Week 4 Reading reflection (2)

•         Economic dimension

Economic growth was closely accompanied by social development in the process of rapid urbanization especially in developing countries. Economic dimension may have effect on finance, incentives and industrial sectors. Several cases were used to analysis how to balance economic activities and ecological preservation.

•         Governance dimension

Governance was one of the dimension, authors chose 7 indicators to evaluate the performance of sample cities. But actually indicators of governance dimension were not included as a specific section in their plans (Shen et al., 2011). They suggested that good governance is necessary to create equality of access to resources along with social participation and judicial means of redress are all part of the institutional framework necessary to support sustainable development (Bentivegna et al., 2015). Because the special background in China, authors mentioned that the development of sustainable urban development were accomplished with different policies started from Opening-up policy in 1978. Several concepts of sustainable development such as Green City, Eco-city or Low-carbon Eco-city occurred in China; government policy played a role as guidance to lead these concepts. And many city concepts have been adapted and used by central and local governments in different periods in China (Liu et al., 2014).

Sustainable city means economic growth and social justice. It is an eco-friendly city in which allows citizens to obtain the high quality of life. Also sustainable city is the target of city development which emphasis more about development direction instead of final state. In the whole process, natural resources should be used effectively and efficiently. At the same time, exploring new technologies to improve socio-economic levels as well satisfy the peoples’ needs and take responsibility for the future generation.

Week 4 Reference List:

•         Bentivegna, V., Curwell, S., Deakin, M.,et al. (2015). A vision and methodology for integrated sustainable urban development : BEQUEST A vision and methodology for integrated sustainable urban development, 3218(December).

•         Liu, H., Zhou, G., Wennersten, R., & Frostell, B. (2014). Analysis of sustainable urban development approaches in China. Habitat International, 41, 24–32.

•         Shen, L., Ochoa, J. J., Shah, M. N., & Zhang, X. (2011). The application of urban sustainability indicators e A comparison between various practices. Habitat International, 35(1), 17–29.