Research asks “What is a sustainably-sized city?”
Posted in Models, Research by fedwards on March 26th, 2008
Please find an abstract below from a recent article, “China Urged To Shift Urban Growth To Supercities” by Alan Wheatley listed on the Planet Ark World News. It discusses the issue of cities’ size and sustainability – an increasingly important issue as more people shift to increasingly urban lifestyles all over the world. Can these larger centres be sustainable?
“BEIJING – Shifting China’s model of urbanisation to favour huge supercities could boost per capita output, improve energy efficiency and help contain the loss of arable land, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) said on Monday.
Rapid urbanisation has been a major driver of Chinese growth over the past two decades and will become more so over the next 20 years; cities will account for 95 percent of China’s gross domestic product by 2025, up from 75 percent today, MGI said. But the institute, the economics research arm of consultants McKinsey & Co, said in a report that China could reap even greater economic benefits by adopting a more concentrated pattern of urban growth.
By enforcing land acquisition rules more strictly and by tweaking incentives for local officials, national policy makers could nurture 15 supercities with average populations of 25 million people, the report said.”
To read the full article visit http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47623/story.htm.
