Possibilities and limitations of Chinese Eco-City Development: The case study of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC)

Wu, Yani 2023. Possibilities and limitations of Chinese Eco-City Development: The case study of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC). PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Driven by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, and in line with the 2030 Carbon Peak and 2060 Carbon Neutrality Goal that China is now promoting to reduce energy consumption and to promote low-carbon development, significant political will and economic resources have been devoted to the development of newly-built eco-city planning projects, reflecting the government’s new development goal to build a ‘human-oriented eco-city’ in which environmental sustainability and social stability, technologies and humanities are mutually reinforcing. In this research, the public space is chosen to assess Chinese people-oriented eco-city due to its importance to human settlement. With the development process of green urbanization, designing liveable and resilience environment has inevitably been paid much more attention to Chinese humanistic eco-city development. This research uses the typical qualitative methodological approach (participant observation, questionnaires and interviews) under the framework of three-layer research design with a single case study, drawing on the literatures about three different disciplines (urban planning, urban design and psychology) to conceptualise the syncretic match among people, place and ecology. And this research aims to assess the humanistic planning of Chinese eco-city by critically examining whether there are any evidences to show the people-oriented planning concept rooted in the theoretical perspective has happened in Chinese eco-city development, if yes, in what ways and to what extent. It adopts the interdisciplinary approach to develop a multi-dimensional conceptual framework about the people-place interactive relationship, which is seen as the manifestation of humanistic planning concept under the idea of ecology. This research aims to argue that Chinese eco-city planning should be deemed as one of the humanistic planning approaches, and its primary goal is to build sustainable and liveable habitat for people by taking their daily needs and behaviours into account. To achieve this goal, it plans to integrate three theories into the integrated theoretical framework to better illustrate the concept of humanistic planning under the context of ecology, arguing that by considering the interactive people-place relationship during design process might be a possible way to improve Chinese eco-city planning and design towards a more humanistic development path. Through an interdisciplinary perspective, this research uses some viewpoints of Environmental Psychology theory for illustrating why people’s needs and behaviours matter. Moreover, to mitigate limiting impacts on the conceptual-practical gap accompanying the realisation of humanistic planning in the eco-city project, it introduces this psychological concept into urban planning discipline for creating a brand-new conceptual planning model, which can better integrate the consideration of people’s daily needs and their social behaviours into eco-city’s planning process. The contribution of this research is seen as giving Chinese practical answer to the blank concept of global eco-city development by using the SSTEC case study which currently focuses on the trinity of economic-environmental-humanistic urban governance pattern. Specially, being different from development models of eco-cities in other countries, the Chinese eco-city represented by the SSTEC could be regarded as the corresponding product to adapt to the change of Chinese New-Type Urbanization development patten - the gradual transformation from the newly-built urban construction which mainly focuses on economic and environmental development under the traditional urbanization pattern to the trinity of economic-environmental-humanistic urban governance, which has been characterised by the concept of humanistic planning under the context of ecology under the green urbanization development pattern. This research regards the construction of eco-city to be the driving force for the current stage of Chinese New-Type Urbanization - under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goal as well as the digital reform goal, for Chinese eco-city, the people-oriented planning concept is the basis of its development, low-carbon and digital technology are the way to its sustainable development, and creating the liveable environment for residents is its ultimate development goal.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Eco-city development Humanistic planning Chinese New-Type Urbanization People-place interactive relationship Environmental Psychology Interdisciplinary research Planning theory and practice
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 February 2024
Last Modified:	21 Feb 2024 10:05
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166406

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