Matching city with environment key in building eco-cities

In building eco-cities in China, developers should integrate the city with the surrounding ecology and community and change the plan accordingly, an expert said here.

"The developers that are working on developing the eco-cities should take sufficient account of what's happening to the local inhabitants, local ecology and local economy, that needs to be integrated to the master plan they have for the eco-cities," said Robert Leston, assistant professor of the City University of New York on Sunday, during an interview with Xinhuanet on the sideline of the 5th World Forum of China Studies.

Robert Leston underlined the importance of doing enough research before making the eco-city plan to understand the way people live in the city and environment and change the plan to match what happens in the local community.

Robert Leston noted that the eco-city is attainable if it understands the local economies and surrounding ecologies and integrate the people and the environment into the model.

The eco-city development in its purest form revolves around the ambition to generate households, factories, offices, infrastructure facilities, and open spaces that reduce consumption, reuse resources, recycle waste.

When asked to share his opinion on how China can cope with the environmental pressure exerted by the huge influx of people into cities during the urbanization process, he said regulations should be in place so that the old-style companies are able to take care of the environment and create more economies that have to do with sustainable practices.

"If the company has the bottom line of profits, then they should have the bottom line of how much ecological benefits they are doing at the same time," he further mentioned.

Themed on "China's Modernization: Road and Prospect," the two-day forum began Saturday.

Co-sponsored by China's State Council Information Office and Shanghai Municipal Government, it attracts about 240 scholars and opinion-leaders from various fields to study the development of China in the context of modernization.