Everyone knows China is a growing economic and population giant with a strong central government. Ignoring all the other political and human effects of this, it is allowing China to take the lead in developing new urban centers for the 21st century.
This is the new China:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_popup.html
A city planned from the ground up of 550,000 people with a density of 50 per acre (18K per sq mile, Tulsa is at 2100/sq mile or 6/acre) and a total area of 11,000 acres (Tulsa is 116,480 acres). Energy use efficiency peaks at 50/acre and remains steady at that level given household and transportation consumption (at about 15/acre public transit starts making sense, at 30/acre it can make money). So a min. of 50/acre was desired.
The total area allotted to the project is just larger than Tulsa county and will be entirely self sufficient. All energy will be produced, most of the food grown, and water used from that area for all 550K people. The designers are paying close attention to ensuring that on a daily basis people will have no desire, let alone a need, to drive in the city.
The city will be on the sea and use a graduated flood system to integrate itself with the sea and marshland as opposed to walling it off. A network of canals and gradual terracing will protect the city from floods without walling itself off from the water (essentially the sea side district will be allowed to flood).
Kind of scary that it takes China to accomplish everything that we want to see here. Growth, urbanism, and environmentally friendly.
(of course the vast amount of growth in China is uncontrolled pollution and urban blight, but hey...)
I think this was tried before in Brazil.
quote:
Originally posted by Townsend
I think this was tried before in Brazil.
yeah, they kinda forced Brasilla down everyone's throats. Was a miserable failure at first, but I think now it is doing ok.
Brasilia was indeed a planned city, as Washington DC was. But not on the immediate scale nor ambition of design that this is. They are actually doing something different.
Washington and Brasilia were same ole' same ole' modeled after European capitals.