Dontang Eco-City near Shanghai "will be the first eco city that integrates all aspects of liveability with all aspects of sustainability," Herbert Girardet, an environmental consultant, told a conference meeting on urban planning.

Girardet, an advisor to Dontang, said the city of 500,000 people being built on an island near Shanghai would be an extraordinary example to the world. "Dontang Eco-City is meant to show that we can do things differently," he said adding that it has inspired planners in Britain and other European nations.

Girardet acknowledged that there was no guarantee that the Dontang experiment could go wrong.

But he said only 40 per cent of Dontang will be used for building, housing will be in six-storey buildings along canals, and 60 per cent of the land will be dedicated to green spaces and farmland for local food.

Most energy will be renewable, from wind, sun and biomass fuels, and the city is planned around pedestrian villages, bicycles and fuel-cell public transit, he said.

Several speakers told the gathering that planning will become of growing importance if the world is to manage the fast pace of urban growth, which experts say will result in 60 per cent of the world's population living in cities by 2020.

An official from Seville, Spain, cited an effective city plan as key to the city's progress over 15 years from a 15 per cent unemployment rate to current joblessness of less than five per cent.

Cliff Hague, president of the Commonwealth Association of Planners in Britain, said however that professional planning was showing signs of failure in the 21st century.

"Planning has been overtaken by rapid urbanization. (Planners have) failed the poor and they've missed the big picture because of an emphasis on order," Hague said.

Several speakers agreed that planning will be key to bringing together residents, businesses, governments and others to develop healthy cities for all.

"There has to be a democratic way of resolving conflicts, and I call that planning," said Hague. "There can be no sustainable urbanization without effective planning."

In recent years planners around the world have created a global organization to tackle problems and set standards, said David Siegel, president of the American Planning Association.

More than 15,000 people are attending the week-long UN conference in this western Canadian city.

Related Links
the missing link