Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69

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Habitat International
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Low-to-no carbon city: Lessons from western urban projects for the rapid
transformation of Shanghai
Steffen Lehmann*
Research Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour, North Terrace, GPO Box 2471, The University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia

a b s t r a c t
Keywords: The purpose of this paper is to explore the rapid urbanization of Chinese cities with a focus on the plans
Urban sub-centre for a new, ongoing urban sub-centre in the north-west of Shanghai: Zhenru Urban Sub-Centre. Infor-
China
mation-rich urbanization is a defining feature of the 21st century, reshaping cities and communities in
Network City theory
Urbanization
China and in developing countries around the world. The scale and pace of change requires a solid
Sustainable urban growth systems approach of urban development. In 2011, China announced that it has reached an urbanization
Low-carbon city rate of 50%. If we take rapid urbanization as a given and that it is already well underway, it is still widely
unclear what research needs to be conducted and policy changes made to support municipalities of fast
transforming cities and to avoid repeating the development mistakes that have occurred in industrialized
nations, i.e. driving urban growth with high consumption patterns without fully considering the envi-
ronmental and social needs and occupants’ behaviour and aspirations.
This paper compares two cases of urban development patterns for new sub-centres for polycentric city
structures: It relates to new urban sub-centres in Berlin (Germany) and Shanghai (China), and the
relationship of these sub-centres to ‘Network City’ theory. Network theory is useful in this context as the
‘network’ metaphor and concepts of decentralization seem to have replaced the ‘machine’ metaphor
which was based on efficiency based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. As cities aim to move
towards more resilient urban ecosystems and polycentric systems, the case of Potsdamer Platz Berlin,
compared to Zhenru Sub-Centre in Shanghai, is discussed. Both are transport-oriented developments
promoting mixed-use density and less car-dependency. According to documentation of the Shanghai
municipality, Zhenru urban centre, which is currently in its planning phase, is supposed to become
a ‘new sustainable sub-centre for a growing metropolis’. Based on the Potsdamer Platz experience,
a series of careful recommendations are formulated for the design and development of such centres,
knowing that it is rather difficult to translate from one case to the other. The conclusion includes five
lessons (recommendations) from Potsdamer Platz for the urban design of new sub-centres to ensure
a delivery of economical, social and environmental sustainable outcomes. A core finding is that drawing
lessons from the German case study for Chinese urbanization seemed a useful tactic and gave a sense
that there are underlying urban design strategies. However, the conversion of such strategies to another
cultural and social context requires further research.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Urban transport and public space as indicators
The explosive growth of Chinese cities and how they can be
steered towards more sustainable models of development is an
important area of concern. Chinese cities are already characterized
by high population densities and the applicability of the ‘Compact
* Tel.: þ61883020654.
E-mail address: steffen.lehmann@unisa.edu.au.
City’ model (Jenks, 2000; Lehmann, 2006) for China has not yet
received sufficient attention. Particularly in rapidly growing cities,
the quality of public space and urban transport planning is a good
overall indicator for the way, how a municipality struggles and
deals with the rapid growth. Transport problems are evidence for
the city’s management capacity to maintain the balance between
sustainable growth and access and affordability of public transport.
Cities in less economically developed regions suffer frequently from
under-investment in infrastructure and lack of green spaces, and in
consequence the transport infrastructure is not able to keep pace
with rapid urbanization. Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong and many of
the Chinese cities have managed this process relatively well. The

0197-3975/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2011.12.014
62 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
Chinese government is now investing more in high-speed trains,
railway projects, subway systems and bus rapid transit than any
other nation worldwide (The Guardian, 2011).
China’s particular situation
The two most populous countries in the world, the P.R. of
China and India, have still some of the lowest gross domestic
product (GDP) and some of the lowest energy consumption per
head. However, both of these highly populated countries are
currently striving to climb up the GDP ladder. In regard to China’s
emergence as global power, Thomas Friedman argues: ‘We cannot
just be the consumer and China the producer e and neither of us
can allow the goods produced and consumed to be made or used
in ways that harm the environment on the scale that we have
been. This way of growing standards of living is simply unsus-
tainable e economically unsustainable and ecologically unsus-
tainable.’ (Friedman, 2008).
Blecher calls this ‘the urbanization of the Third World’ (Blecher,
1988), whereby the 21st century challenge of urbanization in China
and India concern the entire world. In fact, the extreme rapid
urbanization processes as they occur in both countries are already
challenging the entire world on a daily basis, leading to epochal
change, which forces us to rethink and understand urban devel-
opment in a new way. In this context, urban planning is often
described as having the greatest potential and being a ‘low-hanging
fruit’ for a sustainable shaping of the country’s future environment.
It is likely that current rapid urbanization processes in the Asia-
Pacific and Middle East regions are e in combination with the
effects of globalization e leading to new types of urban agglom-
erations of (so-far) unknown calibre (Herrle & Walther, 2006;
Sassen, 2002).
‘China is serious about climate change. Eco-friendly develop-
ment and dissemination of renewable energy sources and new
materials will influence the way we live and will lead the course of
industrial development in the future,’ China’s Premier Wen Jiabao
said at the closing of the World Expo in November 2010. The
displays in the EXPO’s theme pavilions on sustainable cities and
urban best practices repeatedly and effectively emphasized how
the challenges of climate change, pollution and growing consumer
consumption can be met with more advanced urban planning,
green technology innovation and citizen education; it was
‘ecological foot printing education’ for the masses.
China’s unprecedented urbanization: the macro situation since 1978
Today, China is urbanizing faster than any other country ever
before, requiring a huge amount of non-renewable materials,
resources, energy and water. Nearly all of China’s population
growth in the past thirty years has occurred in cities. Over the past
fifty years, the country’s urban population has increased more than
seven-fold, from 72 million in 1952 to 540 million in 2004.
Demographers project that if urbanization continues at the rate of
1% annually, an estimated 900 million Chinese will live in cities by
2020.
Not long time ago, China still had an overwhelmingly
agricultural economy with low productivity. During the ‘Cultural
Revolution’, from 1960 to 1977, China experienced de-
urbanization and economic stagnation. Only from 1978 on,
China’s rapid urbanization started and accelerated. Today, the
country is 50% urbanized, with over 600 million people living in
cities (urbanization rate from: National Bureau of Statistics, China,
2011). There are currently over 680 cities in China, all with
municipalities concerned with sustainable urban development,
and 110 cities have recently announced some kind of ‘eco-city
model’ development. However, the lack of reliable and consistent
data released by the Chinese government in statistical resources
is an ongoing issue.
China’s urban transformation from agrarian poverty to
industrialized powerhouse started in 1978, when then president
Deng Xiaoping launched economic reforms and allowed for inner-
China mobility; with most mobility restrictions removed, the
ruraleurban migration started, which marks the beginning of
rapid growth for Chinese cities. In fact, this started the greatest
mass migration in human history, leading to urbanization at an
unprecedented rate. Already in 1979, the Chinese government
started to establish Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to allow for
foreign investment. Due to the country’s enormous economic
growth over the following 30 years, approximately 300 million
Chinese have moved from the rural hinterlands to the towns and
cities. The fundamental shift of populations can primarily be
attributed to the effect of economic globalization, which was
accompanied by significant changes in the labour market, the
privatization of housing and the emergence of urban consum-
erism by a new Chinese middle class.
Chen noted that ‘forcing a compact city policy on future urban
planning is not only inevitable but also feasible in China’ (Chen, Jia,
& Lau, 2008). China currently plans for 350e600 million more
urban residents by 2050, which threatens to tip the earth’s scales in
terms of climate change and the economy so much that China is
now focused on a fifth global industrial wave: the low-carbon or
green economy. In 2010, China’s new national pilot program was
announced by its powerful National Development Reform
Commission for five low-carbon provinces and eight low-carbon
cities. These new national pilot programs are expected to
provide a template for the rest of the nation’s low-carbon urban
transformations.
China’s rapid urban transformation has created huge challenges
for the nation’s city planners. Some have begun embracing more
systematic development approaches as they recognize that
‘urbanization’ is not just the expansion of municipal boundaries or
an increase in resident numbers, but rather the core of a society-
wide transition, bringing new economic forms, new types of
public life, and different human relationships. Many Chinese
planners have looked at Western models for guidance.
The City of Shanghai, the largest of Chinese cities, is a good
example for all this extreme change: the city enjoys currently
over 10% urban and economic growth per year (2010). Shanghai
and some other Chinese cities, such as Chongqing, Shenzen,
Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Tianjin, have also experienced
exceptional economic growth and continue growing so fast,
because they are seen by the rural population as places of better
job opportunities (especially in the construction and service
sectors), and are a promise of higher incomes, easier access to
affordable food and cheap energy supply. Urban planning of this
fast expansion is frequently proving inadequate, where infra-
structure and housing provision are not keeping up, and early
signs of urban sprawl (although at much higher densities) can be
observed, pushing out city residents even further and leading to
long commutes to work, thus deteriorating quality of life. There is
an increasing lack of affordable housing, but according to the
Chinese government, around 400 million Chinese people will
need new houses in the next 15 years. From 1978 to 1984, the
Chinese government commissioned planning for 78 new cities
and the redevelopment of 32 existing cities (not all been real-
ized); overall, the total number of cities increased in 1998 to 668
cities (Lin, 2002). The dramatic urbanization has added plenty of
environmental and social challenges, as it has exacerbated social
inequalities, urban wealth and urban poverty. In 2008, China
became the world’s largest CO2 emitter.
 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
De-carbonizing the energy supply
Green policies are at the heart of the 12th Five-Year Plan, the
nation’s economic master plan which was recently released.
According to the 12th Five-Year Plan, the situation of coal-fired
power stations is expected to change with the significant effort to
boost renewable energy. In 2010, in an attempt to compensate for
such development, China has limited new residential construction
in large cities to buildings that require 65 per cent less energy than
the level required by today’s standard. In 2009, China’s government
has set ambitious targets for renewable energy, which is scheduled
to account for over 20% of its total energy production by 2020. With
its enormous land areas and long coastline, China has exceptional
potential for wind power, and in 2012, China will pass the US as the
world’s biggest wind power generator. In 2008, the total share of
energy generated from renewable energy sources in China was 8%.
By 2020, up to 20% (290 GW) should be produced by hydropower
alone. The photovoltaic market in China is also growing: in 2006, it
had reached 65 MW, and by 2020, some 1.8 GW is expected to be
generated by photovoltaic installations (Fig. 1).
Urbanization as global phenomenon
What kind of urbanization projects? From new towns to urban
regeneration
China’s rapid urbanization process makes for an interesting case
study. Besides the planning of new towns, the urban renewal and
revitalization of existing cities has also become a major part in
Chinese planning, with projects such as:
 Brownfield and greyfield sites regeneration: in Shanghai
projects include the adaptive reuse and conversion of a former
slaughterhouse into a creative industries park and arts hub, the
‘1933 Slaughterhouse’; and ‘M50 Shanghai No. 12 Wool Mill’
redevelopments, located along an inner-city creek (see: www.
1933-shanghai.com and www.m50.com.cn); as well as ‘Cool
Dock’ project on the river bank.
Fig. 1. China’s rapid urbanization: Model photo of a new town network, to be built in Hebei Province. (Photo: S. Lehmann, 2008).
63
 Historical district regeneration, with adaptive reuse projects, for
instance, in Harbin, the Daowai Historical District regeneration.
 Mixed-use urban infill projects, such as the brownfield devel-
opment Wangjiadun Business District in Wuhan.
 Urban waterfront and port city projects, such as Wuhan’s
waterfront development, and in Shanghai, the Pudong and
‘Bund’ redevelopments.
 Eco-city projects, such as the Sino-Singaporean Tianjin Eco-city
and Wanzhuang Eco-city projects, both in Hebei Province.
Emergent urban patterns for Shanghai: a new city sub-centre of the
polycentric network city
The trend towards urban network configurations, away from
a mono-centric city centre model, can now be observed in many
large cities around the world, in both urban structures and their
underlying patterns of activity and mobility, but also in relation to
the increasingly pluri-centric nature of decision-making structures.
It seems official planning targets are now moving towards poly-
centric network models, away from previous single city centre
models.
Following, the case of Potsdamer Platz Berlin and Zhenru Sub-
Centre in Shanghai is discussed. Both are transport-oriented
developments promoting mixed-use density and transport-
oriented development. According to the documentation by
Shanghai municipality, this new urban centre, which is currently in
its planning phase, is supposed to become a ‘sustainable sub-centre
for a growing metropolis’.
Since today all major cities seem to compete with each other to
attract investments and a talented workforce, the development of
specially branded metropolitan/urban sub-centres, separate from
the historical city core, has emerged as a strategy to upgrade,
diversify and increase the attractiveness of city life. If these new
sub-centres are developed as transport-oriented clusters, with
a strong focus on public transport, compactness and achieving the
right mix of program, it may be possible to achieve sustainable
outcomes and even low-to-no carbon districts. With greenhouse
64 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
gas emissions escalating, the appropriate restructuring of our cities
is crucial. But which models may be most useful to Chinese plan-
ners? For instance, Stockholm, Barcelona, Freiburg, and Singapore
are expressions of today’s best practice, but limited in their
usefulness for Chinese planners, with their entirely different
constraints, socio-economic context and speed of action.
Successful urban design often appears to be a question of design
quality and getting the right program mix. Deciding on the urban
mix for new large precincts and appropriate proportions is not easy,
neither for municipalities nor for developers. A good mix of land-
uses includes usually:
 Public and cultural buildings, representing government and
institutions
 The integration of public transport
 An appropriate percentage of commerce/retail/workplaces
 An appropriate percentage of residences (with a wide range of
typologies), and
 Green spaces and open public spaces.
Urban transformation during the 1990s: case study Potsdamer
Platz
The formation of the ‘New Berlin’
During the entire 1990s, until today, the reunified Berlin was
guided by the ‘Planwerk Innenstadt’, and the backwards-looking
principles of Kritische Rekonstruktion (critical reconstruction),
developed and implemented by the Senatsverwaltung (principles
formulated by Joseph Paul Kleihues and Hans Stimmann around
1991e1992). The ‘critical reconstruction’ principles included,
besides other regulations, limiting building heights to 22 m and
limiting volumes and plot sizes by preventing the amalgamation
of sites, to retain the historic street pattern. One of the most
acclaimed projects of large-scale urban renewal from this period,
creating a new ‘city within the city’, is the Potsdamer Platz devel-
opment (built between 1994 and 2000 and based on the results of
several design competitions). With the fall of the Wall in 1989, the
Potsdamer Platz site returned over night to being again the centre
of the city, taking on the role and symbol as the central area
between Berlin East and Berlin West. The reconstruction of Berlin’s
centre in Mitte (middle heart), had quickly taken on the twin roles
of:
 stitching together the two opposed political and urban systems
(East and West), and
 re-introducing the quality of the compact, mixed-use European
city model as guiding typology, which was immediately
understood as being a space of political manifestation (and
symbol of reunification).
Around 1990, by taking on its new role as a global city, Berlin
identified the urgent need for large-scale commercial buildings,
and speed of delivery was essential if was Berlin to again become
the capital of reunified Germany (as was decided by the German
Parliament, after heated debate, in 1991). The two leading
developers e the high-tech companies Daimler and Sony e were
interested in energy-efficient technologies, as ‘green buildings’
were already understood to be easier to let (usually yielding
higher rents) and would reduce operating costs.
Within 10 years, the area has re-emerged as the symbol of the
‘New Berlin’, whatever this exactly means. The rediscovery of the
European compact, walkable block typology and mixed-usage (as
opposed to the American, mostly car-dependent model with air-
conditioned high-rise buildings), marked a sharp turning point in
the urban design of the 1990s: It had a remarkable effect on the
urban development discourse and the Potsdamer Platz project
widely influenced urban designers worldwide (a range of similar
projects emerged in the following years in many other cities,
following this model). It was completed in 1999. The much quoted
‘rediscovery of the European compact mixed-use city model’ was
directly connected to three main tendencies: Critical Reconstruc-
tion, Post-Modernism and Compact City Theory (as previously
formulated by Aldo Rossi, Christopher Alexander, Colin Rowe,
Heinrich Klotz, O.M. Ungers, Rob Krier, and other urban theorists).
In Germany, the 1973 Oil Crisis had an impact on rethinking
cities, which were increasingly understood as energyehungry,
stressed systems, out-of-balance with nature or ecological princi-
ples. During the 1990s, the cities of Curitiba, Copenhagen and
Barcelona emerged as innovative planning examples, leaders of
change and of a new thinking about the future of regenerated city
centres; all models that influenced planners at the time when the
Potsdamer Platz project took off. The district at Potsdamer Platz
was the result of an extensive 2-stage competition process and
intensive public debate. The 19 buildings in the Daimler area were
based on designs by ten international teams of architects, under the
artistic leadership of the Italian Renzo Piano Building Workshop
(RPBW). The Potsdamer Platz master plan developed by RPBW in
1992e1993, clearly followed the idea of the traditional European
city model. To ensure diversity in architectural language, ten
different offices were involved in the design of various parts within
this master plan. The belief at this time was that great districts and
city quarters have no single author; they are always the result of
multiple authors and a diversity of design concepts. Regular ‘design
charrette’ meetings between all involved architects over three
years ensured the integration and coordination of these diverse
contributions. RPBW managed to translate the rigid design guide-
lines, which were set earlier by the Berlin Senate into a contem-
porary vibrant district.
The future public space network of the quarter needed partic-
ular attention in form of a ‘public domain plan’, which specified
pavement details, illumination, etc. RPBW’s plan laid down the
pattern of streets and the block sizes of the entire complex. As a key
element of lively urban culture, the design of the ‘streetscape’
received much attention: its profile, width, materials and other
design qualities. The streetscape was again regarded as the most
important public space, not to be dominated by vehicles, but by the
Berliner Flaneur (referring to Walter Benjamin, 1929, who described
the discovery of urban space by the pedestrian). Short distances
between places within the quarter, achieved through strong
pedestrian connectivity, and the diversity of architectural language
of individual buildings has helped to form a comprehensive new
district. Nearly all of the buildings were designed with arcades at
ground level, and sidewalks up to 8 m wide provide enough space
for various outdoor activities. The inclusion of water areas has had
a positive impact on the quarter’s microclimate (a water area of
1.2 ha provides a balance to the district’s urban density).
In the phase of planning optimization, the usage ratio for offices,
residential and commercial/retail was agreed as 50:20:30.
However, for the last decade, the office part (50%) struggled as it
was conceived too large, and as a consequence has been signifi-
cantly under-occupied. The strategic arrangement of programs
within mixed-use urban blocks is much better understood today,
however, in hindsight Potsdamer Platz was a ‘capstone project’ in
gaining better knowledge in designing mixed-use sub-centres from
scratch (Lehmann, 2010).
The Potsdamer Platz project claims to have led to significant
carbon reductions, although, until now these claims were never
really quantified by anybody. The project was supported by experts
in construction ecology right from the start. An ecological concept
 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69 65

was developed and implemented, covering the specification of
materials, the period of construction as well as the operation of the
buildings following completion. Construction materials were
chosen with due consideration for health and environmental
aspects. Embodied energy, energy consumption and the emission
of pollutants were minimized. All building roofs in the new district
collect rainwater for toilet flushing. As urban designers, one needs
to respect the following basic approach (Fig. 2):
 Not to cut-off the new centre from its surrounding context
(avoiding creating an ‘island’ or ‘city within the city’).
 Connectivity is very important, with a focus on pedestrians,
cycling, and easy access to public transport.
 Due to the relevance of the overall public domain network,
inter-linking and connectivity is crucial.
 Co-evolutionary relationships between humans and natural
systems are increasingly understood, based on a better
understanding how humans are interdependent on natural
systems.
 There is a new understanding and valuing of public space as the
‘collective good’: the high quality public domain is again
appreciated by the community. There is a shift in scale from
individual buildings to the urban design of neighbourhoods,
with a renewed focus on public space.
 A vibrant city needs large-scale and small-scale, bottom-up and
top-down approaches, all at the same time, with an integrated
set of solutions.
There is extensive discussion on Potsdamer Platz by leading
authors and critics, such as Balford (1990), Buddensieg (1999),
Lampugnani and Schneider (1994), Zohlen (1994) e just to name
a few, and the reader will already be aware of some of it. It is not the
purpose of this paper to repeat a widely discussed body of work.
What is of interest, however, are the conceptual parts of Berlin’s
regeneration project that might be relevant for China’s current
urbanization. The key to high-performance city districts is efficient
transportation, energy systems, water and waste management
systems, and the application of the holistic principles of green
urbanism. At Potsdamer Platz, a set of simple concepts to achieve
sustainability on the urban scale included:
 Solar: aiming to reduce solar gain in summer and heat loss in
winter, through orientation, ‘compactation’ and high insulation.
 Ventilation: maximizing natural ventilation and day-lighting
(avoiding deep plans), using passive design principles from
the conceptual design stage with narrow, maximum 15 m wide
blocks.
 Energy: developing an ‘Energy Masterplan’ at the project start,
mapping out the best location of the district heating plant
(a Blockheizkraftwerk, BHK, is a highly efficient gas-powered co-
generation power plant delivering district heating and energy).
 Materials and Waste: using non-polluting materials and
focussing on material flows, to avoid waste.
 Public transport: reducing car-dependency through a strong
focus on public transport and walkability.

Fig. 2. Berlin, aerial photo, showing Potsdamer Platz Berlin: A new city district within the city, with the aim to stitch Berlin’s two halves together; built 1993e1999; total
800,000 m2 floor space. Various master plans have been developed for different parts, by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Helmut Jahn and Giorgio Grassi. It is an example of
privatized (quasi) public space at the heart of Berlin. Around 75% of all visitors arrive at the Platz by public transport. There are over 10,000 workplaces; the total site area (Daimler
site) is around 80,000 m2. Gross floor area, total: approximately 500,000 m2.
66 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
 Water and landscape: using grey water cycles and green roofs
for rainwater capture by all buildings. Using constructed
wetlands and landscaping with a large water pond to recycle
grey water, green spaces to ensure a comfortable urban
microclimate.
 Urban Regeneration: promoting the integration and reuse of
existing buildings and projects on brownfield sites within
the existing built-up areas, thereby reducing urban sprawl
(Lehmann, 2008).
For too long, sustainability has focused on the building scale
(‘green buildings’) (Lehmann, 2006). At Potsdamer Platz the urban
planners realized that to achieve sustainability targets, and in
particular CO2 reductions, one needs to better consider green at the
urban scale, for instance by introducing low-carbon energy options
at an early master planning stage. A series of targets were formu-
lated during the design phase (see the five recommendations in
the conclusion), supported by computer modelling to support
informed decision-making:
 Reducing operational energy demand,
 Aiming for zero-carbon, de-carbonizing the energy supply, and
 Reducing embodied energy and material transport.
Today, a decade after Potsdamer Platz’s completion, we can be
even more ambitious about achieving better outcomes concerning
‘Zero-Emission and Zero-Waste City’ concepts, and concerning
the social inclusion of all communities and residents. The above
mentioned concepts can also be recommended for the Zhenru
Urban Sub-Centre.
Introducing the planning of Zhenru Urban Sub-Centre in
Shanghai
New sub-centres for a polycentric Shanghai
Shanghai is undergoing a major process of re-planning and
urban transformation as Berlin has done a decade earlier. However,
the aims and context are different. The city of Shanghai aims to take
its heavy industry out of the inner-city and move it to the city’s
edge. Given that some of this heavy industry had been occupying
waterfront land, prime development areas are freed up for urban
development (such as in Pudong and the World Expo site).
Zhenru Urban Sub-Centre is not on the waterfront, but it’s one of
the four new, large urban sub-centres of Shanghai. In the project
brochure ‘Shanghai Zhenru Sub-center’, published in 2008 by
Shanghai Zhenru Sub-Centre Development Construction Invest-
ment Co. (a semi-public company), the project is introduced as
‘Zhenru is Shanghai’s last Sub-center, a Green Business District in
complaisance with world-class green construction criteria, taking
service industry as pillar industry, making full use of its location
advantage as gateway to the Jangtze River Delta’. To present Zhenru
as ‘last sub-centre’ is of course not fully correct as such centres
emerge every couple of years in various Chinese cities. The
brochure continues in the marketing jargon: ‘Zhenru will be
a model for Green City build-up, including the north-western
transport hub, by adopting the standards for building a world-
class e-friendly city in development, learning from many cities
worldwide prestigious in preserving the ecological system and
leveraging fully our own conditions and strengths, we will step
onto a high stage for building an ecological city.’
Zhenru Urban Sub-Centre is one of Shanghai’s numerous
ambitious projects, with a site area of 6.2 km2, and therefore
significantly larger than the Potsdamer Platz site (around 10 times).
In contrast to Berlin, the development speed of Shanghai has been
more accelerated. The scale and pace of change and the level of
ambition are quite extraordinary. China is now committed to
transform itself into a world leader in renewable energy industries
(Mackay, 2008).
Despite all this, the environmental impact of Zhenru Sub-Centre
is likely to be immense. In addition, deciding on the usage mix for
6 million m2 floor area of the new sub-centre will be a huge chal-
lenge given its ambitious standards. Obviously, this new centre will
need to be different from the Pudong New Area sub-centre, in
its mix of functions and ambience. The city of Shanghai has sug-
gested that it be more of a technological, industrial, logistic centre
type and service park (see report by Shanghai Putuo District
Government, 2008). A central business district always has to
contain ‘higher-level’ functions of a city, for instance its cultural and
administrative functions and its public green space for recreation.
In regard to Zhenru there is little public debate and clear infor-
mation available, what has been decided or is included. Participa-
tion processes or community involvement are widely missing;
however, in terms of urban governance, China will have to allow for
more user participation at all stages, if the municipality wants to
see new forms of partnerships, cooperation and sharing at local and
community level.
The network (‘networked’) city
The relationship between the planned and the unplanned city,
between formal and informal public space, is always a challenging
one. The new towns of Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brasilia,
Chandigarh, Milton Keynes and Almere were all once thought up at
the drawing board and, when built from scratch, completely brand
new. From that moment on, people took over the city, changed the
rigid plan and made their own additions. Can urban designers
anticipate such unplanned activities and foresee change such as the
contributions of citizens through usage? Is there possibly a better
way to foresee and allow for such grassroots changes in the polit-
ical, economic, social and cultural circumstances? These questions
goes right to the heart of urban master planning, indicating that
there are new collaborative planning processes which require
a significant change in the practice of planning as a genuine
attempt to engage the wider community.
A new type of city is emerging worldwide: the Network City
(Castells, 1996; Graham & Marvin, 2001). Network City theory is an
emerging field of research that explores how key urban areas have
developed as ecosystems of competing networks and what made
them more resilient e establishing a better understanding of the
nature of cities. There is a renewed focus on decentralization and
the connections between city centres (polycentric structured) and
cities, as these connections play an important role. There are the
physical connections, such as railway lines, canals and motorways;
but there are also the connections that co-exist in immaterial form,
such as trade, global finance, cultural links, migration, data flows
and shared social aspects or histories. It has been argued that city
networks are a key ingredient of what defines a city, alongside with
the sheer number of people (density) and the particular way of life
in cities. In Network City theory, the city itself is regarded as the
node (or hub) where different networks run together. Some urban
thinkers have argued that cities can only be understood if the
context of the city’s connections is understood.
Today, with a vigorous debate on urban form and networks, one
can find urban agglomerations in the size of entire metropolitan
regions, which may only with difficulty be recognized as cities.
These agglomerations of highly networked inter-linked metropol-
itan regions correspond to new social formations in a very direct
manner, providing habitation for a more and more individualized,
inter-connected society. The danger is a dramatically forced
 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
urbanization of landscape without any urban qualities, cities
without good public spaces, one-dimensional and lacking the rich
complexity that cities always require having to be vibrant. As John
Worthington points out, ‘it appears that the twenty-first century
city is a city of paradox: It has points of intense concentration whilst
also being dispersed, forming a low-density city in a high-density
(data) landscape.’ (Worthington, 2009) (Fig. 3).
To overcome the lack of space and diminishing car accessibility
in traditional cities, more and more businesses have been moving
to the urban periphery or are locating along infrastructure routes
and corridors. The challenge for today’s urban designers, perhaps, is
to understand the attributes of these peripheral nodes, to give
meaning to both centre and periphery, and offer coherence to the
peri-urban journey between the points. New typologies, such as
‘Urban Sub-Centres’, are continuing to emerge, whilst existing
nodes will need further intensification, urban infill and retrofitting.
Both, if they are to become embedded in the community, will
require intelligent programming (briefing) and imaginative urban
design (strategy). The ‘Zhenru Declaration for Green Environment’
(Shanghai Putuo District, 2008) was an important step in the right
direction for Shanghai’s last sub-centre. It will be important to
further consider:
 New criteria for vision, construction and urban management,
 Integration and connectivity as driver,
 Urban governance and social inclusion.
Urban designers aim to connect the various systems; more
flexible frameworks that set infrastructure, typologies and value
systems, within which a program of built projects and events can
unfold, are superseding Master Plans as rigid blueprints. The ‘Net-
worked City’ could offer a possible solution for urban designers.
Based on the author’s Potsdamer Platz experience, a series of
careful recommendations are formulated for the design and
development of Chinese urban sub-centres, knowing that it is
Fig. 3. Architect’s impressions of Zhenru Sub-Centre, to be built in Shanghai’s north-west. It is one of four new, large urban sub-centres, consisting of 6 million sqm floor area. The
central axis, the long space between the flanking high-rise buildings, is a US-type urban design strategy that has been applied to this Chinese project (image courtesy Zhenru
Development Corp., 2009).
67
rather difficult to translate from one case and cultural context to the
other (Fig. 4).
Towards low-carbon city: five recommendations and
conclusion
Five recommendations
What planning guidance can be given to China? Are there
underlying urban design principles for conceptualizing a new
urban sub-centre that can be converted into another culture?
Clearly, looking at building performance alone is not enough.
Instead, we should look at how our cities are designed. It will also
require the determination and leadership of the officials who
oversee the country’s urbanization e China’s mayors and planning
directors in the municipalities. Zhenru Sub-Centre is a major urban
development project for Shanghai in times when China is
rethinking the way to develop its cities.
After a period of strong interest in formal qualities of new
prestige projects, there is now a growing interest in combining
practical and efficient planning layout with renewable energy
technologies that both passively and actively reduce the energy
consumption of the buildings and the overall emissions of new
developments. Zhenru Sub-Centre is currently under construction
and such large-scale quarters, once finished, can be strangely dis-
comforting due to their newness and semi-private corporate
sphere e something often forgotten in the predetermined vision of
new city centres. At the end, cities are also cultural manifestations
and outcomes of urban governance: we shape cities through the
way we write policies.
One could say that the aims of urban development in Shanghai
and Berlin are fundamental different: in Berlin the aim was to
increase liveability; whereas in Shanghai, such as seen with Pudong
and Zhenru, the main aim is to increase productivity and efficiency.
Potsdamer Platz had a political focus of post-reunification between
68 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
Fig. 4. a and b: The site of Zhenru Urban Sub-Centre in Shanghai’s north-western area. Model photo: The conceptual master plan is now in the phase of revision. Is the proposed
spatial development framework for Zhenru robust enough to future-proof the district? (Photos by the author, July 2009).
East and West Berlin, while Zhenru is just one of numerous sub-
centre developments in China.
The conclusion presents the following five recommendations for
the design of such new sub-centres to ensure they deliver
economically, socially and environmentally sustainable outcomes,
not limited to China or Germany:
Develop compact urban form at transport nodes: a resilient network
Land use, planning and design controls, together with building
codes, require more consist application by all levels of government
to ensure that housing location and types deliver a compact urban
form with higher densities around transport networks. This will
require an integrated framework cascading from national to
district government levels, with rigorous implementation. There is
a danger of increasing density too much and changing land-cover
through development, thus reducing natural urban ventilation
and increasing risk of Urban Heat Island. A balance is necessary
(e.g. Hong Kong government had to develop the Air-Ventilation
Assessment System, adopted in 2008, with the aim to create better
airflow and breezeway corridors). The type of hyper-tall urban
environment as found in Hong Kong is an extreme, relatively rare
case, where many of the sidewalk levels are even shaded from
direct sunlight during most daylight hours (Kvan, Karakiewicz, &
Shelton, 2010). Trying to fix the impact of overdevelopment is
very difficult; Hong Kong is now engaged in the identification of
major airflow corridors which will get special protection, to ensure
the remaining natural air-ventilation is not entirely lost to over-
development. Favouring of inner urban diversity, developments
should favour boulevards and transport corridors, in support of
public transport and walkable cities. The integration of agricultural
fields and urban farming for local food supply and nutrient recy-
cling is hereby a particularly exciting development.
Evolve towards ‘eco-infrastructure’, implemented in unison with
climate responsive built form
Currently, legislation discourages the integrated precinct
resource management. Regulations need to be changed to allow
distributed renewable energy networks and non-traditional water
supply systems to be implemented. It is important to develop
nationally recognized equitable contracts for ESCO, energy and
water supply services that cover all stakeholders to avoid trans-
actional cost issues. Precinct prototyping of smart grid systems is an
immediate need due to the lead-time, and they must be incentiv-
ized. Methods for assessing climate change resilience must be
implemented by district regulations. Current policy tools, such as
the LEED or BREEAM assessment tools, must be used to affect
landscape design, site resilience and resource management.
De-carbonizing the energy supply on the district-scale is a neces-
sity. Low-emission energy generation technologies can turn city
districts and sub-centres themselves into power stations, where
energy is generated close to the point of consumption. Localized
energy generation using renewable energy sources (solar, wind,
biomass, geothermal), and complemented by distributed heating
and cooling systems, has the potential to reduce the built envi-
ronment’s energy demand and emissions. Such decentralized,
distributed systems, where every citizen can generate the energy
they need, will eliminate transmission losses and transmission
costs (which always occur with a large grid and inefficient base-
load power stations) for the local consumer.
Develop a policy pathway to zero-carbon and zero-waste: targets
that are more ambitious
A trajectory to a de-carbonized China needs to be established.
This should involve long-term overall targets, together with
medium and short-term targets subdivided into sectoral responsi-
bilities. Evolving policy and regulatory frameworks needs to reflect
this trajectory. Given the relatively long life of buildings, their targets
(both for refurbishment and newly built) need to reflect their
longer-term contributions to the trajectory (buildings that last
longer). Higher assessment rating should have requisite energy
standards, with zero-carbon emissions attracting the highest rating.
Waste streams and material flow in urban developments are of
particular importance, as waste equals resources and huge ineffi-
ciencies are still common in this field. The zero-waste concepts
consider the entire life-cycle of buildings and express the need for
closed-loop industrial and societal systems and construction
processes. Zero-waste means 100% of waste is diverted from landfill,
and manufacturing methods of construction materials and their
supply chains are scrutinized: are the building materials fully
recyclable? As a consequence of embedding zero-waste concepts,
better material flow management leads to optimized material effi-
ciency in the use of raw materials and construction systems.
Develop a holistic pathway to climate-adaptive buildings and low-
carbon design
A clear vision of what constitutes a climate adaptable and
resilient building needs to be established complete with appro-
priate overall regional variations. These adaptive measures need to
 S. Lehmann / Habitat International 37 (2013) 61e69
be embedded within assessment tools and be progressively intro-
duced as experience grows into the regulatory framework,
including:
 Extending the life of buildings, giving them the ability to accept
change of uses (long life, loose fit).
 Using thermal mass (heat storing) materials into building
structures.
 Operating buildings completely passively (without any energy
consuming systems operating) for large proportions of the
year. High-performance buildings are a key feature of energy
reduction.
 Reducing the volume of materials needed by buildings,
particularly the frequently replaced components. Urban Heat
Island reduction measures to allow reduced energy consump-
tion in building systems (electric vehicles, transport modal
switching, extensive urban vegetation to mitigate UHI, and
associated urban rainwater retention).
Built environment education, training and research must take
climate change mitigation and adaptation as a main intent
New research agendas are needed to support the required
change in the development and construction sectors, nurturing
evolving relationships between international research communi-
ties and Chinese universities. However, the building industry is
currently not trained to renovate existing low-carbon and climate
adaptable buildings, nor is it trained to deliver new ones. In addi-
tion, professional education does not sufficiently prioritize, or
effectively deliver, curricula that empower graduates to shape
a zero-carbon and climate adaptable urban environment. Reform
and expansion of built environment education and training with
climate change mitigation and adaptation as its main intent must
occur within the next five to ten years. Potsdamer Platz was at
a time when architects and planners started to become aware of
this; Zhenru Sub-Centre is happening 10 years later and there has
been a huge shift in environmental awareness over this period.
Mass industry re-training over the next ten years is required to
provide the necessary leadership and capacity to engage in the
mass renovation of existing buildings. Intensified interdisciplinary
research to deliver the framework for the transition to a zero-
carbon building sector is required.
Conclusion and further discussion
The objective of this paper was to explore how Chinese cities can
be better steered towards more sustainable models of development,
and if there is a useful lesson in Western development for the
Chinese situation. This paper discussed that the shape of a city is
very important, however, urban shape is to a large degree driven by
financial decisions. Tremendous research challenges are becoming
obvious and need to be addressed, e.g. how to achieve low-to-no
carbon for such a city node. Asian cities and its people have shown
a unique ability to overcome challenges and to enable their citizens
to create a better future. The use of western theories in urban
planning is of limit: it can be a useful planning tool to start a project,
to a certain extent, but the suitable adaptation of such theories to the
Asian culture and environment remains questionable. It’s time that
we are rethinking our concept of growth. Both, booming fast
growing cities and shrinking cities are inherently unsustainable.
While cap and trade programs, reductions in power plant emissions,
increasing use of alternative energy technologies and more energy-
efficient cars are good steps, they will merely slow the rate of growth
in greenhouse gas emission; whereas transforming our cities with
more compact, pedestrian and transit-friendly design offers
69
a greater potential for actually reducing overall greenhouse gas
emissions, while improving livability and competitiveness.
However, any study of urban compactness needs to also consider
social and economic indicators. Over-compacted cities may have
a negative effect on residents, due to lack of green space and privacy,
overcrowding and noise (Jenks, 2000).
What is also likely to become more important in low-to-no
carbon urban planning is a better understanding of co-evolutionary
relationships between humans and natural systems, how humans
are interdependent on natural systems. It is obvious that such system
thinking includes a focus on networks, links and synergies across
multiple scales and between various systems, with a renewed focus
on public space as the collective good. In this shift, notions of ‘place’
and ‘localisation’ are gaining importance. In urban governance, it’s
likely that we will see new forms of partnerships, cooperation and
sharing emerging, with a greater self-reliance at local and commu-
nity level. However, a core finding of this paper is that simply
drawing lessons from the German case study for Chinese urbaniza-
tion seemed first a useful tactic and gave a sense that there are
underlying urban design principles that can be applied for such large
developments. However, the conversion of strategies to an entirely
different cultural and social context requires further research.
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