Thursday, August 16, 2012

Foreign Policy Special Issue on Cities--Focus on China

Foreign Policy recently has published its Special Report "Cities Issue."  While the issue is themed on urban affairs generally, its articles coalesce around the amazing urban development taking place in China.  From the website intro:

Our special issue dedicated to the cities of the future has its eye squarely toward China, because the cities of the future are increasingly going to be speaking Mandarin -- even more than you realize. It's no longer news that China has embarked on the largest mass urbanization in history, a monumental migration from country to city that will leave China with nearly a billion urbanites by 2025 and an astonishing 221 cities with populations over 1 million. But this isn't just about size: It's about global heft. And that's where the scale of China's transformation into a world leader is truly astonishing. In an exclusive index for FP, the McKinsey Global Institute has run the numbers to produce what we're calling The 75 Most Dynamic Cities of 2025 -- an extraordinary 29 of which are in China. Some are already global powers, from top-ranked Shanghai to manufacturing dynamo Shenzhen; others, from Fuzhou to Xiamen, were little more than provincial backwaters in the 20th century but look to be household names in the 21st, powering the global economy not just through their sheer size but also through their urban innovation and pulsing drive. Europe, meanwhile, will manage only three cities on the list by 2025; the United States finishes second to China -- a very distant second -- with 13. Still think that debate about Western decline is overblown?

There are a whole bunch of interesting articles at the website.  Just one that I'll highlight is New Urbanism pioneer Peter Calthorpe's Weapons of Mass Urban Destruction: China's Cities are Making the Same Mistake America Made on the Path to Superpower Status.  Again, there's a whole lot of interesting analysis at the FP Cities Issue website.

Matt Festa

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/land_use/2012/08/foreign-policy-special-issue-on-cities-focus-on-china.html

Comparative Land Use, Development, New Urbanism, Property, Urbanism | Permalink

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