THE Shanghai city government has launched a new round of urban planning aimed at improving the quality of life in the city. The plan calls for decreasing the population in the downtown from 9.7 million to about 8.5 million by 2020.

Population distribution will be a key issue during the second stage of the city’s urban planning, which began in 2000 and extends to 2020.

Wu Jiang, deputy director of the Shanghai City Planning Administrative Bureau, said in a conference last month that the high density of population in the downtown area has become the most important problem in the development of the city.

The downtown area, which covers about 679 square kilometres, is home to about 9.7 million people. An additional 2 million visitors every day brings the density to over 14,000 people per square kilometre.

According to international standards, reasonable density in a metropolis like Shanghai should be around 10,000 people per square kilometre. Population density in the city is equal to that of Tokyo, 1.5 times as many as New York and 3 times that of Paris.

“Shanghai’s downtown can be described as one of the most populous places in the world,?said Zhu Dajian, professor at the School of Economics and Management of Tongji University.

“In recent years, the population has increased continuously in the downtown area due to economic development,?said Zhou Haiwang, deputy director of the Institute of Population & Development Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

According to the government’s schedule, the population in the downtown should be decreased to about 9 million by 2010. About 50,000 people are expected to move to suburbs each year. By 2020, the population in the downtown would be around 8.5 million, which is thought to be a healthy number.

New towns

According to Wu Jiang, the removal of population won’t be accomplished through compulsory measures, but by improving the living standards in the suburbs.

According to the new city plan, Shanghai will build several complete towns of various sizes.

Each new town will have an industrial function as well as complete residential, medical, leisure and educational facilities. Residents will be able to work and live there as conveniently as in the downtown.

These new towns are expected to accommodate 300,000 to 800,000 people. People in the new towns will enjoy over 15 square metres of green land per capita.

In addition, about 60 small towns with populations of more than 30,000 are also planned. About 3,000 communities in the suburbs will be built to replace existing peasant villages.

In the downtown area, the government plans to enlarge green space and public areas. It will also decrease construction of houses and control the number of high rises, according to Mao Jialiang, director of the bureau.

“The plan is very appropriate, which means the government has realistically grasped the problem,?Zhou said. “But I think it will be very difficult to accomplish unless the government restricts construction of new buildings.? Experts blame the huge population squeeze in the downtown area on poor urban planning.

“So many residential buildings are located in the downtown, how could the city avoid having a big population??Zhou said. “Also, the high buildings built in recent years are much more difficult to remove than the old houses because of their high cost.? Zhou said by 2010 the area inside the outer ring road would be almost completely filled with houses.

“The downtown area still attracts a lot of people,?Zhu said. “People are eager to buy apartments in the golden area because of its increasing value.? According to Zhu’s “conservative estimation? people will not be willing to move from the downtown area to the suburbs until 2010.

Transportation challenge

Apart from controlling the number of new residential buildings, construction of transportation is a critical factor in attracting people away from the downtown, according to experts.

From the three biggest new towns ?located in the Songjiang, Jiading and Nanhui districts ?it takes people at least an hour to get to the downtown.

“We should speed up the construction of railway transportation to shorten the commute time from the new towns to city centre to half an hour,?Zhu said. “That’s the basic requirement to attract people.? But he estimates the total population in the city will still increase because Shanghai is an economic centre. According to a study launched by Jiaotong University, Fudan University and East China Normal University, by the end of 2020, the maximum population in the city should be between 29 million and 30 million.

According to Peng Xizhe, director of the Population Research Centre at Fudan University, Shanghai should have a population of at least 22 million by 2020 to maintain its development. But these people would be scattered in different areas instead of packed into the downtown area.

“Actually, there is no inevitable relationship between a big population and urban problems if there is reasonable urban planning and administration,?said Tang Zilai, professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning of Tongji University.