Earth & Sky

China plans to build world's first eco-city

Nanmen, currently the biggest city on Chongming, an island off the coast of Shanghai. China is building the world's first eco-city on Chongming.
Joshua Wickerham

Plans are progressing for what the Chinese say will be the world’s first eco-city, at Dongtan, on an island off the coast of Shanghai.

Dongtan is currently a large area of mostly agricultural land. But this area is expected eventually to house half a million people in a planned city slightly smaller than Manhattan, at a projected cost of $1.3 billion. Herbert Girardet is the director of programs of the World Future Council and serves as a sustainability consultant on the Chinese eco-city project.

Herbert Girardet: I think Dongtan will really set the scene for sustainable development of cities for the coming decades.

Girardet told Earth & Sky that it’s difficult and expensive to shift the existing infrastructure of cities to a more ecologically friendly model. He said Dongtan is being planned from the beginning to minimize impact on nature. It’s expected to produce much of its own food from the surrounding countryside. Energy will come from solar and wind power. Waste will be composted and recycled for power and fertilizers. Plus, the city is being planned as a series of pedestrian villages, and only electric cars will be allowed on the island.

The Dongtan eco-city project was launched in 2005, and, after some delays, it’s expected to break ground in November 2007.

Written by Lindsay Patterson