Urban Planning Under Socialist Ideology

I wrote this post in response to Richard Klosterman's article "Arguments For and Against Planning". In his article, he has incorrectly took Marxists' view on urban planning in a liberalist country as Marxists' way of Urban planning. He argues that "Marxists' way of urban planning is to use the mean of revolution to destroy the entire capitalist system. All urban planning activities that tries to decrease the gap between rich and poor in a capitalist country are just trying to delay the revolution that bring real change in the society." There are two loopholes in his logic:

1: His claims are not the Marxist ideology itself but a historical policies that are used by the Marxists in the age of post industrial revolution when the workers' living standards at its lowest.

2: If Marxists believe that "Urban planning activities that tries to decrease the gap between rich and poor in a capitalist country are just trying to delay the revolution that bring real change in the society," then what about Urban Planning in a Socialist country? If Klosterman's claim is true, then there will be no need for urban planning in a Socialist country since they have already made the really changes in the society. But as all of you have aware that in present time, every Socialist country has its own urban planning institution.

So how do a socialist country plan its urban area? Here I will use my own country as an example to briefly explain:

In a Socialist country, it's governing ideology focuses on the equality of life. Government is responsible to keep the gap between rich and poor in an acceptable level and guarantee its citizen minimum standard of living. For every five years, during the Nation Congress, the central government will set the goal of national development for the next five years, and then the local authorities will implement it according to its local situation. The planning process emphasis "government organise, experts leading, multi-organisation cooperation, public paticipation and scientific decision making."

In 2005, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China has drafted a concept of National Central City as a first stop in reforming urbanisation in China. This concept is formed under the ideological guide line to provide equality to the people, to deal with the inequality development in China.

GDP per capita in China, shows you the unequal development in the country

National central cities are described as a group of cities in charge of leading, developing, performing tasks in political, economic, and cultural aspects for the surrounding region. My hometown, city of Chongqing as the biggest inland city, has also been chosen as one of the national central cities and as the stage ground to developing the south west region of China.

 Picture: national central cities of China

Because of intensive public participation in planning, the local authority have planned to develop Chongqing into a multi-center city, each center has its own industry, commercial, and living area. This way we can eliminated the unequal development within our city. The close the gap between the rich and poor, the government has also invested large amount of funding in low rent public housing and transportation, light rails and subways have been built to provide convenience for the lower income populations who can't afford to buy their own car. If you are in China, you will never have to worry about miss your bus. Because there will be a bus that you want in every five minutes.

The plan is also focuses on environmental friendly, a lots of heavy polluting factories has been forced to close done and the rests are no longer permitted to dump their wastes into the Yangtze River.  Multiple green areas have been created within the city.

Picture: the author stands on the highest point of Chongqing looking dowe to the city

notice the gaps between buildings are filled with trees.

Every since the opening up policy, rural areas have always been the least benefited areas. People who lives in cities are generally rich than people who lives in rural areas. As a part of the policy of National central cities, Chongqing is on a expansion to urbanise the surrounding rural areas to improve the standard of living for people who lives in those places.

Picture: Farmers' kids enjoy their day become Urban citizens

This is my introduction to Socialist Urban Planning, hopefully now the readers would have a general understand of the topic. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

The Government's official plan for Chongqing:

In 2020:

Main Urban Area expand to 1188 square kilometers, Urban center expand to 561 square kilometers.

Population lives in Urban area reaches 22.8 million

High way, rail way coverage reaches 95%

Total Urbanisation rate reach 70%

Picture: Model of "Chongqing in 2020", made by Chongqing Urban Planning Bureau 

There are some more readings that can provide you with much more details on the topic:
http://www.grm.cuhk.edu.hk/eng/people/ppl/files/XuJiang/12_Socialist_urban_planning_in_transition.pdf