A Tale of Four Cities: Epilogue

The four case studies I’ve highlighted in the preceding posts have hopefully elucidated some of the considerations, stumbling blocks, and strategies for eco-cities. By comparing the diverse range of social, economic, climatic, and even political situations in Dongtan, Tangshan, Huangbaiyu, and Tianjin, several questions come to mind that are important for understanding and framing the future of eco-cities in China and in a broader global context.

Perhaps the most obvious question that comes to mind is the most difficult to answer—what is truly the definition of an eco-city? Through these four cases, we’ve seen a model village of homes and a single factory intended to provide lodging and employment for rural villagers, a city among an ecological wetland designed to minimize its environmental footprint, another built on industrial infrastructure that is unique to its area, and a city striving to be better than business-as-usual but by no means perfect. The targets adopted by these cities range from the optimistic zero energy, zero carbon taglines of Dongtan to the more modest 20% renewable energy and minimized waste and water of Tianjin. Comparing just the plans of these two, one would find it hard to call Tianjin an eco-city—its modest goals pale in comparison to Arup’s ecological vision for the south.

Inherently an eco-city should be sustainable which, at its root, means that it should within its confines provide all that it needs without unduly damaging the environment, economy, or social structure. However to create such a city, perhaps the Tianjin model is more appropriate. It certainly seems to better create a social structure that adequately represents a cross-section of the population than the potentially pricier zero-carbon model. This could give it a stronger foundation for achieving a completely sustainable future socially, but certainly would take more time to achieve the environmental goals. Yet this longer time would allow the city to grow organically with technological developments, ultimately achieving the ecological targets of Dongtan with a lower overall cost. Economically, perhaps this is the most sustainable city model too. Yet perhaps one could argue that by not addressing the ecological footprint immediately, externalities caused by the city’s pollution would contribute to it being higher cost in the end—I don’t know these magnitudes and so can’t comment. I merely suggest the idea to stimulate thought and discussion.

Ultimately I think the conclusion on this question is that while an eco-city is by the book a sustainable city, in reality it can take many forms, each of which must be adapted to the local context. To create a cookie cutter eco-city is blatantly in opposition of the spirit of the concept. If these four case studies teach anything, it is that the concept of an eco-city must be adapted to the local surroundings. In Huangbaiyu, the model village that was built was scorned by the villagers whereas in another context it may have been welcomed. Caofeidian’s plan could not survive without the heat and cooling provided by the surrounding industrial infrastructure—without this it would not achieve many of its KPIs. When creating an eco-city, you must start from a local definition of the place, the culture, the climate, and anything else that is site-specific. Only then can you incorporate all necessary factors to have an outcome that is socially, economically, environmentally, and politically sustainable.

The other question that comes to mind with these eco-cities is how they will affect the future of China’s development. When discussing Tianjin, I mentioned that one of the biggest factors affecting development of the Binhai area was the current economic thrust. No matter what environmental goals the nation adopts, it still has a long way to go until economics are no longer king. The government’s strategy is focused on economic growth and that is still the primary metric by which officials are measured. If sustainable cities are to advance beyond small pilots and mere rhetoric to become the norm for development, it will take a lot more advancement of environmentalism in the consciousness of local officials. There is growing awareness of the importance of environmental issues among the highest levels of government, but unfortunately that has yet to filter down to regional and city authorities.

Furthermore, one of the lessons I stressed most in these four case studies was the need for buy-in at multiple levels of governance and across many sectors. Yet this requires a large number of private actors including companies and the general public to be aware of sustainability and demand “greener” cities. From my interviews, it seems that China still has yet to meet this requirement for widespread ecological development. While many believe that the government has the power to implement sustainable measures with just a decree, unless there is buy-in from the local officials, companies, government workers, and the general public, these large projects could easily fall apart as was the case outside of Shanghai. So in short, despite these model cities being planned across the country, there are still a lot of factors that have to fall into place before we can expect to see widespread adoption of sustainable cities.

That said, these cities are a step in the right direction for China and the rest of the world. They bring attention to the issues surrounding urban sustainability and the challenges with achieving them. Rather than being dismayed at the lack of success in Dongtan and Huangbaiyu, these cases provide opportunities to learn what went wrong and take measures to avoid the same downfalls in the future. With more sustainable city projects popping up worldwide from Europe to India, Brazil to the Middle East, we need to learn from the past attempts and from projects across the globe if we are to make any progress toward the ultimate goal of an ecological society. It’s easy to be negative when a project fails, but it’s better to learn and move forward.