麦肯锡中国城市可持续发展报告(17)

11

The Urban China Initiative

For example, international cities have 4.5 doctors per thousand people, whereas our

leading Chinese cities have 2.6 doctors per thousand people. The 11 global cities in our

study also perform better in income per capita and in the strength of their service sectors than Chinese cities. Cities in which the service sector comprises 80% of GDP enjoy stronger economic growth and employment, as well as cleaner environments.

The gap in environmental indicators is very large. Leading global cities have much better air quality, as well as waste management. The concentration of air pollutants such as

NO2, SO2 and PM10, in international cities we studied is far lower than in Chinese cities. Emissions of industrial SO2 are just 1/20th the level measured in Mainland Chinese cities. We carried out a limited comparison of resource indicators, due to differences in statistical standards between global and Chinese cities.

12

The principles impacting city sustainability

To understand the basic principles that influence sustainability in Chinas cities sustainability, we conducted a correlation analysis between the level of sustainability and various factors. Economic development is the key

To identify the common principles underlying long-term sustainability drivers, we conducted a correlation analysis for all cities in the same year. As cities are at different development stages, their current performance can be used to represent the long term evolution of

Chinese cities. Our results show that the long-term sustainability of Chinese cities is closely correlated to the economy, population size and density. Cities in China that demonstrate an outstanding performance in sustainability share the same characteristics of cities in well-developed economies. These include population size and density, as well as foreign direct investment (FDI), all of which appear to be correlated to sustainability.In general, there is a positive correlation between a city’s sustainability and its GDP per capita (Figure 11). Most economically advanced cities, such as Shenzhen,

Guangzhou and Zhuhai, have higher levels of sustainability than poorer ones. The economic impact on sustainability is, however, diminished once GDP per capita reaches a certain level. Some economically advanced cities are ranked lower in terms of sustainability than other

cities with less advanced economies. For example, Xuzhou’s GDP per capita is higher than that of Xiamen, but Xuzhou has a lower sustainability ranking than Xiamen. There is also a gradual weakening of the correlation between sustainability and the level of economic development of a city over different periods of time. This suggests that it would be difficult to improve a city’s sustainability by improving its GDP per capita alone, particularly once the city has reached a certain level of economic development. Economically advanced cities in China should focus more attention on social development, environmental protection and resource efficiency.

13

The Urban China Initiative

We identified similar relationships among the sub-categories of sustainability. There is a high correlation between the economy and the other three categories: society, environment and resources. This suggests that if a city’s economy is strong, then it will usually perform well in at least two of the other three areas: society, resources and/or environment. The conclusion here is that cities can and should develop their economies, as well as their society, resources and environment, at the same time (Figure 12).

Critical decision-making points to enable a transformation

We found that there is a positive correlation between the level of sustainability and

population size as well. This relationship is evident only when a population is smaller than

4.5 million (correlation 0.65). For cities with a population of more than 4.5 million, the correlation drops to 0.21. The turning point is shown clearly in Figure 13. This means that the expansion of a population will help improve a city’s sustainability, but only up to the 4.5 million mark. Beyond 4.5 million, population expansion will no longer drive improvement in a city’s level of sustainability. The urban populations we used in this report are based on the 2010 Census. From this perspective, we believe that Chinese cities, based on our sample analysis, should recognize the need to transform their growth models

when their populations reach the critical turning point of 4.5 million.