Creative industries

The word transition perhaps best describes China: the world’s most populous country is transitioning from a predominantly rural society to an urban one. China’s urbanization process in the last two decades has been extraordinary: the urbanization level in the country nearly doubled from 25 per cent in 1987 to roughly 42 per cent in 2007. It is estimated that by 2030, 60 per cent of the country’s population will be urban, hitting the mark of the urban billion. China is also transitioning from a centralized planned economy to a market economy. This has led to another important transition: from relative social egalitarianism to a new era of individualism and competition.

Its development since it opened up at the end of the 1970s is none less than spectacular. China has left the world in shock and awe about the force with which it is transforming its culture, cities, economy, policies and engagements with the world. The country is paying a prize for this; pollution, exhaustion and depletion of resources, mushrooming of mono-functional suburbs, traffic jams and forced relocation of millions of families (to name a few). It is currently unclear where this will lead to and how China will balance its notorious culture of control and reform with ambitions to instigate a worldwide engagement based on the notion of soft power.Throughout the past decade China's development has been represented in data, numbers and graphics that illustrate the country's massive development. New policies are issued and implemented at breakneck speed and on a nationwide scale. But how much do these numbers relate to the reality on the ground, the specific problems and challenges the Chinese cities, local governments, architecture institutes, designers and policy makers are facing?