When I asked one of my Chinese hosts to give me a tour of his city's best new housing project, I never imagined it would inspire a Berkeley team to propose revolutionizing how the Chinese develop their new communities.

We set out from the Urban Planning and Design Institute's offices in a black diplomatic car, whose siren I quickly learned allowed us to exercise authoritative traffic privileges. Our route out of metropolitan Tianjin, China's third largest city, took us along a major arterial corridor to the northwest, which was clogged with traffic of a chaotic type unmatched in the U.S. Intersections, even though signalized, presented a terrifying game of "chicken." Cars, trucks, and buses wove through an equal number of bicyclists (often with multiple passengers or goods) and pedestrians. The dust and pollution were so intense that most bicyclists wore facemasks. With siren blaring, we sped along the shoulder past what appeared to be an unending series of developments, including a new college campus, high-tech office parks, and multiple high-density housing developments. As far as the eye could see, the entire landscape seemed under construction.

The scale of infrastructure construction to support this kind of hyperdevelopment in China is hard to imagine. It is estimated that China builds more than fifty 300-megawatt coal-fired power plants per year. California has only built 36 in the last five years. China is undertaking the largest road construction program in the world, equivalent to the U.S. Interstate highway system begun in the 50s. The capital and material costs of this effort are increased by the fact that in most areas of infrastructure China is playing catch-up. For example, an estimated 60 percent of existing sewage is dumped into rivers, untreated. Not only is the cost of building sewer mains and centralized treatment plants for new development staggering, but also, without cleaning up the existing sewers, the polluted rivers magnify the challenge of delivering sanitary drinking water. Some urban planning scholars question whether the current rate of development is economically sustainable, but if it is, it is estimated that China will double the size of its built environment in the next 20 to 30 years-the equivalent of building two new Great Britains.

When the pollution and CO2 emissions from the congested arteries are combined with that from the power plants required to meet the energy demands of new development, the impact on both China's public health and on global climate change presents major challenges for the years ahead. Four-fifths of China's largest cities have unacceptable air quality, resulting in more than 600,000 premature deaths from asthma, emphysema, and lung cancer. Currently it is estimated that China is responsible for 25 percent of the world's CO2 emissions (the U.S. is at 30 percent). At its current rate of development, China is projected to surpass the U.S. in the next few years.

Mounting scientific evidence has shown conclusively that the current cycle of global warming is not natural but attributable directly to man-made CO2 emissions; and while the projections vary in magnitude (from 2-10¾ C), the projected impact of global warming on the earth's natural systems is catastrophic. On balance, the question becomes: Can the world dramatically cut back its CO2 emissions to avoid these catastrophic scenarios? The responsibility falls on the U.S. and China to show the way.

Fortunately, China has recognized this challenge and it has been seeking the best urban planning and design advice and concepts from around the world. Our Berkeley team was invited by the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute to assist the city of ten million residents in developing principles and prototypes for compact, transit-oriented, commuter gateway neighborhoods promoting efficient land use, and relying more on public transportation and bicycles and less on cars. With half the population living outside Tianjin proper, the city recognized that it was necessary to build a public transit system of subways, light-rail, and connecting buses in order to avoid the traffic congestion afflicting Beijing and Shanghai. Having completed two of seven planned light-rail lines, the city sought advice on how to guide development around the station stops. The College of Environmental Design responded by forming an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students from each of its three departments-Architecture, City and Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning-to come up with design proposals that address critical real-world problems. The Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute funded the semester-long project, which included a week-long visit to the Chinese city followed by analysis and preliminary designs. In Berkeley, three Chinese scholars joined the 15-member team to help inculcate the project with the nation's cultural and practical realities. But what unfolded during the semester was largely due to the impact of what we found during our Chinese tour.

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