“A New Kind Of Community Grows in Shanghai”

Published on Author harbaugh

 

“A New Kind Of Community Grows in Shanghai”“A New Kind Of Community Grows in Shanghai” is a New York Times article that discusses a new green-focused urban project in Shanghai’s old French Concession neighborhood. The Jiashan Market development was created by Brearly Architects + Urbanists, an Australian based company that now has offices in China. The housing development was renovated from a textile factory with the use of sustainable building to create 8 low-rise buildings. The development features recycled wood, double-glazed windows and three rooftop gardens. This is an extremely interesting development because of the future impact it may have upon Shanghai and other Chinese cities. Rather than building with traditional methods, this is evidence that China is becoming increasingly green and sustainable. China’s air pollution has reached the highest on record over the past weekend, which makes green-focused projects extremely relevant. Similar eco-friendly initiatives are becoming necessary for the health of the nation; hopefully the Jiashan Market will be a template for future housing.

This article is also evidence for the booming economy in China. Rather than simply focusing on development, attention has been turned to long-term sustainability instead of the cheapest option.

 

 

6 Responses to “A New Kind Of Community Grows in Shanghai”

  1. Smart Cities

    On a similar note, China is also going for several smart cities, including Wuhan, Xinjian, Beijing, Nanjing, and probably more. The concept initially raised by IBM, focuses on the use of IT to improve various components including healthcare, public safety, transportation and the environment.

    A Smart City

    Source: Wuhan to become smart city by 2020

  2. It is good to see that some people are taking the initiative to reduce pollution in China and make the cities into cleaner places to live. Brearley Architect’s efforts are certainly admirable in this respect. But in order to make real progress on reducing pollution, China is going to have to take drastic measures to clean up its environment. The Jiashan Market is not going to solve this problem by itself. I am interested to see how/if the Chinese government deals with this issue in the future.

  3. I’m really interested to see if this ideology will catch on and spread throughout China. I understand that China is making some strides to becoming “greener” however does this really counteract the absurd amount of coal factories being built each year in China? I am skeptical that China can get away from their “bread and butter” so to speak of using the lowest cost methods to produce goods and services. Is the government just using these developments as a mask for their other actions? Or are they serious about curtailing pollution? I am a sneaking suspicion it is the former, but it will really be interesting to see what happens going forward.

  4. I have not heard much about huge metropolises, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan etc. becoming green, considering that would be extremely expensive and difficult to do, but China has been planning for some time and is currently in the process of building “smart/green/eco- cities” from scratch. The prime example is the Tianjin Eco-City located next to Binhai (part of the Tianjin municipality), one of China’s most polluted cities (3-6 times the rate of lung cancer than in Western, i.e. Australia, U.S., European cities). There are dozens of fortune 500 companies testing out new products in this city and it is supposed to be the model for another 100 or so of its kind that will be set up in Western China.
    BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120503-sustainable-cities-on-the-rise

    • There’s a battle between the pace of urbanization and the pace of mass transit construction. Urban planning does also anticipate public parks — I met people in a community in Xiamen slated for demolition to make way for one. Of course that’s only one source of the problem. Over time we might also expect steel mills to be cleaner, old coal-fired power plants to be closed, and so on, as happened in the US, Japan and Europe. It’s a natural political-economic response as the perceived cost of environmental degradation rises and the perceived benefit of job creation (diminishing marginal utility of income!) falls.