China Headlines: Beijing to shift city admin to ease "urban ills"

Beijing will move some of its city administration out of the city center to the eastern suburbs as part of the capital's contribution to the national Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development plan, it was officially announced over the weekend.

The decision to build a new municipal subsidiary administrative center in Tongzhou, about 40 minutes drive from the city center, is one of several moves to ease "urban ills" and follow through on the regional development plan.

While the move has long been anticipated, it was officially announced at a meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Beijing Municipal Committee on Saturday.

"Remarkable progress" will be made on the center in Tongzhou by 2017, a statement from the meeting said.

GOOD START BUT NOT ENOUGH

Hu Gang, head of the South China Urban Planning Institute under the Urban Planning Society of China, said the decision is a good beginning.

"After a subsidiary administrative center is established, state-owned enterprises and public services will move out as well," he said, adding it can help set a good example for regional development in other areas.

The population explosion in Beijing during the urbanization drive has led to a host of problems, including traffic congestion and air pollution. The city is now trying to readjust its population growth, aiming to move 15 percent of its population out of the city center and keep the total population below 23 million by 2020.

However, simply moving government functions is not enough to address the city's bigger problems.

"Administrative and residential regulations are far from enough," said Liu Zhiyan, a research fellow with the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Only after concerns for public services, such as education and medical care, are addressed in these areas, will be people be willing to move out [of the city center]," he said.

Lin Xiaohui, 38, who is employed with a foreign company and moved to an apartment in Tongzhou in 2010, said that so far, such services are lacking.

"Medical services here are really poor," she said.

Lin recently went to a hospital to get vaccinated after being scratched by a cat. "Later I learned that the vaccine they gave me is not proper at all," she said.

AVOID REPETITION OF URBAN ILLS

But Lin is most worried about the traffic, which is already bad in the east of Beijing. Commuting from Tongzhou normally takes around two hours, she said.

"At its worst, the traffic stops for half an hour without moving," she said. "Will the traffic get worse in the future?"

If all goes according to plan, the latest move could help avoid such woes in the future, according to Zhao Hong, vice president of the Beijing Municipal Academy of Social Sciences.

Over the past few decades, the Beijing expansion model has focused on developing urban sprawl from the city center outward. But with the rapid growth of the city, this model is no longer effective due to overcrowding.

"The construction of the subsidiary administrative center should avoid the previous expansion model to prevent the repetition of urban problems," he said.

Another concern is housing prices.

As more people move into Tongzhou, the cost of living there is also increasing.

Statistics from the Tongzhou district government showed the number of permanent residents grew from 880,000 in 2005 to 1.3 million at the end of 2013. The annual increase rate was 6.23 percent, higher than Beijing's average of 4.69 percent.

A salesman with a real estate agent in Tongzhou told Xinhua that housing prices have been rising in Tongzhou since late April.

The price of some apartment buildings has increased by 2,000 yuan or more per square meter, forcing groups of people to purchase apartments before the prices rise too high, he said.

The construction of a new city administration center in Tongzhou is expected to further increase the price of real estate.

"This is very good news for us," said the salesman.

VANGUARD OF INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT

The move is also designed to benefit Tongzhou's neighboring areas in Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality.

Currently, more than 200,000 people live in Yanjiao, Hebei, but work in Beijing.

Tongzhou's development could be a pioneering step in the national plan for coordinated development between Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, helping create long-term urban planning solutions, Zhao said.

If development in Tongzhou goes well, it can absorb a portion of the commuting population from Hebei and help reduce pressure on Beijing's city center.

A guideline for coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region was approved by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in late April.

The primary goal for the project, which has not been made public yet, stresses adjustment of the economic structure to create new growth sectors and control Beijing's population.

Traffic infrastructure, environmental protection and industrial upgrading are the top priorities as Beijing looks to move some industries to Hebei.

On Friday, an intercity rail line linking Beijing with Jixian county in Tianjin started operation, following the start of passenger trains between the capital and Yanjiao in Hebei in January.

More intercity rails between Beijing and areas nearby are under construction.

In the past two years, air quality in the region has seen improvement with the joint treatment efforts of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as well as nearby provinces. Endi