Almost 3 years ago I posted a little blurb about Dongtan, one of China’s planned new eco cities. The plan was to have phase 1 completed by 2010. So, how’s it going?
Here’s a report by Christina Larson: China’s Grand Plans for Eco-Cities Now Lie Abandoned
Today, almost nothing has been built. Some residents have been moved off the island, many of them becoming cab drivers in bustling Shanghai. Although the project was widely publicized internationally, most locals knew little about it. The political leaders who championed the project were ousted in a corruption scandal, and their successors have allowed construction permits to lapse.
Dongtan in 2006
Dongtan in 2009
In the case of Dongtan, as Paul French explains in a podcast posted on the Ethical Corporation web site, one problem was a feud over who would actually fund the project. “Both sides — Arup, on one side, who call themselves the ‘master builders’ of the project — and Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (the Chinese government arm that owns the land) —thought the other was going to pay for it. So Arup thought they were brought in on a project that they would then be able to design, the Chinese would build it, and pay them a large amount of money. The Chinese thought that Arup was going to build the project and that they would get themselves a free eco-city.
What’s Chinese for “Are you fucking kidding me?”
BTW, it’s “你他媽的在開玩笑吧？”
