This is the story of the rise and fall of a slum. It was born out of a quirk of history, it exploited its unsavory reputation, and, as is the fate of all slums, it became an embarrassment before being leveled by the authorities. Is there any greater significance to its story than that? Many would argue not. But while locals and tourists now enjoy the park, some still crave the claustrophobic darkness. Theorists from the wilder shores of architecture keep returning to the idea of Kowloon. On this tiny rectangle of ground, a single community created something that had only existed before in the avant garde imagination: the “organic megastructure.” The concept of the megastructure emerged in the late 1960s, as a radical departure from the conventional idea of the city. Instead of buildings being arranged around public spaces, streets, and squares, the megastructuralists envisioned one continuous city binding citizens together in a set of modular units, capable of unlimited expansion. It was a city designed to live, evolve, and adapt, fulfilling all the needs of its people, and with the capacity to endlessly “plug in” more units to meet changing desires. Architects pushed this idea to extremes, most sensationally in the work of Alan Boutwell and Michael Mitchell, who in 1969 proposed a “continuous city for 1,000,000 human beings.” They envisaged a single, linear city, sitting on 100-meter-high pillars, running in a straight line between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America. Kowloon, in effect, was proof of concept. Within its anarchist society, argued the megastructuralists, was the kernel of an architectural utopia. Others, however, saw Kowloon not as a petri dish for urban theory, but as a model or diorama for a new kind of construction—one that did not exist in the ordinary physical plane, yet was as real as anything that could be seen or touched. The renowned American science fiction writer, William Gibson, described Kowloon, not long before its demolition, as a “hive of dream.” What Gibson saw in the unregulated, organic chaos of the City of Darkness was an embodiment of his famous concept of “cyberspace”—or, as we would call it today, the internet.
In its formative years, the internet provided the perfect environment for the establishment of multiple, self-regulating communities. Just like the Walled City, it operated outside of law or external oversight. It was post-design and post-government. Thousands, even millions of Kowloons could spring up at will in cyberspace: digital enclaves thriving on creative and political freedom, possessing an autonomous, dynamic structure that allowed them to grow at a frightening, near-exponential rate. It was also, just like the Walled City, living on borrowed time. “I’d always maintained that much of the anarchy and craziness of the early internet had a lot to do with the fact that governments just hadn’t realized it was there,” commented Gibson. “It was like this territory came into being, and there were no railroads, there were no lawmen, and people were doing whatever they wanted, but I always took it for granted that the railroads would come and there would be law west of Dodge.” Yet to Gibson’s mind, the people of Kowloon—and the megastructuralists—were groping toward the next stage in human evolution. He saw the Walled City, that accident of urban birth, as a crude, subconscious schematic of the future, a blueprint for coders and hackers, the architects of the web, to follow. In his 1996 novel Idoru, Gibson imagined a virtual Kowloon, a Walled City 2.0 recreated as an ultra-libertarian web sanctuary: “These people, the ones they say made a hole in the net, they found the data, the history of it. Maps, pictures … They built it again.” So the wrecking ball may not only have been destroying a notorious slum. Perhaps Kowloon was also the first, true, physical monument to the internet. A city that offered a glimpse into the infinite horizons, structural possibilities—and inherent amorality—of the digital realm.
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At 9:20 am on January 14, 1987, 400 officials from the Hong Kong Housing Department erected cordons around the 83 streets and alleys leading into and out of the Walled City. Then they entered the city on a mission to contact and survey every single resident. Earlier that morning, it had been announced that the city was to be cleared and redeveloped as a public park—just as the Hong Kong Government had intended over half a century before. Except this time, there was to be no Chinese resistance. Two years earlier, on December 19, 1984, the governments of China and Great Britain had signed a joint declaration to transfer sovereignty of Hong Kong back to China on July 1, 1997. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had always used Kowloon as a political pawn to remind the British and the world of their claim over the land granted to Britain in 1898. The 99 years were almost up. The plans for clearance and demolition were kept secret. Compensation was a key element of the eviction process, so there was the danger of a sudden influx of people looking to take a slice of government money. For six months, the Housing Department kept Kowloon under surveillance to gather evidence of population numbers. The compensation package for residents and business owners totaled $2.76 billion. On average, residents received around $380,000 for their individual flats. Negotiations progressed over several years, and by November 1991, only 457 households were still to agree terms. By that time, most of the 33,000 residents had moved out. Some, however, clung on to the end, and on July 2, 1992, riot police entered the city and forced out the last remaining residents. A tall wire fence was erected to encircle the whole site—following almost exactly the line once marked out by the city’s original granite wall. On March 23, 1993, a wrecker’s ball smashed into the side of an eight-story tower block on the edge of the Walled City. This was a solitary, ceremonial swing. The real work of demolishing Kowloon, piece by piece, would begin several weeks later. The moment was applauded by a crowd of invited guests and dignitaries. It was also greeted with shouts of anger from former residents who had gathered for one last, futile protest. It took almost exactly a year to reduce the rest of the city to dust and rubble.Remarkably, from within the modern wreckage, fragments of the original city emerged. There were two granite plaques, each marked with Chinese characters: One read “South Gate,” and the other “Kowloon Walled City.” Once the ruins of the tower blocks had been cleared away, developers uncovered segments of the foundations of the original wall, along with three of the iron cannons that had once bristled from the city’s ramparts. A solitary building still stood at the center of Kowloon, the one structure to have survived throughout its whole turbulent history—the office of the Mandarin. Over the course of the next year, the ruins began their rapid conversion into a landscaped park, modeled on the famous 17th-century Jiangnan gardens built by the Qing Dynasty. The paths running through these new gardens were named after the streets and buildings of the demolished slum. The Kowloon Walled City Park was officially opened on December 22, 1995, by the British Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten. It had taken some six decades, but at last Kowloon was transformed into the “place of popular resort” envisaged by Sir William Peel, the Governor of Hong Kong in 1934: six-and-a half acres of ornate bamboo pavilions, pretty water features, and vibrant greenery.
In the aftermath of the war, refugees flooded south to the Kowloon Peninsula. The only trace of the old city was the derelict shell of the Mandarin’s house. Yet people gravitated almost instinctively to this rough rectangle of ground. Perhaps it was the feng shui. The Walled City had originally been laid out according to the ancient principles of Chinese philosophy: facing south and overlooking water, with hills and mountains to the north. This ideal alignment, it was said, brought harmony to all citizens. In their desperate plight some refugees may have believed that Kowloon would be a much-needed source of luck and prosperity. Others, however, recalled that this had once been a Chinese enclave in British colonial territory. The stone walls of the “Walled City” had gone, but the refugees were convinced the diplomatic ones remained.By 1947 there were more than 2,000 squatters camped in Kowloon, their ramshackle huts arranged in almost the exact footprint of the original city. No one wanted to find themselves outside the borders—those on the wrong side of the line risked losing the protection of the Chinese government. The people kept coming, and the camp grew ever more squalid and overcrowded. Appalled by the conditions, the Hong Kong authorities made plans to clear the refugees. On January 5, 1948, the Public Works Department, supported by a large police presence, removed the squatters and demolished all the slum housing. Within a week, however, the occupiers had returned to rebuild their shacks. When the police attempted to intervene, a riot broke out. News of the disturbances spread across China, and the plight of the “residents” of Kowloon became a cause célèbre. The British consulate in Canton was set on fire, and a group of students in Shanghai staged a protest strike. Officials from the Chinese government traveled to the Walled City—and officially encouraged the refugees to continue the struggle against their British oppressors. The provincial Canton government sent a delegation on a “comfort mission” to the region, supplementing the distribution of food and medical aid with messages advocating militant action. The Chinese Foreign Ministry continued to argue that they retained jurisdiction over the city and its people. Amid mounting tension, the Hong Kong government relented. The eviction program was halted, and the police withdrew. From a temporary refugee camp, Kowloon now began to evolve into something more permanent. A new city was being founded on the ruins of the old. What kind of city? Naturally, the judgment of Sir Alexander Grantham, Governor of Hong Kong from 1947 to 1957, was damning. Kowloon, he wrote, had become “a cesspool of iniquity, with heroin divans, brothels and everything unsavoury.” The Chinese claims to sovereignty over Kowloon did not extend to any day-to-day administration; they merely used its uncertain status as a convenient tool for political point-scoring. After the disturbances in 1948, the Hong Kong government had settled on a similar policy of non-intervention. The result was a city outside the law: There was no tax, no regulation of businesses, no health or planning systems, no police presence. People could come to Kowloon, and, in official terms, disappear. It was little surprise that criminal activity flourished. Five Triad gangs—the King Yee, Sun Yee On, 14K, Wo Shing Wo, and Tai Ho Choi—took up residence. Kowloon’s extralegal status made it the perfect place for the manufacture, sale and use of drugs such as opium and heroin. The city that had been founded to police the traffic of opium became the epicenter of Hong Kong’s narcotics trade.
Organized crime may have dominated much of Kowloon, but it did not define the city. Entrepreneurs, attracted by low rents offered by private landlords, saw a unique opportunity. Hundreds of factories were established, with entire families manning the production lines. Conditions were often appalling, yet productivity—and profit—remarkable. Goods made in Kowloon were exported throughout Hong Kong, China, and even, in some cases, the world. Plastics and textile manufacturing were a specialty, as was food production. To the blissful ignorance of Hong Kong’s well-heeled residents, the dumplings and fish balls served in their restaurants were frequently sourced from Kowloon. The citizens of the Walled City demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for change and adaptation. The boundaries of their world were tightly constrained, yet, as more people continued to enter the city, their architecture met the demand. As modern high-rises grew up in Hong Kong, the builders of Kowloon copied what they saw, erecting tower blocks of their own. Thin columns, established on foundations often consisting of thin layers of concrete poured into shallow trenches, started to extend skywards. With no requirement for planning permission, structures were thrown up with amazing speed. Subsidence and settlement were common. Because the high-rises would often lean against each other, residents called them “lovers’ buildings.”As the blocks began to merge together, the city became less a collection of buildings and more a single structure, a solid block filled with thousands of individual units designed to meet every requirement of a city: living, working, learning, production, commerce, trade, and leisure. Increasingly, residents were physically sealed off from the outside world. Light did not penetrate down to the narrow lanes leading between the high-rises. It was the beginning of the City of Darkness. A system of self-government gradually emerged. In 1963, for the first time in over a decade, the Hong Kong authorities attempted to intervene in Kowloon, issuing a demolition order for one corner of the city, and proposing to relocate the displaced residents to a new estate development nearby. When the plans were made public, the community instantly formed a “Kowloon City anti-demolition committee.” Following the first Opium War of 1839 to 1842—sparked, in essence, by the Chinese government’s attempts to prevent the East India Company from importing narcotics—China signed a treaty ceding a portion of its territory to Great Britain: a near-deserted, mountainous island with a sheltered, deep-water harbor at the entrance to the Canton River, opposite the Kowloon Peninsula. Hong Kong.In 1843, the Chinese began to build a fort at the very tip of the Kowloon Peninsula, with an office for the Mandarin (the government official) and a barracks for 150 soldiers, surrounded by a wall that was 700 feet long and 400 feet wide. Known as Kowloon Walled City, it was intended as a visible Chinese military presence near the new British colony. In 1860, disputes over trade sparked a second Opium War. British and French forces devastated the Chinese, and a new treaty granted the whole of the Kowloon Peninsula to Britain, with a solitary exception—the Walled City. Over the next 30 years, British authorities attempted to negotiate control of the city, but the Chinese remained firm. Even a new treaty in 1898, which granted Hong Kong, Kowloon, and further territories in Canton to Britain for 99 years, kept the Walled City under Chinese control. A year later, in May 1899, rumors circulated that Chinese soldiers were massing again in the Walled City, so the British sent troops across the water. They expected battle—perhaps another war—but found only the Mandarin. The irate official left too, and the British took the city, though the Chinese never renounced their claim. Missionaries moved in and built churches and schools, pig farmers from the surrounding hills took plots of land within the walls. There was almost no administrative control, and the city became a slum. Yet whenever the Hong Kong government tried to clear it to turn it into a park—evicting the residents in the process—the Chinese government always stepped in. After all, this tiny rectangle of land was still officially their territory. The situation remained unresolved until the outbreak of World War II. Japanese forces occupied the Kowloon Peninsula and tore down the walls of the city to build a new runway for nearby Kai Tak Airport. In the aftermath of the war, refugees flooded south to the Kowloon Peninsula. The only trace of the old city was the derelict shell of the Mandarin’s house. Yet people gravitated almost instinctively to this rough rectangle of ground. Perhaps it was the feng shui. The Walled City had originally been laid out according to the ancient principles of Chinese philosophy: facing south and overlooking water, with hills and mountains to the north. This ideal alignment, it was said, brought harmony to all citizens. In their desperate plight some refugees may have believed that Kowloon would be a much-needed source of luck and prosperity. Others, however, recalled that this had once been a Chinese enclave in British colonial territory. The stone walls of the “Walled City” had gone, but the refugees were convinced the diplomatic ones remained.By 1947 there were more than 2,000 squatters camped in Kowloon, their ramshackle huts arranged in almost the exact footprint of the original city. No one wanted to find themselves outside the borders—those on the wrong side of the line risked losing the protection of the Chinese government. The people kept coming, and the camp grew ever more squalid and overcrowded.
Appalled by the conditions, the Hong Kong authorities made plans to clear the refugees. On January 5, 1948, the Public Works Department, supported by a large police presence, removed the squatters and demolished all the slum housing. Within a week, however, the occupiers had returned to rebuild their shacks. When the police attempted to intervene, a riot broke out. News of the disturbances spread across China, and the plight of the “residents” of Kowloon became a cause célèbre. The British consulate in Canton was set on fire, and a group of students in Shanghai staged a protest strike. Officials from the Chinese government traveled to the Walled City—and officially encouraged the refugees to continue the struggle against their British oppressors. The provincial Canton government sent a delegation on a “comfort mission” to the region, supplementing the distribution of food and medical aid with messages advocating militant action. The Chinese Foreign Ministry continued to argue that they retained jurisdiction over the city and its people. Amid mounting tension, the Hong Kong government relented. The eviction program was halted, and the police withdrew. From a temporary refugee camp, Kowloon now began to evolve into something more permanent. A new city was being founded on the ruins of the old. The most densely populated city on Earth had only one postman. His round was confined to an area barely a hundredth of a square mile in size. Yet within that space was a staggering number of addresses: 350 buildings, almost all between 10 and 14 stories high, occupied by 8,500 premises, 10,700 households, and more than 33,000 residents.The city’s many tall, narrow tower blocks were packed tight against each other—so tight as to make the whole place seem like one massive structure: part architecture, part organism. There was little uniformity of shape, height, or building material. Cast-iron balconies lurched against brick annexes and concrete walls. Wiring and cables covered every surface: running vertically from ground level up to forests of rooftop television aerials, or stretching horizontally like innumerable rolls of dark twine that seemed almost to bind the buildings together. Entering the city meant leaving daylight behind. There were hundreds of alleyways, most just a few feet wide. Some routes cut below buildings, while other tunnels were formed by the accumulation of refuse tossed out of windows and onto wire netting strung between tower blocks. Thousands of metal and plastic water pipes ran along walls and ceilings, most of them leaking and corroded. As protection against the relentless drips that fell in the alleyways, a hat was standard issue for the city’s postman. Many residents chose to use umbrellas.There were only two elevators in the entire city. At the foot of some of the high-rises, communal and individual mailboxes were nailed to the walls. But often the only option for the postman was to climb. Even several stories up, the maze of pathways continued: knotted arteries that burrowed into the heart of the city along interconnecting bridges and stairwells. Sometimes the postman would reach a top floor and climb out onto the roof. Gangways and rusting metal ladders let him move quickly from building to building, before he dropped back down into the darkness. While some alleys were empty and quiet, others overflowed with life. Hundreds of factories produced everything from fish balls to golf balls. Entire corridors were coated with the fine flour dust used for making noodles. Acrid, chemical smells filled the streets that lay alongside metal and plastic manufacturers. Unlicensed doctors and dentists clustered together, electric signs hanging over their premises to advertise their services. Many patients came from outside the city, happy to pay bargain fees in return for asking no questions. Shops and food stalls were strung along “Big Well” Street, “Bright” Street and “Dragon City” Road. For the adventurous, dog and snake meat were specialties of the city. Moving deeper, long corridors offered glimpses into smoke-filled rooms. The incessant click of mahjong tiles echoed along the walls. Gambling parlors lined up alongside strip clubs and pornographic cinemas. Prostitutes—including children—solicited in the darkness, leading clients away to backroom brothels. And everywhere there were bodies lying in the gloom. At Kwong Ming Street—known as “Electric Station”—wooden stalls sold cheap drugs. Addicts crouched down to inhale heroin smoke through tubes held over heated tinfoil. Bare rooms, enticingly referred to as “divans” were filled with prone men and women, all sunk in opium stupors. Many of the city’s rats were addicts too, and could be seen writhing in torment in dark corners, desperate for a hit. There was no law to speak of. This was an anarchist society, self-regulating and self-determining. It was a colony within a colony, a city within a city, a tiny block of territory at once contested and neglected. It was known as Kowloon Walled City. But locals called it something else. Hak Nam—the City of Darkness.
A group of institutional investors in the Netherlands, led by Peter Savelberg of Peter Savelberg en Partners, have joined forces to present the Netherlands plus parts of Belgium and Germany as a single city network named Tristate City.
By treating the Netherlands as an urbanised delta with 17 million inhabitants, the project’s supporters say that are creating a very strong player in this ‘battle of the titans.’ ‘Our city marketing is too fragmented and inefficient,’ the project website says. ‘In practice, the Dutch cities compete with each other abroad.’ Amsterdam Metropool, Brainport Eindhoven, Twentestad, Ede Food Valley, Regio Groningen Assen and Dairy Delta are just some of the names Dutch regions use when marketing themselves abroad. The Netherlands must present itself as one of the ‘most powerful and sustainable city networks in the world,’ the project’s backers say.
Lora Smith For an apparently abandoned village, Doel certainly seems to have a life, and it’s not just tourists. Despite many inhabitants taking up offers of cash premiums and selling voluntarily around 2000, Doel still has residents who have endured, residents who are once again legally allowed to stay there.
“Court bailiffs appearing at doors used to be a fairly normal occurrence; and so was dealing with vandalism because the municipality wouldn’t provide the appropriate measures to help,” said Brian Waterschoot. Waterschoot is a member of Doel2020, a group responsible for promoting and representing the village through dialogue discussions about its future. “Looting, arson; these were all things that Doel regularly had to deal with, with little done to prevent them from happening,” he explained. While there might not be many of them, the village’s few remaining inhabitants have a certain pride in their houses. As a result, there is a surreal contrast in the village between quaint homes and buildings left exposed to the elements and the whims of vandals. “We settled with the authorities to stop further deterioration of buildings and vandalism by allowing people to live there. Metal plates have been installed to prevent access to abandoned houses, and a barrier that requires a Belgian ID card has been set up on the main road. People now feel a bit safer,” said Waterschoot. There are many buildings that could be habitable or that could be assigned a new function with a minimum of effort, he added. “The current situation is that we’re just trying to live in relative peace. Everyone has different reasons for being in the area, but we all share a common concern,” said Waterschoot. That concern is crystal-clear: What comes next? The future of Doel While it has existed in a state of administrative deadlock for years, progress is being made on the issue of Doel with a view towards the long term. After years of uncertainty, some things have changed for the better. One important reason for this is the “complex project”, which aims to create a framework to be implemented by 2030. This is the first opportunity we’ve had in years to sit together and discuss Doel, said Waterschoot. In May 2019, the Flemish government announced that it had selected the so-called ninth alternative for the expansion of the port of Antwerp, which combines a limited new dock that connects to the existing Deurganck dock with new container capacity via a more compact building strategy. In this scenario, Doel is safe, said Waterschoot. The future of Doel and the form the village can take are now the things that need to be researched carefully. Doel can never become the village it once was but the potential is enormous, explained Waterschoot. Its location close to the River Schelde, the port, the history of the village and the historic buildings that are left are all important features which a future Doel could be proud of, he added. One further plan for the future of Doel is a project being developed by the architects of the University of Leuven. The students have prepared detailed repair schedules for three valuable historic buildings in the derelict village. In this way, the students hope to warm the government and the people from the neighborhood to the idea of the reconstruction of the village. Another question that is yet to be answered is what would be done with the destroyed buildings. “In a way, it could make sense to keep some of these buildings in their current state, as they indeed show the impact of a government failing to act,” said Waterschoot. This decision may have given a reprieve to the people of Doel, but what happens next remains unknown. For now, the future of the village is similar to its past, uncertain, hopeful and well supported by a few loyal residents refusing to give it up. Lora Smith ROTTERDAM, August 19 -- The Maastunnel in Rotterdam reopened again in both directions after two years of renovations. During the work, the tunnel was closed in the direction of Rotterdam-Zuid. Since 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning, traffic can fully use the tunnel again, Dutch media reported. The renovation to the tunnel started in July 2017. In the two years that followed, concrete rot was dealt with on the roadways and the floor beneath, and the technology in the tunnel was updated so that it meets the latest safety requirements. The two sides of the tunnel were tackled in turns. One of them always had to be open in a northerly direction, in order to keep the city center and Erasmus MC accessible. The Maastunnel has been connecting the banks of the Nieuwe Maas for some 75 years and is the Netherlands oldest tunnel. The renovations on the tunnel is not yet complete. From December on the Maastunnel will be temporarily closed for pedestrians and cyclists. Linda Kim SHENZHEN, August 19 -- China’s hi-tech capital just over the border from Hong Kong that was the original site for the country’s reform and opening-up experiment 40 years ago – will become a new special economic zone to carry out bolder reforms as a model for other Chinese cities. The first I was in Shenzhen it was in 1999. Shenzhen was as every other province city. It was crowded, with narrow streets, like the old Hong Kong. But the first plan of Beijing to modernize the city was already in progress. A new airport and skyscrapers were already build. The base was there. But now Beijing unveiled a detailed plan for wide-ranging reforms to be implemented in Shenzhen, including in the legal, financial, medical and social sectors, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV. Under the plan, Shenzhen would become a model of “high-quality development, an example of law and order and civilization, as well as societal satisfaction and sustainability”. The goals were to make the city a leader in terms of innovation, public service and environmental protection by 2025, the report said. The plan also aimed to make Shenzhen competitive in the world in terms of comprehensive economic abilities by 2035, and a global “benchmark” for competitiveness, innovation and influence by the middle of the century. International organisations and big companies would be encouraged to set up branches or headquarters in the city, and it would be allowed to “make flexible changes to laws, regulations and local ordinances according to authorization and based on Shenzhen’s need for reform and innovation”. Political change would also be allowed, with the guidance of the ruling Communist Party. According to the report, the plan would “expand people’s orderly political participation under the guidance of the party” while improving the work of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature. Special emphasis would also be placed on integrating Hong Kong and Macau into the Greater Bay Area scheme, which aims to link those cities with Shenzhen and eight others in Guangdong in an economic and business hub. That would include promoting connections between Shenzhen’s financial market and those in Hong Kong and Macau, as well as expanding financial regulation and the portfolio of financial products available to trade bonds and foreign exchange. The report stressed that a “big data” center for the Greater Bay Area would be located in Shenzhen. People from Hong Kong who lived or worked in Shenzhen would be granted residential status, with new cultural activities launched in Shenzhen in coordination with Hong Kong and Macau, “enriching compatriots in Hong Kong and Macau’s sense of belonging and cohesion”. The report was released amid unprecedented tension in Hong Kong, with anti-government protests taking place for the eleventh consecutive week. The mass protests, and the violence that has accompanied them, have raised questions over whether Beijing might downgrade Hong Kong’s place in the Greater Bay Area plan. Guo Wanda, executive vice-president of the Shenzhen-based China Development Institute, said Shenzhen had been exploring reforms in various economic areas. “For example, in the Qianhai Bay Free Trade Port Zone, it has already explored [reforms in] foreign exchange management and cross-border financing, including financial cooperation between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, so it’s not odd what the report says about having an open economy,” he said. Guo noted that the report mentioned development of a “legal business environment” that would be considered first-rate internationally, which would require emphasis on building a city based on the rule of law. It's amazing that a plan that was started 20 years ago is still in progress, but with drastic consequences for the people of Hong Kong. The protests are not only against the Extradition Law. No, there is much more to fight for. Linda Kim BEIJING, August 12 -- Less than 50 kilometers south of China's capital, there's a massive construction project underway that, once finished, will officially become the world's biggest airport. With the opening currently planned for September 30, 2019, the construction of Daxing Airport in Beijing has cost just shy of $12 billion so far. On completion, the new airport will simply act as a second international airport for Beijing, to relieve existing pressure on Beijing's Capital International Airport. The Chinese government wants the airport to be a magnet for businesses and an attraction for locals as well as travelers. “The airport paves the way for, and guarantees, Beijing’s long-term economic growth,” says Yu Zhanfu, a partner at consulting firm Roland Berger GmbH. Yu says he expects it to boost the city’s role as a connection point for domestic travelers and those flying abroad. Daxing is one of many airport projects under way in Asia, collectively costing more than $100 billion, to accommodate a surge in travel fueled by the region’s rising middle class. The International Air Transport Association forecasts Asia’s travel demand to surpass that of North America and Europe combined by 2037. About two dozen airports are slated to open over the next six years in cities ranging from Beijing to Mumbai, while many existing airports are adding terminals or runways. Daxing will increase Beijing’s capacity for travelers by more than 70% and alleviate congestion at Beijing Capital International Airport, the world’s second-busiest last year with more than 100 million passengers. By year’s end, Shanghai will unveil a $3 billion, 83-gate terminal that will be separate from the airport’s main building. According to Reuters, carriers such as China Southern, China Eastern, and Beijing Capital Airlines will be relocated to the new Daxing airport, while airlines including Air China, Hainan Airlines and Grand China Air will remain at Beijing Capital International Airport. Here's what the huge construction project looks like at the moment. BARCELONA, June 9 -- Construction of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica may have started 137 years ago, but the emblematic monument got a building permit only last Friday. The Spanish seaside city council awarded the licence to a committee in charge of finishing construction of the Catholic church for €4.6 million (S$7.1 million), Ms Janet Sanz, in charge of urban planning, told reporters. In a quirk of history, the authorities discovered only in 2016 that the building which draws millions of visitors every year had never had planning permission since construction began in 1882. Ms Sanz said the council had finally managed to "resolve a historical anomaly in the city - that an emblematic monument like the Sagrada Familia... didn't have a building permit, that it was being constructed illegally." According to the committee in charge of finishing construction of the not-yet-completed basilica, designer Antoni Gaudi had asked the town hall of Sant Marti, a village now absorbed into Barcelona, for a building permit in 1885 but never got an answer. Some 137 years later, it is finally legal. The new building permit states that the basilica will finally be finished in 2026, with a maximum height of 172m and a budget of €374 million. Designed by Gaudi, a famous Catalan architect also known for the Park Guell, another tourist magnet in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia was named a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2005. Construction, financed solely by donations and entrance tickets, is due to conclude in 2026, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the death of Gaudi, who was run over by a tram. The basilica is Barcelona's most visited monument, with 4.5 million visitors in 2017, and one of the main tourist landmarks of the country. THE HAGUE, May 29 -- The Holland Garden pavilion, a mini green city, has fascinated many at the 2019 International Horticultural Exhibition in Beijing. For Chinese and Dutch actors in sustainable urban development, a shared passion for doing it green brings vigor to bilateral cooperation. With state-of-the-art developments showcased at the Beijing expo, the Netherlands has again proved itself to be a global trend setter in Green living. Over the past more than 30 years, the Dutch and the Chinese have worked together to introduce a variety of Dutch native plants and flowers and new planting technologies and management into China, said the Chinese embassy in the European country. Bernard Oosterom, president of the International Association of Horticultural Producers, said China's horticultural industry has grown rapidly, with some of its domestic enterprises at the forefront of new technologies. "I firmly believe that the Beijing expo will bring the attention of the world to what China is doing to help the environment and improve the lives of citizens," the veteran Dutch gardener added. "It is my hope that this will lead to collective action that will lead to a better environment and greener cities through the use of plants and the landscape," he said. A green city is much more than green plants, and horticulture is not the only area where the Dutch and the Chinese people are conducting cooperation to promote sustainable development. For example, in the field of urban water and land resources management, a consortium of Dutch institutes and businesses was created in September 2017 to promote joint research programs and commercial, tailored solutions with Chinese partners. Its many well-known members, including Deltares, Eijkelkamp, Priva and Tauw, boast expertise in areas ranging from sponge city design and planning, environmental big data monitoring and simulation, environmental and urban housing research to intelligent buildings technology and environmental control systems. As regards waste management and circular economy, the Netherlands likes to call itself "a small country with big ambitions." It has committed itself to becoming a zero-waste economy by 2050, wherein the economy will run completely on reusable raw materials. A Dutch group on waste management comprising research institutes and leading business players has already started working with the Chinese side to develop innovative plans on how to handle the problem. "China, with the largest population on earth, has a tremendous opportunity to turn waste into valuable resources and the Dutch partnership for waste management is eager to contribute to China's goal to create a proper waste management system as a crucial building block toward achieving that goal," said the Dutch Sino Business Promotions. Wageningen University & Research (WUR), a Dutch global knowledge leader in areas like water resource management, climate change and urban farming, also has broad experience in developing green cities. "We do several projects on landscape architecture and nature-inclusive design of areas in China in order to create more liveable urban development," Tim van Hattum, the leader of the WUR's Green Climate Solutions program, said. "WUR is strong in a bottom-up co-design approach by organizing tools and services to co-create integrated solution together with stakeholders. We have knowledge of nature-based approaches, landscape architecture, and China is strong in large-scale pilot projects (such as the sponge city program) and large-scale implementation and urban development," he said. "The WUR green city approach could be of added value for urban development in China and there is definitely potential for future collaboration on the topic of green city development," he added. Zhang Guosheng, economic counselor of the Chinese embassy in the Netherlands, agrees that with the previous fruitful projects paving the way, the Sino-Dutch cooperation in building green cities is promising. "The Dutch are strong in green growth, and we Chinese are eager for a greener life," he said. "Cooperation in this field will offer not only a bigger market for Dutch enterprises, a better life for Chinese people, but also good cases for others to study." BANGKOK, April 29 -- A village in western Japan has taken five Thai college students under its wing, training them in wooden architecture as the Southeast Asian country hopes to put such structures back on the map. Mitsue, a village located in Nara Prefecture, aims to revive its aging yet key forestry industry through a plan to export model homes using local timber to Thailand, where wooden architecture has become a dying industry. Forest occupies about 90 percent of the area but, due to a prolonged drop in the price of timber and depopulation, the village where the forestry industry once thrived began seeking alternatives to make use of its abundant natural resources, according to the crowdfunding website for the project. The idea was hatched when the village reached out to professor Shin Murakami of Sugiyama Jogakuen University in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, on advice for a town renewal project. Murakami had been conducting joint research with Bangkok's Sripatum University on environmentally friendly wooden architecture. Although timber has been a predominant building material in Thailand in years past, there has been a noted decline, mostly due to a lack of good quality teak wood and coarse timber, which is easily infested by termites brought on by the country's tropical climate. Most of the buildings in Thailand are now made of reinforced concrete, and the culture of wooden architecture has not been properly handed down through generations due to a lack of technology to support the industry, according to the project website. At Murakami's suggestion to export model homes using the local timber, the three parties signed an agreement to collaborate on the project focusing on popularizing wooden architecture in Thailand. The five Thai students, who study architecture at Sripatum University, later came to Japan. The students' three month training from March includes learning about the designs of stilted houses for Thailand, as well as gaining an understanding about construction processes through observation. Oros Loasantisuk, 26, one of the five students in the program and an aspiring architect, touted the advantages of the village's hands-on practical approach. "The designs of wooden architecture may differ from country to country but wood is environmentally friendly," the student said. "We hope they learn about the brilliance of wooden architecture, Japan's high technology, and the high quality of housing here," said Takefumi Nakako, who works in the department of community development for the village. "We'd be happy if (the experience) leads to the spread of wooden architecture in Thailand," he said. CHENGDU, April 20 -- Dukezong ancient town in Shangri-la, a resort county in Southwest China's Yunnan province. An ancient town in Shangri-la, a resort county in Southwest China's Yunnan province, caught fire on Jan 11, 2014. The blaze was under control by 2 pm, without causing injury or death. According to the local government, a total area of 40,000 square meters, with 335 households, was affected by the fire. 242 houses were destroyed. CHENGDU, April 18 -- Gongchenlou in Weishan county, Southwest China's Yunnan province. A fire broke out Jan 3, 2015, at Gongchenlou, an ancient tower built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), in Weishan county, Yunnan province. Although no casualties were reported, the conflagration destroyed most of the 600-year-old landmark, which was listed as a provincial-level cultural relic. |
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