Canon · 21st Century (2000–present)

Xiongan New Area

2017– · China · East Asia – China · State-capitalist megaproject urbanism · Planned by PRC State Council; Hebei

Official master-plan diagram of the Xiong'an start-up area showing the spatial structure ('one square city, two axes, five groups, ten gardens, hundred fields, millennial forest and one lake'). Copyri · copyrighted

Core idea

Relief capital with ecological city

Why it matters

China’s newest state-led new city

Description

Xiongan New Area (from 2017), designated personally as a priority by China's leadership, is a from-scratch city southwest of Beijing intended to absorb 'non-capital functions,' built on ecological and innovation principles with extensive green space and digital infrastructure.

Significance

Xiongan is China's flagship 21st-century new-city project and a statement of national ambition, testing the eco-and-smart city ideal at enormous scale under direct central direction.

What became of it

Under construction as Xi Jinping's flagship 'city of the future' and relief node for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, with the starting area, rail links and relocated state-owned enterprises and university branches progressing, though large-scale population growth lags.

Critique

Criticised as a politically driven 'millennium plan' whose top-down approach has struggled to attract residents and private business at the scale envisaged.

What shaped it

China's Belt and Road Initiative (2013)
Sustainable development (Brundtland) (1987)
Urban resilience (2013)
Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
The smart-city critique (2015)
China's reform & opening (1978)

Plans it influenced

Chengdu Eastern New Area (2020–)

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →

hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.