Countermeasures for Solving the Environmental Problems and Accelerating the Model City Construction of Xi'an

Through careful study, it found that the key and difficult points of affecting and restricting Xi＇an to reach the model city construction standards in provincial and national levels were ＂urban air environment quality standards＂ and ＂water qualification rate of urban water environment function area＂. In order to tackle with the weak links, highlight the important points and focus on the difficult points to strengthen scientific and technological innovation, we actively explored new ideas and ways to resolve the dilemma in meeting the two standards of model city construction, and we managed to put forward the countermeasures to resolve the dilemma through innovating system and mechanism. ＂Place master system＂ should be carded out quickly to meet the ＂urban air environment quality standards＂, while ＂river master system＂ should be implemented as soon as possible to reach the ＂water qualification rate of urban water environment function area＂. The aim of this study was to enhance the qualification rates of the indicators for model city construction to make Xi＇an successfully pass the provincial and national assessment of model city construction through dealing with the weak links to accelerate the realization of becoming model environmental protection city.

China＇s Sponge City construction： A discussion on technical approaches

Since 2014, China has been implementing the Sponge City Construction initiative, which represents an enormous and unprecedented effort by any government in the world for achieving urban sustainability. According to preliminary estimates, the total investment on the Sponge City Plan is roughly 100 to 150 million Yuan （RMB） （$15 to $22.5 million） average per square kilometer or 10 Trillion Yuan （RMB） （$1.5 Trillion） for the 657 cities nationwide. The Sponge City Plan （SCP） calls for the use of natural processes such as soil and vegetation as part of the urban runoff control strategy, which is similar to that of low impact development （LID） and green infrastructure （G1） practices being promoted in many parts of the world. The SCP includes as its goals not only effective urban flood control, but also rainwater harvest, water quality improvement and ecological restoration. So far, the SCP implementation has encountered-some barriers and challenges due to many factors. The present paper presents a review of those barriers and challenges, oftizrs discussions and recommendations on several technical aspects such as control goals and objectives; planning/design and construction of LID/GI practices; performance evaluation. Several key recommendations are proposed on Sponge City implementation strategy, Site-specific regulatory fi＇amework and technical gmdance, Product innovation and certification, LID/GI Project financing, LID/G1 profcssional training and certification, public outreach and education. It is expected that the successful implemen!atiun of the. SCP not only will bring about a sustainable, eco-friendly urbanization process in China, but also contribute enormously to the LID/Gl research and development with the vast amount of relevant data and experiences generated from the Sponge City construction projects.

The Issue of Street Construction in the Transformation of Old City Areas in Medium-and-Small-Sized Cities

Excerpts: The rapid economic development of cities provides the material basis for the transformation of the oldcities. The reconstruction of streets is the first issue being looked at. In the past few years,experiences have beengained and problems encountered. For instance, only some sections of the streets are reconstructed, the scale and de-velopment program of reconstruction are decided without any comprehensive, conceptual planning program, Thispaper attempts to analyse the reasons and defects of the past practice and some suggestions are made on improve-ment measures. It is pointed out in particular, that the transformation of streets should be based in the need, devel-opment potential, characteristics and specific role of the cities in order to enable the streets to be reconstructed incoordination with the transformation of the cities as a whole.

MLR: Scheme of Establishing Pilots for Rental Housing Construction on Collective-Owned Construction Land Use in 11 Cities Approved

On Jan.25,2018,the Ministry of Land and Resources(MLR)declared that the Scheme of Establishing Pilots for Rental Housing Construction on Collective-Owned Construction Land Use in 11Cities including Shenyang,Nanjing,Hangzhou,etc.,has been approved.MLR emphasized that the pilot areas should follow the principle of house for living,not for speculation.And according

A Review of Housing Construction in China's Cities

In this article,the author briefly reviews the urban housing construction in the 40 yearssince the founding of New China,especially over the recent ten years.He puts emphasis on theanalysis of the benefits and defects brought about by the financing and banking system for urbanhousing construction before and during the reform of housing system.

中国绿地与广场用地建设水平时空分异特征研究

Green and plaza land(GPL)is one of the basic elements of urban construction,and is also the most basic public space to meet the needs of citizens for a better life.The exploration on its internal development laws can provide theoretical foundations for the planning of GPL and creating good human settlements.Taking 612 cities in China as the study area and from the"people-land"perspective,this paper selects the total GPL area,the per capita GPL area,and the land use proportion of per capita GPL as indicators to analyze the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics and evolution rules of the construction level of GPL in China from 1996 to 2016,by using mathematical statistics and spatial analysis methods.The result shows:(1)from a national perspective,the construction level of GPL in China has been rapidly improved along with the temporal evolution,but there is still a big gap from the upper limit of the standard.In terms of the spatial distribution,regional differences have always been great,and the cities scoring below the standard are concentrated in the eastern and central regions,while high-scoring cities are more concentrated in the western region;the distribution of the land use proportion of per capita GPL is in a pattern that the eastern region has the highest proportion,followed by the western region,central region,and northeastern region successively.(2)From the perspective of scale,differences between cities of different sizes exist over a long period of time,and there is an obvious imbalance in the per capita GPL area as well as the land use proportion of per capita GPL between different cities.The construction level shows that small cities have the highest level,followed by medium-sized cities and then large cities.