Lu Dadao, one of China's renowned economic geologists and director of the Geographic Society of China, has warned that the trend of frenzied high-speed urbanization that has taken root in the country breaches the principle of orderly and gradual development and deviates from the normal process of urbanization. He urged that greater efforts be made by the government and society at large to stop the blind pursuit of large-scale construction, and serious land wastage in the planning stages.

Also an academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lu is an expert in regional planning and city development. A member of the 11th Five-Year Plan expert team, Lu has led expert teams in three key state-level regional planning projects including the "Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei Metropolis Circle", "Yangtze River Delta Region" and "Northeast China Rejuvenation".

66-year-old Lu has traveled extensively throughout China to conduct field research, recording everything he sees and hears. His findings haven't always been positive, and he's written on several occasions to the State Council and Ministry of Construction officials reporting the many problems that have arisen as a result of city construction.

According to Lu, China's level of urbanization over a mere 22-year-period rose from 17.9 percent in 1978 to 39.1 percent in 2002, an astonishing increase even by international standards. It took the UK 120 years, the US 80 years, and Japan slightly more than 30 years to achieve those levels.

"However, we cannot focus only on speed; we must keep in mind the fundamentals of urbanization, which is primarily the end-result of economic and social development. The current trend of building and construction on a large-scale is more fixated on the transformation of land than the urbanization of the population. If allowed to continue unchecked, this method of development will have a serious impact on sustainable development.

"Recently, proposals have been put forward setting targets of over 50 percent urbanization by 2010. This is very unreasonable," Lu stressed. "In fact, even the current figure of 43 percent urbanization is unrealistic. This is because it includes 100 million farmer-turned-migrant workers. There is still a big gap between them and urbanites. And what is important to understand is that the lands of the farmers might have been urbanized, but not them or their families."

According to Lu, the size of China's farmlands decreased by 100 million mu (15 mu = 1 hectare) in seven years, from 1996 to 2003, most of the land taken over by cities.

Statistics from the Ministry of Land and Resources show that current land consumption for city and town construction is 240,000 sq km on average; per capita consumption is over 130 sq m, higher than the 82.4 sq m in developed countries and 83.3 sq m in developing countries.

"Even in New York City, land used for construction per capita is 112.5 sq m.

"In many large and medium cities in China, many large public facilities have been built up, such as wide roads, large green space and squares. They all look very beautiful and luxurious, no less than those in western countries. But many of them are worth more than the economic development level of the cities. It isn't only the capital cities that are building on a massive scale; many small cities are building large-scale projects as huge as the new Guangzhou Exhibition Center. Such high land consumption levels will not only damage the city's image, but also cultural and historical sites," Lu warned.

Without naming names, Lu cited the example of a small city that has taken the urban planning pledge a little too far. Using international cities like London and Paris as models, the local government has visions of a super-large city which is 10 times the size of London and six times the size of Paris, covering a total area of 70,000 sq km.

"At a working meeting a few months ago, I told the vice mayor, who is in charge of city construction, that if they use 76 sq km of land every year, the city will have no land to spare in 15 years. Even adding farmland to the equation would only stretch that to 35 years."

The development frenzy which started in the late 1980s gave rise to problems as early as 2002 and 2003. Between 2004 and 2005, four state departments started checking on land use.

Lu said: "I was invited to lead an expert study team. We axed thousands of development zone plans. At that time, there were over 10,000 development zones all over the country. Even some small towns had more than one. The trend these days is to build large buildings, squares and overpasses.

"Many of these projects are superfluous. I saw a very huge and complicated overpass in one of the central Chinese cities, bigger than the overpass linking Beijing's fourth ring road to the airport. My field investigations showed that the overpass would not handle traffic flows that it was designed to handle even in 10 or 20 years. It is absolutely not necessary."

In small and medium-sized cities, large areas of farmland are occupied to build whole new cities. Government buildings are moved to up to 10 km away from the old city area. In one poverty stricken county in central China, there is a new office building that covers an area of 50,000 sq m; the main office building of its Land and Resources Bureau is several thousand sq m big, but the building houses only several dozen personnel.

"Looking at the city plans of some capital cities, the decision makers intend to learn from the development mode of Shanghai's Pudong area. However, Shanghai has unique traits that have shaped its development including its location and economic status. Other cities areas don't have those same traits, so large-scale planning and spending are very risky. It will result in the overconsumption of farmland and water resources and severe environmental pollution, which is not conducive to the long-term development of China."

To prevent that from happening, Lu suggested laying down strict standards on land use and scientifically based regulations on the per capita use of land, and energy and water consumption, and transport structures.

"Cities should make their development goals in the light of local circumstances and conditions. For example, a garden city concept is not suitable for every city, especially not in drought areas with rainfall of less than 400 mm."

"However, standards and regulations are not enough. The system to evaluate the performance of local government officials also needs to be changed. More emphasis should be put on what they have done to protect the environment and to save land."

(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, July 24, 2006)