A Kansas-sized supercity of 82,000 square miles and 130
million people, with Beijing at the center, is in the vanguard of economic
reform, Liu Gang said from Nankai University in mid-2015.[1]
Six times the size of New York City’s metropolitan area, the planned regional
economy would require nothing short of a feat of urban planning. The economic
synergy anticipated from the planned integration is the main benefit. The sheer
scale alone presents its own challenges, however, and the complexity in coordinating
the various shifts of people and services suggests that unintended excesses and
shortages will demand immediate action. Even so, I contend that the application
of technology will make or break the viability of the anticipated supercity.
The full essay is at "A Planned Chinese Supercity."
[1] Ian
Johnson, “Pain and Hope as China Molds Its Capital into New Supercity,” The New York Times, July 20, 2015.