Lessons from Beijing, Xian, Luoyang and Glastonbury

Clark M.

GBER Vol. 6 No. 3 pp 4 - 14

Lessons from Beijing, Xian, Luoyang and Glastonbury Michael Clark University of Central Lancashire, Preston*

In a globalising and rapidly modernising World, comparisons are fraught with difficulty.1 But differences provide lessons. Two recent, contrasting, visits suggest that we can learn from and may come to copy what might now be seen as unusually rigorous environmental controls, as applied in the cities of Northern China and at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts. There are also intriguing contrasts between the festival’s nostalgia for traditional lifestyles and ways of adapting the vernacular to current needs, and the Peoples’ Republic’s use of modern technology and a dynamic economy to meet what, from a North European perspective, are quite exceptional rates of change. Visits to the Planning Exhibition Hall and the Military Museum in Beijing, and to numerous historic sites with educational as well as tourist functions, raise questions about identity and participation that are relevant to environmental management and the planning process. To what extent does good governance depend on people understanding and sharing a common history, and actively engaging with and contributing to the changes that they are a part of? Or are these irrelevant: window dressing in the face of globalised, selfish consumption, whose bad effects must be limited by the imposition of stringent controls, whether in a great city or a large festival? I visited China for the first time with a University of Central Lancashire undergraduate fieldtrip at the end of May 2008, and a few weeks later went to the Glastonbury festival, more familiar territory. Our fieldtrip took place less than a week after the Eastern Sichuan earthquake,2 and had to be rearranged as we had planned to fly to Chengdu and stay in what were some of the most devastated areas, then travel to Xian and Beijing. Instead we spent longer in the capital, but still covered over 2,000 km in Northern China, mainly by train. Earthquake priorities were evident at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geographic Sciences and National Resources Research, whose specialists had been reassigned to provide technical and scientific expertise, in the convoys of building materials on motorways and on Chinese television’s English language news coverage. Despite what appeared as exceptional solidarity and positive action, including fund raising, much public support and first rate emergency planning in the quake area, Northern China’s tourism industry did not appear to be disrupted by the ongoing catastrophe. But many overseas visitors had cancelled and the amount of internal tourism was also down, many people instead making personal financial contributions to Earthquake relief. Sales staff were anxious for business and a predominately Chinese mix of fellow tourists may have been unusual, at least at the main sites. Our last minute change of plan meant that we were more inside the tourist ‘bubble’ than usual for fieldwork. We had no visits to landfill sites or other waste treatment facilities, and fewer opportunities than usual to study rural conservation schemes or traditional farming communities. But we did more investigation of a range of tourist destinations and projects, spent time in and travelling between several large cities and also become aware of the scale and importance of water management and research, and of the environmental issues associated with this year’s Beijing Olympics. __________________________________ *Senior Lecturer, School of Built and Natural Environment, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Email: [email protected]

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Figure 1: National Grand Theatre (Opera House), Beijing.

Tourist locations visited included recently developed attractions in spectacular limestone valleys a few hours’ drive from Beijing, largely serving local tourists, with a managed and accessible geopark, with steps, handrails, cable cars and interpretation signs, and more fun centred resort complexes, with bungee jumping pylons over the river and various holiday activities. The international and national mass tourist complex on the Great Wall nearest to Beijing contrasted with a much quieter, less restored, stretch in a nearby nature reserve. Palaces and temples had many local people using their associated parkland. We became familiar with tour guides’ exhortation to ‘enjoy’ historic and scenic destinations, and associated retail opportunities, and as is usual on such trips (when you don’t have the minibus keys in your pocket) some of us managed to be embarrassingly late back to the bus. Easy when a ‘Peking Man’ reconstructed archaeological site also contains an Earthquake Museum (with a copy of an AD 132 Houfeng Seismograph), or a Shaolin Monastery (Kung Fu temple complex) has cable cars, chair lifts and hundreds of steps up adjacent mountains. Figure 2: Great Wall tourism

Figure 3: Bungee jumping pylons.

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Figure 4: Houfeng Seismograph (copy, AD 132).

Figure 5: Entrance, visitor center and turnstyles, Geopark

Many expectations proved to be wrong. While the 106 m high, 713 m long, Sanmenxia Yellow River dam and some of the older housing schemes had a ‘Soviet’ feel, the bullet train from Yuoyang to Beijing managed 800 km in 5 hours, with stops. The over-riding impression of North China’s cities was of rapid, modern urban development: broad boulevards and urban motorways, often packed with generally new vehicles; new or expanded underground railways being built in Xian and Beijing; large scale high rise accommodation, often gated and behind posters advertising speculative commercial development; much (recycled?) water used on roadside planting and greenery in otherwise dusty urban settings. At the end of the dry season there was little in the rivers. Cities felt more like Paris in the early 1980s than places with millions of bicycles. There were large numbers of bikes at the universities, but the most obvious – and possibly most stringent recent environmental intervention is that almost all the motorbikes that I saw in cities were electric: scooters as well as mopeds. We were told that petrol motorbikes and mopeds had been banned. Open sided electric vehicles were the norm in resorts and visitor centres, and most city buses and trolley buses, and numerous taxis, were new. The exceptions, seen on building sites and throughout rural areas, were small three wheel trucks and a variety of other unfamiliar vehicles. Many older urban dwellings had solar water heaters and satellite dishes on the roof and there were air conditioning units by or below many of the windows, though not mounted in them as is often seen in the United States. The rural areas seen from trains 6

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and buses had more traditional ‘courtyard’ housing, often with solar water heaters on the roof. Making sense of this unfamiliar, dynamic and busy mix of modernity and tradition was helped by a visit to the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall just off Tiananmen Square.3 This shows how the city’s rapid growth has been directed by, and to a large extent conforms to, a series of plans and principles that have a similar underlying logic and form to that adopted in the UK since the mid 1940s, though the historic roots go much deeper. As with Abercrombie’s work and regional strategies elsewhere and more recently, the plans are sensible and provide a rational way of dealing with a particular set of circumstances. And as everywhere else the problem is that circumstances change. In Beijing’s case very rapidly, and after lengthy disruption during the Cultural Revolution when the City Planning Office was disbanded. Despite this a succession of regional plans provides the framework for urban expansion that is far from chaotic. High density residential blocks replace low rise courtyard districts. Circulation is made possible by a bewildering succession of motorway standard ring roads and arterial routes, though these can be choked at peak times. Greatly extended mass transit will ease congestion and air pollution, helped by replacement of older road vehicles. Although Beijing’s rapid post war industrialisation, and its, Paris style, sacrifice of historic city walls and gateways for its many ring roads challenges the idea of an embedded preservation ethos, conservation of the city’s historic places has been a priority for a long time. Even the exceptions are impressive, such as the futuristic National Grand Theatre,4 which some argue impinges on the, carefully preserved, low skyline from the Forbidden City. Media attention to factory closures and relocations, and the banning of construction work and many cars, to try and improve air quality for the 2008 Olympics touches on a much more systematic, long term approach to the environment in what would probably not be any planner’s ideal location for a mega city. Beijing is too dusty, too hemmed in by mountains, too subject to cold dry winds from the north, too hot in summer, too cold in winter and too dry. Like most other cities, it is also spreads over the fertile lands that feed it. But it has particular problems with water supply and quality. While long distance water transfer schemes from the South West are being constructed, alongside initiatives to conserve and recycle water, treat waste water and improve the quality of ground water, there may be scope for more use of market mechanisms to reduce water use. Inter and intra regional plans to limit the rate of development may also help, though here Beijing and North China’s other large urban centres are the victims of their own success. It would be useful to know if, and how much, local residential and work permits have limited rural to urban migration. Or if such measures have been, or are at risk of being, undermined or overwhelmed by one of the World’s biggest property and labour markets. The rate and composition of population growth is also controlled by market forces, particularly the availability and price of accommodation and its relation to wages and to opportunities for paid work. To what extent will further urban growth be limited by planning and regulation, or by the controlling effects of scarce or expensive accommodation? To what extent are the cities of North China in their current situation because previous attempts at restraint, and perhaps at containment, have failed? And where to draw comparisons: Tokyo, Mexico City, Bagdad or Cairo? From within the tourist bubble there seem few signs of the poorly serviced informal settlements or shanties that characterise, some would say shame, many rapidly developing cities. Walking round the neighbourhoods near our hotels in Beijing and other cities, one is aware of building workers living in very basic accommodation, sometimes tents, on site, and working long hours seven days a week, but not of extensive areas of illegal or informal settlement without proper sanitation, water supply or building control. One discovers, and exploits, what to Europeans are very cheap public transport and basic goods in local shops, and by contrast, becomes aware that there is a well off elite whose spending and lifestyle match the splendour of the hotels where we were, rather incongruously, housed, and 7

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where we tended not to shop. These were something of a contrast to the hostels and bush accommodation used on most other fieldtrips, or indeed to what UK festival goers take for granted. Figure 6: The Glastonbury festival 2008.

The lessons from Glastonbury mainly concern waste and litter, and the organisation of a large number of people. As in China, waste receptacles are clearly marked to facilitate separation and recycling, though there is no deposit system to create a market in empty plastic bottles and cans. Perhaps less evident is the prohibition of dangerous or problematic materials. This is enforced by large numbers of volunteers, and by smaller numbers of very professional looking security staff. Their interpersonal skills are excellent, to the point that it would be useful for any civil contingency or Emergency Planning system to have a cadre of people like this to communicate with, and direct, large numbers of people. On entering the festival site you are questioned and your clothes and bags may be searched to make sure you have no 8

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glass bottles, as are campervans and caravans when they enter the off site camping grounds. As a result, the mud that you sometimes stand in to watch bands now rarely has bottles in it, or the risk of broken glass. For the benefit of Worthy Farm cattle, this year also saw an attempt to reduce the number of metal tent pegs left behind. Festival food is only sold on biodegradable plates or packaging, and all cutlery is wood. Glastonbury showcases ecological innovations, and although yurt and tepee living ‘good lifers’ and ‘hippy types’ are perhaps more evident, higher tech shower complexes, an ‘ecopod’ house and various timber frame systems and vernacular building forms were evident. Cob bricks, not unlike the large (but fired, from loess / brickearth) ones used for the Great Wall, natural insulation using straw and wool, and specialist architectural services all suggest healthy demand and an emerging ‘alternative’ market in traditional types of sustainable building, and associated services and products. The Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall promotes simple but more technologically advanced ways of meeting the same goals. It’s Green Architecture section shows how China’s fairly recently introduced building standards set increasingly ambitious levels of thermal efficiency, and how these can be met. Examples include self-extinguishing plastic foam in building blocks and internal panels, and at higher insulation levels, external cladding. As with building regulations elsewhere, these new minimum standards offer far greater returns than limited sales of innovative products to specialist or elite markets, especially if there is encouragement or regulation to retrofit better performance on existing buildings. But the Beijing exhibition might have made more of China’s new market in easily added solar water heaters, Their sale here, and permission to use them, might let us save energy simply and relatively cheaply, as could Chinese electric scooters. Figure 7: Retrofitted rooftop solar water heaters, Xian and Yuoyang.

Other aspects of the Beijing exhibition hall that will be familiar, and which appear to be better developed in Beijing than many other places, and perhaps unexpected, are sections on public participation in planning: formal inclusion of numerous, community based environmental groups to take practical responsibility of aspects of their local area and act as watchdogs to report environmental crime. Waste, noise, radioactive contamination and the ‘greening’ of hillsides and any spare areas of land, such as roadsides, are all given attention. Rural community access is a matter of providing roads good enough for bus services. Significant economic and social gains result from such modernisation, and work is ongoing to provide villages around the capital with roads, electricity, water and sewerage. 9

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Figure 8: Retrofitted rooftop solar water heaters, Xian and electric resort vehicle.

In short, the development process is in full swing, led by public investment and initiatives, and by millions of individual actions, as well as by the working of market forces and by entrepreneurs quick to exploit any opportunity. Nothing usual here, apart from the pace of change and perhaps the sheer number of people involved. Much to be copied in other countries, And here comparisons with Glastonbury, and similar events, might counter initial reactions to what seem as massive over-manning. It is remarkable how many people work in China, whether in shops, stations, hotels, restaurants or on building sites or in the fields. But the same applies to the security staff at any major event in the UK, and even my local gym has numbers of sales staff that seem to match levels seen in Beijing. Figure 9: Fast train (800 km in 5 hours) & Beijing metro.

Whether comparative studies mean we can learn from Northern China, or from Glastonbury, is a moot point. Circumstances are different. Strict discipline is a condition of participation in specific events, where the localised social contract includes giving up some rights, and it is arguable that at a larger scale, conventions of what is socially accepted vary between places. 10

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So expect the spread of measures such as Glastonbury’s prohibition of packaging that might be problematic: restrictions or bans on the use of glass bottles, sweet and ice cream wrappers, plastic cutlery and containers. China’s electric scooters and runabouts, solar water heaters and local environmental groups taking responsibility for their area seem likely to be contagious. The latter good governance which for once is probably not an excuse for reduced democratic accountability. And change is rapid. Media warned me to expect China to be full of tobacco smoke. It wasn’t. A few people still smoke in restaurants and other public places, but they were the minority and many areas were smoke free. There were a lot of bikes, but nothing like the number I expected. As a passenger I found traffic conventions alarming, but they seem, Parisian style, to have made aggressive progress in all lanes, including the hard shoulder on motorways, and constant lane shifting, a non-contact sport. Impressive traffic lights with a countdown in red or green till the end of each sector would be a welcome import from China, though turning right (it would be left in the UK) on red would be better if combined with North American conventions about giving way to pedestrians and other traffic. The Chinese version seems to be to maintain eye contact and just walk through the traffic, or drive through the pedestrians. As one sees in old films. Figure 10: Countdown traffic light signals (counts down in seconds on both red and green).

Figure 11: Bikes and work on new underground and Peking UniversityTraffic outside Beijing.

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As fieldworkers occupying a tourist bubble, we exploited differences in income and prices, and played roles that relatively lowly status and earnings deny most of us in the UK. God bless (and keep) cheap long haul travel, as any aware and exploitative tourist should say. But such opportunities are short lived. Even if the rate of economic growth and scale of local demand mean that, unlike some other long haul destinations, Chinese tourist development is not (yet) in thrall to American and European expectations, and prices are creeping up. So in a few years time expect to stay in hostels rather than in places with chandeliers. Figure 12: Beijing ring road and Xian from West Gate.

Figure 13: Yuoyang, view from hotel roof and nearby district.

The wider development lessons suggested by a short stay in a few of North China’s great cities must be speculative. Despite journalists’ criticism and over-simplification, I don’t think this country fits in the simple box suggested by focus on the ‘Problems’ of Communism. Vasilenko’s & Kolesnev’s memorable 1966 statement ‘Each unutilised working day constitutes and irrevocable economic loss for society’ 5 may have helped justify or attempted to explain the excesses and economic incompetence of the Cultural Revolution, but it also informed, in different ways or for more sinister purposes, Cambodia’s Year Zero, the British Empire’s hut taxes, Belgian forced labour in the Congo or slave economies under Hitler and Stalin. My impression is that a political culture that abhorred laziness has morphed into a relentless, now individualistic, work ethic. As elsewhere, national identity is rooted in celebration of the past, and one wonders if places such as the Terracotta Warriors museum will be able to cope with the volume of internal educational visits and tourism, yet alone the numbers attracted during and after the Olympics. See the (free and excellent) Military History museum in Beijing for a few of the warriors (quietly displayed, at the top of the large 12

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building), and for a nostalgic glimpse of the warfare and conflict that modern China grew out of. But the wrecked U2 spy plane and the models depicting tunnel fighting against advancing Japanese troops are far in the past, as indeed are the before launch and after recovery examples of Chinese Earth observation satellites. Today’s heroism is depicted in a display, being prepared while the rescue and recovery work was still underway, of well organised, popular military and armed police response to the Sichuan earthquake. And it is notable that the Beijing planning exhibition hall presents its vision, not through the next series of plans and maps, but by the opportunity to ‘fly’ through a 4D representation of a future city. Something planners everywhere might benefit from incorporating in their public awareness campaigns, though this perhaps begs questions about the commodification of the future. By representing it as a product to be aspired to – literally in the case of the futuristic apartment – many of the old professional skills of survey, analysis and plan, and much of the process of option evaluation are neglected. While the historical information provided in both the military museum and the planning exhibition is exemplary, it may not go far enough in engaging their visitors with the current process. It is not enough for all citizens to know the origins and theories of the Arts of War, or the essential logic behind good urban and regional planning. Both require a critical dimension and an active and engaged citizenry, even if this has more to do with their actions as consumers than their appreciation of the reasons for the great endeavours of which they are a part, or their participation in a process that must be accepted and adopted by the population as a whole, if is to work. Figure 14: Futuristic appartment, Beijing Planning Exibition Hall.

Figure 15: Beijing Military Museum.

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These ramblings beg a few concluding questions about governance and the citizen’s relation to the State. Here comparisons may inform, and the greater the contrast the more likely it is that we will need to look beyond the superficial and obvious, and perhaps that we will learn from doing this. A globalising World, with the same or similar products and convergence of lifestyles and aspirations, may mean that differences are eroded and that comparative studies become little more than travellers’ ill-informed tales and trite observations. Or it could be that these similarities conceal profound and important differences. Behaviour and expectations do differ, and attempts to plan for an uncertain future, or to identify and control unacceptable effects, must incorporate understanding of these differences. So while the large populations of China’s northern cities, and of Britain’s largest arts festival, may seem problematic simply because of their scale and dynamic nature, their acceptance of higher levels of environmental discipline than is usual elsewhere may be significant, and may make important contributions towards progress to more sustainable, less damaging, forms of development.

End Notes 1

Clark. M. (2005) ‘Comparative Planning Theory: Sensible Tickets or Float Plane Solutions for the UK?’ Global Built Environment Review, 5: 1. 6-15 2 listed by USGS at magnitude 7.9 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqinthenews/2008/us2008ryan/#summary 3

Sympathetic review at Radio 86 (2007) ‘Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall - The past, present and future of a Chinese megalopolis,’ 9th July,

http://www.radio86.co.uk/explore-learn/travel/3113/beijing-planning-exhibition-hall-thepast-present-and-future-of-a-chinese-megalopolis 4 Guardian (2008) ‘In pictures: the National Grand Theatre in Beijing’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/gallery/2007/sep/25/internationalnews2?picture=330811383 5 Vasilenko, M & Kolesnev, S. (1966), ‘Problems of utilization of labour reserves in the countryside’. Problems of Economics, ix, p.3.

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