Guangzhou’s New Central Business District: Zhujiang New Town

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Adam Mayer

Guangzhou’s New CBD (highlighted in red) sits north of the Pearl River and east of the Old City in what not long ago was agricultural land

Recently I visited Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou’s newly built central business district (CBD). While Guangzhou itself is hardly a new city (its status as an international trading port goes back centuries), the CBD is brand new, built on what used to be agricultural land well outside of the historic city core. Though thanks to the city’s expanding underground metro and freeway system, Zhujiang New Town doesn’t seem so far away.

Currently Zhujiang New Town is best known as the site for the Guangzhou Opera House and many of the athletic venues for the 2010 Asian Games. One unique aspect about Guangzhou’s CBD compared with others around China is its marriage of cultural buildings with commercial office towers. In this regard, Zhujiang New Town is not much different from the planned ‘downtowns’ of sprawling 20th Century American cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Houston. Continue reading →

Speculation: China’s Proposed Eco-Cities

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Adam Mayer

A piece I wrote about China’s proposed eco-cities appeared recently in the inaugural issue of Dwell Asia magazine. The article takes a look at two proposed eco-cities, Dongtan in Shanghai and the Sino-Singapore Eco-city in Tianjin, examining the implications of the ideas presented in both proposals.

For the readers of the China Urban Development Blog, here is a reproduction of the original piece:

Today’s urban development zeitgeist suggests that cities should move towards sustainable models of living to combat climate change and reduce resource consumption. Of course, how to achieve that is a subject of ongoing debate among design and planning professionals. Unfortunately, branding new developments as ‘green’, ‘eco’ or ‘sustainable’ is often a loaded attempt to satisfy marketing and public relations needs for developers and government officials.

Nowhere is the use of greenwashing strategies more common than in China, where new cities practically arise overnight. Many new developments, particularly large-scale residential communities consisting of repetitive tower blocks, with names like Authentic Gardens and Spring Flower Court, claim to be environmentally friendly, but have little in the way of sustainable design strategies aside from a few patches of green space. Continue reading →

9/11, China and the Enduring Symbolic Power of the Skyscraper

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Adam Mayer

1 World Trade Center Rising in Lower Manhattan

Now that it has been about a month since the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., I have had some time to reflect on the enduring significance of the skyscraper. With One World Trade Center finally starting to form a new image in the Manhattan skyline, we see that in spite of protestations to building such a tower on sacred ground, construction crews move ahead to realize what will perhaps be the city’s most ambitious project in years. Some question why it has taken so long to get to this point while others still see the entire rebuilding effort as an affront to the memory of tragedy. Continue reading →

Go West Project at the Chengdu Biennale

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Adam Mayer

I had the privilege of sitting in on a round-table discussion led by the ‘Go West Project‘ at the Chengdu Biennale this past weekend. Go West Project is an independent think-thank based in Shanghai founded by two Dutch nationals, Michiel Hulshof, a journalist, and Daan Roggeveen, an architect. For the past two years, Hulshof and Roggeveen traveled around the country documenting the phenomenon of urbanization in China’s lesser-known cities (hence the name ‘Go West‘).

Their research culminated in a recently released book titled How the City Moved to Mr. Sun. The title refers to one of the several personal narratives they encountered in their travels. Mr. Sun, a corn farmer in a village on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, saw his land seized by authorities nearly 20 years ago. Like many of the other villagers, he used the compensation money to develop his own 4-storey ‘mixed-use’ building complete with retail space on the ground floor, living space on the 2nd and 3rd floors and a small group of guestrooms for migrant workers on the 4th floor. On the roof, Mr. Sun created an organic garden to continue doing what he knew how to do best.

Inevitably, the pace of urbanization caught up to Mr. Sun once again, and after about a 10 year run of profitability, his self-developed building was razed by bulldozers. He reluctantly gave in and accepted compensation and now lives with his wife in a modern high-rise residential tower block where ‘he doesn’t know any of the neighbors’. Continue reading →

Chengdu Enhances Urban Environment With Recreational Paths

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Adam Mayer

It seems that too often talk about China development focuses on ‘hard’ infrastructure projects including roads, bridges, power stations, rail systems, etc. Yet what is often overlooked in discussions about China’s infrastructure are projects designed to enhance quality of life for city dwellers. I recently discovered one of these new projects in the city where I live, Chengdu. Continue reading →