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From Concentration to Decentralization: The Spatial Development of Beijing and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Capital Region

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Chinese Urban Planning and Construction

Part of the book series: Strategies for Sustainability ((SPPSDE))

Abstract

The capital region of Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) has developed unbalancedly over the past four decades, since Beijing and Tianjin have absorbed most of the regional investments, resources and talents for being the capital or the national central cities. And the emerging “mega-city diseases” of Beijing caused by high densities of urban functions and populations, such as heavy air pollution, water resource shortage, serious traffic jams and continuous environmental deterioration, have pushed the state government to continue exploring a more sustainable approach to promote the eco-friendly development of Beijing, as well as the wider BTH region. The national strategies of decentralizing the non-capital functions of Beijing and promoting the coordinative development of BTH region have been launched. Among them, the decision to construct Tongzhou, the Sub-City Center of Beijing, and the Xiong’an New Area, a new magnetic development center in Hebei province, are the two most significant actions. Based on literature review and policy analysis, this chapter first summarizes the evolution trend from “concentration” to “decentralization” of Beijing and the BTH region during the past decades, and then illustrates the main recent decentralization measures aiming at controlling the population and functions of Beijing from four spatial levels: the BTH region, the Beijing administrative region, the Beijing central city and the community level. The prospect of the decentralization strategy is further discussed in the conclusion and discussion.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 51978363), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2018YFC0704600), and Beijing Social Science foundation (grant no. 19GLB034) for funding this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yan Tang

  2. Department of Urban Planning, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China

    Xiangyi Meng

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Correspondence to Xiangyi Meng .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Lanchun Bian

  2. School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yan Tang

  3. School of Environmental Design, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan

    Zhenjiang Shen

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Tang, Y., Meng, X. (2021). From Concentration to Decentralization: The Spatial Development of Beijing and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Capital Region. In: Bian, L., Tang, Y., Shen, Z. (eds) Chinese Urban Planning and Construction. Strategies for Sustainability(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65562-4_5

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