China's City Cluster Development in the Race to Carbon Neutrality

This book explores the role of city clusters in achieving China's 2060 carbon neutrality plan, covering challenges, opportunities, and directions for all 19 city clusters. It highlights the economic, infrastructure, trade, and business benefits of city clusters and the importance of coordination between top-down policies and bottom-up governance and investments. The book aims to provide valuable insights for local governments, authorities, urban planners, practitioners, developers, and urban researchers, with potential applications to other countries and regions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 205 pages
Publication date: 04 December 2022
Publisher: Springer Verlag, Singapore

The purpose of this book is to comprehensively map China's city clusters and their respective trajectories for implementing national-level strategies in alignment with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China unveiled its carbon neutrality plan in the autumn of 2020, no study has examined the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term objective. Consequently, this research is considered a pioneering effort to explore this critical topic from the perspective of city clusters. It delves into the complexities, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, providing readers with a clear understanding of China's historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a relatively short period, China's city clusters have played a pivotal role in fostering regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and improved urban-rural integration. Through enhanced coordination of connectivity and transportation networks within and between these clusters, we observe an increasing number of initiatives that extend beyond initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems combined with bottom-up governance and investments has enabled China to consider urban-rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors warrant thorough exploration from the city cluster perspective, in tandem with China's sustainable development and carbon neutrality objectives. Hence, the book addresses these topics in a holistic manner, prioritizing regional planning and development amidst uneven urbanization trends.

We anticipate that this book will serve as a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China's city clusters, we believe there are analogous examples elsewhere. Therefore, we hope to draw lessons from this study and apply them in other contexts.

Weight: 524g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789811976728
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022