Beijing to abandon 'concentric circles'
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-01-17 09:16

The State Council has approved a new city plan for Beijing that will limit the city's population to 18 million by 2020 and change its "concentric circles" layout.

The plan is a fundamental document to guide the city's development over the next 15 years. It introduced the concept of "building a society suitable for living" for the first time.

The city plan for 2004 to 2020, passed by the State Council recently, will replace the 1993 plan adopted by the government.

The plan indicates that the municipality will limit its population to about 18 million by 2020, compared with its population of 14.56 million in 2003. The city had predicted 14 million residents by 2040 in the 1993 city plan.

The municipality will change the "concentric circles" layout to a "multi-center" one, which means that several more city centers with different functions will be built to form an urban structure that also includes new satellite cities and townships.

The city also plans to build 11 satellite towns, three of them _ Tongzhou, Shunyi and Yizhuang in eastern Beijing _ to accommodate much of the population and industries.

The city has long been plagued by traffic jams because of its layout of "concentric circles." The downtown area, covering only 12 percent of the city, now takes on nearly one quarter of the total traffic flow because more than 400 government departments and institutions are there.

According to the plan, the city will continue to develop along the traditional south-north axis and the east-west axis, along Chang'an Avenue, to safeguard the functions of Beijing as the national capital and cultural center.

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