The best thing China could do is to continue to control its population numbers, which it seems to be doing. As for this eco-city, it is obvious that it is better to develop a city that tries to be 'green' than one that does not. I don't know if this is the best place to put it or not. I hope the city will become carbon-neutral and does not destroy the local ecosystems. I would like to see the designs that this British company will come up with - how will they deal with all the energy issues, the water issues, the waste issues, and the transportation and food issues. Since this city is being developed from scratch with strict environmental considerations as the top priority, it may function and look radically different than anything seen before. I hope Arup doesn't do a sloppy job on this project.

Very little in the way of design vision is being discussed publicly except the hint that possibly only electric vehicles would be allowed. THis came from a government minister speaking on the record: he's probably in trouble for it by now. The most problematic aspect would be stormwater runnoff and wastewater treatment, either of which would trash the surrounding wetlands if done in typical western style.

So sad to see this labelled as a 'environmentally friendly' city.
"Storm water" is a really important resource and like flush toilets damages the environment because it's not fully captured and intensely used. A modern city is the oxymoron of sustainability. Keep the people out in rural areas where they can live a low impact lifestyle and grow their own food,..... and control their breeding and the economic growth that is killing the planet.

Cities as we know them, including ones like this, are based on hyper-exploiting their hinterlands. That's not 'environmental' or sustainable. You want a sustainable environment for future generations?:- Stop building cities!

Very nice. An enviromental paradise with freedom for the wildlife, run by an oppressive communist government that will limit the speech and reproductive rights of the inhabitants. More fuel cell cars is a higher priority than personal freedom and choice. Viva Communist China!

Damn I wish the US would start something like that. There is still plenty of space here to do a massive project like that. I'd live in a eco-city if the US had one.

I love how every time someone talks about china in a positive way, there's always someone fallungonging....

MidwestJ: why not check your own reality every once in a while? NASA Climatologists are muzzled where exactly? You may have some limited freedom of speech, but if your speech is not popular in the MSM (a la CSheehan you get ridiculed or vilified... or worse, much worse) so please take some of that self righeousness and do something about your own country where it seems (to an outsider anyway) that reproductive rights are being thwarted just as much (is abrotion now illegal in montana, even if you were raped? dDoes a pharmacist have the right to refuse selling you contraceptives if he believes that's WWJD?). You have a guy who stole the election (x2) that even the News (even FOX) call "Mister Bush" not "president" who's dad works for the Bin Laden family (i.e. "the enemy"), and has already wiped out over 750 Laws. so um, whos the opressive dictator?

I really wonder what it is that drives someone to come to a site like TH and and compells them to make comments like this? Especially when their own country has a hostory of supporting dictators when it serves their own purpose (Pinochet, Reza Shah Pahlavi, General Sani Abacha, Fulgencio Batista, Humberto Branca, King Fhad, Ngo Dinh Diem, Doc & Baby Doc Duvalier, Fransico Franco, Ferdinand Marcos, Roberto Suazo Cordova, Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, General Noriega ((until he threatened to spill the beans, er, coca leaves on his partners)), George Papadopoulolis ((on CIA payroll when he tookover Greece)), Anastasio Somoza, General Suharto, oh and of course Rafael
Leonidas Trujillo, to name a few...)

so please come bash China when they are trying to go green (and heck, why not bash then when it comes to 'even if we reduce our CO2 emissions, China will still choke us with their coal-- it's a great catch-22). It serves no purpose.

I certainly have an issue with the way the Chinese system deals with the individual. BUT, they've been around for a few thousand years.

I agree with Earthchange; our system is a lot more oppressive than the typical citizen realizes. That's the beauty of it to those who oppress. Our system has taken the "bread&circuses" approach to a whole new level.

China is very pragmatic. They understand that fossil fuels are soon to run out, and they plan to be around another few thousand years. They'll simply do what is necessary, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe to the detriment of the individual, but to the benefit of the society as a whole.

Hey, Earthchange and Chingy, y'all seem to be smokin' the same bong. Get real. Do you really think the peasant farmers who are forced off their land to build this shining green city care about ANYTHING other than the fact that they have had their homes bulldozed? And you think America is more oppressive? You can hyperventilate all you want about how unfair this country is but until you get your tail on the next boat to the 3rd world with no return ticket, nobody really cares how many despot's names you can rattle off. You want to go totally green? Move to China yourself. The funny thing is that if you lived in China, you would not be able to post anything critical of your homeland without disapearing in the middle of the night. Being environmentally friendly is a privelege of the afluent class in America. Everyone else is just trying to survive.

kindly refrain from insults and slurs.

that is the funny thing? you have a suck sense of humour.

are peasant farmers being forced off this particular land? is that conjecture or do you have any actual facts to back thatup? what exactly are the numbers of people leaving the countryside in China and moving to cities? especially post 1980? come one smartypants.. tell me

and you know what?? cram it with it being "a rich privildge". Until you sit down with Vandana Shiva (I have) and hear about what is actually happening in India and China at the grassroots level, and until you actually INFORM yourself about what is happening to farmers in developing nations (many places suicide by Roundup is the #1 cause of death for farmers, thanks Monsanto~ maybe someday we will GE farmers to be roundup ready too) you are just another ill informed american spouting conjecture instead of actually learning and actually doing.

so come on, hit me wth a pot insult again. You prove that it doesnt matter what the facts say, how dare you criticise a country you have never been to, while pish-poshing 20+ dictators YOUR TAX DOLLARS helped support (and in many cases put into power)? And do i think america is more opressive? I dunno, ask Mumia Abu Jamal

hey i got an idea why dont we complain that yahoo or google is aiding the Chinese governmentto censor a webpage, all the while allowing the NSA to wiretap every family in our own country. it's all relative, and all i see from y'all (the right windgnut pundits who frequently come here to put down stuff and then scurry away, not actual Conservatives)is that you come here to argue about nothing with nothing to back you up. "Take a one way ticket"? "love it or leave it"? listen superpatriot, ignorance is no excuse for the Law, and just like the guy who stole the past two elections, you can pretend that these things (like global warming ferexample) don't exist, but at the end of the day reality beats pipe dreams.

hope your self-rightousness taste good and is combustible cause youre going to be eating it and hoping that you can stuff it down your tank when oil's peaked and you realize that bill oreilly and rush limbaugh didnt help you non...

play nice

MJB, you don't read too good, do ya? Twice in my post I mention how the Chinese system is not at all sympathetic to the individual. You also cannot argue with the FACT that China has indeed become one of two superpowers on earth, and the other one is fast friends with them. China will be here long after the Constitution is dust and the White house is something mentioned in history books. Just the way it is, slick, not that I like or dislike it.

Hit a nerve did I, Earthchange? Your hyperbole is as overinflated as the rest of your facts. Do you really think that you can end all differing opinions by dropping names and using big words like pish-poshing. Well, pish on your pish-poshing! I like the part about sitting down with Dr. Shiva but clearly not as much as you do.... Mumia, oppressed, come now. Talk to his victims family. pish-posh, indeed.