No reason for city clusters not to be a success

In a debate on “Urbanization: Testing the City Cluster Model” that we (Asian Development Bank officials) participated in at the Boao Forum for Asia in South China’s Hainan province in April, all the panelists agreed that integrating cities and urban systems in coordinated city clusters is a global challenge.

Cities are the world’s economic engines, accounting for about 80 percent of each country’s national GDP. But they are also the largest sources of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions with more than 80 percent of carbon emissions originating in cities and city clusters. About 66 percent of the global population is expected to live in cities and city clusters by 2050, with 90 percent of future urban growth taking place in Asia and Africa.

China has included in its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) a total of 19 city clusters, many of which are as large as some European countries. In 2015, China’s 11 largest city clusters accounted for one-third of the country’s population, and two-thirds of its economic output.

For decades, large and smaller cities in the same vicinity have grown together into vast territories marked by urban development and in many cases urban sprawl. Uncoordinated development has led to unsustainable, carbon-extensive and non-resilient regional and urban development patterns and lifestyles.

The key obstacle city clusters face all over the world is fragmentation. Too often, multiple administrative entities coexist within clusters, each with independent authority over tax and budget systems, land use planning, transport infrastructure and traffic management, industrial park developments, open space planning and environmental protection, and even labor markets. The chimerical amalgamation of authority and responsibility causes too many mega-cities across Asia to suffer from pollution, congestion and poor service provision and massive economic losses.

The magnitude of planned city cluster development in China is well beyond that of other countries. While it can learn from international examples, the government will have to chart its own path.