Dongtan and other highly touted eco-cities across China were meant to be models of sustainable design for the future. Instead they’ve become models of bold visions that mostly stayed on the drawing boards — or collapsed from shoddy implementation. More often than not, these vaunted eco-cities have been designed by big-name foreign architectural and engineering firms who plunged into the projects with little understanding of Chinese politics, culture, and economics — and with little feel for the needs of local residents whom the utopian communities were designed to serve.

“What I have always found amazing about these eco-towns is how seemingly easy it is for people to, first, tout these as a sign of China’s commitment to the environment and then, second, be surprised when things fail,” writes Richard Brubaker, founder and managing director of China Strategic Development Partners.

Shannon May, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley who has studied the troubled eco-city of Huangbaiyu, wrote in comments posted on The Christian Science Monitor’s Web site, “While such highly lauded projects garner fame and money for the foreign firms, and promotions for the local government officials, they leave the population they were supposed to serve behind.”

Read more about eco-cities in China via CDT.

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A noticeable loser is Dongtan. Arup’s original plan had 50,000 residents moving in by 2010, when Shanghai hosts the World Expo. That has now been quietly dropped. Arup’s Roger Wood says SIIC has opted to put construction on hold, pending further permits. He denies, however, that the project has been cancelled. On a recent visit to the site, your correspondent found an SIIC business centre and a shuttered hotel, neither of which appear in the master plan. Local residents say the hotel, outside the site proper, was a private villa owned by Mr Chen, who presumably enjoyed his excursions to Chongming.

A new bridge and tunnel spanning the estuary is already completed and will open to traffic later this year. That should boost land prices on Chongming, and may give SIIC a nudge to develop—or sell—the Dongtan site. It also raises the question, however, of what constitutes an eco-city. Arup had envisaged a compact, mostly car-free community. Residents would live and work in green research centres and other such industries, buy local produce and use renewable energy. The new road link, however, puts Shanghai within commuting distance.

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I had a brief conversation with a friend majoring in media about “good news” and “bad news.” He claimed that when you tell someone you have good news and bad news, they will usually request to hear the bad news first. So here’s the bad news: China’s most high-profile eco-towns are failing.

According to Ethical Corporation Magazine, China’s eco-towns planned for Huangbaiyu and Dongtan are not doing so well. In Huangbaiyu, new eco-friendly houses were planned to cost $3,600 (reasonably affordable) and ended up at $20,000 (not affordable at all). The new houses also had garages, even though not a single villager actually owns a car. Sponsored by the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development and Deng Nan, Deng Xiaoping’s daughter, the project is now receiving no funding and U.S. helpers have gone home.

[...] So what is the good news? Ethical Corporation deems Rizhao – “City of Sunshine” – as a prototype for creating successful eco-towns. Rizhao aimed not to be a high-profile eco-town, but merely to have its energy converted to solar power. Using subsidies and cheap technology, Rizhao has achieved a significant reduction in electric and coal power. Now, 99% of households in the city center and 30% in the suburbs have solar panels.

For more information about the Dongtan city project, please follow the Dongtan tag.

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This was supposed to be the site of Dongtan, the world’s first eco-city, a paradise of sustainable living that would house half-a-million people and set an example to the world.

So impressive were the groundbreaking plans, drawn up in conjunction with the British engineering firm Arup, that Tony Blair himself helped launched the project in 2005 with Hu Jintao, the Chinese president – and earlier this year Gordon Brown pledged that it would be the model for similar towns in Britain.

“Britain and China will lead the world in the creation of eco-cities,” the prime minister boasted.

However an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed that Dongtan is still nothing but a pipe dream. The greenfield site, a lush area three quarters the size of Manhattan, remains untouched – and planning permission won by the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (SIIC), the property developer which commissioned Arup to design and build the city, has now lapsed.

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Back then, way before ResponsibleChina.com was even a twinkle in my eye, Dongtan sounded too good to be true. An entire eco-city three-quarters the size of Manhattan built from scratch? Who’s building this? Who’s paying for it? What Chinese companies are involved? What are the obstacles and challenges to this endeavor? Have there been setbacks? Is the technology behind it feasible? How will construction affect the surrounding wetlands? Will local Chinese people be able to afford living there? Why build a new city when so many of China’s other cities need sustainable design? Has actual progress been made? (Apparently, by 2030 there will be more than 500,000 people living in Dongtan. Has anyone moved in, yet?)

Legitimate questions, I think, that demand thorough answers. [Full text]

[Image via Arup]

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[Image: The proposed Dongtan site as seen from the Yangtze River. Green spaces are a integral part of the plan: all residents will be within walking distance public green areas.]

(...)
Read the rest of Photo Series: China’s Green Evolution – China Environmental News Digest (92 words)

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Conventional cars will be banned in the city centre, while the plans include capturing and purifying water, waste management recycling, reducing landfills that damage the environment, and creating combined heat and power systems.

…But some observers, such as Professor Chen of Tongji University, think that the local planners are more concerned with raising the income and standard of living of the region than ensuring ecological development. [Full text]

See previous reporting on the project, via CDT. (Photo via Arup)

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China has embarked on a bold, expensive experiment to see whether pollution and waste”of all forms, not just the kind that taints the air”can be drastically reduced or even eliminated. In March it broke ground on what it calls the world’s first eco-city. Designed by the London-based global consulting firm Arup Group, Dongtan (as the new city will be called) is to be built on an island that is just a ferry ride away from central Shanghai. The government expects that by the time of the Expo this new enclave will be a showcase city of 8000 and that it will have half a million residents by 2050.

(...)
Read the rest of How to Build a Green City – Steven Cherry (122 words)

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If you aren’t subscribed the the weekly emails of Access Asia, you should be. This week they are trashing the new version of the Rough Guide – the other Lonely Planet – on China, which praises the new “eco-village” being built on Chongming Island outside of Shanghai as representing “the most forward-thinking philosophy in the world.” Quite a statement, and one which the boys at Access Asia proceed to rip apart: [Full Text]

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The British design firm hired by SIIC to design Dongtan says the city will be practical and commercially sensible ” high-tech, economically vibrant, a model for urban planners everywhere ” not a green utopian boondoggle.

“The main grid of the city will be for walking and cycling, not cars. There will be public transport within (550 yards) of each home,” says Peter Head, director of Arup, the British firm designing Dongtan. “With no (gasoline) or diesel engines, Dongtan will be a quiet place. So you can open windows and ventilate buildings.” [Full Text]

Billed as the world’s first “eco-city,” Dongtan will occupy an area roughly three-quarters the size of Manhattan and be powered entirely by renewable energy with grass planted on rooftops for insulation.

Not everyone is buying the pitch: “River Runs Black” author Elizabeth Economy tells the newspaper she thinks the project has potential but also points out China “is littered with expensive demonstration projects that have not been replicated.”

See The Independent for a more detailed (if less skeptical) take on the project.

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