Speakers: Yongdong QIU, Wuhan Planning & Design Institute, China; Yun WANG, Wuhan Planning & Design Institute, China; Haijun LI, Wuhan Planning & Design Institute, China; Wenjing LUO, Wuhan Planning & Design Institute, China The seemingly unlimited growths of metropolises have put great challenges on their efficiency, livability and sustainability. With the rapid emergence of metropolises worldwide, how to best plan ahead for an efficient and livable metropolis has become a global key issue for planners and policy makers. With the rapid developments of megacities in China, policies and guidelines have been published towards making an efficient and livable metropolis recently. Local experiences in China have shown that there are two aspects of strategies that could be spread to the world. On one hand, with the changes in national administrations, there has been a trend of transformation of master plans which tends to focus more on regional collaborations out of the boundaries and urban growths within the boundaries. On the other hand, local governments in lots of Chinese metropolises have realized the benefits of big data and set up online planning platforms for metropolises to upgrade the traditional planning methods. This session focuses on how to best plan ahead for an efficient and livable megacity by taking the experiences of Wuhan which is a typical growing metropolis and can shed some lights on other cities worldwide. During the first part of the session, Wenjing LUO will introduce the backgrounds of making an efficient and livable metropolis in China, followed by a quick introduction of Wuhan. During the second part, Yun WANG, the head of Master Plan Division of WPDI will give a presentation on the master plan of Wuhan metropolis. Then, Haijung LI, the head of East Lake Branch of WPDI and Wenjing LUO will talk specifically about on how to collaborate out of the boundary and grow within the boundary, with the topic of corridor strategies and boundary defining for metropolitan areas. This is followed by Yongdong QIU, the chief engineer of WPDI, who will give a presentation about Wuhan Planning Lab which helps establishing and implementing master plans by online platforms. The last part of the session will be a moderated round table discussion, open for all interested parties, aiming at summarizing replicable experiences from Wuhan and exploring the effective strategies towards planning ahead for an efficient and livable metropolis.

Originated from the linear city model more than a century ago, the term “corridor” is not only an urban model fully tailored to the transport technology but also a comprehensive spatial concept in dimensions of infrastructures, economics, urbanizations and ecology. Especially with the addition of a prefix “mega”, mega-corridors have played key roles in the aspects of improving infrastructures, enhancing economic competitiveness and promoting regional collaboration for megacities. Nowadays in the backgrounds of knowledge-based developments, there has been a prevalence of knowledge mega-corridors considering their great contributions to the regional knowledge-based developments for megacities. In China, megacities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou have all proposed to develop knowledge mega-corridors to enhance their competitiveness by linking themselves with surrounding cities and towns by mainly focusing on technology-led industries. The Optical Valley namely the National Independent Innovation Zone of East Lake, which aimed to be the Chinese version of Silicon Valley, has also imitated a knowledge mega-corridor strategy across municipal borders, which will not only improve its regional roles as a national innovation district but also enhance the regional developments of the megacity where it is located. This paper uses the case of Optical Valley Knowledge Mega-Corridor as an example and illustrates how to use corridor strategies in the dimensions of infrastructures, economics, urbanizations and environments in developing livable and efficient megacities. First, literature has been reviewed concerning the roles and dimensions of corridors as well as its derivative concepts. Then, the economic and political backgrounds have been discussed in correspondence to the prevalence of knowledge mega-corridors in China. Based on this, the paper will explore specific strategies by making the knowledge mega-corridor as a loop for innovation systems, a boom for knowledge economies, a bundle of infrastructure axis and a mutual-force for environment conservations. Last but not least, the paper concludes by discussing the real challenge to implement spatial strategies lying in policymaking at the local level.

As a prevailing model of regional developments towards collaboration, megacities are growing out of their municipal boundaries and uniting with neighboring cities and towns as metropolitan areas, which seems to be limitless. Literature has shown that metropolitan areas, as early forms of urban clusters, are mega cities surrounding with their neighboring towns sharing not only adjacent spaces but also frequent commutes and close economic connections. Examples have shown that the boundaries of metropolitan areas are also related to the dimensions of ecology, psychology and culture. To plan ahead for smart growths of urban clusters and megacities, there has been a trend of developing metropolitan areas for megacities in China, which considers defining the boundaries of metropolitan areas as the basis and premise. Based on literature reviews, this paper explores the methodology of defining the boundaries of metropolitan areas by the case study of Wuhan. With a population of more than 10 million, Wuhan has already become a megacity in terms of its population, economics and regional roles in Central China. Along with the paced-up city expansion, Wuhan has moved into the stage of regional collaboration with the goals towards a more competitive and livable metropolitan area in smart growths. After analyzing the current development stage of Wuhan as well as its surrounding areas, this paper attempts to define the boundary of Wuhan metropolitan area in dimensions of its urbanization, geography, transit, economics, ecology, psychology and culture. First, an area can be defined in terms of regional ecological circumstances. Then, layers of analysis on urbanization rates, economic relations and traffic commutes have been overlapped so as to define a rough boundary of Wuhan metropolitan. Last but not least, further investigation has been made to correct and adjust the boundary by considering the local cultural and phycological factors. The conclusion has been made that the methodology of defining the boundaries by the case study of Wuhan could be also applied to other metropolitan areas.