Leading Australian and Chinese Universities Work together
to Meet Challenges of Urban Development
April 1 2013 23:05 China’s People Daily Online---International Channel
As the capital of South Australia, Adelaide has the best of everything. This European style
coastal city is not only an ideal place for sightseeing and living, but also an important base for
study and research. The researchers here are working together with their Chinese counterparts for
sustainable urban development.
The University of South Australia, one of the leading universities in Australia sits in the
heart of Adelaide. It is also the largest university in South Australia with more than 21,000
students on campus. In recent years, the University of South Australia has engaged in extensive
exchanges with universities in Asia, Europe and North American in terms of education, research
and continuing education. It also makes efforts to cooperate with international partners on
industrial and urban development.
The reporter interviewed Dr. Qian Kun, Queena from Hong Kong Polytechnic University
and her supervisor at the University of South Australia, Prof. Steffen Lehman. According to their
introduction, the University of South Australia has close cooperation with China’s universities. On
February 21, China-Australia Center for Sustainable Urban Development co-established by the
University of South Australia and Tianjin University (China) was launched. Professor Steffen
Lehman becomes the inaugural Director of the Center. The two Universities cooperate to start
pilot research projects concerning better decision-making processes for sustainable urban
development
Prof. Lehman said, the Center is ties the University of South Australia with leading China’s
universities for closer research and education collaboration. In the following 5 years, the Center
will become a research base for Ph.D candidates from Australia, China and other Asia-Pacific
countries. He emphasized, “With focus on science, social science and economics, we expect to
seek a new method of city transition and development and to provide expert advice for sustainable
urban development.”
Prof. Lehman and Dr. Qian pay close attention to China’s urbanization and sustainable
development. They believe, the rapid urbanization of China and other Asia-Pacific nations has
major implications for the region’s people, industries and governments with profound implications
for people everywhere. China is urbanizing faster than any other country in history. It has now 120
cities with over one million people, 36 cities over two million and it is predicted that China’s
urban population will be one billion by 2030. China also has more researchers than any other
country and partnerships with research and technology communities are crucial to Australia’s
ability to access new ideas and to build our future competitiveness. The sheer scale of
opportunities for researchers interested in working on urbanization in China is itself a challenge.
In the last 20 years, China’s urban boom became synonymous with traumatic individual
experiences, of poor farmers leaving the countryside for cities with better job opportunities,
air-conditioned flats, private cars and supermarkets full of goods; but ending up as a new urban
underclass. There is an increasing awareness of socio-economic inequity and the need to base the
economy on innovation and knowledge rather than on cheap labour and environmental
exploitation. Now that the need to protect agricultural land is acknowledged, urbanisation models
have started to move away from Western sprawl concepts.
China is seeking advice on more environmentally sustainable ways to support the
transformation of their cities, to resolve the serious challenges caused by their too rapid
urbanisation. Chinese cities will need to be kept dynamic, inclusive, complex and vibrant, but also
healthy and resilient, ensuring the wellbeing of their citizens, democratic participation processes
for their residents and sustainable flows; these flows need to go beyond flows of data and money
to include the sustainable flow of resources, materials, energy, transport, water, biodiversity,
nutrients and food – cycling energy and material (waste) flows. This goes far beyond the
conventional thinking of aesthetics and functional city form; it is about the longer-term
sustainability of urban settlements. Instead of becoming more unsustainable, existing cities will
need to be transformed in an intelligent way, district by district, towards low carbon urban
precincts. In this way we can increase the resilience and durability of cities against environmental
factors such as rising temperatures, heat stress and other extreme weather events, such as urban
flooding.
Prof. Lehman and Dr. Qian believe that, the solution for the Chinese government to balance
the competitiveness of low carbon economy development and the transition of its rapid
urbanization lies in a proactive attitude and efforts with its international partners on collaborative
research issues such as sustainability, urban environment. The integrated research areas operate at
different scales and ensure the participation of the industry and government partners. The practical
and social impact of the research outputs will provide valuable reference for Chinese cities in the
urbanization transformation in regard of green sustainability.