Debate #29 - Notes
Debate 29 - Notes
Is Dongtan a fig leaf? Can it deliver a real demonstration project. Who is going to live there? How to connect this back into bigger issues of decision-making? It is embedding sustainable living in everything we do. Population scale too big. Ideals need to be worked out in Chinese terms. Different maturing of communities in the UK.
Erosion of social capital by economic and social change.
How will Dongtan to the rest of the island. 6-lane highway out of Shanghai. How to police the not have acceptable cars in new middle class. With old parts of society destroyed, what replaces it.
Need global policing to enforce environmental standards
Shanghai has commissioned 9 other satellite towns with different environmental aspirations.
Can have high environmental aspirations at masterplan in UK but then what happens. How to enforce the builder and the inhabitants to live within the ideals?
Emperor being a long way away – who is making the decisions. Who do you need to influence. Who makes things happen?
China trying to re-establish itself as a world power within a system that is faulty. What is biophysical size of polity? Dongtan is a pinprick.
There are several thousand communities in China
Nobody votes in China. Old system was a system of control that delivered everything under the control of the party. This is gone because the old state industries have gone. No corresponding rise of ceiling of autonomous social organisation. Profound suspicion of social organisation. Ambivalent view of NGOs. Obstacles to official registration. Most NGOs not registered but winging it. Means difficult to see what sort of community will develop in Dongtan. Top up or bottom down?
Climate change consciousness in China is low. But highly conscious of pollution.
Western pressure to get Chinese to see pollution through the climate change lens
Model of demonstration and replication is a proven model. It does have problems. New thinking about Special Economic Environmental Zones
Climate Change – no way out. Have to start now even though imperfect.
Social implications - Dongtan mainly middle-class suburb and a big deal in China terms. In a Western approach, where demographics and growth - issue of creating new communities. 220m in next XX years. We have accelerated the process by which community takes root but not addressing the bonds that holds communities together. Have a website to create a virtual community for people coming into Dongtan. Client said no. People don’t want to exhibit their success. People would not register with the site.
Implementation: mistakes will be made but clear guidelines enforceable through private contract with developers and see how it works.
Accelerating communities is an issue wider than China What are the models?
World has to change to meet climate change. People in free society do not like change. Dongtan a seed. People do not buy into something unless they see it works. New university term is a model. Great shock value, which is part of the process.
University communities form because they are around each other all the time. Not the same for other communities. People are not there during the day. Communities might re-establish come the oil crisis. Supermarkets are part of the process in eroding communities
Milton Keynes pathfinder community. But sense of community difficult to engender. Communities would be school and sports fields not where they lived. Controversial planning changed this – external threat
Parallels between Japan and China. Different approach in Japan to environment. Respect for the small scale. Can’t graft western sensibilities to eastern approach
China has remade every city but a few hold outs – courtyards with dense social exchange. Aspiring middle class going to compounds, except where there was an external threat. Elected officials and became de facto local authority and this caused all sorts of problems.
Starting now and finishing in time. 1.2bn Chinese living on one planet in time. Leveraging from best practise to mainstream policy. Can you have a policy to practice – environment to community to create sustainable Shanghai. Linking public transport ideas between the two cities. What about level of diversity that is required in cities.
Imperative that lessons learnt are applied to existing areas
Democracy and community involvement. UK also undergoing an evolutionary change.
Size of China. 3 x enlarged EU in US size landmass. Communities very different and at stages of development. Cautious of one-size fits all. Chung Ching (sp?) – impressive policy driven through at district level and showing results. Is this model working anywhere else in China?
China – how centrally planning.
Regulations and buildings. How far do we really want to go for (uniform) regulation and how far will we allow different models for regulation. Regulation changes behaviour changes attitudes – e.g. congestion charge.
Ken had mandate for Congestion charge and did it.
China is so diverse and all driven by global economic system on 20th model. We would do it that way now. DO the Chinese people want to go to where it is going?
Dongtan product of state-run enterprises. Want fulfilment of promises
Arup not just doing Dongtan but other parts of China, much poorer. Dongtan is not a thing (to replicate) but a process. The Dongtan methodology taken to Jin An which had been developing on Los Angles approach. After 6 months exposure to Dong tan approach going to remove 6-lane highway. It is the cheaper solution. Eyes opened to new way of thinking and yet solution is nothing like Dongtan. Arup terrified and amazed by the range of response.
Arup have approach for pulling through cultural history and incorporating into master plan. Effect has been as if a lever has been applied. This is something that could be applied to Thames Gateway. China will catch fire. We have lost it in the west. No idea of where the food comes from. Can be optimistic about Dongtan as a process for getting to a better place.
What’s the message? The way that Arups works. Integrated and this is completely transferable. This has to become the new order of things. Dongtan is reinforcing the way Arup were already working