In future, what kind of city would you love to live in?
In future, what kind of city would you love to live in?
08:56, May 13, 2010
An ideal city is one where there are better living conditions. In the ideal city people live close to nature and there are no traffic jams or energy crises. If all of us could live in such cities in the future, what a beautiful life it would be.
These are not remote dreams that can never be achieved, but the reality that human beings are going to experience. If you do not believe it, you need only look around the Urban Best Practice Area (UBPA) in Shanghai Expo site to check the models of cities and you will know it is not a dream.
UBPA is promoted and practiced by Shanghai for the first time in the 159-year history of the World Expo, and 55 cities demonstrate the best examples of model cities from 4 major aspects: suitable living conditions; sustainable urbanization; protection and use of historical legacy and technological application and innovation in cities' construction.
Visiting the UBPA, you will suddenly realize the meaning of the Expo theme "Better city, better life." In contrast with those imaginary models in various countries’ pavilions, all of the examples in the UBPA come from real life.
Ecological houses from Shanghai that have applied natural and LED lighting, shallow geothermal heating and energy-saving systems; sun-proof, heat insulating and noise-free low-rent housing in Madrid; "sustainable city" from Chicago; "tent city" from Mecca; "water village" from Zhouzhuang; perfect sewage disposal system from Izmir; high grade and delicious water from Osaka; Barcelona's multivariate cultures and compatibility; London's zero-carbon house. All of these are real-life examples of urban best practices.
Cities are just like cells of nature. Traditional cities absorb everything good from nature to feed themselves, such as fresh air, clean water and precious energy, while what they pay back to the nature are damage, pollution and “incurable diseases”. They might satisfy their needs for the short-term, but such cells would never “live” forever, because they are destroying Mother Nature. Without nature, they’ve got nothing to rely on for existence.
However, new cities like those above, are healthy cells to nature. They absorb natural resources without leaving irreparable damage to nature, and become one of the important links in nature’s sustainable development.
Such cities can not only provide us the lives of which we dream, but also give us back a healthy earth.
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