An Introduction and Comparison Study of Beijing's Green Belts' Implementation Modes

Abstract

During China's rapid urbanization, its megacities are facing the greatest challenge of urban growth control of both population and built-up area. As one of the most important measures of urban containment, Green Belt has been widely used worldwide for many years. Beijing's Green Belts have been in their implementation for nearly three decades, during which different implementation approaches were used. The article looks into the evolution of Beijing's Green Belts policies and the existing implementation approaches, in which, the government, rural collectives and property developers cooperate in different ways. The aim of the article is to provide China's megacities with experience and lessons of urban containment policy implementation. In-depth interview, document research, remote sensing and GIS analysis are used for summarizing the detailed processes of different implementation approaches, as well as their strengths and problems. Four approaches involved include 'government direct participation -property developer nonintervention', 'government direct participation -property developer intervention', 'government nonparticipation -property developer intervention' and 'government indirect participation -property developer intervention'. Typical areas in the unit of the township are selected to analyze and compare the effectiveness of Green Belts policy under different implementation approaches. The conclusion is that the implementation approach of 'government direct participation -property developer nonintervention' results in the greatest effectiveness of physical environmental plan implementation, but requires large amounts of financial expenditure, and thus cannot be widely used. The approaches of 'property developer intervention' suit market-oriented economy better, and thus are more widely used, but they have also left some unsolved problems caused by market failure such as the under-supply of public goods. Suggestions for Proceedings of the 8th Conf. Int. Forum Urban. C006planning policy improvement lie in how to guide these four approaches respectively to achieve the multiple goals more effectively during Beijing's Green Belts implementation.