How to get away from the juggernaut?

Megacities were supposed to be a great place to live, and they are becoming deadly. Designers present alternative concepts related to sustainable development, sometimes futuristic, and sometimes simply promoting a return to the good traditions of old cities.

The metropolis is larger than Uruguay and more populous than Germany. Something similar will arise if the Chinese implement their plan to enlarge the capital of Beijing with large territories of the province of Hebei and join the city of Tianjin to this structure (1). According to official ideas, the creation of such a large urban creation should alleviate Beijing, choking in smog and suffering from a lack of water and housing, for the constantly flowing population from the provinces.

Jing-Jin-Ji, as this project is called to reduce the typical problems of a big city by creating an even bigger city, should have 216 people. km². This is only slightly less than in Romania. The estimated number of inhabitants, 100 million, will make it not only the largest city, but also an organism more densely populated than most countries in the world.

This is not so - many urban planners and architects comment on this project. According to critics, Jing-Jin-Ji will be nothing more than an enlarged Beijing that could multiply the already huge problems of the Chinese metropolis. Jan Wampler, an architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told The Wall Street Journal that there are already ring roads around the new urban area, repeating the mistakes made during the construction of Beijing. According to him, it is impossible to create metropolitan roads indefinitely.

To be continued subject number You will find in the July issue of the magazine.