Will China be the first country to build radical Ecocities?

The cities we have in the developed countries have been shaped during hundreds of years. During the last one hundred years many cities have been shaped out of our need for car transports for people and goods. We can now see the negative effects of this development but there is a very strong lock-in effect due to existing infrastructure, planning routines, our minds etc. Can we change this situation by incremental changes or do we have to take more radical steps? Can we build new cities or city areas like radical Ecocities? I will not go into the discussion to define an Ecocity or why we need them. The interesting thing is that the concept of Ecocity is very much on the agenda in China and also Swedish companies are involved in several Ecocities e.g. Caofeidian and Wuxi.

In a lecture with title “EcoCity – what and why? ” in Tianjin, China, 17.04.2007 the finish professor Eero Paloheimo stated that:

"China could produce eco-city design and eco-cities in the same way as Venezuela produces oil or Switzerland produces watches. China could become the first and most important producer of eco-cities".

Eero Paloheimo argues that in the European cities the planners have too many constraints in order to radically change the planning process in order to build radical Ecocities. His argument why China could do it is:

"As far as I understand, Chinese decision-makes do not have the same constraints and are not as easily steered by the media. Major, radical decisions may be easier to take when you believe they are correct and need not suffer from irrelevant criticism. Making such a radical decision as to build an eco-city is possible in China. It would not be possible in Finland or other European countries."

Another argument in line with this is that China can leap-frog in the development:

"By taking radical action, China could still avoid the worst environmental problems that already affect all countries in Europe. China could – at least partly – jump over the industrial stage, which has proven itself to be a mistake.”

The arguments from Eero Paloheimo why China could be better off when it comes to building radical Ecocities boils down to:

1.       China can leap-frog through development and avoid technologies and infrastructures
 that are destructive to environment

2.       China can build faster and without our planning constraints.

The first argument has been discussed extensively not the least within the Industrial Ecology research community and the conclusion is that it seems very difficult for developing economies to leap-frog.

The second argument is interesting because it is built on the thought that due to the lack of democratic processes China can easier and faster build radical Ecocities. They don´t have the constraints of the participatory democratic processes. I think this is built on an idea that an Ecocity can be built by experts and not by citizens who have many different ideas what an Eco city really is. The planning of an Ecocity then turns out to very instrumental, more or less as we developed cities 40-50 years ago, when we planned the suburbs to the large cities. The experience from this period is that cities have to be developed by the people living there and not only by experts. Participatory democratic processes may slow down the overall planning phase but they ensure that all dimensions of sustainability are included also the social.

Link to the lecture by Eero Paloheimo
http://www.eeropaloheimo.fi/EcoCity.htm

About Ecocities:
http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/
http://www.ecocity-project.eu/