Dongtan

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Energy Portal

Dongtan (Simplified Chinese: 东滩; Traditional Chinese: 東灘; pinyin: Dōngtān) is a new eco-city planned for the island of Chongming, near Shanghai, China. The name of the city literally translates as "East Beach".

Dongtan is planned to open, with accommodation for 50,000, by the time the Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai. By 2040, the city is slated to be one-third the size of Manhattan.

Dongtan was presented at the United Nations World Urban Forum by China as an example of an eco-city, and is the first of up to four such cities to be designed and built in China by Arup, a global design and engineering company. The cities are planned to be ecologically friendly, with zero-greenhouse-emission transit and complete self-sufficiency in water and energy, together with the use of zero energy building principles. However, the planned ecological footprint for each citizen in Dongtan is currently 2.2 hectares^[1], higher than the 1.9 hectares that is theoretically sustainable on a global scale.

Dongtan proposes to have only green transport movements along its coastline. People will arrive at the coast and leave their cars behind, traveling along the shore as pedestrians, cyclists or on sustainable public transport vehicles.

The reaction to Dongtan has been mixed. Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has praised the project as pioneering work leading to a more sustainable future^[2], while others are concerned that it will not have a big impact on reforming existing cities, which will still house the majority of the Chinese population.^[3]