THROUGHOUT Chinese history, the dawn of new dynasties often involved moving the entire capital, imperial palace and all, to a new city. By those dynastic standards, Xi Jinping’s ambitions are modest. He simply wants to shift some of Beijing an hour’s drive to the south. But by the standards of modern urban development, his vision is grand indeed. All going well, the new area, known as Xiongan, will cover 2,000 square kilometres, nearly three times the size of New York City or Singapore. A “first-class international city”, as the planners put it, will rise from land that is home today to scrubby fields, a large lake and a series of drab towns.
China, which sometimes opts for modesty in unveiling plans lest they fall flat, did not hold back on April 1st when it revealed those for the “Xiongan New Area” in Hebei province. An official statement described Xiongan’s development as a “strategy crucial for the next millennium”. It compared the project to the creation of China’s two most spectacular built-from-scratch urban expanses: Shenzhen, a metropolis next to Hong Kong, and Pudong, Shanghai’s glittering financial district.
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Source: China http://ift.tt/2nP9yys
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