New City In China Would be About 7 Times Larger Than Armenia
Beijing will undertake a major restructuring of the capital government as part of a broader plan to create a giant urban corridor in northern China, reported The New York Times. The new super city will link 130 million people across Beijing (22 million residents), Tianjin (14 million residents) and Hebei (72 million residents).
Jing-Jin-Ji, as the region is called ("Jing" for Beijing, "Jin" for Tianjin and "Ji," the traditional name for Hebei Province), is meant to help the area catch up to China's more prosperous economic belts: the Yangtze River Delta around Shanghai and Nanjing in central China, and the Pearl River Delta around Guangzhou and Shenzhen in southern China.
The new city would be spread over 212 square kilometers, almost size of Belarus. It would be 7 times larger than Armenia, 85 times larger than Moscow and 2 times larger than its neighbor South Korea.
The new super city is intended to be different in scope and conception. A huge expansion of high-speed rail to bring the major cities within an hour's commute of each other. But some of the new roads and railways are years from completion. For many people, the creation of the super city so far has meant ever-longer commutes on gridlocked highways to the capital.
Infrastructure has also lagged. Until recently, high-speed rail failed to connect many vital cities around Beijing, while many roads did not link up. Planning reports say the area has 18 "beheaded" highways - major arteries built in one of the three districts but not linked to others. One highway ends at a bridge over the mostly dried-out river dividing Yanjiao from Beijing, and has remained unfinished for years.
The new super city will link the research facilities and creative culture of Beijing with the economic muscle of the port city of Tianjin and the hinterlands of Hebei Province, forcing areas that have never cooperated to work together.
To unload the capital's center, the Chinese authorities intend to move administrative buildings, 1,200 factories and 50 hospitals of the city in unpopulated areas of Hebei Province. This will help to redirect the people into new areas, and will reduce the population density in the historic part of Beijing. Also in the new super city will be built 18 new highways and an extra underground line.
The plan has been debated for decades, but only began to be implemented in recent months as part of an effort by President Xi Jinping to reform the Chinese economy and get government approval on July 2015. The idea is to reduce the sort of duplicative, polluting enterprises like coking and steel that dominates the greater Beijing area and other large urban centers, and in their place create a more modern economic structure.
Jing-Jin-Ji, as the region is called ("Jing" for Beijing, "Jin" for Tianjin and "Ji," the traditional name for Hebei Province), is meant to help the area catch up to China's more prosperous economic belts: the Yangtze River Delta around Shanghai and Nanjing in central China, and the Pearl River Delta around Guangzhou and Shenzhen in southern China.
The new city would be spread over 212 square kilometers, almost size of Belarus. It would be 7 times larger than Armenia, 85 times larger than Moscow and 2 times larger than its neighbor South Korea.
The new super city is intended to be different in scope and conception. A huge expansion of high-speed rail to bring the major cities within an hour's commute of each other. But some of the new roads and railways are years from completion. For many people, the creation of the super city so far has meant ever-longer commutes on gridlocked highways to the capital.
Infrastructure has also lagged. Until recently, high-speed rail failed to connect many vital cities around Beijing, while many roads did not link up. Planning reports say the area has 18 "beheaded" highways - major arteries built in one of the three districts but not linked to others. One highway ends at a bridge over the mostly dried-out river dividing Yanjiao from Beijing, and has remained unfinished for years.
The new super city will link the research facilities and creative culture of Beijing with the economic muscle of the port city of Tianjin and the hinterlands of Hebei Province, forcing areas that have never cooperated to work together.
To unload the capital's center, the Chinese authorities intend to move administrative buildings, 1,200 factories and 50 hospitals of the city in unpopulated areas of Hebei Province. This will help to redirect the people into new areas, and will reduce the population density in the historic part of Beijing. Also in the new super city will be built 18 new highways and an extra underground line.
The plan has been debated for decades, but only began to be implemented in recent months as part of an effort by President Xi Jinping to reform the Chinese economy and get government approval on July 2015. The idea is to reduce the sort of duplicative, polluting enterprises like coking and steel that dominates the greater Beijing area and other large urban centers, and in their place create a more modern economic structure.
