Problem overview:

     Awareness and vision: The recent experience of Dalian City could be regarded as a good case to support such an argument. It shows that industrial restructuring and related improvement of urban spatial structure on the basis of updated identification of the major functions of a city could contribute greatly to the realization of the long-term target of urban sustainable development.

     Policies and measures: The basic philosophy of urban development being inclined by Dalian is "to be the best rather than the biggest". Therefore, the basic concern has been given to functional and environmental improvement of the city, and city management based on market mechanism.

Background:

     Dalian City is located in the south of Liaodong Peninsular, covering a land area of 12.5 thousand square kilometers and inhabited with 5.43 million people. Dalian is an important industrial and trade city as well as a port city in China, and it has also become increasingly famous as a tourism city. Dalian is recognized as one of the few leading cities in Northeast China in terms of openness, vitality, overall economic strength as well as economic growth rate. The GDP per capita of Dalian reached 20,000 Yuan in 2000.

     The principle of integrated ecological development has been adopted in Dalian to target at sustainable urban development. Under the principle of urban development centered on the notion of "to be the best rather than the biggest", Dalian has made remarkable progress on its way towards sustainable development. In addition to the receiving of a number of national awards concerning environmental protection, urban sanitation provision, garden development and so on, Dalian was credited as the model city of human settlement and environmental protection by United Nations.

     Dalian City has provided us with some good experiences in the implementation of sustainable development strategy and the integrated policy-making to promote economic development and environmental protection, especially in the aspect of urban ecological development.

      (1) To re-identify the major functions of the city up to the needs of sustainable development strategy

     Port, chemical industry and machinery industry had long been taken as major urban functions of Dalian. Correspondingly, Dalian was among China's large cities affected by serious pollution problems. With the increasing influence of the notion of sustainable development on macro policy-making in China, reconsideration on the city status and major function of Dalian was conducted in the middle of 1990s. The resulted new identification and objective is to develop Dalian into the regional transportation, finance, trade, tourism and information center in northern China and east Asia. Accordingly, new orientations to optimize industrial structure and urban spatial structure have also been clearly set. The key points of industrial restructuring are giving priorities to developing the tertiary industry, upgrading the second industry and restructuring the primary industry. The basic concern of industrial re-location is to use inner city mainly as the emphasized location for hi-tech industries, trade, finance, information and other services, while to take suburban areas and surrounding counties under jurisdiction as the major places to relocate industrial enterprises.

      (2) To carry out the removal and transfer of enterprises traditionally located in the inner city on the basis of allowing market rules of land rent

     A significant endeavor of Dalian to form urban ecological environment is to carry out the removal and transfer of the industrial enterprises traditionally located in the inner city. These enterprises are generally featured with lagging technology, poor economic efficiency and heavily polluting discharge, however, occupying plots of valuable land of inner city. As the market rules of land rent has been fully applied together with subsidiary preferential policies, the removal of these enterprises and related spatial restructuring has been carried out smoothly and resulted in the multiple advantages for urban development. Firstly, it is quite possible for industrial enterprises concerned to attain a certain amount of capital by selling out or transfer land use right, which may enable them to establish new enterprises with higher technological level and vitality on the location of lower land price. Secondly, the space for the development of new sectors is available in the inner city. Finally, the urban environment has been improved a lot after the transfer.

      (3) To manage urban environment as a business with the wide recognition of the new conception of environmental efficiency

     The recent experiences of Dalian in the aspect of managing urban environment as business has proved that environment itself could produce profit. A favorite input-output cycle has been realized mainly through the enhanced management of land use. That is,

1. Enlarged input into urban infrastructure and environmental development;
   
   
2. Energetic economic growth motivated by increased capital inflow, which is encouraged by the improved infrastructure and environment and the increased return rate of land market.
   
   
3. More capital available for urban infrastructure and environmental development, and even for other aspects of urban development.
   
   

     A concrete example could be given here to illustrate the dynamics mentioned above. Dalian Xinghai Exhibition Center, which is currently a famous place of the city, was previously a garbage field by the sea. Four years ago, the city government determined to open the land development of this field to investors. However, no investors came despite of the land price provided being as low as 2000 yuan per square meter. Later on, city government initiated the Xinghai Gulf area transform project, which referred to the clearing out of garbage, the construction of open public square and the plantation of green field. The project has resulted in the increased land price of the field as high as 10,000 yuan per square meter. After Xinghai Exhibition Center opened on July 1st in 1996, the land price moved up to 15,000 yuan per square meter. In sharp contrast to its poor environment in the past, Xinghai Gulf area has become an important trade and tourism center of Dalian today, with Xinghai Exhibition Center located inside it works as the heart and window of the fast-growing exhibition service industry of the city.

Assessment

     With the wide recognition of the important notion of sustainable development in China, sustainable urban development has become a common objective of development for all cities in the country to follow. A number of cities attach importance to city planning and management in the practice to pursue sustainable development. On the other hand, most cities are facing with the dilemma of economic growth and better living environment. The experience of Dalian City of integrating economic growth and environmental improvement is certainly of significant implications to China's practice of urban development as a whole.

     The re-identification of urban functions of cities is generally practical in China. City planning and the revision of city planning has been conducted in China nationwide after the issuing of the National City planning act. Furthermore, under the present administrative mechanism, government intervention is one of the major forces of urban development in China. Industrial restructuring towards higher efficiency and better environment has been among the major concerns of governments of different levels.

     With the deepening of economic reform and gradual development of urban land market in China, the evolution of urban spatial pattern is increasingly driven by market forces. It is urgent for policy-makers of all cities, especially large cities in China to find the scientific basis to rationalize the transform of urban land use pattern and the urban land zoning integrating environmental factor. Undoubtedly, the experience of Dalian City is useful here as well. The implications of the discussed experiences of Dalian City are:

1. The central location of inner city is most suitable for locating political, economic and cultural center of a city;
   
   
2. Minimizing pollution discharge and transport volume should be considered as well as the increase of land productivity when the relocation of industrial enterprises is concerned;
   
   
3. In order to strengthen the ability of sustainable development of a city and form ecological urban system, it is important to improve cultural and innovative environment of a city in addition to physical environmental building;
   
   
4. The optimization of the spatial pattern of a city is subject to the changing functional structure of the city, and multiple-centered city pattern is generally more popular than single-centered pattern in terms of ecological urban development.
   
   

     In fact, the approach of integrated policy-making concerning economic development and environmental protection applied innovatively by the government of Dalian City consists of a complicated process of policy-making and implementation. It is a complicated package of various plans and schemes of city management. The complicated process could be summarized as follows.

1. To list the objective of environmental protection into both the annual plan of social and economic development of the city and the daily agenda of urban management, and issue annual plan of environmental protection correspondingly;
   
   
2. To set up the mayor responsibility system of environmental protection;
   
   
3. To establish the necessary institutions responsible for the monitoring, managing and coordination of environmental issues, and to set up a coordinator group led by mayor and covering responsible persons of all related departments, which conducts the research, plan and coordination of environmental development;
   
   
4. To enhance the environmental management of development projects mainly through the enforcement of two measures. Firstly, beforehand environmental effect assessment is regulated as one of the necessary conditions for the approval of any development project; Secondly, the simultaneous design, construction and operation of environmental facilities and the major contents of development projects is forced to be done
   
   
5. To issue and enforce a series of act and regulations concerning the enhancement of environmental protection;
   
   
6. The People's Congress assesses and monitors the policy-making concerning environment and development and the effect of implementation
   
   
7. To form a system of public participation in policy-making concerning environment and development. Government departments are well informed with the voice of city citizens and units on environmental management, and keep open to the observation of the media.
   
   

     The recent successful development of Dalian City is based on the emphasis on the upgrading of urban function and environmental improvement, and market-oriented city management. The urban construction and environmental administration has changed the city image fundamentally, and more comprehensive functions of the city have taken shape. As a whole, the comprehensive competitiveness of Dalian City has been enhanced, and Dalian City itself has become a well-established estate both domestically and internationally.

     A number of standard parks, roads, public squares and residential neighborhoods has been newly built or rebuilt, resulted in the big increase of green land per capita and green coverage rate of the city. The established city fame of Dalian City has added value to the state owned property located in the city, and contributed to the higher market competitive ability of the industries and products of Dalian City.

     The enforcement of the removal and transform of enterprises on large scale has induced the strategic adjustment of the spatial pattern of social and economic development of the city, leading to a more complicated and reasonable land use pattern suitable for the more diversified urban economic structure. The tertiary industry has been developed in a favorable environment and has become a major contributor of economic growth of the city in addition to the secondary industry.

Conclusion

     The case of Dalian City implies an interesting and important approach to realize sustainable urban development through combining appropriately the reform and development of cities. There are two key points to be stressed as the premises to rationalize the approach. Firstly, to re-identify the major functions of the city according to the requirement of sustainable development before any critical industrial restructuring and the adjustment of urban spatial pattern to be done. Secondly, to establish the policy-making mechanism allowing the integrated concerns on urban economic development and environmental protection before any practical efforts to implement the strategy of sustainable urban development to be made. This approach goes in parallel with some other recognized approaches of ecological urban development such as the transform of traditional industries with high and new technology, the wide application of clean production of urban industries, the enhancement of ecological agriculture and establishment of organic agricultural bases in suburban areas, etc.

See also Dalian, an ecological environment model city in China