China is building a new futuristic city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Beijing as a high-tech ecological development essay. Is called Xiongan New Area, and in the words of Chinese state media is destined to be the permanent "showcase" of China's growth model.
The city, founded on the initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping, presents a challenge for the promotion of innovation, despite the recent slowdown in its economic growth, and Western efforts to limit its access to advanced technology.
Xiongan, futuristic China
You know, China doesn't plan things overnight. Xiongan's plans date back to 2017, and aimed to reduce pressure on Beijing by promoting the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
As mentioned, Xi called the futuristic city a "personal initiative" and a "plan of national importance." The new area covers an area of approximately 1700 square kilometers (650 sq mi) and its projected population is 3 million: there are already 1,4 million inhabitants. The latest data for September 2022 show already completed investments of 400 billion yuan (about 57 billion euros).
What is Xiongan's vision?
In futuristic Xiongan, innovation is being integrated into city structures and government processes. The arrival of some of the most important branches of the major Chinese research groups, expected by 2025, will be only the small stage of a long journey.
A state response to similar city projects springing up elsewhere: how Woven city, in Japan, or Mirrorline in the UAE.
Could this be why Covid hasn't slowed down the work either? In 2020 it opened a large high-speed railway station to connect the city with Beijing, followed by buildings of all sorts (on the surface and underground) and a giant data center. It will be the "central brain" of Xiongan, directing the services of an entire digital ecosystem.
Three cities in one
The goal is to introduce urban technological innovations by integrating them into the very structure of the futuristic city. Xiongan will be composed of three elements, three cities in the city: the surface city, underground city and digital city.
La surface city follow guidelines that call for the creation of "five-minute blocks", which allow residents to have easy access to services such as medical clinics, child and elder care facilities, and other important services within a five-minute distance on foot.
Underground city: will have underground service corridors that carry water and electricity networks and provide space for automated logistics delivery.
La digital cityfinally, it will be the testing ground for a company that receives salaries, purchases products and services, and pays taxes, with a blockchain-based currency, the digital renminbi. This, indeed, is the part that sounds most fearsome to me, for the extreme social control that can be exercised through these mechanisms.
From the past to the future
Xiongan's stated "ultimate" goal, opaque implications aside, is to create an urban environment that promotes the mental health, well-being and artistic development of its residents.
An environment that improves the quality of life of the community, rationalizing and modernizing everything: from the delivery of goods to the production and consumption of energy (obviously renewable), passing through the streamlining of government bureaucracy.
What can we get, if not learn, from this futuristic "urban gym"?
An awareness: much of the society of the future, in the East and in the West, passes through the restructuring of our cities.
The most important ones in which we live, however loyal inhabitants see us, are daughters of other eras. They are probably at the limit of their possibilities, and many of them are virtually impossible to renew, except at unthinkable costs at the moment.
Some futuristic "new cities" would also be needed in Europe: perhaps to test compromise solutions that allow us to improve our quality of life without abandoning the places steeped in history and art in which we live.
From Xiongan (and her few colleagues) we will get important answers.
