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VI. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING: A NECESSITY FOR AN EMERGING INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CENTRE IN THE 21st CENTURY
[ VI-A | VI-B | VI-C | VI-D ]
C. Implementing sustainable development; prompting healthy urbanization
When economic development merely seeks to meet the people's basic living needs, the demands in consumption are reflected in the satisfaction with the quantity. However, when such development advances to the point where it seeks to create a better living standard, such demands will change to a pursuit of quality - this is the underlying principle of urbanization. A wealthy life with polluted air and contaminated drinking water is by no means an acceptable measure of modernization. Graceful and harmonious urban eco-environment will certainly prompt urban sustainable development Urbanization must be undertaken along with environmental protection.
The deepening of urbanization accumulates wealth which, in turn, lays the foundations for the coordination of urban economic growth and environmental protection. In China the top ten cities are on the list of comprehensive harnessing of urban environment. They include: Beijing, Tianjin and Dalian from the Bohai Bay Economic Zone, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou from the Yangtze Delta Economic Zone, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen from the Pearl Delta Economic Zone. The coordination of environment and economy has therefore proved to be possible within the process of urbanization itself, leading to sustainability of urban development.
Especially in Shanghai, the average annual GDP increase has been exceeding 13% since the beginning of 1990's. Sadly, however, the volume of waste discharge is controlled at the level of the early 1980's.
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