Sustainable solutions enable China's rapid urbanisation without disastrous environmental side effects

Back in 2013, a Chinese communist leader quietly toured the urban environs of Chicago and New York, an experience that transformed his thinking about city design.

Zhang Jifu, then party secretary for the district of Pinggu, was impressed by Chicago's lakefront, with its winding bike paths and general hustle and bustle. He was also struck by how a dense urban environment like New York still had parks, gardens and outdoor cafes scattered throughout the city.

Zhang had attended a two-week course in the United States arranged by former US Treasury secretary Henry Paulson's brainchild, Paulson Institute. On returning to Pinggu, about 90 minutes' drive from Beijing, Zhang ripped up the basic government-sanctioned blueprint for the way China builds cities.

"In the past we were after bigger and faster stuff and we built wide roads and large communities and these were actually contrary to the urban sustainability concept," said Zhang, who has been made mayor of the larger city of Datong in Shanxi province, according to an August 5 statement. "After my training in Chicago and New York, I learned the importance of developing compact cities."

Influencing the way China's leaders think was among key goals Paulson wanted to achieve in 2011, when he set up his non-profit institute, focused on economic and environmental challenges in China and the US. With 100 million people set to move into China's cities by 2020 and the nation adding 2 billion square metres of floor space in new buildings each year, efficiency of urbanisation is central to averting environmental catastrophe.