Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Tables and Figures
- Introduction
- Part I Strategic Considerations
- Part II Sustainable Cities Around the World
- Chapter 7 Urban Dreams of Global Sustainability
- Chapter 8 The Promise and Pitfalls of Chattanooga's Entrepreneurial “Sustainability” Strategy
- Chapter 9 Sustainability Comes to Okotoks, Alberta
- Chapter 10 Vienna's Westbahnhof Sustainable Urban Implantation – The City-as-a-Hill
- Chapter 11 The Success of SUCCESS: The Chinese Village as Catalyst of Future Chinese Sustainable Cities
- Chapter 12 The Long March to Sustainability in China
- Closing Thoughts
- Appendix
- References
- Index
Chapter 11 - The Success of SUCCESS: The Chinese Village as Catalyst of Future Chinese Sustainable Cities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Tables and Figures
- Introduction
- Part I Strategic Considerations
- Part II Sustainable Cities Around the World
- Chapter 7 Urban Dreams of Global Sustainability
- Chapter 8 The Promise and Pitfalls of Chattanooga's Entrepreneurial “Sustainability” Strategy
- Chapter 9 Sustainability Comes to Okotoks, Alberta
- Chapter 10 Vienna's Westbahnhof Sustainable Urban Implantation – The City-as-a-Hill
- Chapter 11 The Success of SUCCESS: The Chinese Village as Catalyst of Future Chinese Sustainable Cities
- Chapter 12 The Long March to Sustainability in China
- Closing Thoughts
- Appendix
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
China is currently undergoing a program of massive, unprecedented urbanization and industrialization. Within the next five to ten years, a minimum of 200 million Chinese farmers will leave their villages to become factory workers in hundreds of new and greatly enlarged towns and cities. Accompanying this shift are strong indications of massive unsustainability from an economic, social, cultural and environmental point of view. The way in which these Chinese cities are conceived and constructed will have portentous consequences not only for China but for the rest of the planet as well (Figure 11.1).
It is vital that rapidly industrializing societies such as China's pursue sustainable alternatives to this ill-conceived development; in recent years, we have seen some institutional and governmental interest in China in a search for such alternatives. With a keen understanding of the importance of identifying pathways to mitigate unsustainable development in China, the European Commission sponsored a five-year research program addressing future prospects for sustainability in the numerous small villages in which 70 percent of the Chinese people still live.
SUCCESS is an acronym for “Sustainable User's Concepts for China Engaging Scientific Scenarios,” (ICA4–CT–W2002–10007). The SUCCESS project's goal was to explore the prospects for a sustainable future for the Chinese village as a social and cultural question as well as from ecological and economic points of view. (For a recently published work generated as an outcome of this project, see: Dumreicher et al., 2005; Dumreicher and Prañdl-Zika, 2008; Dumreicher, 2006; Marschalek, 2008; Mortimer and Grant, 2008; and Shaw, Hunter and Mortimer, 2007).
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- Information
- The City as Fulcrum of Global Sustainability , pp. 183 - 206Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011