To make an appointment with Lou Yongqi is not easy. He is travelling in and out of China, being involved in urban projects all over the world. He is a certified City Planner and he has been working with the major challenges in Chinese megacities for years.
Developing both rural and urban spaces
From his point of view the greatest challenge for Chinese megacities is not absorbing the massive migration of rural inhabitants – it is rather to realise that not every rural part of China has to be developed into an urban space.
“There ought to be a natural cooperation between rural and urban areas. Right now there is a significant imbalance between the developed city areas in coastal china and the rural parts of western China. The government must understand that both parts are necessary to make a society work. If nobody wants to live in the countryside because the standard and services are poor we have a huge structural problem,” Lou Yongqi explains.
New ways of thinking sustainable design
Lou Yongqi emphasises farming as a crucial aspect of rural life and what makes cities liveable. What would happen to a society, if nobody wanted to produces agricultural products? Therefore he is deeply involved in a sustainable community design research project in the Eco-Island Chongming, located a two hour drive from Shanghai. In this project, design is defined as a promoter and catalyst to help people discover, revitalise and create ways of sustainable living and production learnt from their daily life. A sustainable future and a dynamic balance between environmental, social and economic aspects can be achieved by bridging traditional values and new opportunities for socioeconomic exchange between the urban dwellers consuming the agricultural products and the farmers producing the food.
“The Chongming project identifies new roles and new ways of thinking sustainable design in Chinese rural-urban contexts and networks. By mobilising the end consumers and the rural citizens in a mutual sustainable approach to living there is a lot gained on a meta level,” Lou Yongqi explains while spinning past the rice fields at Chongming Island on one of the city bikes introduced as a part of the urban scene in Shanghai.
The launch of the project is attended by the Mayor of Chongming, somewhat 200 farmers and urban dwellers from Shanghai who all made their way to the Island.
Consume less - live better
“During the last decade there has been a lot of focus on eco projects in China, but most of them did not get any further than the sketchbook due to financial and political challenges. In China we are in for a soft landing adapting to the sustainable agenda,” Lou Yongqi says.
That is also the case for the Chinese megacities. Until recently for instance, the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu have been under ‘scientific development’ not giving much thought to environmental or social sustainability. Right now there is a new tendency arising, namely ‘consume less – live better’.
“So far sustainability has been a matter of economic urban development in a very strict rational way. It has been a question of organising the infrastructure, housing and industry and making it all interact in a less problematic way. The Urban Planning Bureau has had a top-down perspective on urban development not including the citizens. In the Chongming project we have followed a bottom up approach,” he explains.
Speeding up development through major events
Also the world exhibition EXPO 2010 in Shanghai has played a part in developing the Chinese megacity with major benefits for the citizens:
“Events like EXPO speeds up the process of infrastructural development. Take for example the metro in Shanghai. That wouldn’t have been completed for the next 15 years if it hadn’t been for EXPO,” he says.
Changing behaviours in energy usage
According to Lou Yongqi infrastructural development is no longer the greatest issue of Chinese megacities. The challenge ahead is how to secure the energy supply.
“If we do not prepare for new systems in the energy supply we are headed for serious trouble. Fuel and petrol is running out and we have to be looking for other solutions. But it is also a matter of changing the behaviour of the population. Right now we are living in an artificial environment of aircondition. For what reason? If we could change that habit, a lot could be won. Then there are cars and traffic habits in general. These are also partly behavioral problems we have to address.”