China's Sustainable Urbanization: A Review of Progress Made and Challenges Ahead

Abstract

The conversion of land from its natural state to human uses is usually the most permanent and often irreversible effect of human interaction with the natural environment. This is why nowadays urbanization is an important issue, especially evident in developing countries like the largest one in the world, China. Over there the economy has undergone a rapid and continuous expansion since the era of reforms and opening, and as a consequence the country has witnessed equally fast urban development with no parallel in history: the number of cities and people living in urban areas has grown dramatically and the future will be certainly shaped by this process because it is considered as a crucial driver for innovation. However, urbanization and industrialization coupled together are stretching to the very limit the capacities of the environment to sustain development and this phenomenon has been associated with a variety of problems related to every dimension in which sustainability is conventionally divided, namely environmental, social, economic and cultural dimension. In this approach, I chose to study the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area because it is one of the most important and developed urban areas in the country, enclosing a large project which supposes to link the facilities of Beijing with Tianjin and the Hebei region into a single megalopolis, and one economic sphere, in order to integrate these three areas, better balance resources and foster more sustainable growth. It goes without saying that this acceleration of urbanization and industrialization will most likely result in huge demand of energy, land, space and natural resources. Although it is worth noticing how since 2012 Chinese government has been taking important measures, but is it really developing new perspectives to deal with urbanization and sustainability, bringing about transformative change?