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KTH Architecture and the Built Environment

Planning for sustainability at city scale: Reflections on a delayed project, Dongtan, China

WEIJIA XIE

Degree Project SoM EX 2011-37 Master Program (Two years) Spatial Planning

Stockholm 2011

KTH, Department of Urban Planning and Environment Division of Urban and Regional Studies

Kungliga Tekniska högskolan

Abstract The recognition that the living and the nature should be harmony has been accepted all over of the world, which is just the objective of the sustainability. In contemporary society, the idea of sustainability plays an increasingly indispensable role in many fields. It also caused concern to the field of city planning. China has stepped into a stage of high-‐speed urbanization, although the city development enjoyed a boom, the process of urbanization also has a deleterious effect on traffic, environment and so on. Chinese cities have to find themselves in different stages of preparedness to adopt and face the sustainable development challenge. As a developing country, there are many changes from urban form, economic activities and city life in China. When the word of sustainable city has been introduced into China, many areas began to try to reach the level of sustainability in city. Then many projects that relating ecological planning have been planed in Chinese cities. One significant development is that the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation has commissioned the world’s first purpose-‐built eco-‐city Dongtan. The goal of the project is to use Dongtan as a template for future urban design, but the city seems to have lost its momentum and become delayed. In the paper, it would describe the clearly concept of sustainability for planning strategies in an object way, and according to the evaluating the sustainability of Dongtan, it discuss the problems of sustainable planning in city scale from theory to practice. Key Words: sustainability, eco-‐city, Dongtan, environmental friendly

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Contents:

1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 THE OVERVIEW OF CASE STUDY .............................................................................................................................. 6 1.3 OBJECTIVE ................................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.4 AIM ............................................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.5 METHOD ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE PAPER .............................................................................................................................. 8

2 THEORETICAL REVIEW ......................................................................................................................... 12 2.1 SUSTAINABILITY ....................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.2 SUSTAINABLE CITY ................................................................................................................................................... 13 2.2.1 Economy .............................................................................................................................................................. 16 2.2.2 Society .................................................................................................................................................................. 18 2.2.3 Ecology ................................................................................................................................................................ 19

2.3 INDICATOR SYSTEM .................................................................................................................................................. 21 2.4 REFERENCE STUDIES ............................................................................................................................................... 21 2.4.1 Hammarby Sjöstad (Sweden) .................................................................................................................... 22 2.4.2 Viikki (Finland) ................................................................................................................................................ 23 2.4.4 Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city (China) .............................................................................................. 25 2.4.5 Conclusion of reference studies ................................................................................................................. 27

3 CASE STUDY .............................................................................................................................................. 30 3.1 BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................................................... 30 3.3 VISION ........................................................................................................................................................................ 31 3.4 THE MASTER PLANNING ........................................................................................................................................ 32 3.4.1 city design ........................................................................................................................................................... 32 3.4.2 Transports .......................................................................................................................................................... 33 3.4.3 Energy .................................................................................................................................................................. 34 3.4.4 Waste management ....................................................................................................................................... 35 3.4.5 Agriculture ......................................................................................................................................................... 35 3.4.6 Biodiversity ........................................................................................................................................................ 35

3.5 FIGURES ABOUT PROJECT ........................................................................................................................................ 36 3.6 DONGTAN OF TODAY ................................................................................................................................................ 36 4.1 SWOT-‐ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................................................... 37 4.1.1 SWOT analysis from the developer’s interest ..................................................................................... 37

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4.1.2 SWOT analysis from the citizens .............................................................................................................. 38 4.2 THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE PROJECT ................................................................................................................. 39 4.2.1 ecological sustainability .............................................................................................................................. 39 4.2.2 Economic sustainability ............................................................................................................................... 41 4.2.3 Social sustainability ....................................................................................................................................... 42

4.3 FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS ON DONGTAN ................................................................................................................... 45

5. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 47

6. REFERENCE .............................................................................................................................................. 50

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my teachers from Spatial Planning Master Program, in special to Tigan Haas and Peter Brokking, who is my supervisor for this thesis and coordinator. They really provided a lot of good suggestions during my work of Master Thesis. Because of them, I have learnt a lot during my 2 years journey at KTH. I also would like to thank my family in China, they are always supporting and trusting me every time, and bestowing love on me. Last but not least, thanks for every friends I met in Sweden. Because of them, I never feel lonely even through I am far away from my hometown. I also want to thank my friend Zhuyin, for the help while writing my thesis.

Planning for sustainability at the city scale Reflections on a delayed project, Dongtan, China

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Industrial revolution, which led to the creation of the factory and has many significant

changes in agriculture; manufacturing; mining; transportation; technology (Wikipedia,

2011/5/30), has hastened the urbanization process. Then the agglomeration, which is

caused by urbanization, has transformed the industrial structure, population, society

and spatial structure. Especially in the last 200 years, the significant social change is just

the agglomeration of the population in the urban areas. Some data predict that 60% of

the world’s population will live in cities by 2030(UNFPA, 2000, p.25). In the other

words, nowadays it is the beginning of the era of an urban-‐dominated society.

Cities as the political, economic and cultural centers of regions, the economic

opportunities, diversity life demand and communications are better in countries.

However, the city life is a double-‐edged sword, there are also many disadvantages in

cities. The high proportion of the urban population will inevitably concentrate several

problems. Because the results of the high rate of industrialization and the rapid

urbanization process, natural resources and environmental self-‐purification capacity

have suffered as a consequence. Moreover, a number of environmental problems are

not ignored by citizens, most of which are related to climate change. Such as air

pollution from industry and traffic when transport is increasing in volume and is not

environmentally adapted; water pollution from industry and human being with

insufficient sewage systems; land pollution because of unsatisfactory waste

management; and also lack of biological diversity etc. Climate change is mostly the


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result of city activities, because cities are the greatest consumers of energy, and CO2

emission and other kinds of air pollution, which are the major cause of such problem,

are contribute to the fossil fuels consumption and low energy efficiency.

Those things have happened begins to the period of industrial revolution from 18th to

19th century. For instance, in London, which is the biggest city in that time with the

population of 6,500,000, the infrastructure are not able to work well under such press

because of the unprecedented expansion in urban land and population, and it also

serious problem of demands to housing. In addition, the aggravating living environment

like the air and water pollution, the widening gap between the rich and poor, all of this

are the concentrated reflection of the society contradiction.

People began to recognize it is important that implement the urban planning in order to

guide a city development orderly. At such background, Ebenezer Howard published his

book To-‐morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1898, which was reprinted in 1902

as Garden cities of To-‐morrow. At this book, he provide a concept of garden City, which is

the ideal city has the merits of city and country. Then the theory has raised much

thought and debate among planners, architects. It is famous as the pioneer in the

modren planning theory, which led people begin to concern the environmental issues in

city life.

Later on, Jane Jacobs critiqued the concept of Garden City in her book; she argued it

confused urban design with suburban design. As the result of urbanization, most

American cities have faced the situation of suburban sprawl. Then there is a new topic

called ‘new urbanism’ has been provided in the planning field, which is “creating


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enduring neighborhoods; making urbanism legal again; making connections a priority;

celebrating shared spaces; achieving sustainability; reclaiming urban places once

thought lost and renewing a ravaged region” (CNU, 2011/5/30). This theory indicated

that urban design should dealt with nature and landscape resources in the light of

energy crisis and global climate change.

The viewpoints and focus about the urban planning has also changed many times, more

specifically, from a concept of Garden City to the new urbanism research, there are

many concerns and discussion of urban issues during this period. Nowadays, when the

environment and ecosystem on the earth have been threatened because of the growth

of the population, the exploitation for the resource and the industrialization of society,

the concept of sustainability has become a popular word in national and international

discussions. Then it influenced on the urban design trend more or less in contemporary

society as well. In 1987, the definition of it was first coined at Brundtland Report

(WCED 1987), and Agenda 21 (UN 1992) have declared the specifically actions for

government leaders to protect the earth. It was given further prominence in the context

of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. However, it is more describing

the sustainable development at the global terms, and this broad definition shows

different interest groups will have different thinking and the way of use. So there are

many different systems to research the sustainability at city scale based on the

definition from those above publication, and sustainable city concept has been thought

as an effective approach for urban planning in pursuit of global sustainability trend.

After the conversion of Chinese economy that is from a centrally planned economy to

market economy, the People’s Republic of China has made remarkable progress on


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economic growth over the last thirty years. The official GDP growth rate of China is 10.3 %

in 2010, and the proportion of GDP in the world rose from 5.0% in 2005 to 9.5% in

2010 (People, 2011/6/1). From such figures it can be found that China has become to

play an important role in the global economy recently.

Although China embarked on the road toward a new market economy, the country still

has to face many problems of economy, social, and the ecology. Those problems came, in

large part, from a burgeoning population (Kristen A. Day, 2005, P.4). More specifically,

the country is rich in resources and vast expanses of fertile land, but the per capita

amount of the resources in far below the average of the world; and the same situation of

Per-‐capita GDP can been seen; the unbalanced distribution of resource has aggravated

the gap between the rich and the poor, between different groups of population. It

suggested that as an emerging nation of such size, Chinese should keep on the long-‐term

economic growth with consideration of social issues, but cannot follow in the footstep of

many developed countries that experienced the way of “pollute now and treat later”.

(Kristen A. Day, 2005, P. 4) In order to achieve this goal, Chinese have to search a

suitable way to develop. Then the government has provided a new policy, which

emphasis on the harmony between humanity and nature, and building a

conservation-‐oriented and environment-‐friendly society (Pan Yue, 2006). As the China

Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) is

established for providing advice on issues related to the impact of development on the

environment (CCICED, 2011/6/1).

Since 1978, and especially after 1991, when the pace of reforms in China increased,

urban development gained a more important role in both local and national


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socioeconomic development. During the last twenty years, there are more than 300

million Chinese people moved from rural area to the fast developing cities. (UNDP, 2005)

The result of rural-‐urban migration means that the negative consequences that have

been found in developed countries have also appeared in China, which are urban sprawl,

the scarcity of fresh water resources, air pollution, energy crisis, etc. Moreover, the

short-‐term perspective for Chinese city development have to face the negative effect,

such as the life length of new buildings is so short when there will have different

planning projects by authorities. And the weak coordination between authorities and

local is bringing many troubles during the city development process, and there is lack of

public participation too.

However, the Chinese city development is still worked with correcting and

improvement. It said that the country must find a road to sustainable development,

which is to replace the old model in order to achieve long-‐term economic growth. So

Chinese cities have to find themselves in different stages of preparedness to adopt and

face the sustainable development challenge. There is growing evidence that these

messages are increasingly informing the decisions of government officials and planners.

The planning system in China is characterized by a top-‐down approach; spatial planning

is still working for governing municipalities (Bishwapriya, S, 2005), and the planners

deliver proposal for the authorities to make decision before the construction phase can

be initiated. Thanks to the transfer of economy model in China, the role of Chinese

planning has also a shift from the technical exercise to a locational tool that is work to

promote city development, which means that the urban planners has begin to work for

not only economic growth, but also society and environment friendly.


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However, if there are conflicts between economic development and social and

environmental benefits, the economy development has the priority status. Now the

market seems to turn the attention towards sustainability, it means that the Chinese city

development have to increase the sustainable strategies as well. In order to help

address the burden of implementation, China has work with many international

communities for some projects. One significant development is that the Shanghai

Industrial Investment Corporation has commissioned the world’s first purpose-‐built

eco-‐city Dongtan, which is work with Arup, the British engineering consultancy firm. It

is the case that I would like to study. Figure 1 Dongtan Eco-city

Source: ZGGHG

1.2 The overview of case study

Dongtan Eco-‐city will be built on

Chongming Island in the Yangtze River

Delta with the size of 86 km2, which is

the area belongs to Shanghai. It is

designed to be a beautiful and truly

sustainable city with a minimal ecological footprint (Figure 1). More specifically, it is

planned to be “ecologically friendly, with zero-‐greenhouse-‐emission transit and

complete self-‐sufficiency in water and energy, together with the use of zero energy

building principles”(Wikipedia, 2011/6/9). The goal of this project is to use Dongtan as

a template for future urban design, which was presented at the United Nations World

Urban Forum, it means Dongtan is designed as an example for sustainable urban


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development in China itself and elsewhere in the world. It has attracted considerable

attention from the start. The vision for Dongtan is impressive, but the city seems to have

lost its momentum and become delayed, because of financial issues, among other things.

In other words, there have some arguments that the case looks a little bit idyllic, and

less consideration about the situation of China. Such problems are just the inevitable

one that the sustainable projects will meet in China soon or later.

1.3 Objective

In this thesis, I would like to have a conclusion about how to use the knowledge of

sustainability into practice at the city scale in China. Then it can be achieved the

following two goals:

(1) To qualify the sustainability in an object way, which helps the knowledge from

theory into practice.

(2) To provide some suggestions for designing a sustainable city by analyzed relevant

indicators.

1.4 Aim

The purpose of the project is because I expect, the identification of sustainability

indicators, would help decision-‐making, and research on the development, expansion,

re-‐organization or modernization of urban structures in the sustainable way. So after

finding some approaches for sustainability evaluation, simulation and prediction in the

case, the aim of the project I worked should be gaining some advices for consider the

design of the sustainable urban case more realistic base on this case. In the other words,


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the aim of the project is to break down the broad term about sustainable development

to see what can be done in practice through spatial planning, and give suggestions and

ideas for improvement with sustainable outcomes.

1.5 Method

Because of this project is research work, so firstly the desk-‐based literature research

should be used to collect a considerable amount of academic journal articles which

relevant to these areas by searching the theory of sustainability, as a result, I used the

fuzzy search for keywords, which are like “sustainability”, “sustainable development”,

“urbanism”, “City development in China” and so on. The method of interview by E-‐mail

and Internet searching are used for collecting more information about this case, and

also case study is worked for my thesis. In order to explain the case more

comprehensive, the SWOT-‐analysis tool is used as well. To evaluate the level of

sustainability in Dongtan, there should also have the qualitative method in the paper.

1.6 The structure of the paper

Generally speaking, the structure of “General-‐Divide-‐General” has been used to do

research in the paper, which can be illustrated at Figure 2.

Described more specifically, in this paper, I have divided it into several parts:

The Section 2 should be theoretical background. In this part, according to bibliographic

exploration, there are many definitions about sustainability, and I have listed the most

relative resources to compare. In the original definition of suitability, there are three


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elements relate to this knowledge, which are economy, social and environment. After

listed the definition, there are more detail explanation for those three aspects. And

there is a short feedback I have got in the literature search as well. Then I have selected

some impact indicators for evaluating the sustainability of Dongtan.

Then I choose several similar eco-‐city cases, which are most completed in European

country, to understand some mentionable sustainable solutions. Those reference cases

are Hammarby Sjöstad in Sweden; Viikki in Finland; HafanCity in Germany and

Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city in China. From the overview of those cases, the finding I

had learnt can be seen as well.

The third section, Dongtan eco-‐city is introduced. In this part, the detail information of

Dongtan can be found. Like the status quo of Dongtan, which are the location, economic

issues; the objective of the project, the master plan and also the detailed plan for

Dongtan eco-‐city.

Next part is the analysis and discussion. According to the study from above information

and the content of the planning schemes I had known, it is time to analyze the project

more comprehensive, and then get the result of my research. In this part, it would be

clearly that have the SWOT analysis to understand the viewpoint from two groups.

Moreover, in order to have a clear and readable analysis, the assessment of project have

been divided for three aspects, which are economic sustainable; social and ecological

sustainable.

Finally, in the end of the thesis, there is the result I have researched above. So it should


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be the review of those previous parts more general. Then there is also have the

summary that I have judged. At last, it should be the gain that I have got from the

research work, and the paper also makes a prospect to the future work and attempts to

propose some proper countermeasures.


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Figure 2 Process Flow Diagram


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2 Theoretical Review

2.1 Sustainability

The recognition that the living and the nature should be harmony has been accepted all

over of the world. There are many significant international conferences have been hold

in these years. And the first definition of “sustainability” was found at the report of the

World Commission on Environment and Development, which is convened by United

Nations in 1987. It was defined as “development that meets the needs of the present

without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs.”(United Nations, 1987)

Then there is Agenda 21, which is an outcome of the United Nations Conference on

Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro. In this conference, it is

the first time to discuss the problem about global climate change, and then there had

made several blueprints for sustainable development. It made a global plan of action for

sustainable development.

In the statement of the World Academies Conference 2000 in Tokyo, the three issues,

which are the things that sustainability cares, have been identified. There are “Meeting

the needs of a larger population: reducing Hunger and Poverty and Preserving Human

well Being; Preserving and Maintaining the Environment and natural Resource Base;

Moving Toward Sustainable Human Consumption Patterns” (Kates 2000)

Robert Kates also has said there are four branches of research about sustainability


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science at the World Academies Conference 2000 in Tokyo. It means the research

relevant to sustainability have developed in four fields: biological research between

humanity and the natural resource; earth as a system is the main direction at

geophysical research; social research focusing on the role of human institutions,

economics systems and beliefs, which are occurring the interactions between societies

and the environment; and technological research for producing more social goods with

environment friendly. (Kates, 2000)

Another conference that is Earth Summit 2002, the sustainable development is

summited as a central element of the international agenda in this conference (UNCED,

2002). The partnership for sustainable development is also decided, which are the

diversity people from “governments, business and civil society”.

2.2 Sustainable city

Those conferences are more focus on the

sustainable issues in global scale. However,

as the main part of earth, the development

of city would also have a look at the

research about sustainability. Speaking

specifically, the three fundamental

components of sustainable, which are

economic, social and ecological

sustainability (Figure3), Figure 3 Conceptual model for sustainable city

are made in the 1987 Brundtland Report source: Ulf Ranbagen et al., 2007

(Schenk, 2006). That is just the urban planning should consider in planning process. It is


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confirmed by many exporters, such as Wheeler, in his 1998 article, defines sustainable

urban development as "development that improves the long-‐term social and ecological

health of cities and towns." (Wheeler, 1998) The two United Nations, which are United

Nations Center for Human Settlements (Habitat) and United Nations Environment

Programme (UNEP), have launched ‘The Sustainable Cities Programme’ (SCP) for

implementing Agenda 21 at the city level. (UNCHS/UNEP, 2000) Then the concept of

sustainable city has been founded as an effective approach for research and

implementation in order to pursuing global sustainability.

Since now planners thought the modern lifestyles have caused pollution and ecosystem

damaged, which lead to urban heat islands that is the contribution for climate change.

Then a growing number of people have begun to think about sustainable urban

planning, and the concern about urban form, the urban-‐rural relationship, scales and

density have discussed for sustainable planning. It is also the reason that more and

more planners begin to advocate sustainable cities.

Then turn to the definition of sustainable city, there are many research reports for this

words. However, most are the common that they all thought as a sustainable city, it

should ensure the sustainable welfare to residents, which are resources availability,

social comfort and equity and economic development. There are some definitions of

sustainable cities above:

UNCHS/UNEP

The United Nations defines a sustainable city as “a city where achievements in social,

economic, and physical development are made to last. A sustainable city has a lasting


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supply of the natural resources on which its development depends (using them only at a

level of sustainable yield). A sustainable city maintains a lasting security from

environmental hazards which may threaten development achievements (allowing only

for acceptable risk)”. (UNCHS/UNEP, 2000)

The Urban21 Conference (Berlin, 2000)

A sustainable city means “improving the quality of the life in a city, including ecological,

cultural, political, institutional, social, and economic components without leaving a

burden on future generations”.

SWECO

The sustainable city is “a holistic approach to urban planning and design from an

ecological, social, economic and spatial perspective and is based on a closed cycle

approach to energy, waste and water together with integrated transport and land use

planning and energy-‐efficient buildings”. (Sweco.se, 2011/6/15)

Zheng F

The character of sustainable city should be considered as: the main means of it is saving

resources, improving environment; it aims to develop economy, gain social progress

and ecological security; and it could maintaining a balance among resources,

environment, information, interflow of material of the inner-‐outer urban system; it not

only meets the need of a city’s future based on a correct assessment, and also satisfies

the need of urban development now. (Zheng 2005)

It is impossible to say which one is the best definition above, since different


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communities are prefer to develop their own conceptualizations of sustainable city.

However, the concepts of sustainable city analyzed above have diversity focus because

of different organizations and situations, all the definitions have the certain

fundamental aspects range from natural and social issues to physical and spiritual

factors. It means that the sustainable city concept is a complex, diversity but “couplings

mechanisms among the dimensions of society, economy, population, resources,

environment, science and technology, and education”(Zhao, 2008).

Specifically speaking, in the planning field there is a model for sustainable city

(sustainable urbanism), which is defined as “a walkable and transit-‐served urbanism

integrated with high-‐performance buildings and high-‐performance

infrastructure”(Douglas Farr, 2007, p.42) Then the characteristics of it should be

generalized as three aspects it concerns: high degree of density, mixed use and the use

of outdoor space.

In order to go through the knowledge about sustainable city more detailed, then it is the

best way that analyzed the main three aspects that are economic, social and ecological

sustainability, which the definition emphasized already:

2.2.1 Economy

However what time is, keeping fine momentum in the economic development is always

the top thing at everywhere. In the past, many environmental problems occurred

because the economy developed fast without considering environment. Now a great

deal of funds have inverted for supporting many measures for environmental protect.

Just those factors, is it mean that there is the negative correlation between economy and


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environment? The research in environmental economics has prone to find the complex

relationship between those two indicators. Then the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)

hypothesis is the main contribution to analyze this connection by economists.

The EKC hypothesis posits a non-‐monotonic relationship between development and

environmental quality. In the other word, the economic development is both a foe and a

friend of urban environmental quality. It is described that many environmental quality

indicators declines as cities develop poorly at first, then there is a turning point occur

when growth continues, later it is the time that environmental quality improves as

income rises. The basic idea of this hypothesis is that because of the scale of production

and consumption, economic development will go up with pollution levels; In time,

economic growth also bring offsetting effects, which are begin to focus on the

consumption and production with environmental friendly and carry out regulation that

reduces pollution. (Kahn, Matthew E, 2006, p.30-‐31)

Although there still are many arguments about EKC, like the identification of impact

factors still have not the comprehensive and clarified standards, there still have many

externalities should be considered. It has answered the relationship between

environment and economy is not just negative. Sometimes, economic benefits would

help the work for environment.

In order to fit the concept of sustainable city in economic sustainability, economic

activity should “serve the common good, be self-‐renewing, and build local assets and

self-‐reliance”(MACED, 2011/6/19). And also be confirmed by The Prince’s Foundation

in UK, in their report they indicated “in economic terms, sustainable developments


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contain business activities and opportunities capable of providing jobs for many of their

inhabitants” (The Prince’s Foundation, 2007). The both viewpoints show that the

contribution of economy should promote the benefit of social and ecological issues in

sustainable city.

Moreover, in order to validate whether sustainable urbanism has less commercially

attractive than the traditional one, with the research work, they finally conclude that

sustainable urbanism can enhance development value in long term that is the evangel

for developers in sustainable city (The Prince’s Foundation, 2007). As a result, it can be

said that as one of main fundamental components, economic sustainability is not only

supported by environmentalists, and also accepted by government.

There are many relative indicators can be found in many research works for evaluating

the level of economic sustainability, which are attractive localities for business, service

and cultural activities; spatial integration; strong local identity and high information

density etc.

2.2.2 Society

Social sustainability is related to “an appropriate mix of dwellings of different tenures,

sizes and types, and a variety of spaces and buildings for recreational and community

activities, as well as for service providers and commercial enterprises”(The Prince’s

Foundation, 2007). According to this model, a series of social activities are able to carry

out in a self-‐sustaining way and balance communities to develop.


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According to the description for sustainable urbanism, the benefit of social

sustainability could be seen as public security, health and spiritual stimulation and

pleasure etc. it said that the aim of sustainable city is to create permeable, integrated

and diversity communities which will cause the friendly environment, as a result, it is

likely to reduce the risk of crime. In addition, because of physical activities in the

community, it may help to improve the psychological and mental well-‐being. (The

Prince’s Foundation, 2007)

Generally speaking, social sustainability is the social activities in a sustainable way,

which can be founded with consideration of urban intensity, local or unique identity and

capacity to generate local involvement and participation (Torbjörn Einarsson, 2008).

And social sustainability may be the more complex element in the sustainable city, since

it is more focus on the relationship between human being, and it is not just considering

the solutions from technology and literature.

2.2.3 Ecology

The original opinion for sustainability concept is because the concern of a growth

number of environmental problems in the world. And now the city have to face that the

environmental pollution of air, noise and land is always appearing during the city

development period. But from the EKC hypothesis, it can be known that when the

development has reach at certain level, then it is the time to turn the focus to the issues

of environmental friendly. In the sustainable city, the ecological sustainability, it

illustrated as “Human are part of nature, nature has limits, and communities are

responsible for protecting and building natural assets.”(MACED, 2011/6/19) This


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viewpoint had showed the relationship between human and nature, it also could be

understood that it is the relationship between city and environment in city scale. It

means that the object that ecological sustainability focus in sustainable city is the

complex, which is considering not only the sustainability of natural recourse but also

the special function of urban environment. For example, city as the political, economic

and cultural centers of regions, the research and application of green technology have

its own advantages than in other places. In the same time, it has reinforced one another

to create considerable savings when different green technological methods are

integrated. As a result, it has proved that it would have more economic benefits as well.

(SymbioCity, 2011/6/21)

Moreover, the further result of ecological sustainability in city, is understood that the

urban form should be the important part in that research, which can illustrate as “puts

dwellings, retail, leisure and commercial uses into much closer, walkable proximity”

(The Prince’s Foundation, 2007). Because this urban form layout that has caused people

need not to use the car but walk, it would enable citizens to adopt a more ecological

aware, lower carbon lifestyle at last.

Generally, the integration of transport, land use and technology is the main object in

ecological sustainability. It comes through in those aspects that are dealing with energy,

transport, water and waste etc. In order to evaluate the performance on ecological

sustainability, there are some sides could be measured, which are energy saving

techniques and transports; recycling; biodiversity and green structure.


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2.3 Indicator system

According to the information that mentioned above, it can be found that the ecological

sustainability is complex but it can be measured within limitations. However, many of

the factors cannot be quantified since they are of an economic and social nature. So

there are many technical researches for energy and water use that can be objectively

assessed, but economic and social sustainability is evaluated through qualitative

experience.

For that reason, in the paper it will evaluate the sustainability for the three kinds of

indicators (Table 1) with qualitative method.

Table 1 indicator system

Type Indicator

Economy Attractive localities for business; strong local identity; life cycle costing, local employment

Society Sustainable lifestyles; security; social and cultural activities; infrastructure for all groups

Ecology Transport, energy, water cycles, material cycles, biodiversity

2.4 Reference studies

Nowadays, the important development in city area is focus on sustainability, which is

the wide range of planning issues about urban design, transport infrastructure,

recycling of rainwater and waste. European country have worked for a long time for

sustainable projects, as a result, they are experienced in carrying out such projects. The

following examples are the sustainable profiled city projects in Europe and China.

According to the project that I would like to research, Dongtan is planned at urban


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waterfront area, so do the follow cases except Vikki case. And the frist three projects

were finished already, and they all have their success aspects. Especially the case of

HafenCity, which is designed as an urban complex, in some degree, the project has more

experience for sustainable planning at the city scale.

2.4.1 Hammarby Sjöstad (Sweden)

Hammarby Sjöstad is a city development project in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden,

with benchmark in sustainability. It is located on a former industrial-‐use brownfield site

of wharfs and docks, and initially designed as a location for the 2004 Summer Olympics.

The waterside environment shaped the planning and design of project into a modern

mixed-‐use urban environment.

The planning of project was based on life cycle cost analysis, and the first construction

phase was finished in 2000. There will be 11,000 apartments, 25,000 inhabitants and

35,000 work-‐ places by 2015. (SymbioCity, 2011/6/21) The aim of the project is

focusing on renewable energy, waste reduction, ecological building materials, and

alternative transportation options at the

planning and implementation phases.

The project is work for sustainability in

the aspects of energy, water and waste.

The eco-‐cycle solution in Hammarby

Sjöstad is called the Hammarby Model

(Figure 4), and the specific measures that Figure 4 Hammarby Model

are founded from SymbioCity are listed follow: Source from: hammarbysjostad.se


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Automatic underground waste collection systems

District heating and cooling fuelled partly by local waste collection and by heat

exchangers in water treatment

Solar-‐powered hot water and electricity

Biogas from household sewage water and waste

Collection and filtration of runoff water Super-‐efficient buildings, triple-‐glass windows,

green roofs, etc.

2.4.2 Viikki (Finland)

Viikki is an ecological suburb on a greenfield site northeast of central Helsinki.

Eco-‐Viikki is much more environmentally friendly than more typical housing projects in

Finland. Now it is become a green university campus district with colleges, a science

park, ecological buildings with mix types such as terrace houses and semi-‐detached

houses, in which there are a lot of diversity activities. The project started in 1989, and

by 2015 the area is planned for more than 15000 residents within 6000 jobs.

Figure 5: Viikki Ecological housing Area

Viikki includes many of the environmental Source from: Hakaste, H.et al., 2005, p.16

measures, such as new efficient public

transport, high biodiversity and healthy

materials. And there is a concept called

“green fingers”, which becomes a

characteristic solution for the overall

planning. (Hakaste, H.et al., 2005)

because of the flexibility in target definition, there has led to a variety of solutions with


24

different focus.

The project is the housing project, so it almost focuses on the ecological friendly in

buildings, which are grouped around pedestrian-‐friendly areas.

And it has used solar energy for

heating, which reduced the energy

consumption roughly 50% for fossil

fuel dependency and 30% for water

use. (NABU, 2011/6/22)

Figure 6: Viikki Housing Figure 7: Viikki Housing

Source: Hakaste, H.et al., 2005, p.20 source: Hakaste, H.et al., 2005, p.22

2.4.3 HafenCity (Germany)

HafenCity is one of the most prominent inner-‐city waterfront development projects in

the world, which carried out at Hamburg. It designed as a lively new inner-‐city district

on an area of 157 hectares that

was an unused port area for

decades, with a mix of cafes,

schools, hospitals, workshops and

office buildings. It provides 5,800

homes for 12,000 residents,

offering in excess of 45,000 job

opportunities. Figure 8: The Master Planning of HafenCity

Source: HafenCity Hamburg GmbH


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As a new city district, the concept of sustainable development is inherent to the project.

Specifically speaking, inside HafenCity, the layout of work, retail, and residential uses

ensures short distances to almost everywhere without a car. And cyclists and

pedestrians can cover the route between the new city district and existing city center in

minutes. Supply of heat to the new district will be guaranteed by innovative concepts,

which means CO2 emission limits reduced to just 89 g/kWh. In addition, the building is

using the environmental friendly construction material since 2007 through Germany’ s

first certification system for sustainable construction.

Since 2007 HafenCity Hamburg GmbH has been awarding the gold Ecolabel for

extraordinary attainment, and the silver Ecolabel for special attainment in realizing

sustainable buildings (HafenCity Hamburg, 2011/6/23). Thanks to its sustainable

infrastructure and building stock, HafenCity will make a big contribution to meeting

climate protection targets in Hamburg both medium and long term.

As a short summary, the successes for ecological sustainability in HafanCity are

manifested as: “Resource-‐efficient, attractive city structure; Mobility structure saving

energy and time; Sustainable energy supply and certified buildings”(HafenCity

Hamburg, 2011/6/23).

2.4.4 Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city (China)

Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city is located at Binhai New Area, which occupies the core

position of the Bohai Rim economic circle and enters the strategic layout of China's

development. The project started at 2008, and the city’s total area is 30 sq. km with a


26

planned population of 350,000. (TBH, 2011/6/24)

With the concept of eco-‐economy, eco-‐residence, eco-‐culture, harmonious community

and scientific management, the project is planned for sustainable city. And the

objectives of the project are “it will be established into an integrated platform for

innovative technologies and for their application and promotion in ecological protection,

energy conservation and emission reduction, environmentally friendly buildings and

recycling economy.” (Yang, 2011)

According to the analysis of regional ecology, society and economy, the Master Plan of

Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city (Figure 8) is decided. It has considered the aspects of

transport, energy and water system to reach the demand of environmental friendly.

More specifically, the meticulous arrangements of the city center and residential area,

the well-‐structured pubic transport system are the

benefits for citizens. The application of Rainwater

Harvesting and the disposal of sewages system are

also designed for saving water resource. Moreover,

the improvement of energy efficiency and

development of new energy source and

reproducible energy source are implementing in

the project.

The characteristics of the project is illustrated as

following: Figure 9: The Master Plan

An Eco-‐city of International Cooperation Source: Eco-city gov.cn


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A showcase of sustainable development

A dynamic city with great vitality

A comfortable city featuring healthy lifestyle

A harmonious city of beneficial coexistence

A future city of ecological culture

Eco-city gov.cn

Generally speaking, Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city is a strategic cooperation project

between China and Singapore to improve the living environment and build an

eco-‐culture. In order to arrive the goal of project, it has the indicator system of

Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city, which is used for evaluating the sustainability of

artificial surroundings, natural environment, lifestyles, infrastructure, economic

development, management mechanism and scientific and technological innovations.

2.4.5 Conclusion of reference studies

Those reference cases have the similarities, which are they all planed as sustainable

project, and besides the urban development in Viikki, the rest of examples are the

regeneration planning of urban waterfront area. In addition, at the ecological level, they

all emphasized the construction of sustainable building, which often related to a

technical question of space efficiency energy, water, wastes, etc. the reason for this

common points could have several, but the most reasonable answer is that the starting

point for sustainability was environmental problems, and much of research has been

done by technical people. It said that the measure of those cases is basically the same in

the ecological level, which are the utilization of regenerated energy, technical measures


28

for water resource and waste disposal, and the implementation of green transport.

However, according to the different situation and objectives, those cases have their own

focus on the understanding of sustainability.

Overall, the successes at Hammarby Sjöstad are because it was designed as a

comprehensive infrastructure project. The transport, heating, water treatment and

waste collection systems were combined as a whole system, the contribution of which is

saving the energy for ecological level. In some degree, it also has the economic and

social benefit. In the other word, it has its famous model that is emphasizing the

combination of different systems into a whole one, as a result, it achieve a pair of

purposes won of environment and economy.

The project of Viikki was judged with regard to pollution, utilization of natural

resources, healthiness of buildings, bio-‐diversity. And passive use of solar energy has

been the key words that put into the experimental building themes in Viikki. And as the

consideration of green area, there is a green corridors links with residential area. It also

designed for the disabled and children. In that way, there would have many diversity

social activities for social sustainability. Moreover, the study case of Viikki is not

focusing as much on public transportation as on the ecological qualities of buildings, it

means that the example is good reference of ecological buildings.

Then HafenCity as a new city district in Hamburg, it has designed as an urban complex

that gathered the diversity functions for cultural and social activities. It means in the

social and economic term, the diversity of functions in HafanCity is considered in the


29

project more detailed.

The last case is a sustainable example in China, because of the international cooperation

between China and Singapore, Sino-‐Singapore Tianjin Eco-‐city is carried out with the

directly support of governments. And it means it has a good environment for

implementing the project.


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3 Case study

3.1 Background

“Harmony between man and nature” and

“building a conservation-‐oriented and

environment-‐friendly society” has been known

in China, when Hu Jintao became president in

2003. It means that the political leaders started

to focus on the trajectory of industrial and

urban development. Moreover, Zhenhua Xie,

who is minister of State Environmental

Protection Agency, said “China’s current

development is ecologically unsustainable, and

the damage will not be reversible once higher

GDP has been achieved.”(ARUP, 2007) Figure 10 Dongtan Eco-city Site

Source: ARUP

Because of this political and developmental direction, the concept of sustainable city is

becoming the popular word in China. The island of Chongming, the world’s largest

alluvial island, is the existence of a huge wetland area on the southern part of the island,

a reserve for migrating birds, the largest of its kind in China, and a site governed by the

1971 Ramsar convention on wetlands (Jesse Norman, 2006, p.146). In addition,

Chongming Island is unique in that it is the almost undeveloped island that near

international metropolis is briefly closed. Then the Shanghai Industrial Investment


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Corporation (SIIC) hired the consultancy Arup, which is the global design and

business-‐consulting firm, to design a city that would exclusively use sustainable energy,

be self-‐sufficient and reduce energy consumption by 66% in relation to the city area of

Shanghai. (Sustainable cities, 2011/6/28) The cooperation was seconded by

government assistance. In the end of 2005, SIIC had signed a contract for the

development and design of a master plan for the eco-‐city of Dongtan with Arup at 10

Downing Street, London.

3.2 Location

Dongtan eco-‐city is located in the middle of the marshes at the eastern tip of Chongming,

China's third-‐largest island with 660,000 people (National Bureau of Statistics of China,

2011/9/1), at the mouth of the Yangtse River. And it planed on an area of land 86

square kilometers in size. (Figure 10) Although it belongs to Shanghai municipality, the

only access to go to city center is by ferry. So the commuting is not convenient at the

beginning. As the project of Yangtze River Tunnel and Chongqi Yangtze Bridge are

completed in 2009 and 2012, Dongtan will link Shanghai with the neighboring province

of Jiangsu, and will enhance its overall urban quality and international competitiveness

because of that.

3.3 Vision

When sustainable city planning strategies becomes a useful tool for solving energy and

housing problems in China, Dongtan has designed as the world’s first eco-‐city that

provides modern living conditions for up to 500,000 people. And the long-‐term vision

for Dongtan is to come as close as possible to carbon neutrality and to have a minimal


32

ecological footprint. And it is hoped that the project will be a template for sustainable

city at the city scale. Because of the vision, then it had attracted worldwide attention.

3.4 The Master Planning

Arup is responsible for the master planning of the built environment in Dongtan. After

the research about the status quo of Dongtan, with the approach of “integrated

urbanism”, the several key principles have listed as following: To preserve the wetland

habitat; to create an integrated, vibrant and evolving community; to improve quality of

life and create desirable lifestyles; to create an accessible city; to ingrain contemporary

Chinese culture into the city fabric; managing the use of resources in an integrated

manner; working towards carbon neutrality; utilizing governance to achieve long term

economic, social and environmental sustainability. (Arup, 2007)

Figure 11 layout of Dongtan, source: Arup

3.4.1 city design

Dongtan is planned on approximately 8,600 hectares of land, 40% of it is designed as


33

the construction area, and the rest are parks and wetland. It is benefit for citizens can be

in close contact with green open spaces, lakes and canals. The layout of Dongtan

Eco-‐city is a town consisting of three villages, each with its own distinct character

(Figure 11). Every district will have mix of office and residential uses, retail, restaurants

as well as cultural and leisure facilities. The buildings are all designed as low-‐rise

apartments but high density, most of which are range from three to six stories, and

designed to maximize energy savings through shared walls and utilities.

Generally speaking, the contribution of city design and architecture for energy, which is

discussed at master planning, is illustrated that: (a) the direction of designed city is

decided by the wind, because it is good for carbon reduction. And it not followed by the

south-‐north axis, which is the traditional idea of buildings’ orientation; (b) the

development of building is

low-‐rise and high density will be

the advantages for energy

conservation and environment;

(c) thanks to the combination of

city and nature, wetland system

will help material circulation and

energy flow in urban ecosystem. Figure 12 Road network, source: Arup

3.4.2 Transports

It will develop green transport in Dongtan, which means the trip modes of walk, bike,

bus and boat will happen in the eco-‐city. It will be a city made up of pedestrian-‐friendly


34

villages and towns, connected together by cycle routes, a cannel network and innovative,

fuel-‐ efficient public transport corridors (Figure 12). Thanks to the planning of compact

city, people will take no more than seven minutes to walk from any part of the city to a

bus or tram stop. Moreover, the buses and boats will be powered by electric motors or

hydrogen fuel cells, which will contribute to good air quality, minimal noise pollution

and energy saving, and the traditional

motorbikes is forbidden in the city.

Controlling the type of cars in the city

will ultimately be able to foster a

community proud of its island’s wetland

heritage as well.

Figure 12 Sources of electrical energy in Dongtan

Source: Arup

3.4.3 Energy

Besides the contribution of environmental friendly material for building and green

transport, the concern about energy is using renewable energy in Dongtan. The

electricity for the city is produced by solar, wind and burning of biomass. More

specifically, the roof of most buildings will have solar panels, which capture the energy

from the sun without pollution. A wind farm is designed on the outskirts of the city

where large wind turbines, powered by the sea breeze, while small-‐scale wind turbines

will be located within the city. Those turbines will produce about 20 % of energy for the

eco-‐city. And the large portion of electricity is produced through biomass energy. There

is the combined heat and power system that can convert the collected and incinerated

waste into energy.


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3.4.4 Waste management

Most of the city's refuse will be recycled and remanufactured, besides some organic

waste like rice husks that is used to make energy, there are organic waste output will be

composted and returned to the local farmland to keep the long-‐term fertility. As a result,

Dongtan is planned as a zero waste city.

3.4.5 Agriculture

According to the planning of the land use, there are 60 percent of land will remain

agricultural. It provides the land for a sustainable cycle of local food production, which

is constructed by sophisticated organic-‐farming techniques with the waste recycling

system. This organic-‐farming will have significant new business opportunities for

Dongtan, in that way, food production will be feature of the local economy.

3.4.6 Biodiversity

The wetland, which is also the

Chongming Dongtan Bird Nature Reserve,

is located on the eastern of the city

proper. In order to protect and enhance

the bird habitat, there is a buffer about 3

km between city area and wetland. And

the design of a buffer Figure 13 the distribution of land use, Source: Arup


36

is also the boundary that is able to prevent the urban sprawl in some degree.

As a short summary, the project highlights can be concluded as: the low ecological

footprint of 2.2 hectares/person, the figure is just the one-‐third of Shanghai’s; the

compact city with high density of 84-‐112 people/acre; Solar panels is integrated into

homes, and the installation of small and large wind turbines; the application of

combined heat and power (CHP); preservation of important wetland habitat; private

cars banned from the community.

3.5 Figures about project

(1) Reduce predicted CO2 emissions from freight and waste vehicles by 60%

(2) Reduce predicted freight and waste collection vehicle numbers by 50%

(3) By 2010 it should be a city of 30,000 people, and by 2040 one of 500,000 people

with 19,000 jobs

(4) Water consumption down by 43%, and water discharge down by 88%

3.6 Dongtan of today

As the masterplan described, the first phase of project should be completed by 2010,

which can display as part of Shanghai World Expo. And in 2040, the project will have

reached completion and house as many as 500,000 people.

In fact, the plan has not been followed and Dongtan is unable to fulfill the objectives set

for 2010. For some reason, the project was delayed already.


37

4 Analysis and discussion

4.1 SWOT-‐analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique to analyze the Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities, and Threats for a project. It will provide information for identifying areas

for development. For that reason, it is useful to analyze the project cleanlier. Then there

are two SWOT analyses, which are based on two different perspectives: developers and

the citizens.

4.1.1 SWOT analysis from the developer’s interest

Strengths

Locate between Shanghai and Jiangsu Province, which makes Dongtan as one of the hub

that connects the two provinces.

Entrance to Chongming Island for visitors from the mainland

Close to waterside

The ecosystem is diversity, involving in wetland, which has a plenty of tourist resources

Prerequisites for a sustainable development: water, wind, sun

Weakness

Isolation from surrounding areas: lack of accessibility through the adjacent areas

The construction land of the project is belonging to agricultural land type

The wealth gap obviously exists between city area of Shanghai and Chongming

Opportunities


38

It is easy for contributing to build an eco-‐city and have an environment friendly lifestyle

since the area is undeveloped yet.

Creation of urban spaces for commerce and service, which lead to the social interaction

for visitors and inhabitants

Creating a new business according to the organic food production

Developing the eco-‐tourism

Threats

The land degradation of transforming the agricultural land into construction land

Damaging of wetland because of human activities

4.1.2 SWOT analysis from the citizens

Strengths

Located close to the Yangtze River Tunnel, which links to the mainland of Shanghai

Close to diversity activities-‐commerce, service, residential, recreation

Close to water and recreation-‐park, lake, eco-‐farm

Accessibility to city area through public transportation

Characteristic buildings

Weaknesses

High price for environmental friendly buildings

Banned private cars that cause the inconvenient travel in traditional mind.

Opportunities


39

Urban area with social interaction

More jobs demand because of kinds of eco-‐farm, energy company, eco-‐tourism

Income from diversity jobs

Environmental friendly lifestyles

Threats

Security problem because of the increasing nonnatives

Damaging of wetland because of human activities

The difficulty on the traditional living habit transformation

4.2 the sustainability of the project

Dongtan is designed as the world’s first eco-‐city, overall, the key sustainable urbanism

thresholds can be grouped into several fields: biodiversity corridor; the integration of

transportation, land use, and technology; open space; food production; wastewater

treatment; illustrating density; and car share. In order to analyze the sustainability of

Dongtan more detailed, it can be evaluated by indicator system that has been listed in

the second section.

4.2.1 ecological sustainability

Ecological sustainability is more focus on the relationship between human and nature,

then it has considered how the human activities could repair environment problem, and

also could improve environment in a sustainable city. In that way, the integration of

diversity land use in planning process should base on the harmonoy of human and


40

nature. The indicators, which are evaluating the ecological sustainability, are transport,

energy, water cycles, material cycles, and biodiversity. From the master plan of Dongtan,

Arup has used the approach of “integrated urbanism” to design the eco-‐city.

The concept of green transport had showed in the transport planning in Dongtan. And a

development trend of transit-‐oriented development (TOD) is also illustrated in master

plan, which is which provide a comfortable walking distance between housing and

stations, a diversity of land uses, and pedestrian-‐oriented design for spatial

development. (Douglas Farr, 2007, p.114) As the compact city is decided in master

plan, it helps citizens used green transport system and walk as often as possible. Such a

collective, energy-‐efficient and non-‐polluting transport in Dongtan, it has to say it is an

ecological transport.

In the aspect of energy, the application of renewable resources, the measure for

minimal consumption, and buildings for energy saving, are all the results for ecological

sustainability. The same as other indicators, the master plan in Dongtan had many

special and feasible measures that are concern about ecological sustainability, which

considered those things including ecological footprint, ecological landscaping, waste

management and so on. But there still have some debates about the measure for

wetland. According to the plan of Dongtan, it will have 500,000 citizens live in city in

2040, where is near wetland, although the buffer have been designed, it is hard to say

there would be no negative influence on ecosystem.

Basically, the idea of sustainability of ecology is designed in Dongtan in some degree. On

other words, the project is well done in ecological sustainability. The model of Dongtan


41

can be the example for Chinese sustainable city in the field of ecological design.

4.2.2 Economic sustainability

According to the literature research about economic sustainability, the indicators for

evaluating the project are attractive localities for business, strong local identity, life

cycle costing, and local employment.

It means the economic development in a sustainable city is not just judged by the GDP, it

also can be evaluated through the economic characteristic of long-‐term and stabilization.

And to some extent, it can be said that the planning for a sustainable city is able to

shorten the period of reach the turning point in EKC, and get the benefit for the positive

relationship between environmental and economic development.

The project of Dongtan has design a diversity function for the city, it means that the new

business is developing in Dongtan, while there are also have the traditional job

opportunities. As the original idea for planning Dongtan is known as it will be the

world’s first large-‐scale eco-‐city, and it can be the a template for future urban design in

China or even throughout the world. In that way, the local identity can be found from

the idea. Abounding in resources of wetland ecological system, Dongtan enjoys a

promising prospect of eco-‐tourism, and the economic development potential for

eco-‐tourism could be found. Thanks to the application of renewable resources in the

city, the cost of acquisition, operation, and maintenance will be less compare with the

conventional energy in the long term. And the integration of different urban technology

solutions create synergy effects in Dongtan, it should create much more benefit and


42

save substantial costs.

However, the project of Dongtan has considered the economic development in a

environmental friendly and sustainable way, some problems did not enter into its

calculations, such as the considerations about the investment capacity to generate local

shops and businesses, or the attractive for investors and local people and so on. It

means that at the beginning, the planning of Dongtan is a large-‐scale project with huge

investment, there should have enough evidences for answering whether the investing

would get great reward. And from a long-‐term perspective, the answer would be yes

according to literature study above, but there are not enough measures for illustrating

those factors of economic sustainability in the project.

4.2.3 Social sustainability

There is the factor that many social benefits are associated with good urban design, the

success of Hafen City project is designing diversity functional districts for a kinds of

social activities. Such diversity activities help the social sustainability in a city, and a

friendly environment is built by a permeable, integrated and diversity communities. In

that way, the social sustainability is evaluated by the indicators, which are Sustainable

lifestyles; security; social and cultural activities; infrastructure for all groups.

The development of sustainable lifestyles is because of the friendly environment, in

such city citizens would begin to concern the energy consumption, then prefer to public

transport, eco-‐agriculture and environmental engineering. And all this are designed in

the Dongtan master planning, it helps inhabitants into a new and sustainable way of life


43

more easily.

The connected and permeable groups in city can offer opportunities for natural

surveillance, then help to reduce the incidence of criminal behavior. This founding has

been accepted in public. It can be understood that the citizens feel happily secure while

living in a sustainable city. In Dongtan, the plan has considered the feeling of security

when the type of permeable street network was planned.

As a city planning, Dongtan had decided the business, residential, recreation area in

master planning. It means that the social and cultural activities would have the place to

carry out. In addition, the planning for eco-‐park and eco-‐farm could also cause some

specialty social activities. In spite of that, there is not so much design and infrastructure

for the particular group like children, elderly and disabled.

Just from the information of Dongtan planning, it also can be believed that the social

sustainability is also having a good performance in Dongtan. But there still have many

conflicts, which would cause the barrier between the theoretical planning and practice

in the project.

Specifically speaking, there is the insufficient capacity to generate local involvement and

participation in Dongtan. In the whole project, the stakeholders are just the Arup who is

responsible for master planning, and SIIC as the developer. So the project is more focus

on the sustainability from technical and economic perspective, and less about the

concern about the real idea of citizens. The project is designed for local inhabitants, and

the poor-‐economic ability cannot be ignored in the planning. But the price for


44

environmental buildings is too high because of such environmental friendly material,

the local citizens are not able to afford. Another missing is the habit, what is said most

residents have got used to the lifestyle and the living environment where they lived in

the long time. Moreover, as a traditional idea, one of the indicators that evaluate the

success of a family in China is the ownership of the car and house, but in Dongtan the

private car is banned for environment, the rule would be unaccepted by some citizens

without any education. So it is difficulty for them to change their life into a new way at

once.

Therefore, if the local have not express their viewpoint for the project, there would have

many conflicts during the period of construction and implementation. As a consequence,

there is no time to turn to discuss the results for the diversity communities and local

employment. And the government is not participating in the project as well. In china, it

is better for government participation during the policy management and the

implementation of projects. So when the project of Dongtan has some difficulties, there

is no choice but to be delayed.

Generally speaking, as a sustainable city, it should able to promote economy; meanwhile,

it also has the power for protecting and improving environment with the economic

growth; the sustainable city can better meet various social requisitions. After evaluating

the sustainability for Dongtan according to a qualitative method with indicator system,

it can be said that the theoretical design of Dongtan Master Plan have reach a high level

of sustainability in all three aspects. But without the pubic and government

participation, there have a weak social sustainability in the practice. And also the factor,

what is the project is built on a wetland and also Dongtan National Nature Reserve is


45

near the city area, would be a negative influence on ecological sustainability in

long-‐term.

4.3 feasibility analysis on Dongtan

Although the advantages of the project are found widely, and the concept of sustainable

city has designed in Dongtan successfully, the absence of citizens and government are

still the weak point, which might cause the problems during the period of the project

from theory to practice.

After the analysis on sustainability, Dongtan as a world’s first eco-‐city, there is another

consideration about the sustainable city planning on the city scale. Dongtan is planned

on an undeveloped space, which means it is different from the reconstruct project, there

are many new concerns should be analyzed.

It doesn’t mean the work we should do is just guiding the migration or constructing

some buildings in the area, but building a multifunctional intercity division structure,

when there is planning a new city. And the useful way for having such structure is the

citizens would like to move to the area with their original lifestyle(Li Ziyang, 2005). In

that way, such knowledge of lifestyle will help the area become a new city more easily.

In addition, besides the knowledge they can spread, there is also the investment they

would have. However, the indicators, which cause this urbanization process

implemented successfully, are not only the administrative power, but also the concern

that is developed by the citizen themselves.


46

In order to discuss this viewpoint cleanlier, there is a comparison between the

development of Beijing and Tianjin. Beijing is known as a historic city, the urbanization

is built on the former agricultural society, which is likely to have a low level of modern

infrastructure in 1920s. Beijing was a serious of villages than a city at that time. And

Tianjin was a town before it became a great port of coastal trade in 1860. As the

opening of Tianjin, there are many foreigners coming and developing kinds of

infrastructure that is followed by western cities. In that way, the urbanization of Tianjin

has developed more quickly. At the beginning of the 20th century, the economic

development and living condition of Tianjin has surpassed that of Beijing.

It can be learnt from the cases that creating a new city, it should have the migration of

citizens, who are diffusing knowledge of city life and building a framework for modern

city for an undeveloped space. Of course, the amount of the migration is limit. But the

peasants around here would constitute the main population of the new city, if they can

find their place.

The project of Dongtan has less concern about this. In the master plan, it just talked the

population is from the inhabitant who is living around in Dongtan. So as a new and eco

city, maybe the infrastructure would be good as the design, and the problem about

transformation of lifestyle are not found the relative measure to solve. But the problem

has the influence on success of the project as well. After considering that, the planning is

hard to say it is feasibility when it from theory to practice.


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5. Conclusion

The project of Dongtan eco-‐city was kept in abeyance at the end of 2007, and when and

how to continue the work for Dongtan is still have no answer until now. The reasons for

this delay would be: (1) the cost of investment is prohibitive, developer are unable to

afford. (2) The cost of construction in Dongtan tower above traditional price 30%, 50%

left and right sides, this means there is weak competitiveness in residential market. (3)

As environmental perspective, there will have 500,000 residents live in Dongtan, it

would have some troubles for keeping Dongtan wetland ecosystem. (4) The

environmental friendly lifestyle should be simple and frugal rather than extravagant

and luxurious, however, Dongtan eco-‐city was initially designed as a satisfied

environment for social elites, in that way, the project might reach the goal for economic

growth and environmental protection, but it is not for social sustainability any more. (5)

Because of the ownership of land in China, it is impossible for transforming agricultural

land into construction land if there are enough factors that can be accepted by

government.

However ecological sustainability can be measured within limitations, but economic

and social sustainability is evaluated through qualitative experience. According to the

evaluation for Dongtan eco-‐city project with indicator system that mentioned before, I

have to say the master planning for Dongtan have a high score for sustainability in

theoretical knowledge. And it mentioned many measures that are all related to

ecological, social and economic sustainability, And as a sustainable case, the designs of

green transport, energy system, and waste management are the important part. And


48

those are all considering into the planning. It is a comprehensive planning with

technological and professional information.

It seems that the type of sustainable design is what the world needs if it is to continue to

grow and use resources and predicted rates. As a matter of fact, the planning have been

thought that it certainly looks idyllic, and the project is not able to get off the ground

due to the cost.

As can be seen from that analysis for Dongtan eco-‐city project, there are many work

should be done during the period from theory to practice that I have found. And for this

case, it has considered less about the real questions in implementation period. It has the

professional knowledge in technology and planning field, but without the participation

of public, the project has become a little utopia. Arup as a foreigner company has less

knowledge about the characteristics of the city development in China. And the planning

is more discussing about measure of technology and rational planning, less about policy

suggestions in implemental period. But the factors of political situation and economic

revolution would produce a profound effect on city planning (Peng, Luo, 2006). So there

is not enough if the stakeholders are limited. The professional viewpoints are necessary.

Citizens are the main consumers and direct beneficiaries of the sustainable city design,

as well as subject of advancing sustainable development in the city. The opinions of

them are also not ignored. Finally, the factor is the perfect answer for sustainable

development. The perfect sustainable city planning means its theory should work by far.

Don’t like as western countries, the urbanization process is still developing in China,

this means there still have many areas are undeveloped, as the trend of sustainable


49

development, most of projects would face to get the sustainability. Dongtan is failure in

some degree, but the positive and negative aspects should be found for the later relative

cases.

Moreover, when we focus on the sustainable design in undeveloped area, it is not

ignored that the existing city areas are also meet the demand for sustainability. In the

research process, I have found that now there are a lot of sustainable projects in China,

most of are planned for the new area. So in my opinion, it is better to consider the

sustainable measure in city than design an isolated area for eco-‐city, which is more

realistic for Chinese development.


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http://www.zgzlg.com/ghgrdts/660.jspa#

Figure 2 Process Flow Diagram, draw by Weijia Xie 2011

Figure 3 Conceptual model for sustainable city (2011-06-15), source from: Ulf Ranbagen et

al. (2007), The sustainable city approach, available from: http://www.sida.se/publications

Figure 4 Hammarby Model (2011-06-21), source from:

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00ppi.pdf

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aims, implementation and results, p.16

Figure 6 Viikki Housing, source from: Hakaste, H.et al. (2005), Eco-Viikki: aims,

implementation and results, p.20

Figure 7 Viikki Housing, source from: Hakaste, H.et al. (2005), Eco-Viikki: aims,

implementation and results, p.22

Figure 8 The Master Planning of HafenCity(2011-06-22), source from:

http://www.hafencity.com/en/revision-of-the-master-plan/revision-of-the-masterplan-ta

king-the-hafencity-concept-further.html

Figure 9 The Master Plan of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (2011-06-24), source from:

http://www.eco-city.gov.cn/eco/shouye/zoujinshengtaicheng/shengtaichengjianjie/

Figure 10 Dongtan Eco-city Site (2011-06-28), source from:

http://ngmchina.com.cn/web/?action-viewnews-itemid-61961

Figure 11 Layout of Dongtan (2011-06-28), source from:


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df

Figure 12 Road network (2011-06-28), source from:


df

Figure 12 Sources of electrical energy in Dongtan (2011-06-28), source from:

http://www.brass.cf.ac.uk/uploads/Birch_A102.pdf

Figure 13 The distribution of land use (2011-06-28), source from:


df

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