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>Here is a report from Kevin Kasowski in our
>office on a visit by a delegation from China:
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>A delegation of three urban planning professors from Shanghai came by today
>via the World Affairs Council, as part of a U.S. tour.
>
>Perhaps the most interesting points I learned about planning in China were:
>
>1. The central government has a policy that all metropolitan areas should
>have an average of about 1,070 square feet per person to accomodate ALL of
>their needs: living space, work space, per-capita commercial, road and open
>space needs, etc. The avg. densities in Shanghai (about 1200 sq ft./person)
>come pretty close to meeting that standard.
>
>2. At an average of about 23,000 people per square mile, Shanghai is not
>particularly dense as Asian cities go (only a little more than half the
average density of the typical Asian city), but it is 4-5 times denser than
Los
>Angeles (which is denser than Portland). NOTE FROM ROBERT LIBERTY:
>The density in the part of the Portland metro region south of the Columbia
>River (i.e. the Oregon portion) was about 3,900 people per square mile
>in 1995.
>
>3. Perhaps the most significant point to me was that to help make those
>densities livable, the central govt. has a policy that 30% of every
>metropolitan area be reserved as open space. They said not
>all metro areas meet that standard, but they come close. I explained that
the
>percentage of open space in our own cities is likely much lower, because
most open
>space must be purchased, and zoning land in urban areas for no development is
>politically, if not constitutionally, difficult. They just smiled.
>
>4. Even at Chinese metro densities, urbanization of farm land is still a
major
>concern in China, given the overall population (1.2 billion).
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