Almost One Third of Chinese Cities are Shrinking

The perception that China’s urbanisation is still in full swing is untrue for nearly one-third of Chinese cities, whose populations are shrinking, according to new findings by a Chinese university.

A research team from Tsinghua University used satellite imagery to monitor the intensity of night lights in more than 3,300 cities and towns between 2013 and 2016. In 28 per cent of cases, the lights had dimmed.

China now has 938 shrinking cities, according to Long Ying, an urban planning expert at China’s Tsinghua University, who founded and led the research group, Beijing City Lab. This is more than any other nation on Earth.

The findings are indicative of declining populations and economic activity across almost one-third of the cities monitored, at a time when official economic data also shows that China is facing significant economic and demographic challenges.

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2/3s of American Urban Farmers Have Motives Other Than Profit

Two thirds of urban farmers have a social mission that goes beyond food production and profits, finds new research led by NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

The study, published in the British Food Journal, shows that three of the four top reasons farmers grow in urban areas - food security, education, community building, and producing food for the market - have social motivations.

As urban populations grow in the United States, farming in cities is becoming more common. While food entrepreneurs seek to make money through urban farming, many urban farms are concerned with factors beyond food production, and have incorporated social goals into their missions. These missions align with a larger social movement in food - the "good food movement" - that focuses on where food comes from, who grows it, and how it's grown.

"Given the limited ability of urban farms in terms of food production, the social mission of urban farms arises as a possible explanation for the recent growth," said study author Carolyn Dimitri, associate professor of food studies at NYU Steinhardt.

In their study, Dimitri and her colleagues identified and analyzed the social missions of urban farms in the United States, and explored differences and similarities among farms with varying missions.

They analyzed data collected from a national survey of 370 urban farmers. Thirty-five questions, covering the 2012 farm year, addressed food production and marketing practices, risks and challenges, information and technical assistance needs, farm size and location, age of primary farmer, and farm characteristics.

The researchers found that food production is an essential part of the mission for all urban farms, but approximately two thirds of farmers surveyed also expressed a social mission. These social missions are primarily related to food security, education, and community building.

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Pittsburgh's Lower Hill District Rendering

1200 Van Ness Rendering

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Seoul is Planning Vertical Farms

Seoul City Hall is planning to introduce “vertical farms.”

The farms would be three stories high, with vegetables and crops grown on the second and third floors, while the first floor would serve as a classroom for teaching agriculture, city officials said Tuesday.

The farms will be computer controlled to provide the right light, temperature and humidity, and check carbon dioxide levels.

The western district of Yangcheon will be home to the first farms.

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How Extensive, Really, are China's Ghost Cities?

In recent years, China has undergone a period of urban growth that is unprecedented in human history. The number of square kilometers devoted to urban living grew from 8,800 in 1984 to 41,000 in 2010. And that was just the start. China used more concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. used in the entire 20th century.

Some of this building has been misplaced. In various parts of China, developers have built so much housing so quickly that it has outstripped demand, even in the world’s most populous country. The result is the well-publicized phenomenon of ghost cities—entire urban areas that are more or less deserted.

But much of the reporting on ghost cities is anecdotal or based on unreliable measurements such as a simple count of the number of lights on at night in residential buildings. That’s a particularly inaccurate method, not least because it ignores seasonal variations caused by tourism. Many places are busy during the tourist season but empty during the off-season, and not just in China. So being unable to distinguish these from ghost cities is something of a problem.

And that raises an interesting question: how bad, really, is the problem of ghost cities in China?

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363 Sixth Street Rendering

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Southern San Francisco Transit Center in Planning

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Will the Plan to Revitalize Detroit Work?