Beijing
The population of the municipality of Beijing, China's capital, has now reached just under 18 million2, During the last 20 years, the urban population has grown rapidly and this is causing many problems.
Housing
Over the past two decades, Beijing has cleared over five million square metres of slum and substandard housing and replaced it with modern high-density apartment blocks of up to 25 storeys. Yet, Beijing is still grappling with the provision, not only of adequate housing to meet its burgeoning population, but also of affordable housing.
As a result of this latter problem, Beijing still contains much of its traditional housing built behind the high walls that line the narrow alleyways serving the old residential areas. Single-storey dwellings erected around courtyards originally housed one or two families but are now shared by several, which means these ancient dwellings have become grossly overcrowded.
With the advent of the Olympics in 2008, the Beijing authorities have stepped up the pace. They had planned to demolish a further nine million square metres of older and inadequate housing and to relocate 350,000. However, the demolition of some of the traditional housing has met opposition from a group of conservationists who believe they should be preserved as part of Beijing’s heritage.
The government authorities are not alone in aiming to improve housing conditions. Self-help schemes are a relatively new way of increasing the housing stock. Nanyuan, in south Beijing, was a flourishing agricultural commune until a few years ago. The villagers formed a housing association and built an estate of 20 six-storey blocks of flats. These were all sold at cost price.
Transport
An increase in car numbers and a rise in traffic in Beijing is presenting another major challenge. Despite the construction of wide multi-lane roads and fly-overs, traffic gridlock is common at peak times. Up to two decades ago the bicycle was the most popular way of travelling. Ideal for threading through the alleyways, which are too narrow for motorised traffic, bikes are also cheap to run and pollution-free.
However today, in Beijing an extra 100,000 vehicles are still coming onto the streets each year. The city has just over three million registered vehicles, mostly comprising private cars, buses, taxis and government vehicles. Public transport is being encouraged but developments in public transport are still finding it hard to keep pace with an explosion in car ownership.
In Beijing, after years of apparent inaction, a total ban on leaded petrol for cars was implemented within the space of just six months a few years ago.
In August 2007, Beijing began a four-day test scheme to take 1.3m vehicles off the city's roads. During the test period, cars with registration plates ending in odd and even numbers were banned from the roads for two days.
Any driver caught contravening the restrictions was fined. If it is agreed that the strategy worked, it will be used in August 2008 to reduce air pollution and traffic during the Olympics. Officials expect the ban to cut vehicle emissions by 40%.
Beijing's residents, who were told to take public transport rather than their cars during the test period, appear to have supported the pilot project. Another measure has been to promote Traffic Demand Management – discouraging traffic with high parking fees and reduced parking spaces. Beijing traffic planners visited the UK to study our traffic management strategy to find ideas for developing a sustainable transport system.
Environmental Issues
Beijing is one of the world’s top 10 most polluted cities.
Until 2000, China's national dependence on coal - still the source of some 75% of its energy - was seen as a key cause of country's environmental problems. On the positive side, the whole catering industry has now gone over to natural gas or electricity. Thousands of homes have been converted to natural gas too, and the World Bank is providing assistance.
However, Olympic chief Jacques Rogge still says air pollution could lead to some events at the 2008 Beijing Games being postponed. Billions have been spent in an attempt to reduce pollution without success. A host of factories have been shut down, while many others have been moved out of town, but non-stop construction and booming car sales have made air quality even worse.
The city's poor air quality could trigger asthma attacks. The transport measures that have been put into effect should help. By 2008, most of Beijing’s public buses and 60% of the city’s taxis will have switched to natural gas, helping to reduce polluting emissions in the city.
It is this tension between environmental concerns and the desire of China's vast population for Western-style consumer comfort that may ultimately determine whether blue skies really do return to the nation's cities.
Sources: BBC News 17 August
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6950883.stm
2 Xinhua News Agency, 21 August 2007
London
In February 2004 the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, unveiled The London Plan to guide London’s development over the coming decades.
The London Plan covers a wide range of issues and sets out a vision of how London is likely to grow and change by 2016. Livingstone envisages a population growth of 810,000 to 8.1 million by 2016. Such growth would make key demands on housing, employment (the city's working population will grow by 516,000) and transport.
Housing
Housing, especially affordable housing, is already a hotly debated topic. The London Plan suggests that each year 23,000 new homes would need to be built in London to house the rising population and, ideally, half of these should be made affordable for those on low incomes, including key workers such as nurses and teachers. Densification, using appropriate housing design, and the use of brown field sites, would help accommodate the demand for extra homes. Much of the growth is scheduled for east London, the Isle of Dogs and the London end of the Thames Gateway, extending the Docklands development of the 1980s. The East End of London currently includes areas of social deprivation where new jobs and social facilities are also needed. The 2012 Olympics to be held in the East end should provide a catalyst for this change.
Plans for a new town at the northern end of the Greenwich peninsula have been approved. This brown field site will have 10,000 homes, a school, shops, restaurants and offices. Other features would include parkland, some traffic-free streets and access to public transport. Plans for the Millennium Dome, close by, include using the venue to provide entertainment and sports facilities. The Royal Docks would become another urban centre. Many other brown field sites are being developed. Some sites such as the Royal Arsenal, a mixed-use development, would help regenerate Woolwich town centre.
Transport
Although there have been significant moves towards improving London’s public transport systems3, providing transport for an additional 700,000 people would be a major challenge.
Delays cost money, so the top priorities are to reduce road congestion and improve the reliability of buses. This has been aided by the recent introduction of a congestion charge in central London on 17 February 2003, and by an increase in the number of bus lanes. Bus transport will receive the bulk of the estimated £130m expected from congestion charging. However, this has been so efficient in reducing traffic in central London that the income raised so far has not reached the revenue expected. The new ‘bendy’ buses that have been introduced also speed up travel time, as the three-door design permits quicker access to passengers.
The London Underground is already overcrowded. Improvements and extensions to the Jubilee Line, the Victoria Line and the Docklands Light Railway are under construction. A number of improvement projects are also being considered. A number of improvement projects are also being considered such as a cross-river tram scheme will link Camden with Peckham, reducing this journey time by half, expected to be completed by 2011.
Environmental issues
The new congestion charge programme should help to begin to reduce air pollution. Providing, improving and protecting open spaces is equally important. For those living in cramped conditions and lacking gardens, parks provide a green space for recreation and leisure. Landscaping community gardens on estates in deprived areas, such as Whitechapel, is part of the work being undertaken by the project Tree-mendous London which is just one project in Trees for London. The new Thames Barrier Park in Newham has transformed the site of a former chemical works into a riverside park.
These are just some of the many plans being implemented to improve the quality of life in London and to boost its economy, ultimately trying to raise its status as a world city of the 21st century.
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