Workers are seen on a construction site for municipal support facilities at the Rongdong area of Xiongan New Area, in Hebei province, on March 30, 2021. Photo: Xinhua
Opinion
Philip J. Cunningham
Philip J. Cunningham
Strict city planning, lack of dynamism could limit Xiongan’s growth before it’s even finished
Shenzhen and Pudong were able to grow and reach their current heights thanks to good geography, climate, policy experimentation and, importantly, location
Xiongan lacks those advantages, and the central government’s tight controls risk choking off the kind of organic growth seen in the world’s great cities
Is Xiongan a new Pudong or a Potemkin? Is it the latest Shenzhen or just a Shangri-la? President Xi Jinping took a bullish attitude during his recent inspection of the city-in-progress, describing it as “sophisticated” and “a miracle”. He also said practice had shown the Communist Party Central Committee’s decision on building the Xiongan New Area is “entirely correct”.
Xiongan is a done deal, politically, given that it’s a prestige project backed by the party, but the build is still incomplete so it’s hard to tell how it will turn out.
China has built cities from scratch before, so the idea can’t be dismissed entirely. Yet sceptics question the value of building a city to offload population and jobs from overcrowded Beijing when Xiongan – located in a delicate wetland zone prone to floods – has a population cap of 3 million.
The burden is especially heavy on Xiongan, since it is being touted as providing a corrective to the ills of city life – overcrowding, unbridled development, rampant commercialisation and the heavy carbon footprint that goes with all of the above.
Shenzhen was dotted with duck farms and fishing villages just a few decades ago, and is now a vibrant metropolis of at least 13 million people. Pudong, once the neglected side of the river in Shanghai, is now home to more than 5 million people with another 5 million in neighbouring districts.
Compared to these two urban “swans”, Xiongan is still something of an ugly duckling. For one, the showcase cities of the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin eras were beneficiaries of location.
Shenzhen is wedged between Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and is near the Dongguan industrial zone, which effectively became the factory floor of the world economy. Pudong is just a stone’s throw from Shanghai, which sits on the west bank of the Huangpu River. Together, they form a vibrant urban area of more than 28 million people.
It could be argued that Xiongan is “adjacent” to Beijing, but the capital is first and foremost an administrative city, not an economic engine. Neither is Xiongan physically close to Beijing, with 100km of rugged countryside between it and Beijing and Tianjin.
One reason the land for Xiongan was up for grabs in the first place is because it’s hard to develop large-scale projects in scattered marshlands. As Brookings Institute scholar Cheng Li wrote, heavy rainfall in 1963 created the largest flood in modern Chinese history, killing some 340,000 people in the Xiongan region alone. “If that were not enough,” he added, “the 1980s witnessed the opposite extreme, with a drought that almost completely evaporated the lake.”
At the same time, the threadbare livelihoods the area was once known for – farming, textiles, plastics and small-scale factories – are outside the vision for this city of the future. Thousands of small factories have been closed. This might help reduce pollution, but this kind of social engineering requires great energy and resources just when Hebei province is struggling with serious debt.
Baiyangdian Lake is seen in Xiongan New Area, Hebei province. China’s “city of the future” is far from industrial or commercial centres, potentially depriving it of the vitality that helped cities such as Shenzhen and Pudong make their mark. Photo: Xinhua
Xiongan is unlikely to bloom unless it is heavily subsidised, but at what cost, for how long and to whose benefit? It is isolated from the vibrant commercial and industrial cities of south and central China and lacks the kind of freewheeling attitude towards development enjoyed by more successful economic experiments. Urban studies scholar Andrew Stokols points to stringent restrictions including tight curbs on real estate, types of business permitted and building height, design and materials.
The vision guiding Xiongan is sufficiently rigorous and top-down to dampen enthusiasm for the kind of migration that helped drive Shenzhen and Pudong’s rise. While it’s nice in principle to design a tidy city that strictly adheres to central guidance, the wild, sometimes messy organic growth of many great cities is not easily duplicated in a controlled environment.
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Indonesia celebrates its 77th anniversary of independence at site of future capital Nusantara
Indonesia celebrates its 77th anniversary of independence at site of future capital Nusantara
Compare Brazil’s Brasilia to Sao Paulo, or India’s Chandigarh to Mumbai, or even Myanmar’s Naypyidaw to Yangon, and it becomes clear that growing a city is no simple thing. Yet, deprived of the dynamism that gave rise to some of the world’s great cities, there is something staid and stagnant about Xiongan.
Is it a viable vision for the future or just a chimera? Considering geography, economics and the history of urban development, it is more likely to become a bird in a cage than an unruly but dynamic dragon.
Philip J. Cunningham has been a regular visitor to China since 1983, working as a tour guide, TV producer, freelance writer, independent scholar and teacher
