Unforbidden cities
by Harrison Fraker Jr.
California Magazine, September/October 2006 Volume 118, No. 5
Can a new type of "gated community" reverse China's ecological debacle?
When I asked one of my Chinese hosts to give me a tour of his city's best new housing project, I
never imagined it would inspire a Berkeley team to propose revolutionizing how the Chinese develop
their new communities.
We set out from the Urban Planning and Design Institute's offices in a black diplomatic car, whose
siren I quickly learned allowed us to exercise authoritative traffic privileges. Our route out of
metropolitan Tianjin, China's third largest city, took us along a major arterial corridor to the
northwest, which was clogged with traffic of a chaotic type unmatched in the U.S. Intersections,
even though signalized, presented a terrifying game of "chicken." Cars, trucks, and buses wove
through an equal number of bicyclists (often with multiple passengers or goods) and pedestrians.
The dust and pollution were so intense that most bicyclists wore facemasks. With siren blaring, we
sped along the shoulder past what appeared to be an unending series of developments, including a
new college campus, high-tech office parks, and multiple high-density housing developments. As far
as the eye could see, the entire landscape seemed under construction.
The scale of infrastructure construction to support this kind of hyperdevelopment in China is hard to
imagine. It is estimated that China builds more than fifty 300-megawatt coal-fired power plants per
year. California has only built 36 in the last five years. China is undertaking the largest road
construction program in the world, equivalent to the U.S. Interstate highway system begun in the
50s. The capital and material costs of this effort are increased by the fact that in most areas of
infrastructure China is playing catch-up. For example, an estimated 60 percent of existing sewage is
dumped into rivers, untreated. Not only is the cost of building sewer mains and centralized
treatment plants for new development staggering, but also, without cleaning up the existing sewers,
the polluted rivers magnify the challenge of delivering sanitary drinking water. Some urban planning
scholars question whether the current rate of development is economically sustainable, but if it is, it
is estimated that China will double the size of its built environment in the next 20 to 30 years-the
equivalent of building two new Great Britains.
When the pollution and CO2 emissions from the congested arteries are combined with that from the
power plants required to meet the energy demands of new development, the impact on both China's
public health and on global climate change presents major challenges for the years ahead. Fourfifths of China's largest cities have unacceptable air quality, resulting in more than 600,000
premature deaths from asthma, emphysema, and lung cancer. Currently it is estimated that China
is responsible for 25 percent of the world's CO2 emissions (the U.S. is at 30 percent). At its current
rate of development, China is projected to surpass the U.S. in the next few years.
Mounting scientific evidence has shown conclusively that the current cycle of global warming is not
natural but attributable directly to man-made CO2 emissions; and while the projections vary in
magnitude (from 2-10¾ C), the projected impact of global warming on the earth's natural systems
is catastrophic. On balance, the question becomes: Can the world dramatically cut back its CO2
emissions to avoid these catastrophic scenarios? The responsibility falls on the U.S. and China to
show the way.
Fortunately, China has recognized this challenge and it has been seeking the best urban planning
and design advice and concepts from around the world. Our Berkeley team was invited by the
Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute to assist the city of ten million residents in developing
principles and prototypes for compact, transit-oriented, commuter gateway neighborhoods
promoting efficient land use, and relying more on public transportation and bicycles and less on
cars. With half the population living outside Tianjin proper, the city recognized that it was necessary
to build a public transit system of subways, light-rail, and connecting buses in order to avoid the
traffic congestion afflicting Beijing and Shanghai. Having completed two of seven planned light-rail
lines, the city sought advice on how to guide development around the station stops. The College of
Environmental Design responded by forming an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students from
each of its three departments-Architecture, City and Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture
and Environmental Planning-to come up with design proposals that address critical real-world
problems. The Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute funded the semester-long project, which
included a week-long visit to the Chinese city followed by analysis and preliminary designs. In
Berkeley, three Chinese scholars joined the 15-member team to help inculcate the project with the
nation's cultural and practical realities. But what unfolded during the semester was largely due to
the impact of what we found during our Chinese tour.
At our destination, we passed through an entry gate, where we were saluted by two uniformed
guards, and proceeded to an elegant marketing showroom complete with a scale model of the entire
development and elaborate models of each unit type for sale. The plan was based on repetitive
blocks of townhouses and flats; their designs were of high quality, similar to what might be seen in
Holland, Germany, or Scandinavia. Vehicular and pedestrian access to the housing units was
provided by uniform street grids with limited parking at the units and overflow parking along a fence
forming the community's perimeter. Much attention had been paid to landscape design. Streets,
sidewalks and pathways of various paving materials were shaded by an array of trees. The project
also featured several small parks, schools, a small central commercial area, recreation facilities, and
a lake with multiple high-rise residential towers overlooking it.
I quickly estimated the density at approximately 75-100 units per acre (San Francisco averages
approximately 35 units per acre). As I explored the project with my Chinese host, who was
justifiably proud of its design quality, it dawned on me that what was being sold was a gated,
privatized urbanity-a carefully controlled development with an urban theme but without any of the
nitty-gritty reality of the city. Moreover, the gated entry gave residents a sense of belonging to a
privileged community. It was hard not to interpret this as a form of social segregation.
Our hosts showed us multiple examples of the same model throughout the city-gated superblocks
within a grid of new arterial streets at approximately one-mile or 1.2-mile intervals. One
opportunistic developer was already in the process of building a gated superblock on the site where
we were asked to explore transit-oriented development. Immediately, we became concerned. The
project under construction effectively served only the residents within the gated community,
blocking pedestrian and bike access to the light rail station for anyone else. Residents of other
developments would be forced to walk or bike a mile or more to get around the first development. I
wondered: Did our Chinese hosts not see this contradiction? Were they looking for alternatives?
We also knew Chinese gated superblocks comprise the largest part of China's overall development
efforts, which are among the most ambitious construction undertakings in the history of the world.
The Chinese are building 10-15 gated superblocks every day, equal to 10-12 million housing units
per year (10 times the U.S. average). The process benefits from a clear definition of roles. The city
builds the new system of arterial roads and then sells the superblock development rights to a
developer, who is responsible for constructing a prescribed number of housing units at specific unit
sizes, and for providing all internal community facilities and infrastructure, including commercial
shopping and offices, schools, recreation facilities, parks and landscaping, and all internal roads,
sewage lines, water and power distribution. The process depends on the support of a centralized
infrastructure of power plants (usually coal fired) and electric power lines, sewage treatment plants
(including sewer mains), and a sanitary water supply provided by the city or provincial utilities. The
developer just "plugs in" to these services.
While highly efficient at providing housing, an array of negative consequences has emerged from
China's gated superblock model. With a single entry/exit, and barriers to those outside the
immediate gated community, the pattern almost guarantees that people will be forced to use cars
on trips that are now walked or bicycled by 80 percent of the residents. As vehicular traffic grows,
streets will become congested, creating corridors of pollution similar to what we saw on our tour.
This traffic pattern will also remove people from the pattern of streets and alleys that has supported
the rich and diverse urban culture of traditional Chinese cities for millennia.
Preliminary calculations revealed that 30 percent of China's CO2 emissions could be directly
attributed to the construction, transportation and power generation required to build and operate
these superblocks. The Berkeley team quickly realized that by developing principles and prototypes
for transit-oriented neighborhoods, it could address half the problems of the impact of the car.
But what if we thought bigger? What if our designs could also generate all the community's energy
by employing renewable sources on site, treat all wastes, and provide most of the water? If China's
fundamental unit of development could become resource self-sufficient (i.e., carbon neutral) in its
operation, and if it could replicate and spread throughout the world, this would be a major force in
reversing global climate change.
With this larger goal in mind, the Berkeley team spent the semester creating an entire systemincluding, but beyond transit-oriented neighborhoods-to consider all potential sources of energy and
waste flows that might make the neighborhood resource self-sufficient. First the team tackled the
challenge of making the project transit friendly. They came up with a system of designated streets
and blocks with mid-block greenways reserved for pedestrians and bicycles. These greenways
connect to a network of parks leading directly to transit stops. In this way pedestrians and bikes are
given a privileged, independent route to transit. At the same time all the streets are carefully
designed to accommodate bikes and pedestrians; but by creating an independent system, the
bicycle and pedestrian congestion at intersections is greatly reduced. With such a walking and
bicycle friendly neighborhood, dependence on the car as the primary mode of transit can be reduced
and the vehicle miles traveled reduced, with CO2 emission reduced as well by 75 percent. Car
ownership (an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 cars are being added to China's streets every day) is not
discouraged, but the car becomes a convenience for recreation and selected uses, rather than a
necessity.
The team then focused on how to supply energy for a high-density, superblock community.
Conservation and implementing designs that best responded to the climate appeared to be the most
cost-effective strategy for reducing both energy consumption and demand. By careful application of
passive solar design principles and natural cooling (using shading and ventilation), we determined
that heating loads could be reduced by 80 percent and cooling loads by 60 percent. The challenge
became how to provide the back-up heating and cooling, and the electricity for lighting and
appliances.
A combination of renewable strategies was discovered. By putting photovoltaic panels (PVs) on the
roofs and also using them as sun shades for south-facing windows, we calculated we could deliver
approximately 40 percent of the electric load to energy efficient appliances. Adding wind conversion
machines atop tall buildings (approximately 20 to 30 per neighborhood) would provide an additional
40 percent of the electric load. The balance of the electric load, plus gas for cooking and domestic
hot water, could be provided by biogas generated from a combination of sewage, food wastes, and
green wastes from the local landscape, trees, and urban agriculture. In this model, the high density
of housing (150 units to the acre) became an environmental asset by providing the concentration of
waste required to produce sufficient energy. An integrated system was also preferable in that it
could spread the workload and could be sized for optimum cost effectiveness; no energy storage
was required.
In addition to transportation and energy, water supply and wastewater treatment were equally
important to these newly-designed communities. The buildings could collect all rainwater in cisterns
for supply, and recycle "gray" water for low flush toilets. Ground water would be either absorbed
directly on site or collected for landscape irrigation-there is no storm water runoff. Wastewater
produced when bacteria digest and decompose biological matter in an oxygen-free environment
(producing methane as an energy source) is treated naturally and recycled also for irrigation. This
water system could provide as much as 75 percent of the needed water.
The team also restricted impermeable paving materials to the travel lanes of the streets. All parking
areas, sidewalks and courtyards were proposed to have porous pavers. By absorbing storm water
run-off on site, the design eliminates the cost of storm water piping, and, more importantly, it
provides natural irrigation and soil aeration, making it possible to plant a more extensive "urban
forest." Providing extensive tree coverage for the streets, sidewalks and parking areas has a triple
environmental benefit. First, the shade in the summer reduces the "heat island" effect by as much
as 3 to 10 degrees; not only making the public realm more comfortable but also reducing air
conditioning loads by 10 to 15 percent. Second, by selecting appropriate species of trees and
planting and harvesting them in sequence, all the CO2 generated on the site can be absorbed.
Finally, the trees, clippings and prunings provide additional biomass for the biogas digesters. One of
the most important parts in the whole system is the role of the streets, courtyards, greenways, and
parks-the landscape-in enhancing environmental quality. By employing the most advanced "green"
design principles, only 40 percent of the land is covered by buildings, the rest, 60 percent, is public
and semi-public open space.
While the streets, sidewalks and parking areas constitute a fifth of the land coverage, the remaining
mid-block courtyards, greenways and public parks are double that figure. Half of the larger
landscape can be used for recreation and at least half of it for local, organic community gardens,
providing as much as 30 percent of the produce needs of the neighborhood. As with the "green"
streets, the green wastes from the urban agriculture and urban parks contribute significant biomass
to the biogas digesters. By conceiving of the landscape, infrastructure, and buildings as a whole
system design, the neighborhood becomes as self sufficient as possible.
As the project progressed, the Berkeley team became more and more excited by the potential for
the whole system design concept to be a real breakthrough, to be a reproducible model for
sustainable development throughout China and the developing world. The buildings are platforms
for producing energy from renewable sources such as wind and sun. Sewage is not treated and
dumped, but processed into energy, fertilizer, and water for irrigation. The landscape is more than
eye pleasing; it is a multi-functional contributor to the systems. There is little or no waste, and all
energy is generated on site. Most importantly, the neighborhood becomes essentially a selfsufficient unit, a circular system. It does not require the construction of expensive new power
plants, new sewage treatment and water supply outside the system.
But just as the team became more convinced that the design made environmental sense, difficult
challenges emerged.
The new design requires a radical transformation in the development process. In addition to
constructing housing units, the developer has to build a comprehensive, on-site utility system of
energy production, water supply, and sewage treatment, which is beyond the developer's traditional
scope of work. It requires getting approvals through government agencies that are narrowly
proscribed and not accustomed to thinking across their jurisdictions. Most importantly, it requires
design and construction professionals to share responsibility and to work collaboratively, to which
they are unaccustomed. It requires paying 15 to 20 percent of the costs up front. Even though the
life cycle costs are significantly less than the cost of constructing new centralized utilities, the
question becomes: Who owns, operates, and maintains the system, and how are they compensated
for the service? Some models exist for funding and operating on site systems, but none is as
comprehensive and integrated as the one proposed. (Since China is behind in providing centralized
infrastructure, many developers have had to provide selected utilities, usually sewage treatment, on
site). Despite these institutional and bureaucratic challenges, the economic and environmental
benefits of the proposed system offer creative business opportunities for the neighborhood and the
city.
Still, the design team realized that the hardest obstacle to overcome would be the social and
cultural demand for a "gated" identity. The concept of a gated community is ingrained in Chinese
consciousness by the Forbidden City, the emperor's own gated community. The traditional Chinese
courtyard house, the hutong, is a form of gated community for families, with its walled precinct,
gated entry and assembly of buildings around the courtyard. We've tried to provide a similar gated
identity, but not at the superblock scale, nor at the scale of individual units, but at an intermediate,
urban block scale. The system has the advantage of keeping select streets open and walkable to
transit and services while creating semi-private, gated courtyards in the middle of blocks. The
concept has a further advantage. The blocks can be designed to accommodate between 100 and
300 families, a scale that sociologists argue is a manageable size for knowing your neighbors and
promoting a sense of community.
Even though the challenges are daunting, the inherent qualities in the design provide many
opportunities and rationales for overcoming them. The upside potential, economically, socially-and
especially environmentally-is almost irresistible. What is needed is proof that such an integrated
design can work.
Fortunately, the Gordon Moore Foundation has recognized this fact. It has made a multi-year,
multimillion-dollar grant to Berkeley's Institute for the Environment (B.I.E.) to enhance worldwide
capacity for sustainable urban development. The Sustainable Neighborhood Project is part of the
grant.
With a workable prototype, China's unique top-down/bottom-up planning and development process
has the capacity for rapid deployment of such a model. The central Bureau of Planning and Reform
would approve the model as fulfilling the goals of China's 11th Five Year Plan for conversion to a
"circular economy." The Ministry of Construction would promulgate the detailed design guidelines,
creating a standard template for design approval. Finally, the mayors, who are evaluated each year
by the party, would be measured in part by how extensively they had applied this basic unit of
development. Through this process, the potential for replication is almost unlimited. Currently,
several cities are vying for the opportunity to build one of these prototypes, resource-self-sufficient,
transit-oriented neighborhoods. Paradoxically, while China is presently the source of some of the
planet's most serious environmental problems, it also has the greatest capacity for change.
Harrison S. Fraker Jr. is dean of the College of Environmental Design.