The "Eco" and "Low-carbon" promise: a critical review of China's experience

• Author(s): Balula, Luís ; Bina, Olivia
• Date: 2015
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/20587
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Subject(s): Desenvolvimento sustentável; Planeamento urbano
• Document Type: Book part
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa

Description

The scale and speed of China’s urbanization translate into major challenges for sustainability. Could the ‘eco-city’ and ‘low-carbon’ agendas, and the promotion of related pilot cities drive Chinese urban practice towards more environmentally sustainable solutions? We explore this question through a critical review of experience in China, identifying problems relating to the development of space, the treatment of scale and the pursuit of efficiency (the ‘space-scale-efficiency nexus’). China seeks sustainable solutions through eco and low-carbon agendas, but our review finds that current efforts fall short of expectations, and problematic patterns are repeated. We propose that a geo-administrative notion of functional regions could provide a strategic framework to address the range of design, physical and administrative planning problems, ensuring that eco-city and low-carbon city pilots result in comprehensive solutions that can be effectively replicated.