Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday November 24 2015, @04:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the redefining-'Big City' dept.

China is investing an additional $45 billion in a megacity project that will merge Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei provinces:

China on Friday earmarked 290 billion yuan ($45.45 billion) for manufacturing and industrial park projects to support its efforts to integrate Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province into a megacity, state media reported.

The government hopes to ease pressures on its crowded capital by transferring industries further out into the integrated metropolis, which it says has a combined population of about 110 million people. It dubbed the area "Jing-Jin-Ji" last year, using shortened versions of the names of the cities and province.

Demographia World Urban Areas lists the fastest growing cities as Batam, Mogadishu, Burkina Faso, Xiamen, and Yinchuan. Megacities and the impending 70% urbanization of the world's population have their proponents, such as architect Lord Foster:

Design plays a huge part. Cities that are consistently rated highly by the public in terms of quality of life are relatively compact and pedestrian-friendly, with good public transport and generous parks and civic spaces. These more desirable cities are comparatively dense and have evolved historically from a traditional European concept. They consume less energy than the more recent suburban model of cities – like LA with its low-density housing and a dependence on car travel. A new study suggests that urban sprawl costs the US economy more than $1 trillion annually.

Across the globe, people are likely to live longer and healthier lives in cities. In most countries in the world, cities provide better access to education and health services. The longest life expectancies today can be found in high-density, highly developed cities like Hong Kong or Singapore. Unlike cumbersome national governments and international organisations, cities can act quickly and decisively. When it comes to the future of life on Earth, cities are not the problem – they are the solution.

Via NextBigFuture.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Chinese President Xi Jinping Pledges $124 Billion for One Belt, One Road Initiative 25 comments

China's President has pledged $124 billion for a new "Silk Road" connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe:

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday urged major multilateral institutions to join his new Belt and Road Initiative, stressing the importance of rejecting protectionism in seeking global economic growth.

Addressing other world leaders at a summit on the initiative in Beijing, Xi said it was necessary to coordinate policies with the development goals of institutions including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN, African Union and the European Union.

Xi pledged $124 billion on Sunday for his new Silk Road which aims to bolster China's global leadership ambitions by expanding links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond, as U.S. President Donald Trump promotes "America First".

What is OBOR?

No one is totally sure. At the most basic level, One Belt, One Road (OBOR) is a collection of interlinking trade deals and infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia and the Pacific, but the definition of what exactly qualifies as an OBOR project or which countries are even involved in the initiative is incredibly fuzzy. "It means everything and it means nothing at the same time," said Christopher Balding, a professor of economics at Peking University. [...] According to Chinese state media, some $1 trillion has already been invested in OBOR, with another several trillion due to be invested over the next decade.

Fuzzier story at CNN. More at Wikipedia.

Related: China Plans World's Longest Tunnel
China to Spend $182 Billion on Network Infrastructure
China Invests $45 Billion in Megacity Project
China Finances and Builds $13 Billion Railway in Kenya
China Plans $503 Billion Investment in High-Speed Rail by 2020


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:35PM (#267606)

    1 megacity = 1000 kilocity = 1000000 cities.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @06:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @06:28PM (#267633)

      Unless you're using base 2, and then there are 1024 cities in a kilocity.

      • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday December 04 2015, @12:58PM

        by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 04 2015, @12:58PM (#271773) Journal

        Kibicity? :3

        --
        Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
  • (Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:36PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:36PM (#267607)

    A thousand bucks per person is too expensive for Chinese. And that would be assuming all 100M would move in, LOL, needless to say it'll be huge and unaffordable and therefore empty. This is not exactly their first empty development. They're headed for an epic crash. The only thing keeping their head above water right now is massive central control, and burning capex like crazy to build unaffordable capacity. They've already had their market bubble and crash.

    We're aiding and abetting by buying their cheap garbage at Walmart, at least till the next recession, which will amplify into something like the greater depression in China when it hits them.

    Gonna be interesting times to watch!

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @07:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @07:24PM (#267649)

      Among them, Hebei province [wikipedia.org], Tianjin [wikipedia.org] and Beijing [wikipedia.org] already have a population in excess of 100 million people.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:30PM

      by richtopia (3160) on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:30PM (#267728) Homepage Journal

      People don't need to move. The cities of Beijing and Tianjin alone make up 36 million people, then the outlying areas of the Hebei province are also densely populated.

      The concept is to integrate neighbouring metropolitan areas via planned industrial developments. The area is already largely developed, but in the future it will be designed by city architects allowing for more seamless integration.

      Still will be a pain in the ass though. But the Chinese are not building a city in the middle of nowhere and expecting 100 million people to move there.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday November 25 2015, @01:27AM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 25 2015, @01:27AM (#267804) Journal

        People don't need to move

        Apparently the fact that people don't move is something of a problem.
        China has built many new cities from the ground up, and built them so fast that they sit idle and empty waiting for industry
        to be established and people to move in.

        Most large new urban developments in China eventually move through this phase and become vitalized with businesses and a population. Essential infrastructure gets built, shopping malls open, and places where residents can work are created. In many of the biggest new cities, new university campuses will emerge and government offices and the headquarters of banks and state owned enterprises will be shipped in, essentially seeding these fresh outposts of progress with thousands of new consumers. From here, more businesses are attracted — often drawn by favorable subsidies like free rent — and more people trickle in as the city comes to life.

        http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/04/21/the-myth-of-chinas-ghost-cities/ [reuters.com]
        http://gizmodo.com/chinas-building-cities-so-fast-people-dont-have-time-1446570856 [gizmodo.com]

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 25 2015, @02:33AM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 25 2015, @02:33AM (#267835) Journal

          When I lived there the peasants had to get special permits to live in the cities. If you didn't have one, you got fined or jailed.

          Urbanization in China is still in progress. Still only half of their population live in cities, vs 80% for America, say. That's a huge number of people who still have yet to move. And that's up 26% from what it was when I was there. It's an enormous infrastructural challenge. It's also a political one.

          Because the CCP's roots are in Maoism, the agrarian communism that Mao fashioned when the traditional, urban proletariat Marxism didn't work, the countryside has held a lot more power than you'd expect. And there's been a deep seated resistance to urban centers like Shanghai which have been seen as sources of counter-revolutionary agitation. So urbanization brings the traditional fault line between Beijing and the provinces into sharp relief.

          The party bosses in the countryside have seen their comrades in the cities driving around brand-new Audis and Mercedes and building themselves huge mansions with the funds they're extorting from foreign investors, and they want in on that action, except the only way to get the money to do that is to extort the poor Chinese peasants even more. That's been in turn leading to more and ever larger peasant revolts such that Beijing has cracked down on rural bosses specifically. They executed something like a thousand of them at once not too long ago for corruption.

          So in sum it's one more massive barrel of gun powder under the powder keg that is modern China. Building a mega city to further erode the power of rural bosses is only going to exacerbate it.

          China's either going to explode or start a war to alleviate pressure. I'm betting they'll bet on war.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:14AM

            by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:14AM (#267898) Journal

            I'm betting they'll bet on war.

            The problem is they have no one to fight, other than taking over Taiwan, and that won't kill off anywhere near enough people, nor alleviate any pressure as it will just be one bunch of bosses killing other Chinese for very little gain.

            Russia won't fight them. The US won't fight them. Even the Muslims won't take on that many people.

            That leaves explode, or more likely just grow out of their predicament. Looking at it from afar, that is what seems to be happening.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:48AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:48AM (#267885) Journal

      A thousand bucks per person is too expensive for Chinese.

      No it isn't. The GDP per capita is more like $8-10k per person, and they have over $3.5 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. This is also a multi-year project.

      China to Spend $182 Billion on Network Infrastructure [soylentnews.org]

      China's Xi Jinping Negotiates $46bn Superhighway to Pakistan [soylentnews.org]

      And that would be assuming all 100M would move in

      You are forgetting that 110 million people already live in the zone/megacity in question. The investment is for infrastructure and industrial projects, not building empty homes.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:44PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:44PM (#267614) Journal

    No, no, no. Megacity is supposed to be on the East Coast of the USA. The Chinese don't form the SinoBlok until somewhen after 2070.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @09:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @09:10PM (#267694)

      really? i was thinking OCP were just being held up by protesting residents and that the ED209's would get the project back on track.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:50PM (#267619)

    It dubbed the area "Jing-Jin-Ji" last year,

    Sounds festive.

    Jing-Jin-Ji,
    Jing-Jin-Ji,
    Jing-Jin all the way...

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday November 24 2015, @07:22PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday November 24 2015, @07:22PM (#267648) Journal

      Or perhaps Jar Jar Binks long lost cousin?

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @08:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @08:19PM (#267674)

    ██████╗██╗  ██╗██╗███╗   ██╗ ██████╗      ██████╗██╗  ██╗ ██████╗ ███╗   ██╗ ██████╗      ██████╗██╗  ██╗██╗███╗   ██╗ █████╗     ███╗   ███╗ █████╗ ███╗   ██╗
    ██╔════╝██║  ██║██║████╗  ██║██╔════╝     ██╔════╝██║  ██║██╔═══██╗████╗  ██║██╔════╝     ██╔════╝██║  ██║██║████╗  ██║██╔══██╗    ████╗ ████║██╔══██╗████╗  ██║
    ██║     ███████║██║██╔██╗ ██║██║  ███╗    ██║     ███████║██║   ██║██╔██╗ ██║██║  ███╗    ██║     ███████║██║██╔██╗ ██║███████║    ██╔████╔██║███████║██╔██╗ ██║
    ██║     ██╔══██║██║██║╚██╗██║██║   ██║    ██║     ██╔══██║██║   ██║██║╚██╗██║██║   ██║    ██║     ██╔══██║██║██║╚██╗██║██╔══██║    ██║╚██╔╝██║██╔══██║██║╚██╗██║
    ╚██████╗██║  ██║██║██║ ╚████║╚██████╔╝    ╚██████╗██║  ██║╚██████╔╝██║ ╚████║╚██████╔╝    ╚██████╗██║  ██║██║██║ ╚████║██║  ██║    ██║ ╚═╝ ██║██║  ██║██║ ╚████║
      ╚═════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═══╝ ╚═════╝      ╚═════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝  ╚═══╝ ╚═════╝      ╚═════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═══╝╚═╝  ╚═╝    ╚═╝     ╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═══╝

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:01PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:01PM (#267711)

    When did Burkina Faso become a city?

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:49PM

    by richtopia (3160) on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:49PM (#267734) Homepage Journal

    This Megacity may be better described as a Megalopolis, although both are loosely defined terms.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis_(city_type) [wikipedia.org]

    These are neighbouring cities, with development aided by transportation corridors. Americans are familiar with the BosWash region from Boston to Washington DC, with the efforts to provide high speed rail stressing the transportation aspect (highway is the true link for this region at the present).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @08:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @08:07AM (#267921)

    cities are like houses:
    you need a place to sleep, work, do laundry, dump your garbage, recycle your green stuff, get-and-store your water, grow your food ... just bigger. maybe the house will be planned from the beginning, maybe it will grow organically?

    for china, maybe also a air-tight room with monster filters to relax your lungs ^_^ the next invention, smart like the separate room for shower and pooping, coming out of china?
    i will be impressed with the children-room, with the wheels-on-track, (loftstrom-loop), going from singapore thru the ocean to indonesia (north-west-tip of borneo ).
    well, good luck, y'all!