麦肯锡中国城市可持续发展报告(13)

7

The Urban China Initiative

Changes in urban sustainability from 2008 to 2011

On the whole, most Chinese cities have seen a gradual improvement in

sustainability in recent years (Figure 3). Average growth rate of sustainability from 2008 to 2011 is around 3%. Some cities experience high growth of 7-9%, while about 10 cities experience negative growth. Social and environmental changes primarily lead this type of change. Compared with 2011, social and environmental indicators in sub-category indicators were quite different from 2008 (Figure 4). Small cities (GDP below USD 5 billion at 2008) show larger changes in social indicators than medium (GDP between USD 5 billion and 20 billion at 2008) and large cities (GDP larger than 20 billion at 2008). However, in economic and environmental indicators medium/large cities have bigger improvements than small cities. Medium cities exhibit the largest changes in built environmental-related indicators.

As shown by Figure 4, Chinese cities experienced the most significant changes in urban healthcare and pension insurance coverage, waste water management and industrial air pollution, internet access coverage and mass-transit utilization.

Top overall performers in 2011 were Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Dalian, Fuzhou, Beijing, Changsha and Yantai (Figure 5). Except for Changsha, all top 10 cities are in eastern China. Except for Changsha and Beijing, 8 out of 10 are located in coastal clusters, such as the Pearl River Delta, Yangzi River Delta, Gulf West, Shandong Byland, etc. Three cities are in the Pearl River Delta cluster in Guangdong Province, namely Zhuhai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. This suggests coastal clusters are enjoying the fruits of earlier economic openness, and with their superior geographic access, are currently the most successful and sustainable areas in China.

These top 10 cities constitute around 1% of China’s urban population and 16% of its urban GDP. Except for the mega-cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Beijing, most of the top 10 performers are medium-sized cities with urban population of 1.5-6.5 million; with 6 out of 10 cities home to a 2-4 million population. All of them have a population density of 7,000-