economy have been
harmonious coexistence. Moreover, Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city was elected as
“China’s most happy ecological city in 2018.” The primary significance of Sino-­
Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is to adapt to the needs of low-carbon development in
China at that time, and provide a demonstrating model for the construction of

Fig. 9.4 Eco community model in Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city

9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 193

low-­carbon eco-city in China. It is also an inevitable choice under the situation of

tight resource constraints.
However, Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city is still far from its goal (Fig. 9.3b).
The large scale of residential blocks makes the city have an uncomfortable walking
environment, and the lots of tall buildings with few residents (below than 30% of the
planning population), making the city looks like an empty eco-city (Caprotti, 2014).
The local government has less consideration about the migrant workers, and most of
the empty house was owned by multiple home speculators (Chang et al., 2016).
What is more, some of the detail and comprehensive sustainability indicators are
difficult to reach in urban scale, but applicable to a region or country scales, such as
ambient air quality and surface water quality (Li et al., 2019).

9.7.2.2 Chongqing Yuelai Eco-City

As one of the first green Eco-Demonstration cities in China, Chongqing Yuelai Eco-­
City is located in the core area of the development of new urban areas. It began
planning and construction in 2011, the plan area is about 3.44 km2, and its capacity
of the population is 50,000. Chongqing government invites Peter Calthorpe to serve
as the chief planner, who is the representative of American New Urbanism. Different
from other plain low-carbon eco-cities, the site in Chongqing Yuelai eco-city has a
significant topographic fluctuation. Nearly half of the land has a slope of 15 degrees
or more, the internal traffic the city is difficult to organize, the land suitable for
construction is small, and the land use function is single.
Therefore, Yuelai New Town adopts the strategy of efficient and intensive use of
land and construction of a composite ecological city, making full use of mountain
terrain, conforming to the mountain situation, and rationally allocating urban indus-
trial land in combination with topographic changes. Firstly, in the land mixed-use,
all plots require 10–20% of the land mixed-use ratio. It was emphasizing the mixed
layout of residential, commercial, industrial and other types of land to meet resi-
dents’ daily leisure, recreation, living, work and other needs within the block.
Secondly, different from the common urban planning mode of streets and wide
roads in China at that time, Yuelai New Town is the first city to use the small blocks
and narrow roads to connect urban space and activate urban street space. The public
service facilities and green space will be arranged in the residents’ 5-minute walk-
ing circle. Thirdly, Yuelai New Town, aiming at mountainous terrain, has adopted a
mixed-mode of transportation and built a perfect pedestrian system. Based on the
TOD model, with rail transit stations as the center, bus, bicycle lane and pedestrian
road extend to all urban districts. Fourthly, in the municipal aspect, the introduction
of low impact development technology, green space, municipal, rainwater collec-
tion and other unified consideration. Finally, using a retreat building layout to
increase its visibility to the river within the city.
Chongqing Yuelai New Town provides a safe and efficient way of travel for the
city through the mixed-function and TOD development mode. The perfect walking
system and the creation of a large number of suitable walking areas reduced the
194 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

probability of car travel, which has gradually become a primary low-carbon devel-
opment mode in China.

9.7.2.3 Tangshan Bay Eco-City

Under the circumstances of China’s national low-carbon ecological policy and the
overall industrial layout adjustment of Tangshan City. Tangshan City started the
planning work of Tangshan Bay Eco-city in 2007, and formally started its construc-
tion in 2009 (Lv et al., 2014). The plan area of Tangshan Bay is 74.3 km2, with a
resident of 800,000 by 2020. It has 18 kilometers of highly quality coastline and an
excellent ecological environment.
At the beginning of its construction, the local government invited five interna-
tional cooperation to participate in its urban planning and design. They are Swedish
SWECO, Dutch DHV, England ARUP, Italian Archa and Beijing Tsinghua Institute
of Urban Planning and Design. SWECO won the competition and merged excellent
ideas from the rest urban plan. SWECO expects to build a “dark green” eco-city,
which will play an exemplary role in energy saving and emission reduction, inten-
sive land use development, circular economy and knowledge of innovation, and
create a harmonious city through the guidance of ecological indicators. Its ecologi-
cal indicators draw lessons from the latest planning theory and practice in Sweden.
Based on the concept of “symbiotic city,” it covers seven aspects, including urban
function, architecture, transportation, energy, water, waste, landscape and public
space, with a total of 141 specific indicators. Besides, Tangshan Bay Eco-city also
proposed a systematic green building evaluation index, vigorously develop and
adopt passive energy-saving green building technology; the proportion of green
buildings reached 100%.
Although the Tangshan Bay Eco-city with stronger support of the local govern-
ment and has carried out scientific and rational urban planning and design, by the
end of 2017, the city has invested 32.5 billion yuan in the capital and built an area
of 33 km2, but it is still far away from the goal of high prosperity. Because of the
long distance to the old urban center, which making an inconvenience of transporta-
tion and the lack of attractiveness of the investment. There is a single function in
land use, and mainly for education and residential. Apart from universities and resi-
dences, the number of companies and enterprises staying is relatively small, while
most of the residential houses are used for speculation. College teachers and stu-
dents mainly compose the current 48,000 residents. On the other hand, Tangshan
Bay Eco-city relies excessively on government investment and bank loans, and local
governments are heavily indebted, which has severely affected local sustainable
development.
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 195

9.8 Smart-Eco Cities in China

In 2008, IBM put forward the concept of “Smart Earth.” Later, it developed with the
concept of “smart city.” The smart city is the deep integration of the new generation
of information technology and the transformation of the city, such as the internet of
things, cloud computing, big data, spatial information (Hollands, 2008). Smart city
construction is also the best way to solve the urban problems and realize the sustain-
able development of the city, reflecting the essential demand of the city’s green, low
carbon and sustainable development. Hence, some countries try to combine the con-
cept of “smart city” with “eco-city,” which is “smart-eco city.” Smart-eco city could
be defined as an experimental city that functions as a potential niche where both
environmental and economic reforms can be tested and introduced in areas that are
both spatially proximate and in an international context (Tan et al., 2017).

9.8.1 Smart-Eco Cities Practice and Case Studies in China

Since several decades of fast economic development and rapid urbanization, the
speed of Chinese social-economic has slow down in 2013. Thus, Chinese govern-
ment tries to find a more sustainable way to develop social-economic. Meanwhile,
Chinese central government attaches great importance to the city in a green and
ecological developing way. With the development of information technology,
Chinese cities pay more attention to smart-eco city construction. In 2013, the
Ministry of the housing of China announced the first round of 90 demonstrating cit-
ies for smart city construction. At the end of 2017, the smart goal and construction
have covered 86% of cities in China (Table 9.3). The central government also
drafted an indicator system to guide smart-eco city construction in recent years,
including ubiquitous service for the residents, intensive infrastructure, livable envi-
ronment with low carbon and green technology. The livable environment with low
carbon and green technology mainly covers the following aspects: strengthen the
synchronous planning of urban functions and industrial economy, promote the coor-
dinated development of urban social economy and ecological environment.
Even though Chinese smart-eco city construction is showing a trend of vigorous
development, it still needs to be noted that there are still many problems in its con-
struction. Chinese smart-eco city construction is still in its initial and conceptual
stage. The imitation and duplication among governments, the assessment require-
ments of higher authorities, the political pursuit of government leaders, and the need
for urban publicity become the main driving force for smart-eco city decision-­
making. Besides, Chinese smart-eco city construction is dominated by government
investment, while few investments come from private.
196 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

Table 9.3 Several smart or smart-eco cities practices in China

Cities Theme Practices
Wuhan Smart Explore the “internet +” smart traffic mode and cooperate with
transportation the internet corporations to build a smart transportation
management system.
Build a mobile internet government platform to provide
convenient services like illegal traffic inquiries and payment of
the fines online.
Nanning The big transit Establish a smart transportation APP service platform and build
system an intelligent bus station board. Sharing urban information data
to achieve the integration of resident card and traffic card.
Weifang Spatiotemporal Integration of the present and historical urban basic geographic
information information, population, economy, industry, environment and
platform other data, and constructed a space-time information cloud
platform. Based on this, built demonstrating application
systems like smart land, smart policing, smart transportation,
smart environmental protection and smart street.
Jilin Big data in Geographic information technology was used to synthesize
agriculture land ownership, soil information and fertilization. Real-time
monitoring of crop growth by satellite imagery and remote
sensing technology. Based on big data technology, a third-party
trading platform has been built to promote the perfect
development of the agriculture industry.
Harbin Smart pipe Based on the survey of underground pipelines and establish the
network platform of a spatial information system, designed six
subsystems like basic application, operation and maintenance
configuration, pipeline network data management, integrated
business, secondary development, monitoring and management.
By the platform, 43 functions for the underground pipeline
network can be realized like statistical query, data management,
operation and maintenance, and assistant decision-making.
Chongqing Comprehensive In order to support data sharing and integration, a standard
urban information information resource specification is formulated. Local
system governments also build a data-sharing platform to promote data
exchange and sharing among different departments. The
integration of shared resources and the development of various
decision applications have realized basic functions such as
querying, statistics and analysis of comprehensive urban
information.

9.9 Discussions and Conclusions

This chapter introduces Chinese ecological sustainable urban development in

recent years. From the initial awareness of environmental protection, China has
gone through three stages: eco-cities, low carbon eco-cities, and smart-eco cities
development. With the rapid development of urbanization, the transformation of
9 Toward a Sustainable City: A Scoping Review of Eco-Cities Development… 197

urban development and the development of information network technology,

Chinese sustainable urban construction is continuously changing. It can be found
that during the initial period of eco-city construction, China was mainly imitating
western countries. While, during the period of low carbon eco-city construction,
China began to carry out extensive international cooperation. After stepping into
the stage of smart-­eco city construction, since there were fewer international cases
for reference, China began to find out its own way to develop sustainable cities.
Judging from the driving factors, unlike the western countries, which took bottom-
up approaches, Chinese sustainable urban construction adopt top-down approaches
(government-driven). Urban construction mainly depends on the allocation of
funds from the higher authorities and the local government’s loan to the bank
through the way of land mortgage. However, in the process of construction and
implementation, this top-­down government-led construction mode has gradually
exposed several problems. The first is that it just applied a simple indictor system
to guide urban construction. China has a vast territory, and there are significant dif-
ferences in social customs, economic development level, climate and environmen-
tal conditions all over the country. This difference leads to some indicators almost
impossible to achieve, and all kinds of urban construction goals have finally become
empty words. The second is that ecological sustainable urban construction has
become a slogan for local governments to develop new districts. From the perspec-
tive of eco-city construction, most of the pilot cities choose to build new towns
outside the old urban areas. Even though, the government expects to attract popula-
tion and promote the development of new areas with slogans such as low-carbon,
sustainable cities and beautiful landscapes. However, the facts have proved that
without stronger support like a pleasant investment environment and convenient
transportation system, some demonstrating areas have little attraction to residents,
and it eventually turned into ghost cities. The above problems have made those
areas failed to achieve the goal of an ecologically sustainable city, and give a heavy
debt burden to local governments.
Even though there are still many problems in Chinese sustainable urban con-
struction, it is optimistic that China is still steadfastly taking the road of sustain-
able development. Ecology, green and sustainable development have also become
a national policy. China has accumulated a great deal of experience in sustain-
able urban construction and has responded quickly to urban construction. We
believe that in the future, Chinese sustainable urban construction will not only
provide a model for the local city, but also provide a reference model for
the world.

Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (grant no. 51978363), Beijing Social Science Foundation (grant no. 19GLB034) and
National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2018YFC0704600).
198 Z. Cai and Y. Tang

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