CHINA PROPOSAL NEW DEVELOPMENT MODELS China’s new 12th Five Year Plan (20112015) aims to generate different development models for the interior provinces than those which evolved in the coastal urban areas. Successful creation and deployment of these models will require specialized design/planning services. There is awareness in China that reasonable limits to the growth, sustainability and management of its large coastal urban areas is being approached and that the initial high returns to social and economic benefits are leveling off. Indeed, the very success of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) experiments resulted in unforeseen consequences that have generated destabilizing forces within the country: sharp disparities in income, large-scale social dislocations and, environmental degradation. In response, China has launched a large and comprehensive development plan for its interior provinces. The consequences of the 12th FYP will likely be as far reaching and significant as those which occurred with the earlier SAR experiments. Officials are aware that the new initiative will require regional development strategies that establish orderly, efficient and environmentally sustainable growth, both within and between regions. Development projects will range across many sectors: large scale infrastructure developments in transportation, energy, water, environmental systems, regional, provincial and multi-provincial land use strategies for agricultural modernization, land reform, rural settlement planning,
urban design for cities and towns, conservation and development of cultural and natural resources and, the development of more specialized building types. Business opportunities will favor firms positioned to operate simultaneously across multiple sectors. ALTERED MIGRATION PATTERNS Altered domestic migration patterns resulting from 12th FYP will increase the populations of existing interior cities and towns fueling significant demand for redevelopment and expansion. Development of the interior is a critical national strategy for stemming the flow of migrants from the interior to the eastern urban regions. There are currently over 103 million urban migrants in coastal cities. Without intervention, demographic projections estimate that an additional 243 million migrants will move to these areas by 2025. It is deemed a national imperative to establish an appropriate population distribution with sustainable growth for all urban areas. With new opportunities and services, interior cities and towns will expand through the retention of their existing populations as well as the return of urban migrants back to their home provinces. Intra-provincial rural-to-city migration will be fueled by the agricultural modernization program and opportunities for employment and enhanced quality of life. AGRICULTURAL / LAND REFORM Agricultural modernization and land reform present vast opportunities for design/planning work of a programmatic scope and physical scale rarely encoun-
Mt Qingcheng, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sichuan Province, P R China
青城山，联合国科教文组 四川省，中国。
Daniel Fogerty identifies significant opportunities presented to design/planning practices by China’s 12th Five Year Plan. The China Proposal is fundamentally a high-level business development concept that aligns with China’s evolving national development policies and programs.
tered in either developed or emerging countries. China is the world’s largest agriculture economy. But this huge sector, vital for feeding the country’s 1.3 billion people, is significantly under developed compared to most other sectors of the economy. Previous policies emphasized the quantity of agricultural production over food quality and safety. The environmental costs of maintaining high agricultural output are becoming evident. The social-economic conditions of farm families and communities remains depressed with low incomes and inefficient markets. And, uncertainties over the ownership, control, and distribution of land inhibit investments in new production practices and technologies. China is now entering a new stage in its reform of agricultural production, practices, and markets. The 12th FYP provides for the modernization of agriculture together with land reform. A new set of goals will address agriculture’s eroding physical and social infrastructure. Cities and towns in agricultural regions will attain new prominence as their market functions in trade, processing and distribution generating physical growth and expansion. Land consolidations from economy of scale forces will result in increased population of cities and towns as farm families relocate there for employment. And, outside forces will play a significant role in agriculture development and reorganization. China is rapidly becoming a sought after location by multinational firms’ agri industry investments.
Daniel Fogerty donallf34@gmail.com
Design/planning elements of agricultural modernization and land reforms include land use, environmental, and landscape planning for new agricultural spatial patterns. Important features of this work will be the identification and protection rural regions’ valuable natural and cultural resources through their thoughtful integration into regional reorganization and development projects. Towns located in agricultural regions will experience new economic vitality resulting in their conservation and expansion. Growth in these vitalized markets’ processing and distribution centers presents unique opportunities for urban/town design and architectural design work over an interesting range of scales. NEW CHINESE CITY-REGION Urban design and planning has become the focus of an emerging critical debate regarding spatial organizing principals for Chinese city-regions. Discussions are generally framed in reference to coastal urban areas and to what degree those aggregations continue to provide an appropriate and ubiquitous model for growth. Concerns have raised awareness of urban design and planning issues together with an increased desire to explore alternate development models. Design/planning practices will find new opportunities for their services in 12th FYP target regions, especially for those firms that can provide creative leadership. Opportunities and challenges will be pronounced in the interior provinces as, generally, its cities and towns have not suffered the extensive loss of cultural resources that occurred in the SARs. Increasingly, successful projects will be
considered those that retain the genuine cultural context of regions, cities, towns and villages while integrating high quality development zones and modern building to accommodate growth and promote vitality while retaining identity. Designs will strive to conserve, enhance and integrate historic districts, public spaces and sites with new social and private development programs. The New Chinese City-Region will most likely be an evolved, more organic, set of development models. QUALITY OF LIFE The 12th FYP differs from all proceeding FYP’s in its emphasis on the quality of growth rather than the rate. It is considered imperative to reduce large disparities in the quality of life between urban and rural populations through wider distribution of social and economic benefits to meet national objectives for an all round upgrading of people’s lives. Critical quality of life sectors targeted for development include all scales of health care, education at all levels, and affordable housing. Significant architectural and construction opportunities will emerge to meet the facility requirements of these programs. Innovations in hospital reform, for instance, will include privatization of health care involving local and overseas funding for existing and new facilities. And, new, more specialized housing types will emerge, such as elderly housing and long term care, to address changing generational patterns of Chinese families.