Shanghai New Towns

Since the 1980s the built-up area of Shanghai has spread out rapidly with large-scale urban development. Each year the diameter of the city has increased in lenght by an average of one kilometer and it continuous expanding outward like a sphere. Since the mid-1980s Shangai's Urban Planning Bureau has been studying and adapting the city's spatial structure.
Since 2000, Shanghai has emphasized rural development, which is a strategic and influential step for the future of urban development.

"One city. Nine Towns" was a pilot project that tried to coordinate the development between the urban and the rural (...). The Planning Conference in 2006 determined the 1-9-6-6 vision for the urban struscuture - namely 1 central cuty, 9 new cities, 60 new towns, and 600 central villages. This new concept with a central city and secondary cities has been deepened and developed further. The plan covers the entire 6340 square kilometers of the city.
Shanghai is speeding up the contruction of new towns on the basis of the original 1-9-6-6 urban system in order to ease the population pressure in the central city, to rationally plan the urban spatial structure, to promote industrial development, and to enhance urban quality and the level of urbanization.

Since 2009 Shanghai Urban Planning and Land Resources Administration has started researching the planning strategy of the new towns in order to focus on suburbs, to co-ordinate urban and rural areas, and to speed up the development of rural urbanization.
From the Book Preface, by Zheng Shiling
 

CONTENTS

Preface. Visions on the Urban Development of Shangai
by ZhengShiling 

Urbanization of the Countryside 
by Harry den Hartog
From Agricolture China to Urban China 
by Jiang Jun
Shangai as Urban Experiment
by Harry den Hartog

PILOT CITIES AND TOWNS
Quartiers (less than 50.000 inhabitants)
• Anting New Town (Shanghai International Automobile City, Jiarding District)
• Fengjing New Town (Jinshan District)
• Holland Village (Gaoqiao Nwe Town, Pudong District)
• Thames Town (Songjiang District)
New Towns (50.000 - 500.000 inhabitants)
• Chengqiao New Town (Chongming Country)
• Luodian New Town (Minhang District)
New CIties (500.000 - 1.000.000 inhabitants)
• Dongtan Eco-City (Chingming Country)
• Lingang New Harbour City (Pudong District)
• Qingpu New City (Qingpu District)

Building in China  
by Harry den Hartog
Heterotopias: Themed Spaces in Shanghai and Los Angeles  
by Li Xiangning
New Town Models: Planning Sameness and Difference in Hong Kong and Shanghai 
by Laurence Liauw Wie Wu

PHOTO ESSAY
Urban Fictions, by Richard Rowland 

Urban Development and Management in Songjiang New City  
by Zhou Jing
Tracing the Politics of Space in One City & Nine Towns 
by Marijin Nieuwenhius
The Re-Imagination of the Chinese City  
by Mari Fujita

PHOTO ESSAY 
New Citizens, Chen Taiming

Searching for Community and Identity 
by Harry den Hartog
The Sprawling Metropolis, Out of Control? 
by Harry den Hartog

Glossary
Biographies
Colophon

ABOUT THE EDITOR:
Harry den Hartog is an urban designer and critic. In 2004 he founded the firm Urban Language. Urban Language researches developments like urban-rural relationships, urbanization, shrink, public space, globalisation. In his book Exurbia - living outside the city he researched the ex-urbanization of the Dutch countryside. He lives and works half in Shanghai and half in Rotterdam.
OTHER AUTHORS:
Chen Taiming, Mari Fujita, Zhou Jing, Marijin Nieuwenhius, Li Xiangning, Laurence Liauw Wie Wu, Richard Rowland, ZhengShiling, Jiang Jun