New Year\'s first sunlight shines across 220 square kilometers of land of Yichang New District:
Intertwined road network among different districts, gradually improved public facilities, blocks of buildings in resettlement residential area, more environment-friendly projects, programs of landscape planting, and comprehensive renovation of old infrastructure make a bigger, stronger, prettier city of Yichang.
Having been officially launched for more than 500 days with a total investment of 51.34 billion yuan, the Yichang New District Program, at the speed of 100 million yuan every day, accelerates the realization of important milestone of "showing result within a year, taking shape within three years".
Afforestation as the guideline: cautious lumbering, less deforestation, no reclamation from water).
Yichang New District spans the Yangtze River. Urban development will present a new pattern from “a single center” (the old town on the north bank of the Yangtze River) to “three centers” (Yichang East Railway Station center, the old town center on the north bank of the Yangtze River and the new center on the south of the Yangtze River).
How to integrate the construction and local characteristics of unique terrain with numerous hills, highlighting greenness, ecology and post-modernity?
In April 2013，after hearing reports on planning and construction of Yichang New District, Li Hongzhong, Secretary of Provincial Committee of CPC, commented that “Yichang should aim at the highest standard of contemporary city construction concept and highlight scientific and ecologic development. With a high spirit of innovation, it should expand its development space and gather development resources by adopting new ideas, mechanism, methods as well as strategies to achieve extraordinary striding development and make Yichang New District Program a masterpiece”.
To achieve this historical leap, construction of Yichang New District should closely follow post-modern trends and ecological ideas. Huang Chuping, member of Standing Committee of Hubei Provincial Committee of CPC and Yichang Municipal Party Secretary, stressed that New District should adhere to "four priorities" —road network, public construction, resettlement and ecology to accelerate the construction of a big and strong as well as a great and beautiful Yichang.
Builders of Yichang New District strive to practice "three-dimensional principle"- cautiously cutting down trees, digging fewer mountains, not filling the lakes during the whole process of planning and construction of megacity. In construction, we should moderately control earthworks, achieve an effective city management and curbing overspill of muck car. In accordance with general requirements of post-modern eco-city construction, rivers and mountains should be well protected, ecological projects should be discreetly built and the overall eco-system should be attentively preserved.
Ecology as priority: restoring vegetation on mountains and hills, decorating roadside landscapes
On Dec.31 last year, the 31st Yichang New Year’s Day Long Distance Race draw tens of thousands of citizens’ attention again to Yichang New District. 5.6 kilometers of Dianjun Avenue has become a kind of bright scenery in Dianjun Ecological New District.
There are 97 various municipal infrastructure projects, 73 roads with its overall length of about 177km (including roads built and in construction) within Yichang New District. According to traditional ideas, it will entail heavy roadwork if we expect to build straight and flat roads. As a result, roads skirting major infrastructure and following the terrain are designed by Promotion Office of Yichang New District to optimize traffic resources.
The design and construction of Jiangcheng Avenue in Dianjun District was confronted with a conundrum—over 150 high voltage towers along this 8 kilometers’ road. Moving all these towers would increase the investment while opening a new road through the mountain would violate ecological principles. Yang Tao, deputy director in Yichang Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-rural Development, introduced an “ecological way” to reporter: road detoured towers, by which a unique landscape had been formed by blending ecological road on the ground with high voltage corridor in the air, so the cost of moving high voltage towers dropped from 70 million yuan to 9.6 million yuan.
On Tongqiang Road of Wujiagang District, greenbelt has been made of Yichang-featured “micro-hill” and “micro-stone” beset with rare stones and sweet osmanthus, instead of monotonous “trees in lines” and “smooth greenbelts”, so you can enjoy scenery along the road.
Li Jiangtao, chief technology officer of YCCT (Yichang Urban Development Investment Co., Ltd), says that these examples of ecological protection can be found everywhere in Yichang, and public buildings are all ecological, excellent and beautiful, such as Olympic sports Center, Planning Exhibition Hall, etc.
Coordinated development driven by two wheels: a blessed land of numerous landscapes and gorgeous gardens
While New District thrives, what can be done in old town?
Solution of Yichang New District is to take?the renovation of old city as an important part of megacity construction, which is summarized as “coordinated development driven by two wheels: old and new districts”. The renovation of canal is one of these examples.
Since last year, Yichang government has carried out a comprehensive renovation for the canal, aiming at building it into a river serving as an ecological corridor, leisure corridor and cultural corridor.
Lin Hongyan, as well as other residents living in Yunhejiayuan Residential Quarter, takes a walk along the canal every day, “I did not like to walk along the river for its bad smell. But now, the river becomes clear, the scenery becomes beautiful, so it is comfortable to have a walk every day.” says she.
Up to Dec.31, 2014, an ecological construction investment of 1.505 billion yuan has been accumulatively accomplished in Yichang New District in which 50 kilometers of urban greenway has been built and water landscape project of Yichang East Railway Station has been started. The New District has taken on an initial look of “green dwellings”.
Green has become both background and prevailing color during the development of New District. A model area of “industrial transformation and upgrading”, of “ecological and cultural tourism”, of “multiple modern functions”, of “coordinated development” is rising along the Yangtze River.