China Commits $36 Billion To Further Build The 110 Million Person Jing-Jin-Ji Megaregion
A new $36 billion rail plan was recently approved by China’s National Development and Reform Commission which will further integrate the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and parts of Hebei province into a sprawling megaregion dubbed Jing-Jin-Ji. This colossal infrastructure building endeavor will include of a total of nine projects that will consist of 1,100 kilometers of new track being laid by 2020.
A megaregion is a development strategy which aims to strategically cluster cities that are in proximity to each other together by interlinking them infrastructurally, economically, and, to a certain extent, politically. The idea behind this is that further integration will allow entire regions of cities to function as singular urban organisms that can be better administered, planned, and economically developed.
The scale of China’s megaregion ambition is nothing if not massive. The Jing-Jin-Ji megaregion alone will contain over 110 million people and cover 212,000 square kilometers, which is roughly 87% of the total area of the UK.
In addition to Jing-Jin-Ji, China is currently building around nine other such megacity clusters across the country, which include one consisting of 16 cities and 80 million people in Yangtze River Delta and another which draws together 11 cities another 80 million people in the Pearl River Delta.
However, the view from the ground in these megaregions is perhaps a little different than it seems. Just because China is drawing cities together into almost unbelievably huge conurbations doesn’t mean that the entire area within their boundaries will appear city-like. We’re not going to walk into Jing-Jin-Ji in 2030 and find ourselves in the middle of an urban dystopia where skyscrapers stretch unabated for hundreds of kilometers. There will still be significant amounts of green space and rural areas within these city clusters.