City Planning

City planning and design	Prioritizing and placing city services and city features for maximum benefit to the quality of life for the citizens, the environment, and the economic future of the city.
Connectivity	Placing infrastructure so that all areas of the city are served and linked for maximum benefit of citizens, businesses, industry, safety, education, and recreation.
Systems thinking	Taking into consideration that a system is made up of individual parts that function in unison or in a cooperative way and always have an impact on one another.

Term	Definition
City Zone	An area or district within a city set aside for a specific use.
Industrial zone	An area of land set aside for factories and warehouses.
Commercial Zone	An area of land set aside for for-profit businesses like office complexes, shopping malls, service stations, and restaurants.
Residential Zone	An area of land set aside for housing.
Zoning density: high, medium, low	Designation of the ratio of building space to open space (eg., high-density residential includes high-rise apartment buildings).
Infrastructure	A public system of services needed by industry, commercial, and residential zones such as power, water, transportation, communications, and schools.
Transportation systems	A network of roads, streets, water, or rails that allows the vehicular movement of people and goods.
Utilities: water, electrical, natural gas	An organization that maintains the infrastructure that generates, transmits, or distributes electricity, water, or gas from facilities that it owns or operates.
Water sanitation system	A public utility that provides removal of waste water
High-tech industrial	An industry that develops or uses advanced technology (eg., aerospace, biotech, telecom, robotics).
Municipality	A town, city, or region that has its own local government.
Land fill	A site where waste material has been buried.
Power plant: coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, bio, etc.	An industrial plant that generates power such as electricity from another source like burning coal, nuclear reactions, or flowing water.
Geothermal energy	An area of land where energy is generated from the heat in the interior of the earth.
Retail establishment	A place of business that sells goods such as groceries, clothing, or furniture.
Government facility	A place that houses government services such as a courthouse or government offices.
Cultural and entertainment facility	A place such as an art museum, theater, or sports arena.
Service Industry	An industry or facility that provides services rather than sells goods (for example, banking or communications).
Proportion	The relationship between two or more amounts of a number or between the parts of a whole.
Inter-relationships	A connection or association between multiple things.
Connectivity	The direct links or associations between multiple things. In city design, connectivity refers to the links between different parts of a city that provide accessibility and easy transport from one area to another.

BEIJING - Chen Xiaohong, dean of the Business School at Central South University in Changsha, Hunan province, is about to see a greener city emerge from the dots and curves on a design sketch to become reality.

As deputy director of the coordinating committee for the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan City Cluster in Hunan province, she is part of an official team responsible for introducing a whole new town-planning concept in China.

"We are seeking new ideas as reference points for the planning of the city, so that the green concept of economic development and the improvement of people's livelihood can be integrated," she said.

Chen's university has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with University College, London (UCL) to employ its expertise in city planning in the construction of the cluster.

With a population of 65 million, the cluster consists of eight major cities in the central region of the country.

The program will strive to address facets such as reduced energy demand, integrated transportation systems, water resources, heritage conservation and regeneration, as well as sustainable urbanization, said Alan Penn, dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, who is leading the UCL team.

"Advanced expertise in urban planning from the UK will provide a better plan for our city, and that in turn, will attract more investment and boost the local economy," Chen said.

If the city cluster pilot project is successful, the model will be employed in the construction of the cluster, she added.

Chen's program is one example of the country's efforts to develop low-carbon city programs.

Moreover, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planning body, has selected a number of pilot cities to tackle the problem of carbon emissions and energy consumption.

Five provinces and eight cities across the country, including the traditional heavy industry bases in the northeast, and coastal cities in the south, have been selected as pilot sites for the low-carbon city program.Each area is required to draft its own plan to reduce carbon emissions and develop a green economy for the forthcoming 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015), the country's blueprint for economic development for the next five years.

One of the eight cities chosen for the project, Tianjin has imposed strict restrictions on high-energy consumption and heavily polluting industries, while vigorously developing high and new technologies, including aviation, solar and wind power, as well as modern medicine.

In 2009, the city's energy consumption per unit of GDP production was reduced by 20.1 percent compared with 2005, according to data released by the Tianjin Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.

Meanwhile, in Nanchang, the capital city of eastern China's Jiangxi province, efforts have been concentrated on light-emitting diode (LED), photovoltaic (PV) and service outsourcing industries, as well as new-energy industries such as solar and wind power.

In a bid to promote the use of LED lighting and electric vehicles, the city has pledged to increase the number of electric automobiles to 1,000 by 2012, and that of LED bubbles to 100,000 by 2016.

"For future development, we will also strive to create a better and more efficient market environment to boost foreign investment into the green industry," said Ling Chengjie, vice-governor of Jiangxi province.