- Towards a walkable city: the planning practice of Shenzhen    1208 kb by    Tang, Yuanzhou & Chen, Xiaojing | jonahtong@hotmail.com    Short Outline A planning study project will be examined in this paper to describe the efforts of Shenzhen, China's most successful emerging city, towards a walkable and sustainable city. Abstract Shenzhen, the most successful emerging city in China, has experienced rapid urban development thanks to the economic reform. Growing too fast with the sharply increased urban population, the highly intensified construction and development, and the wide spread of roads, bridges and infrastructures, Shenzhen encounters severe environmental challenges caused by urbanization. Shenzhen does not turn a blind eye to the problems. Instead, it chooses to reconsider the development of the last thirty years which has overstressed economic aspects and tries to explore a new way towards sustainability. Much planning practice has been initiated in pursuit of livable urban environment for the citizens and sustainable growth in the future. A planning study project will be addressed in this paper to describe Shenzhen's efforts towards a walkable city, namely the planning for Shenzhen's pedestrian system, which is aimed to reduce the use of car and to create a comfortable environment for walking and living. This paper will elaborate on the international experience applied in the project, the formulation and implementation of the project outcome, and the evaluation of the efforts made by the participants involved. It is concluded that in Shenzhen a consensus building has been established in the pursuit of sustainable development, although only with the first step, to commit its promise to the environment and the future. Keywords Shenzhen, Walkable City, Pedestrian System Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2009: Low Carbon Cities   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper