The Go West Project is very happy to announce that SUN Publishers is willing to publish the book with the results of our research of 16 cities.
The Go West Project is proud to announce a partnership with Arkelson Architectural Services. The company is based in The Netherlands, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It provides architectural services to architects, developers and other professional organisations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
A new presentation is available in Dutch, for potential partners and sponsors. Take a look at it here:
Go West Project Presentation NL
Imagine a city centre as big as Frankfurt’s, with modern skyscrapers scattered around a central manmade lake. The roads are brand new and six lanes wide. The main shopping mall is a circular promenade with a length of more than two kilometres. Porsche has opened a flagship store, but the main eyecatcher is the Art Museum, five golden egg shaped balls designed by Japanese starchitect Kisho Kurokawa. Everything looks all shiny, modern and metropolitan-like. Except for one thing. The city does not have any inhabitants.
Yet.
Welcome to the New Eastern District of Zhengzhou, one of China’s unknown mega-cities with an urban population of at least two million inhabitants. Adidas, McDonald’s and Häagen-Dass have already found their way to the crowded, noisy streets downtown. The American coffee-chain Starbucks will soon join them: coffee drinking is getting more and more fashionable among young so-called white collar workers. The brand new Zhengzhou airport shows the ambitions of the city’s leaders with an international terminal. It doesn’t see a hell of a lot foreign travelers today, but that may change tomorrow.
Zhengzhou is a city with a vibrant night life, varying from all kinds of restaurants, 24 hour bowling centers to hard core clubbing in local venue Club V8. A report in pictures.
If you want a quick impression of the project and its goals, please take a look at this presentation:
Zhengzhou is a noisy city. It is one of the first things one notices when entering the central shopping street. It’s much noisier than, let’s say, Shanghai or Beijing (let alone cities in the rest of the world). In fact the volume of background sounds is so high, that it might be better to speak of foreground sounds. Not only do you hear the humming of the traffic, and the chattering of people, but also hundreds of commercials.
Every shop, from the smallest barber to the biggest mall, has a speaker outside in the street playing a tape to attract customers. “Everything for 2 yuan!!! Everything for 2 yuan!!! Everything for 2 yuan!!!” Continuously the same message. “The best leather bags for the lowest prices. Buy now! The best leather bags for the lowest prices. Buy now! The best leather bags for the lowest prices. Buy now!” Well, you get the idea.
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Chinese economist Andy Xie presents his view on how China should become the leading world economy within two decades in a column in China International Business. Like other economists he thinks China should shift from a producer of cheap manufactured goods into a consumption-driven economy. The anchor is urbanisation, he says. China should aim to increase its urbanization to 75% in the next 20 years.
China’s urbanization strategy should focus on building 30 mega-cities of more than 20 million residents each. These cities would have the right to issue bonds to fund their development. Because infrastructure in these cities would benefit from an economy of scale, the environment and job market would benefit, and the cities would have enough tax revenue to pay off their bonds [...] Basically, China should turn its urbanization into a sponge for global capital. Shifting the rural population into big cities is the only way for the nation to modernize.
It’s always hard not to be impressed by numbers in China. Thirty mega-cities of more than 20 million inhabitants. Where will they be located? And how will they be able to function? A lot of questions waiting to be answered.
The Central Business District is designed by Japanese architect Kurukowa. This new urban area consists of a circular shopping mall of 2 km which is still under construction. The apartment buildings are finished and mostly sold, but still empty, due to speculations.
There’s a woman asleep on the red sofa in the lobby of the Home Inn, one of the middle end hotels in the center of Zhengzhou. It always strikes me how people in China can sit down and doze away just about anywhere (see sleepingchinese.com for some really uncomfortable positions).
We walk up to the counter and talk to Patty, an English language student from Zhengzhou who does her internship in this hotel. “Can you show us a map of the city?”, we ask. She takes a tourist map, unfolds it on the counter and starts pointing: Home Inn, trainstation, city center… ”Does Zhengzhou have any old buildings?”, we ask her. Patty doesn’t seem to understand: “All what?” She grabs pen and paper and hands it to us. “Old buildings?”, we write down. She takes another pen and writes down the answer in big caps:
NO
“If you want to see old buildings”, she says, ”go to Luoyang. This is a business city.” We ask her to show us where the most important sights in Zhengzhou are. She points three things on the map: the pagoda, the main shopping street and the Central Business District. “A lot of new buildings”, Patty says. “Very modern.”
Our first impression of Zhengzhou: a city with more than 7 million inhabitants without old buildings. And one of its main sights is the newly built business district.
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