Partnership Zurich and Kunming – A Swiss-Chinese Joint Venture for Sustainable Development

 

For some 20 years, Kunming, the provincial capital city of the province Yunnan in Southwestern China with 3.2 million inhabitants - has been the twin city of the European metropolis Zurich. As a direct result of this partnership, Kunming now has the first inner-city bus line in China, the first large-scale conservation of a historical part of the town, and new concepts for urban development at a regional level.
This pioneering collaboration between western and Chinese planning teams, and the experience acquired in managing urban development projects, are not only significant for Kunming, but of importance for all countries interested in sharing the expertise and knowledge of professionals, whether from East or West, North or South.

 

Please join Professor Willy Schmid and Dr. Jacques Feiner of ETH Zurich at SHARE for a fascinating presentation of the politico-technical cooperation between Zurich and Kunming.

 

They will also talk about a pilot project how rural regions in China could be developed based on their own potentials: the Shaxi Rehabilitation Project. In September 2005, this project won the “UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation” Award of Distinction.

 

Agenda:

The event is free of charge, but you must RSVP to secure a seat.

 

Registration

 

Welcome by Remo Steinmetz, SHARE Boston

 

Partnership Zurich and Kunming – A Swiss-Chinese Joint Venture for Sustainable Development by Prof. Dr. Willy A. Schmid and Dr. Jacques Feiner, ETH Zurich

 

Q&A, followed by a Networking Reception

 

Why started the politico-technical cooperation Zurich-Kunming?

The cause to the start of the politico-technical cooperation was given unintended in 1987 by the director of the water department of Zurich during a visit of a delegation of the city of Zurich in Kunming in the framework of the traditional city-partnership. During a banquet, he refused to drink the served tea, made with boiled Kunming tap water. This refusal was followed by an invitation of a technical delegation of the water department from Kunming to Zurich to demonstrate how drinking and wastewater treatment systems were conceived in Zurich, and to allow a know-how transfer in this field. In the following years, the very positive results of this initial cooperation led, according to the needs of the rapidly expanding city region of Kunming, and the Yunnan Province in general, to an extension of partners and cooperation contents.

 

Rapid Growth in China – but not without Problems
Since 1978, China experiences a sheer incredible pace of economic growth. This is demonstrated most impressively in an accelerated industrialization and tertiarization, an unprecedented growth of the urban centers, an exponential increase of the motorization rate and a profound social change, which is illustrated best by the extremely high rural-urban migration. In fact, it is expected that until 2030 the population of China will rise to 1.7 – 2.3 billion, that up to 900 million people of rural origin will to migrate into cities and that up to 500 million cars will populate China’s roads. These tendencies are further pushed by and an excessive road construction throughout the country, and a neglect of more sustainable transportation means.
Negative impacts of these development dynamics are high environmental pollution, an uncontrolled and uncoordinated spreading urbanization, increasing congestion, high energy consumption, and a marginalization of smaller cities and rural areas in general.
Thus, the way current development takes place is unsustainable and is further going to be anchored forever by its respective (low-density spread out) settlement pattern. Once an unsustainable settlement pattern has established, it is very difficult to restructure it, as it is best demonstrated by the examples of Beijing, Shanghai, or Los Angeles. In economically emerging regions, however, development can still be guided

The province Yunnan in Southwestern China is such an emerging region. In comparison with the costal regions, it lagged behind in its development until the 1990’s. Since then, development dynamics have increased there as well. Therefore, when the technical cooperation was started in 1987, the province Yunnan with its capital Kunming still possessed the necessary preconditions to steer development on a more sustainable path, especially in view of city-structure and traffic-related energy consumption.

 

Organizational set-up to address identified problems
To address the need of a structured development, emerging from the traditional,city-partnership between Zurich and Kunming, an unconventional cooperation on a combined, technical and political level, was established step by step between (1) the City of Zurich and the City of Kunming, (2) the Canton of Zurich and the Province of Yunnan, and (3) the governments of Switzerland (represented by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) and the People’s Republic of China, (represented by the Ministry of Construction in Beijing), and (4) as scientific partner, the Chair of Landscape and Environmental Planning of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).