2019 Theses Master's

New Area As A Solution To Urban Congestion: An Assessment of Xiongan New Area Planning Outline Based on the Lessons Learned from London New Town

Zhai, Jialin

Urban congestion has become an increasingly serious issue in developing countries in recent decades. Nearly a century years ago, many big cities in developed countries suffered substantial urban congestions and brought about lots of approaches to deal with that. New towns have been constructed near big cities to deal with urban congestions since their earliest emergence in developed countries like the UK, France, Japan and so on. London New Towns has accumulated plenty of valuable experience and lessons to learn from. This thesis researches whether Xiongan New Area, a 100 km planned district from Beijing, is a good policy to deal with the urban congestion of Beijing based on the lessons learned from previous new towns. Suggestions about new town development are given based on the review of new towns of London, Paris and other Asian countries.

The research assesses the Xiongan New Area Planning Outline comprehensively in five dimensions. It was found that the Planning Outline was generally well made and set out a blueprint for future development. It avoids many mistakes made by previous new town constructions and puts forward many creative and progressive ideas to build a greener and better place. However, there are also some problems in terms of community creation and public participation. Based on the strategy change of London in the 21st century, it is also found that denser development in the central areas has become the main trend of global big cities. To better deal with the urban congestion of Beijing, this strategy should be pushed forward along with the development of the New Area to control the unordered growth in the central city and rearrange regional resources more efficiently.