1. Foreword
During the twenty-six years since the introduction of Reform and Opening-up policy, the Chinese economy has been on a track of rapid development, with GDP increasing at an average annual rate of around 9% and significant improvement in peoples' living standard. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in October 2005 set the development target of doubling per capita GDP in the year 2010 on the 2000 level, indicating further expansion of the urban sector and increasing pressure for sustainability. As a developing economy, China's rapid industrialization and urbanization process faces the great challenges of energy shortage, environment pollution and ecological deterioration. China's sustainable urbanization process must take into consideration the availability of resources, the carrying capacity of the environment upon which cities and towns depend, and the development potential and constraints of particular regions and areas.
The mission of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) is to identify the serious environment issues China faces in its rapid development, to explore possible win-win solutions in economic development and environment protection, and to provide recommendations for policy making regarding implementation strategies of Chinese sustainable development. This year, CCICED examines sustainable urbanization , the last of three key thematic topics on sustainable development . The key question facing the Council is how China's overall development can be raised to a higher level and in a sustainable way through the development platform provided by cities.
1.1 Sustainable development, urbanization, and sustainable urbanization
Sustainable development emphasizes "satisfying the needs of the current generations without compromising the ability to meet the needs of future generations," "not harming the natural system sustaining earth life: atmosphere, water and soil; not exceeding the carrying capacity of resources and the environment." According to the Brundtland Commission, cities are not only the "bellwethers" of modern economies, they are also the main contributors to the world's resource and energy consumption as well as environmental pollution. Urban sustainability is crucial to global sustainable development.
Urbanization refers to the process of formation and development of cities and towns. It displays multiple characteristics from environmental and development dimensions, including physical, social, institutional and demographic aspects. Urbanization involves changes in human livelihoods and life style as a result of changes in society's productivity. It is manifested in the concentration and expansion of non-agriculture population, wealth, and industries. It is a complex process of system transformation centered around individuals and households, but influenced by multiple factors, including the interchanging and upgrading of the two major systems: physical and social infrastructure. It is the process of overall transformation and change from traditional to modern society.
Sustainable urbanization emphasizes the dynamic balance of environment, ecology, society and economic efficiency in the course of urbanization. It goes beyond the narrow scope of simply bringing the rural population into urban areas—and beyond the development of individual sustainable cities. It is to bring about the harmonious development of urban and rural areas and that of different regions. China's large population base, its high proportion of rural population, its energy shortage and fragile environment are all critical factors to be considered in establishing a pattern of sustainable urbanization with Chinese characteristics. It is clear that sustainable urbanization must adhere to the basic national policy of environment protection and resource saving; coordinate urbanization development with population characteristics; make sensible but intensive use of land and water resources; and protect ecological, historical and cultural environments in highly effective ways.
1.2 Sustainable urbanization: a means to build a comprehensive moderately well-off (xiaokang) society
Towards the end of the 20th century, the Chinese living standard had reached the initial level of being moderately well off (xiaokang) set forth by Deng Xiaoping in 1984, at $800 per capita. In November 2002, at the 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, it was decided that in the first 20 years of this century, China would concentrate on the comprehensive construction of a well-off society of a higher level that would benefit all of its 1.3 billion people; seeking to quadruple national domestic product (GDP) between 2000 and 2020. As the engine for overall economic development, urbanization is an important means for achieving this goal. It will promote a swift shift of rural labour from agricultural to non-agricultural sectors, raise society's labour productivity, increase returns and stimulate economic growth.
A well-off society requires overall planning of urban-rural development, accelerated construction of an energy efficient, resource saving and environment-friendly society, development of circular economy, protection of environment, natural ecosystems, promotion of a resource saving growth patterns and healthy consumption patterns in the society. Sustainable urbanization ideally will fulfill these requirements, taking into full consideration energy saving and environment protection to realize harmonious development of economy, society, human and nature during the process of urbanization.
2. The Process of China's Urbanization: Status and Prospects
2.1 Main characteristics of Chinese urbanization
In retrospect, drastic fluctuations occurred up to the end of the 1970s and sustained development afterwards. Between 1952 and 1978, the level of Chinese urbanization grew from 12.5% to 17.9%, with an increase of only 5.4 percentage points over the 26-year period. The average annual growth rate was less than 0.21 percentage points. The number of cities grew from 153 to 193, at the rate of adding 1.4 cities per year. After the introduction of reform and opening-up, urbanization entered the stage of continuous development. By the end of 2004, the level of urbanization reached 41.8%, 23.9 percentage points higher than the level in 1978, representing about 1 percentage point increase annually. Since the late 1990s, urbanization has entered a stage of rapid development, with an annual increase rate of nearly 1.5 percentage points.
Spatially, uneven development among regions. Between 1952 and 1978, state investment in construction inclined toward central-west inland provinces. Coastal industrial enterprises were moved to inland areas through administrative means, significantly changing the regional urbanization pattern. In terms of the numbers of cities, the ratio of increase between eastern, central and western regions was 1:15:4. Since 1978, China has adjusted its development policies allowing relatively faster development of eastern regions. The spatial pattern of urbanization changed as a result. The ratio of increase of cities in these three regions during this period is 1: 0.84: 0.57. At present, the urbanization level of eastern, central and western regions in 2003 was 43.03%, 37.42% and 19.55% respectively. The gap between eastern and western regions is 23 percentage points. Taking into consideration land area and population factors, the overall density of eastern cities is 1.6 times higher than that of the central region, 3.7 times higher than that of the western region. The overall density of eastern administrative townships is 1.8 times higher than that of the central region, 2.9 times higher than that of the western region.
With respect to the sizes of cities, pyramid-shaped distribution exists, dominated by many small cities and townships. As of 2004, China has a total of 661 administrative cities. Among these cities 46 are super large cities with a population of over 1 million, 64 are large cities with 0.5 to 1 million people, 225 are medium sized cities with 0.2 to 0.5 million, 326 are small cities of less than 0.2 million people. Compared to 1978, the number of the cities of these four different scales increased by 33, 37, 165 and 233 respectively. The ratio of cities of these sizes is 1: 1.39: 4.89: 7.09, showing a pyramid shaped structure. The small townships owe their fast development to the implementation of the state policy of "controlling the size of large cities and building more small townships." After 1997, the policy of controlling the development of large cities gradually faded out.
Diversification of drivers for urbanization. Before 1979, the central government was the key scene setter and investor for urbanization. After reform and opening-up, the urban construction investments from the central government dramatically declined, while the shares of funds coming from local governments, foreign investors, and domestic loans and enterprises are ever increasing. Government, enterprises, and individuals are becoming three main forces in the course of China's urbanization. Nevertheless, the government still plays a dominant role in urbanization and the government administrative force in urban infrastructure construction, population flow, and city management still exceeds the ever increasing market force.
Emergence of city clusters (belts) in concentrated regions after the 1990s. After entering the 1990s, integrated urban and regional development efforts speeded up, preliminarily forming three major urban clusters: the Pearl River Delta with Guangzhou and Shenzhen at the centre, the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai playing the leading role, and the Bohai Sea economic belt with Beijing and Tianjin as the core. According to the Fifth Census statistics (carried out in 2000), these three clusters play a pivotal role in Chinese economic activities, and rank the top three in terms of migrant population absorption.
2.2. Major accomplishments of urbanization
China's urbanization started late and the population base is large. An increase of urbanization rate by one percentage point means an over 10 million increase in urban population. As a result, China has the largest total urban population in the world, although it does not have the highest level of urbanization. By the end of 2004, China had 661 municipal cities and 19,892 administrative townships with 542.83 million city and town population, reaching an urbanization level of 41.8%. In contrast, in 1978, only 170 million Chinese people lived in cities. In other words, during the last 26 years, China's urban population had increased 370 million (including the migrants from rural areas and the natural growth of urban population). Such massive and rapid urbanization is rare in world history. Since the year 2000, the average increase rate for Chinese urbanization is even faster, being at 1.44 percentage points .
Given this massive increase in Chinese urban population and the number of new cities in China, urban construction has achieved impressive results. Take the built-up areas in municipal cities as an example. In 1978, the figure of municipal built-up areas was some 6,000 plus km2 whereas by 2003, that number reached almost 30,000 km2, an enlargement of more than 4 times. Physical infrastructure construction, such as municipal engineering projects, cultural works, environmental sanitation and residential housing projects, has achieved remarkable progress. The urban modernization level has reached new heights. Meanwhile, some international metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, have emerged, forming important economic, political, and cultural bridges connecting China to the outside world. They are creating important impacts on the world.
2.3 Prospects for the future
Mutual reinforcement of urbanization and industrialization. Looking from the perspective of historical "S" shaped urbanization pattern in the developed world, at present China is in the accelerating stage of urbanization given the 41.8% urbanization level. We can therefore predict that for quite a long time to come, China's industrialization and urbanization will be mutually promoting and the speed of development will remain high.
Further large scale increase in the rate of urbanization. Many Chinese and foreign research institutions and scholars have made predictions about China's urbanization over the next 20 to 30 years. Using the linear relationship of the urbanization level with natural logarithm (ln) of the per capita GNP, for example, the urbanization level is projected to rise to 58.7% by 2020, in a study carried out by researchers of the State Council Development Research Centre. Using statistics of the Fifth National Census, the population census office under the State Council calculated that urbanization level would reach 50.5% by 2010 and 61.4% by 2020. More comprehensive scenario studies show various levels of urbanization in China by 2020, at 50.73%, 54.13%, 57.53%, and 60.93% based on the average annual urbanization rate of 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, and 1.2 percentage points.
Comparing various estimations and taking into consideration factors such as economic development, industrialization, institutional transformation and statistical issues, we can presume that it is possible for China to realize an average annual increase of one percentage point in its urbanization level and hence, by 2020, China's urbanization level will be around 57%.
Market as the main driver for Chinese urbanization. Currently the Chinese market economy is yet to be perfected. Indeed progress towards marketization falls behind industrialization and urbanization processes. The managing pattern of a traditional planned economy still plays a big role and administrative interference of government is still prominent. Local protectionism remains a serious concern and the flow of key economic elements between urban and rural areas and among different cities still faces many man-made obstacles. Marketization's influence on urbanization has not been developed fully. The gradual development and perfection of a market economy system in China will further enhance, and perhaps fundamentally change the link between urbanization and industrialization. Thus marketization will push forward the further development of urbanization. At the same time, the government will continue to exert necessary influences on urbanization, correct market failure in the course of urbanization, and push urbanization in the direction of high sustainability.
3. Major Issues Related to Sustainable Urbanization in China
For a long period to come, both urbanization and industrialization will remain in the stage of high speed growth. It must be clearly recognized that a variety of problems in the course of urbanization are impeding the sustainable and healthy progress of urbanization. In view of the mandate of CCICED, this paper focuses the discussion mainly on environmental and institutional issues that are related to sustainable urbanization in China.
3.1 Natural resources: increasingly deficient
Currently Chinese cities face a general shortage of natural resource supply, coupled with a generally low efficiency in urban resource utilization and loss of access to some resources due to pollution and environmental damage. Given the fact of ever increasing resource demand in the course of urbanization, resource shortage is a major problem. How to break loose from these resource restrictions is a thorny problem. It is a challenge that must be solved during the urbanization process.
Urban water supply. China is a country of severe water shortage. Per capita water resources are less than one fourth of world average. Among the 661 cities, about 420 or more are short of water, with 114 of them in severe shortage. Some northern cities are forced to restrict water supply. The daily water shortage experienced by Chinese cities amounts to 16 million m3/d, with the annual shortage reaching 6 billion m3 A rough estimate is that the economic loss caused by water shortage is about 200 billion yuan. With the further expansion of cities, urban water shortage will persist and even deteriorate.
Water shortage due to lack of resources is further magnified by such phenomena as pollution, over-tapping of aquifers and wasteful use. In 2004, of the 15 sections along several big rivers in China that pass through major cities, 13 sections were severely polluted, with 16% of them being class V in water quality, 36% being ultra V. Nearly half of the urban drinking water from river sources falls below the required standard. About 26.5% of seawater in inshore zones is of quality below class IV. Urban pollution mainly comes from industrial wastewater and human wastewater and the continuing increase of urban human wastewater is gradually becoming the main cause of urban water pollution.
Sustainable levels of underground water extraction represent a solution of surface water insufficiency, but in many cities, overuse of groundwater has led to a sharp decrease of underground water resources, presenting geological hazards such as ground subsidence and cracks that threaten urban safety. For example, in the Yangtze River Delta region, three regional subsidence centres have formed: downtown Shanghai, the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou region of Jiangsu Province, and the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou region of Zhejiang Province. The phenomenon of seawater intrusion in such coastal cities as Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Qingdao, Yantai, Ningbo, Beihai and Laizhou is very serious.
Besides, there exists incredible waste and low efficiency in industrial and daily living water consumption in China.
Thus, with the progress of urbanization, Chinese cities face the three-fold pressures of water resource shortage, wastewater treatment and aquatic environmental management.
Land availability. The contradiction between the large demand on urban land and the severe shortage of land supply is becoming increasingly fierce. In 2005, the average cultivated land per capita is only 1.41 mu (0.094 hectare), already approaching the lower limit of guaranteeing food supply security. During the 10th Five-year Plan period (2001-2005), China has set the quota for annual urban construction land use at under 2 million mu (133,333 hectares). But the current urbanization speed and the land use scale has created demand at around 6-7 million mu (400,000-466,667 hectares), leading to a 4-5 million mu (266,667~333,333 hectare) deficit. The supply-need conflict of city-town land use is especially sharp in the eastern coastal region.
Despite the severe shortage of land resources, China's land use mode often remains crude and extensive, with low land use efficiency. First, the increase in land use for urban construction is greater than the rate of urban population increase. In 1991-2002, the average increase of land use in the core city area of the 41 super large cities is over 50%, the resilient coefficient of urban land use scale being 2.28. Both of them are higher than the sound value of 1.12. In 2003 the average overall volume ratio of the constructed area in the 660 municipal cities was only 0.50, lower than the sound value.
Urban land use structure and layout are irrational. The main indicators are insufficient land for public service facilities, infrastructure and ecological environment, whereas industrial land use in cities is proportionally too high. In China, the share of industrial land use accounts for about 20%-30% or even higher of total urban land area; in developed countries, it is generally under 15%. Land use for commercial service and municipal environment is too small in proportion, 5 to 10% lower than in comprehensively developed cities abroad. Such a land use structure often leads to squeezing out urban afforested land and transportation space, causing a number of problems including traffic jams, green project land shortage, and urban heat island effects.
Urban energy supply. With respect to energy, Chinese urban sustainable development faces a major challenge of energy shortage, environment pollution and low efficiency in energy usage.
There is an insufficient supply of high quality energy demanded by the city, especially that of petroleum and electricity. The Chinese economy has entered a new round of rapid development. Heavy and chemical industries, the rising urban population and the quality of urban life all set a bigger demand on clean and superior energy. During 2003- 2005 China experienced vast "power shortage" across the country. In more than 20 provinces cities were forced to switch off power supply on a rotational basis to restrict the use of electricity. In 2004, China imported a net 120 million ton of crude oil, 34.8% more than that of the year before. China's dependence of foreign oil has exceeded 40%.
China's dependence on coal has created great pressure on environment. In 2004, China's total primary energy consumption reached a new high at 1.97 billion tce, with 67% of coal, discharging 22.5 million ton of SO2 and 11 million tons of suspended particulate wastes. Developing clean coal techniques is one absolutely key task that must be tackled in Chinese sustainable urban development.
The rapid increase of energy consumption is accompanied by low efficiency in energy use. At present, the overall energy use efficiency in China is around 33%, 10 percentage points lower than that in the developed countries. Energy consumption for manufacturing major industrial products is 20 to 100% higher than that of the developed countries, at an average of 40%. With consideration of mining and transportation, total efficiency of the Chinese energy system is less than 10%, not quite half of that of the developed countries. The main causes for the low urban energy efficiency include: (1) on the macro level, there is a lack of scale of economy in small and medium sized cities; (2) the technology level of township enterprises is low; and (3) there is serious waste of energy use in the buildings sector. In 2000, China's energy consumption in the buildings sector reached 0.35 billion tce, amounting 27% of the total energy consumption. Among the current 40 billion square metres of building space, 99% is of low energy efficiency. Of the newly constructed buildings each year, less than 5% meet the energy saving standard design.
3.2 Environmental pollution: far exceeding the assimilative capability
With intensifying efforts for pollution control in China, the environment quality shows a trend of overall improvement and partial deterioration. Yet the pollution control of air, water, solid wastes, soil, noise, hazardous chemical substances, light, etc., has not reached the ideal status of desired sustainability and environment pollution remains a major restricting factor of sustainable urban development. What follows is a discussion of air pollution and solid waste pollution since water pollution has been covered in previous sections.
Urban air pollution. Although more effort has been put into prevention and control, the situation of urban air pollution remains grim. Of the 342 cities monitored in 2004, air quality in 141 (41%) of the cities was rated as class III; 69 (20%) of the cities had air quality was worse than class III. This means that 70% of the sampled urban population is exposed to substandard air. The problem is especially bad in northern cities, extra-large and exceedingly large cities, and cities in coal mining regions.
Urban air pollution is manifested mainly in particle pollution, SO2 pollution and automobile exhaust fumes. The fact that auto exhaust is becoming an important pollutant in large and medium cities requires special attention. China has become No. 1 in SO2 discharge, and is the world's No. 3 acid rain region following North America and Europe. The acid rain area is increasing rapidly. All the rainfall in some cities, such as Hunan's Changde, Jiangxi's Dexing, Zhejiang's Lishui, Anji, and Kaihua, has been recorded as acid.
Urban solid waste. China's urban solid wastes are creating pressure on the urban development. It is mainly manifested in:
(1) Continuously increasing total amounts, making it increasingly difficult for solid waste treatment and reuse. In 2004, the total output of industrial solid wastes was 1.20 billion tons, about 0.4 billion tons more than that in 2000. Municipal waste discharge is also increasing at a linear rate. In 1980, it was less than 50 million tons. By 2004, it had reached 340 million tons, an annual increase rate of 8.5%. The rate of safe treatment of municipal wastes in China is 57.76%, but 160 cities do not treat their domestic wastes. About 2/3 of the Chinese cities are being overwhelmed by their garbage problem. A lot of garbage is simply buried or left in the open in the suburbs and along rivers, causing a series of problems such as water pollution, water quality decline and the spread of infectious diseases.
(2) Increasing impacts of hazardous wastes on the environment. In 2004, the hazardous waste discharge was 9.63 million tons. But the rate of safe treatment of these wastes was not high. In 2004, centralized treatment rate of hazardous substances in 155 cities was zero. Nationwide, the treatment rate of hospital wastes is only 60.44%. The portion of untreated hazardous wastes entering into the environment is quite high, threatening environment safety and human health.
Soil pollution. Ninety percent of the world's pollutants end up in the soil at some stage. Soil pollution thus has become a global issue. Soil pollution in China is also serious. According to preliminary statistics, at least 13-16 million hectares of cultivated land in China has been polluted by insecticide, while the agricultural land polluted by industrial wastes has exceeded 100,000 hectares. Every year, soil pollution causes a reduction of the grain output by more than 10 million tons. The various economic losses in agricultural sector caused by soil pollution totals about 20 billion yuan. The food safety of both urban and rural residents is threatened.
3.3 Urban ecological footprints: widespread growing deficit
On the one hand there is tremendous consumption of natural products and service in high population density urban areas. On the other hand, a lot of waste substances are discharged into nature, waiting to be assimilated and absorbed by nature. The burden of ecological pressure is accumulating day by day.
Using ecological footprint analysis (EFA) as a tool to measure the status of ecological sustainability in a country or region, some scholars have discovered through calculating the Ecological Footprint of different Chinese cities that the EFA per capita in the majority of Chinese cities exceeds the average ecological carrying capacity per capita. The ecological deficit per capita is grave, especially when we recognize that the figures take into account the impacts on land far beyond city boundaries. In 2001, the per capita EF was 1.61 ha in China, however the per capita ecological carrying capacity is only 0.86 ha, with a deficit of 0.75ha . In Beijing（2002） , Shanghai (2003) , and Guangzhou (2000) , the per capita EF are respectively 2.91, 3.36, and 2.5 ha, while the per capita ecological carrying capacity is only 0.11, 0.46, and 0.2 ha, the ecological deficits are as high as 2.8, 2.9, 2.3 ha per person. Although the urban ecological deficits are rising, the urban EF per RMB 10,000 of GDP shows a declining tendency.
3.4 Urban infrastructure: severely lagging behind
The overall status in large cities and extra-large cities is generally better than medium and small cities because the large and super-large cities have economic strength, and can put more power into building new infrastructure or renovating existing facilities. But because of the huge old debts and the high demand on available funds, the long life cycle and low operation efficiency, their basic urban facilities are inadequate to meet the demands of future economic and social development. It is clearly reflected in the severe shortages of transportation infrastructure and associated 'software', severe traffic jams, urban water distribution and sewage, and gas supply networks unable to meet the demand of urban development. The widespread nature of infrastructure shortages in medium and small cities mainly shows itself in the lack of supply networks, insufficient sewage and wastewater treatment, garbage collection and transportation, and imperfect pollution treatment systems. Infrastructure facility shortage is especially severe in many medium and small cities. The 2004 Urban Environment Assessment Communiqués indicates that 193 cities still have no wastewater treatment plant.
The main cause for the lack of supply for urban infrastructure is the lack of investment. According to World Bank analysis, the investment allocation for urban infrastructure construction in developing countries should occupy 9%-15% of the total fixed assets investment, 3%-5% of GDP. In 2002, China's total investment in urban infrastructure construction was 3% of the GDP, 7% of the fixed assets investment. In all preceding years, the ratio was even lower. The cause for the lack of investment is the high reliance on government funds and public investment as the main investment and financing channel, and the low efficiency in fund use.
Poor and outdated infrastructure facility operational management approaches, instruments, and concepts often render the existing facilities unable to be fully and properly functional, yet another reason for insufficient supply of urban infrastructure facilities.
Lack of planning and prevalence of bad design also are important reasons for inadequate urban infrastructure. For example, many cities used government bond money to build wastewater treatment plants, but did not build the necessary accessory of urban wastewater collecting pipe networks. Because of the poor planning, urban streets often go through multiple disruptions when laying and burying various kinds of wires and pipelines. What deserves closer attention is that the guiding principles for designing, constructing and operating urban infrastructure are still traditional ones and unable to meet the principles and demands of sustainable development. For example, infrastructure is still not constructed according to the requirements of building a resource efficient society, where saving water and electricity is a priority. The planning and design has not taken into consideration the contradiction between increased urban population and the limited resources such as land and water.
3.5 Gaps in regional development: continuously enlarging
It is necessary for cities and the surrounding areas within the radius of their impact to achieve harmony development. This includes the coordination between urban and rural areas as well as between cities. Sustainable development not only emphasizes the vertical temporal relationship where one unit's development is connected and extended to the next step, but also requires mutual prosperity among different units of the cross section. From this sense, Chinese urban and regional development is not balanced.
Urbanization in different regions also is unbalanced. In the past 50 years, cities developed rapidly. But the developments in eastern, central and western regions take place at far different speeds. The city and town structure is irrational. This has been discussed in previous sections of this paper.
From the point of view of urban-rural relations, the gap between urban and rural areas is increasing. The dual system regarding cities and rural villages restricted the progress of urbanization. From 1978 to 2003, the per capita income gap of urban and rural dwellers has diverged, from 2.6: 1 to 3.2: 1. If other non-monetary factors such as urban residents' retirement pension, medical and unemployment benefits as well as other bonuses are considered, the per capita income ratio between urban and rural people is 6: 1.
Urbanization is a significant solution for eliminating urban and rural gaps. However in China, ongoing urbanization is accompanied by widening income gap between rural residents and urban residents. Such abnormal status is worth of consideration. This lies in the dual system, which leads to unequal identity and status and barriers to the free flow of labourers, land and other production elements, the unequal allocation of national fiscal resources; as well as lack of coordination in city and rural planning and construction, and inadequate coordination for joint urban and rural ecology and environment construction.
From the point of view of inter-city relations, the relationship between cities within a region is not coordinated. The existing urban clusters lack an overall planning strategy covering their urban and rural areas. There are disorderly competitions in urban construction and industrial structure. Orderly competition can optimize the distribution and relocation of social resources and promote mutual development through specialized division of labour and cooperation. Disorderly competition can only lead to waste of resources, repetitive construction and duplicated industrial structure, causing increased regional environment pollution. The "qualitative water shortage" (due to poor water quality) that appeared in otherwise water resource rich Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, and various examples of duplicate construction of airports and shipping ports, are significant examples for coordination failure within a given region.
3.6 Urban environmental governance: intractable institutional barriers
In the process of urbanization in China, government plays a decisive role. However, with the deepening of urbanization, poor governance becomes more and more visible. It obstructs the development of urbanization and beyond certain levels is important for sustainability.
Powerful governments overstepping their authority. Urbanization and sustainable development needs the government's guidance and promotion, but in reality the government guidance on urbanization becomes a compelling driver. The government has taken the functional space which should be occupied by the market. It will be good to let market lead the way of matters such as industrial location and land requisition, industrial planning and land circulation. But in reality these matters are determined by the government and the participation by enterprises and the public is neglected. It blinds the development of enterprises, hurts the interests of rural and urban dwellers, and leads to "governance failure".
In the macro regulating and controlling of regional urban development by the central government and line ministries, there is excessive interference over specific projects of local urban development. For example, the development of metro rail transit in many cities should be the responsibility of municipal government in contrast to the current practice of compulsory approval from the central government.
Gaps in public management and service and ineffectiveness in law and regulation enforcement. Providing public service is one of the responsibilities of the government, but currently, many cities are experiencing traffic jams, deteriorating environment, weakening ability of prevention and reduction of natural disasters, lacking protection in public safety, inadequate social security system, and the children of rural people entering the city to live and work are unable to access compulsory public education. All these public services are not sufficiently provided. These are some of the most important gaps in urban management. Other indications of gaps in government functioning are a lack of scientific soundness, continuity, and practical considerations in city planning. As a result, urbanization development in many regions is a disorderly and out-of-control practice.
Existing laws are not observed and policies are not put into practice. In 2004 the State Environment Protection Administration conducted a specialized nationwide study on the implementation of Environment Assessment Law. The results show that the average implementation rate of the environment impact assessment system was only 50% to 60%. The City of Beijing has been issuing policies and regulations for conserving urban water consumption since the 1980s in order to alleviate the water shortage tensions. But the people in Beijing still do not recognize the importance and urgency of water saving. The wasting of water is still widespread. A large number of cases of violation against water saving policies have not been investigated and dealt with.
Inadequate supervision of conflicts over rights and interests. There are serious problems of overlapping authority and mixed responsibilities between different levels of government, from central government to local governments, and among different government departments of the same level, with regard to urban management and administration. Often these cause the awkward situations of multiple government agencies having governing authority but no single government agency can be relied on to solve a problem. This is common for various aspects of city management. For example, multiple administrative departments, from the central government to local governments, are involved in the management of urban household wastes. There are nearly ten of them, including the Ministry of Construction, State Environment Protection Administration, State Development and Reform Commission, etc.
Conflicts of power and interests surface in urban management. It leads to disharmony between the policies of urban development and the goal of sustainable development, restricting the progress of urbanization. It is known that micro-vehicles with low exhaust discharge often meet with many restrictions by traffic control departments on the basis of inferior performance, low speed, causing traffic jams, etc. For another example, urban planning departments and land management departments make their respective general urban plans and general land use plans based on Urban Planning Law and Land Management Law respectively. The two are in serious conflict with each other and difficult to coordinate.
Supervision and rectification systems are of crucial importance in raising urban management ability. The most effective supervision at present is the supervision from above. But supervision from higher level administrators often is conducted through listening to reports. Bragging and faulty reports run rampant. The current urban management systems adopted by most of the Chinese cities are still centralized and working from top down. They lack social transparency or communications with outside sources, making it very difficult to safeguard the interests of city stakeholders. The lack of public participation mechanisms in urban management system makes it very difficult for masses to supervise the administrators.
4. Strategic choices
4.1 Resource saving: resource efficient and environmental friendly cities
Use of price as a market signal. By appropriate calculation of productivity and supply cost of water and energy, efficiency standards and prices applicable to different types of consumers such as households, businesses, government departments, and social services can be established through public consultation and supervision. An appropriate resource pricing system can be established for rational and efficient use of resources. During the period of "the 11th five-year plan" (2006-2010), new schemes for water pricing can be gradually adopted in cities that experience severe water shortage. This includes: basic, progressive, seasonal, abundant and dry period and trade specific prices, and differentiated prices to encourage the use of recycled water. While adopting the new water prices, policies have to be introduced to take care of the interest of low income and disadvantaged groups and to guarantee their basic living through financial subsidies. Beijing has already started experimenting with progressive pricing and has gained some valuable experiences. There is a need to continue research on this and to extend the experiment.
Technological R & D. Public support and regulation is required to develop energy efficient technologies and promote new energy saving products and technology to raise the efficiency of energy use. Preferential policies can be introduced to stimulate developers and users of new water saving and energy saving products. For technological R & D, efforts are need to sort, regulate, standardize and combine existing preferential policies. Energy saving funds can be expanded and the scope of its application enlarged. New mechanisms for energy saving can be set up to promote market operations. New systems of energy saving must be established to incorporate resource planning, power demand-side management, contract energy management, energy efficiency labeling and voluntary contracts, all of which are already widely in use abroad.
Green consumption. The rise of urbanization level and the improved living and consumption of urban dwellers continuously set a high demand on energy and environment. Wastefulness, luxurious consumption must be effectively checked. We need to study rational consumption structure and establish accompanying price system and taxation policy; regulate simple and green packaging; control the abuse of disposable utensils and greatly promote recycling of old and used goods; advocate green life style that matches the carrying capacity of the earth, respect for plain and green consumption mode; and discourage luxury and wastefulness.
The policies on automobiles and housing consumption require a re-examination. Excessive car ownership is responsible for traffic jam, energy consumption, air pollution and urban land encroachment. There are many other transportation modes to choose from. Priority for urban housing development must be given to economical and functional residential properties. Strict control over expensive houses has to be implemented to save land space and energy.
4.2 Pollution control: observing and enlarging urban environmental carrying capacities
Capacity assessment for urban sustainability. Environmental capacity for urban development must be assessed and evaluated for given technological, institutional and financial conditions. This assessment will provide a scientific basis for planning and management of urban sustainability.
Clean production for pollution prevention and control. Clean production requires the creation of pollution prevention system and reduction of the cost for pollution control. Total quantity control must continue to limit total amount of pollutants emitted and discharged into the ambient environment. The discharge permits must be allocated within environment capacity. SO2 emissions trading scheme needs to be expanded in order to achieve efficient reduction of pollutants. Discharge standards must be observed and enforced. Heavy fines and punishment for illegal discharges are essential to deter polluters.
The private sector must be encouraged to develop and adopt clean production technologies. Regulation has to be enforced to eliminate and close the backward production, equipment and enterprises that waste resources and pollute the environment. At the same time, environment protection industries should be encouraged to develop. Prevention and reduction of solid wastes must take place at the sources through economic and legal means. This is the fundamental way to reduce solid wastes. Extended producer responsibility can be introduced and its scope of for application be expanded. Compulsory regulations can be made to require producers to reduce or recycle some packaging materials. Research and development of comprehensive use and safe treatment of solid wastes must be encouraged. A combination of different approaches can be adopted to reach the goal of reduction, re-use and treatment of hazardous solid wastes.
Development of urban environment infrastructure: enlargement of environmental capacity. Efforts must be made to diversify the sources of investment in and financing for urban environmental infrastructure. Based on the nature and characteristics of infrastructure projects, government will continue to be the dominant investor for non-profit projects such as urban roads, maintenance of rivers and lakes. As for business infrastructure projects, while government will play a role, the private sector will gradually take over in the form of commercial operations. Public-private partnerships can be a major form of financing urban environmental infrastructure projects. Through contract making to grant special rights and privileges and price negotiation, the investment and financing channel for urban construction projects will be widened and diversified.
Urban infrastructure construction ought to focus on raising the overall carrying capacity of transportation, speeding up the construction of urban wastewater and solid wastes treatment facilities as well as the accompanying accessories. Scientific planning and management are essential for urban environmental infrastructure investment and operation.
Sustainable urban transportation: reducing air pollution and energy consumption. Priorities of urban public transport development should be given to public transit systems, inter-city and within-city rail links. Smart transportation and other technology should be used to improve efficiency of routine public transit system and service quality. The use of cars should be restricted by increasing their running cost, such as parking fees, congestion fees, road use fees, etc. Policies should be introduced to manage traffic needs through regulations.
4.3 Spatial distribution and sizes: orchestration of urban development
Coordinated development of large, medium-sized and small cities and townships Different sizes of cities and towns all play an important role in the process of sustainable urbanization. The Chinese road to sustainable urbanization should fully take into consideration the actual conditions. It should aim at creating good living environment, combine the harmonious development of urbanization and industrialization, adhere to the principle of urban and rural coordinated sustainable development, create innovation systems as the driving forces and maintain a concerted development of big, medium and small cities and towns. Big cities need to overcome "urban disease" (sprawl), whereas the small towns must pay attention to environment protection and resource intensification.
Establishing policies and systems favoring development of high density urban clusters and their linkages. Priorities can be given to the development of large and medium sized cities and high-density urban areas, urban clusters and urban belts. Large cities are in the lead position to push forward urbanization, Concentrated production and the radiation impact can effectively lower the trading cost, deepen division of labour and raise productivity, using all sorts of resources in an intensive way.
The prototype of three big urban clusters has already emerged in China: the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. It also has a few economic axis belts such as Beijing-Tianjin-Huhehaote-Baotou-Yinchuan, Longhai-Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway and the Yangtze River, Pearl River. We must give full play to the three urban clusters and the economic axis belt and let them radiate and pull the Midwest region, combining this "axis radiation" with the "regional radiation" of central cities in different economic zones to promote the overall development level of China's urbanization.
For the trans-provincial high density urban clusters, it is recommended that a coordinating system and institution be established between the governments and departments involved to form a unified task force with several responsibilities: to draw up a regional plan for the clusters, to plan as a whole the organization of space of the cities of different levels, to coordinate in an overall manner the planning of large scale public service facilities, to rationalize arrangements for inter-city rapid transportation, to realize the integrated transportation within the region and sharing of other public facilities, and to negotiate on specific questions about the implementation of the plan. Efforts are required to gradually improve the management system of the high density urban clusters and establish a control mode beneficial to unified coordination and managing township urban construction.
Harmonizing urban and rural development. We must break the system of separation between urban and rural areas and between different regions. Conflict of interest among regions and between rural and urban districts has to be resolved such that concerted development among them can be realized. Overall consideration is required to guide urbanization process, making policies in areas such as economic development, industrial structure, population movement, resource use, environment construction and protection policies that will favour urban and rural interaction and coordination, promoting urban and rural integration.
4.4 Urban planning and management: application of science and rule of law
Urban planning: science and authority for sustainable development. In the past, there have been short-sighted and short-lived urban planning and frequent revisions in China. But there is a lack of scientific basis and a lack of authority. The application of sciences and rule of law are essential for sound urban planning and management.
First, the guiding principles must be correct, seeking high standards, but avoiding urban development that goes beyond the stage of economic and environmental capacity, or blindly seeks high speed. Realistic analysis must be of constraining and favorable conditions with regard to urban development. Critical factors need to be defined on the basis of urban population size, land use scale, environment capacity, urbanization speed, market environment and the direction and focus for strategic adjustment of the urban industrial structure.
Second, urban planning must consider the harmonious integration of the city and environment, human and nature, avoiding harming the ecological environment in the course of urban construction and industrial development. reflecting the principles of sustainable development.
Third, during the process of making and revising master plans for the cities, there is a need to attach importance to the city's cultural wealth, climate conditions, and characteristics of local geography, history, economic and ethnic features, avoiding "one face" for all the cities.
Fourth, the master plan of the city must be made consistent with regional planning, overall land use planning, urban industrial planning, etc. Fifth, we must actively promote public participation in the whole process of decision making, implementation and supervision of urban planning.
In order to legally ensure that the above goals are met, the revision of the Law on Urban Planning is recommended. The following changes are suggested:
(1) The guiding principle must be changed, from "restricting the size of big cities and rationally develop medium and small cities" to "concerted development of big, medium and small cities and towns."
(2) Add a stipulation on "the procedures and methods for public participation in urban planning, and a requirement to conceptualize sustainable development" to urban planning law.
(3) Check consistency to avoid contradictions and conflicts with Administrative Permit Law, Land Management Law, etc.
(4) Enhance operational characteristics for proper implementation.
Participatory urban management. General public participation must be institutionalized to reflect the requirements for people-centred and democratic urban management. Such institutions will ensure the openness and transparency of policies and decisions. Moreover, they enhance the implementation of the policy by building a broad social foundation. Public hearing systems should be enhanced and promoted to obtain opinions from the broad masses of people on important issues related to overall development of the city and to conduct discussions and negotiations for important matters of technical and specialized nature. Consultations must be made to evaluate proposed decisions on important matters closely related to public interests. Transparency is required to ensure that the interests and needs of all sides are effectively expressed. Standards and a system for performance evaluation needs to be established and improved. Accountability for misjudgments must be maintained. Mechanisms must be set up to allow room for correcting mistakes. Oversight from the general public and the media over urban management is required to ensure that public engineering projects hold open bidding and there is transparency and fair competition. The rational use of public resources has to be guaranteed.
Establishment and rule of law. Urban planning and management has to be brought under the rule of law. Emphasis must be placed on standardization and systemization of urban environment management. Law enforcement responsibilities must be clearly defined and strengthened. Disregard of laws and regulations must not be tolerated. Public awareness of urban planning and management laws and regulations must be raised.
