china

An article in China Daily reports on a recent World Bank report  shows that several major Chinese cities have some of the highest per-capita carbon footprints .The report (588 pages, full report link here) details ways in which the trend could be reversed.The key word in reversing the trend?Projects.Lots, and lots, and lots of...[read more]

The good people over at Statista provided us with yet another excellent China infographic, this time about the country’s huge online population. Already, 1 in 5 worldwide internet users is Chinese, yet still less than half of the country’s population is online. Most of those are people living in China’s urban areas, accounting for 73.5%...[read more]

Construction of the interstate expressway outside Lijiang, China. Source: Natalia EcheverriIn the last decade, China's fast-paced urbanization and construction boom has made a visible impact on its urban and rural landscapes. Cities have overtaken agricultural lands and greenfields. A monotony of residential slabs and a steady...[read more]

An interesting little story in the China Daily a few days ago caught our attention.  It was about Seattle and Chongqing (whose name is written in Mandarin in the image in this posting).  These are sister cities.  You can read about the relationship between Seattle and Chongqing – which began in 1983 – here.But back to our...[read more]

Ningbo History Museum by architect Wang ShuLast month, this year’s Pritzker Prize (architecture’s highest honor) was awarded to Chinese architect Wang Shu. The announcement was surprising for a few reasons. For one, consensus around the architecture blogosphere was that the award would go to a more high-profile architect such as Toyo Ito...[read more]

Image credit: Sarah Kim/via the author's blog

Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, South Korea is an international best practice for greenways that has also seen an increase in development and rents along the corridor and a decrease in air and noise pollution and traffic.[read more]

Looking to work in China? Adam Mayer gives a bit of must-know wisdom.[read more]

The sound of new development roars all over Chengdu. One area that is particularly on the uptick is the southeast, just outside the 2nd Ring Road. Not long ago a heavy industrial zone, several former factory sites were cleared to make way for new high-density residential, retail and office development. Today the area is a gigantic...[read more]

Last year marked the first time in China’s history when the urban population exceeded the rural population, according to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. In 1949, 10 percent of China’s population lived in cities. Today, it’s 51 percent. According to The New York Times, the statistics bureau reported 690.79 million urban...[read more]

As someone who works in the building industry in China, I am often asked why the quality of construction of most new buildings is so poor. The people who usually ask are expatriates from places like Europe or America; rarely does someone native to China who hasn’t spent time overseas pose the same question.[read more]

 Photo by USACEpublicaffairs On 6 December, the New South Wales Parliament held its second day of hearings for an inquiry into the cost of rail construction in Sydney.  The inquiry was called because of a general perception that rail costing is too high here compared to other cities in Australia and around the world....[read more]

China's urbanization is happening at a pace never seen before. In the last two decades, thousands of new developments have sprouted along the fringes of cities across China. Wilderness and farmland have been heedlessly replaced by replicated towers. Villages have been demolished as developers prepare grounds for the next development.The...[read more]