Songjiang Newcity

About the British style town

According to the Tenth Five Years Plan, Shanghai will lay the emphasis to build up a block of scientifically programmed modern towns with a moderate scale, good facilities and an elegant environment to keep up with the pace of Shanghai----this international metropolis. Thus, Shanghai will quicken the pace to set up central city districts, new cities, central towns and other towns to make up a city system, and also propel the accomplishment of suburb industrialization, urbanization and modernization. This plan will begin with the Songjiang New Town, which is located at center of the‘Shanghai and Hangzhou Municipal Developing Area’, one of the three inter-municipal developing areas. The new town is aimed at becoming a traveling and cultural garden town with a middle scale. The whole new town will be divided into two sides by the freeway between Shanghai and Hangzhou. And the north new town with an area of 22.4 square kilometers will be the highlight in the near future.
According to the format of ‘the promotion of government plus the management of enterprises’, Shanghai’s Songjiang New Town Construction and Developing co.ltd. was founded on August 23rd, 2000 under the care of Municipal Council and government, under the directions of district government. The company is combined by Shanghai Songjiang) with the registration capitals of one billion RMB, which is mainly used for development and construction.
In the near future, the main task of Shanghai Songjiang New Town Developing and Construction co.ltd is to develop and construct the new Songjiang town. The company will be in charge of a model area, the Shenjing Pond, the east wing of Youdun Harbor, the south wing of Zhangjia Creek, the north wing of Shanghai and Hangzhou Freeway, which has an area of 7.36 square kilometers
The company will strictly obey the requirement of the municipal council and municipal government which said’ during the time when the Tenth five years Plan is being carried out, we should pay much attention to the change of suburbs, which embodies the potential power of development.’ Standing at a high starting-point, the company will carefully lay out the programs, set up high-quality buildings, administrate efficiently and stick to the rules that combines the originality, flexibility and operation together. With a ‘diligent, efficient and scientific’ working attitude, the company will strive to cooperate the task of constructing the Songjiang New Town with the ‘ five years’. Thus the new town will grow up as soon as possible in the east south of shanghai.
Songjiang New Town is located at the southwest corner of Shanghai that is rightly the one of the three inter-municipal developing areas, Shanghai and Hangzhou developing area. Naturally speaking, it is one of the ideal places for building a new modern town, which has reached the international standard.
Songjiang has convenient transportation---a Huangpu River which penetrates the whole area, a two-way railway between Shanghai and Hangzhou, the freeway between Shanghai and Hangzhou, the Number 3 national highway and the free way between Jiading and Jinshan which cross the San maojiu Mount.
Surrounding the Songjiang New Town, there is a Songjiang industrial area, an export processing area, Dakun Industrial Area and the Sheshan Mountain, the national travel resort. The industrial and production area has an area of forty square kilometers In 2002 year, the GDP of this area reached 18 billion RMB, the average GDP reached 3500 U.S. dollars. The bigger populations as well as the high incomes have strengthened the development of Songjiang New Town.
As for the functional layout, Songjiang has made the choice to develop as “one town and three parts” according to the requirements of building a new modern Songjiang town. That is to say, the future Songjiang New Town will increase the development of the northeast part, in which electronically communicative manufacture; biological technology and neo-materials will be fully used to develop into an important base of manufactured industry and exported industry. Thus, the northwest part will also develop because of that, and its target is to become a suburb place in Shanghai for tourism.
The Punan district will develop into a green basis of agricultural industry and agricultural byproducts industry.
Songjiang New Town will introduce the population with three methods: the urbanization of countrymen, the suburbnization of city people and try to attract people from other provinces even foreign people and the students abroad who come back to settle down in the new town. Above all, powerful industrial development is a must.
Songjiang has a unique historical background, for Songjiang is the origin of Shanghai’s historical and cultural development. 6000 years ago, the ancestors of Songjiang people first lived and labored in the area of Mount Jiu and thus created the Songze and Liangzhe culture. Since then, Songjiang’s economic and culture has developed rapidly and prosperously. Songjiang people have been diligent and smart. Songjiang is the origin of Shanghai and also the footstone of the construction of Songjiang New Town.
It is estimated that in the four year, a cultural and traveling garden town with an elegant living environment and a middle scale will stand in the southwest of Shanghai, which echoes with the old Shanghai city to show the whole world a charming scene of ‘one city with two kinds of scenery.
At the public bidding of Songjiang New Town’s layout, a lot of designed companies from Britain, French and Italy etc. won the bidding. These companies provided the advanced city designed ideas nowadays.
Including the new town and old shanghai city, the long-term construction will use the lands of sixty square.kilometers and 500 thousand people will take part in it. It borders the Tongjing Harbor on the east, Youdun Harbor on the west, the Shanghai and Hangzhou Freeway on the south and Huachen Road on the north. The short-term construction will use thirty-six square kilometers lands and 360 thousand people will take part in it. The most important part is the Songjiang model town that has an area of 22.4 square kilometers. the basic layout is----with a cross-shaped greenbelt of 11.4 thousand square meters as the central part, the north area to the greenbelt will be built into a high college area with the biggest scale in the whole country. The new Songjiang College Town will account for 300 hectares where about nine colleges will be built. The west area to the greenbelt will be changed into political and cultural center where big building like administration center, teenagers activity center, library, science center, movie center and No. one People’s Hospital, a civil square and several parks for leisure. The west part will be built into eight square kilometers top-grade inhabitances with beautiful ecosystem and elegant gardens and virescene. To the east there is a magnificent land river. All these will fully embody the style of ‘one town with two kinds of scenery’, trying to display the perfect combination of east tradition and west modern layout ideas. The old city attached to the historical and cultural town. It tries to show the cultural containment and characteristics by repairing and maintain the West Zhongshan Road’s historical and cultural street blocks, the Middle Zhongshan Road’s trade street in Qing Dynasty’s style, the street in front of the Temple and Changqiao trade street of in Qing Dynasty’s style and Yuefei Temple religious and cultural street blocks and etc. The new town will take the French construction style to show the charming and characteristics of modern city. The new town’s ecosystem will be much better than the central city, for more than forty-six percent of the area will covered by greenbelt and the density and height of the housed will be strictly controlled.
The new town will be mainly covered by green that will be seen nearly at every corner of the town. Eight million square meters of public greenbelt will be built, 23.53 percent of which will be the concentrated greenbelts. The area of new district’s greenbelt will account for not less than six million square meters, and the concentrated greenbelt will account for 30 percent. The average areas of greenbelt will not less than thirty square meters. If the inhabitance and the new college town are counted, the average area of greenbelt will reach 40 square meters and the concentrated greenbelt will account for 14.29 percent. The old city has an area of two million square meters, the public average area of greenbelt is 15 square meters Looking down at the new town, the new town’s green lands can be described as ‘a belt of green jade inlaid in the middle and four green chain belts surrounding the new town’. The green jade is the cross greenbelt which is 4100 meters long 300 meters wide and 1.14 million square meters big, which is composed by an great amount area of virescence, an up-and-down terrain and several lakes. When it is finished, it will become the biggest greenbelt of Shanghai. Four green chain belts are the virescence of watercourses and roads that surround the new town. According to the layout, four parks in the new town will be changed, reconstructed or remedied. Each park will account for not less than ten hectares and the area of green lands and watercourses will be not less than eighty percent. All these lands will create a green environment and the high demand for the inhabitance make it like a place enclosed by the green, which has the best environmental effect. The inhabitance will be built according to the general standard of comfort and rationality. The average dimension is controlled under 0.8 and the proportion of concentrated public greenbelt would be not less than 20 percent. According to the regulations, to the north of central greenbelt, mainly the middle quality buildings’ dimension is controlled less than 1.2 and the construction density is under twenty-seven percent. The public greenbelt will account for not less than twenty percent and the proportion of green lands is not less than forty-five percent. The average height of the buildings will be from four to six storied. To the north of central greenbelt and the south of the college town, mainly the high and middle quality of houses’ dimension is controlled at about 0.8 and the construction density is under twenty-two percent. The public greenbelt will account for not less than twenty-five percent and the proportion of the green lands will be not less than fifty percent with the average height of four storied houses. That is to say, the buildings of the new inhabitance will mainly be the villas and blocks of low houses. The blue sky, green trees and lucid rivers as well as a modern living environment will create a charming new town. Songjiang new town will set an example for the development of shanghai and even the towns and cities of the whole country.
Songjiang New Town’s communicative facilities will also be equipped completely. At that time, a network of IP and ATM Broadband and a high standard electricity supply system. The construction of telecommunication and cable television (CATV) network is also taking the leading position. Information highway will be built with great efforts. ADSL（Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop）,which covers the whole net of the area will be the major connection method with mainly the IP Broadband Network. FTTP(Fiber to the Building) will come into the households and the signal base station of mobile communication network will also be constructed. The government will open the special communication network such as the CATV Broadband Network with a platform based on bi-directional HFC net. The government will also construct the drainages and equip all the CATV network facilities for the new inhabitances.
The image of the new town is becoming more and more clear: first, a college town and a teenagers’ activity center, a library and a 150 hectares big open park for pleasure called Shixian Park will appear on the 22.4 square kilometers’ ground. A lot of villas of different styles and low habitant houses and blocks of greenbelts and green lands will also turn up there. Now, the college town has taken its shape. It will hold an area of 4500 acres and is open to the outside, which means there are no walls between colleges. The college with blue roots and white walls is Shanghai International Studies University, which has a construction area of ninety-eight thousand square meters and will recruit ten thousand students. What’s more, Shanghai Foreign Trade University, the College of Lixin Accounting and the College of Vision Arts will also moved into the college town. A variety of colleges and universities will show their colorful characteristics. Besides the college town, other buildings like teenagers’ activity center and library will display their new styles at the respect of colors and construction features. Take the street lamps of different streets for example, they have either the appearance of cranes or pillar-shaped, which is not only original but also harmonious to the style of main construction bodies.