Beyond eco-city development to creating eco-districts out of existing areas: The argument for a Beijing eco-district

Chinese eco-cities can be seen as the largest experiment in urban sustainability ever, and the various pilot projects currently under way will provide many innovations in green technology and valid lessons on sustainable urban development. Given the scale and speed of urbanisation, however, these innovations will come too late for many cities and regions and a huge amount of unsustainable urban development will then have to be retrofitted. In the future it will be more critical to apply the eco-city lessons to the existing urban areas than to keep developing new urban areas, even if more sustainable. Quoting the author: “Eco-cities as isolated areas are the first step in developing urban sustainability, with the development of existing urban districts as eco-cities as the next logical step”. The article also explains the advantages of creating eco-districts and advances the vision of Beijing Core Area as an Eco-District.

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Luis Balula

Ph.D. Urban Planning and Public Policy (Rutgers University, New Jersey); M.Sc. Urban Affairs (Boston University); Architect (Technical University of Lisbon). Urban and regional planning consultant. Research fellow at Instituto de Ciencias Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa.

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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Luis Balula (January 16, 2013). Beyond eco-city development to creating eco-districts out of existing areas: The argument for a Beijing eco-district. URBACHINA. Retrieved February 11, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/v2c3


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