Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
eff ectively ended after the Communist Party took control in 1949 because
the Party regarded cities as a colonial by-product of European-American
capitalism, instead prioritizing rural development. As more and more people
moved to central Shanghai, however, urban problems proliferated. In 1951,
the Shanghai government started to construct new industrial areas in order
to move the “dangerous and polluted industries” outside of the central city.
Despite relative inaction on o' cial satellite planning, Shanghai contin-
ued to grow. Today, the Shanghai “urban system” is immense, with 230 cen-
ters, seven satellite towns, thirty-one county seats (designated towns), two
industrial districts, 175 market towns, and fi fteen farm market towns. As in
the other largest cities of the world, getting from one end to the other can
take hours. h e Shanghai government turned its attention to urban planning
and development in the 1990s in response to China's explosive global expan-
sion and Shanghai's status as the fi nancial center of the nation. Shanghai
municipality articulated that “the central city districts manifest prosperity,
the rural towns manifest strength,” and confi rmed that a central component
of “h e Tenth Five-Year Plan” was “One City, Nine Towns.”
13
Collectively,
the new city and towns were expected to house a total of a million or more
newcomers by 2020. All of them were satellites of central Shanghai, and
although most of the towns were entirely new developments, others were
new developments in already existing communities. h e “towns” and the
“city” were planned as self-su' cient “satellite cities” where residents could
live, work, and shop without having to travel into central Shanghai.
14
In 2001, the State Council approved “Shanghai's Urban Plan (1999-
2020),” which developed the new construction model.
15
In 2002, Shanghai
clarifi ed the primary goals and strategy of its urban planning and develop-
ment: speeding up urbanization, modernizing agriculture, and transition-
ing farmers to city residents under the auspices of “three convergences”
(industrial parks; large-scale agricultural operations; and farmers converg-
ing on towns).
16
h
e ultimate goal is to alter the concept (and relationship)
