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Farmers taste city living

By Gong Haiying: 0 Comments Print E-mail Expo Weekly, July 26, 2010

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Editor's notes: Urbanization creates problems though, it's an unavoidable trend. This series of five stories try to discuss ideal modes for future development of Chinese cities and how people can create better cities in light of the problems faced by them. Following is the fifth, also the last piece of this series, highlighting the urbanization approach of Huaming, a rural town in Tianjin's suburb.

The construction of Huaming Town began in March 2006. Sitting opposite the Binghai New Development Zone in Tianjin Municipality, the town embodies China's efforts to improve the lives of its citizens. By 2008, more than 40,000 farmers from 12 nearby villages moved into their new homes in Huaming.

In this series:

•Growing pains

•Urbanization: Chinese way

•Jiangsu's 'Little Taipei'

•Tiny, mighty Tengtou

Here, modern residential buildings stand in orderly rows, along with a bank, school, hospital and library. With an average 30 square meters of living space for each citizen and new public facilities, the residents here have finally realized their dream of living in a modern city.

The Huaming Town Pavilion, located in the Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA) of the Expo Park, tells the story of Huaming from beginning to end. With a theme of "Different Lives on the Same Land," the pavilion's five sections show how the people of Huaming have endeavored to transform their hometown and start a happier, more prosperous life.

In one of the sections, guests can see a model that depicts Huaming as it originally was: run-down, with narrow, dirty streets. Behind the model, an enormous image of the renovated city shows how far it has come since those days.