China: Doing interesting things with our money.
City planners in south China have laid out an ambitious plan to merge together the nine cities that lie around the Pearl River Delta.
The “Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One” scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales.
The new mega-city will cover a large part of China’s manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.
Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong.
“The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas,” said Ma Xiangming, the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and a senior consultant on the project.
Those evil Chinese, having their government do things for them instead of private business.
Twenty-nine rail lines, totalling 3,100 miles, will be added, cutting rail journeys around the urban area to a maximum of one hour between different city centres. According to planners, phone bills could also fall by 85 per cent and hospitals and schools will be improved.
“Residents will be able to choose where to get their services and will use the internet to find out which hospital, for example, is less busy,” said Mr Ma.
Toronto population: 2,503,281. could be a suburb in any one of the targeted Chinese Cities. I think LA is the common example–nothing to tell you’ve gone from one city to the next except the line on the map.
#1
“China: Doing interesting things with our money.”
How is it “our” money, we are borrowing it from china, not the other way around. Am I missing something here?
I think the money was printed in China, placed in their banks and the credit from that money was loaned to the United States. They have copied everything else why not money. They are the best at it.
# 25 msbpodcast
Well, they’re trying to avoid the suburb/LA/Southern California disaster. Highly concreted ares require less fossil fuels than spread out settlements. In addition, it’s easier to create an efficient public transportation system in a highly concentrated area. Furthermore, due to big cities requiring less land, they end up being more environmentally friendly than the alternative.
As long as China avoids the slum problems (which they sort of have with the housing registration scheme) and have adequate city planning, they aren’t in trouble.
We got one of those. It’s called a suburban mall with a Walmart anchor.