Search

Eco-cities have attracted international attention from governments, corporations, academics and other actors seeking to use sustainable urban planning to reduce urban environmental impacts. China has devoted significant political will and economic resources to the development of new-build eco-city projects, reflecting the Chinese government's goals to build a 'harmonious society' in which environmental sustainability and social stability are mutually reinforcing. We critically analyse the case of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city to demonstrate that the eco-city's ecologically modernizing visions of eco-urbanism construct a protective environment for its residents that constrains broader consideration of social sustainability. Through analysis of the marketing and presentation of specific domestic and other spaces of the eco-city, we examine the application of ecologically modernizing construction and technology to the design of the city. We argue that the eco-city is discursively constructed as ecologically beneficial for its inhabitants rather than for the broader socio-environmental landscape. Our analysis of residential spaces in Tianjin eco-city introduces the question of what 'eco' means when considering the construction of eco-urban environments for the city's residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The nonnegligible environmental health co-benefit is considered in Beijing road transport sector. • Beijing's electric vehicles policy are studied under different level of EV market penetration. • The strict electric vehicles policy in Beijing will help the city to fulfil its low carbon city target. • The quota-limit policy and EV promotion in Beijing has substantial positive health co-benefit. • It provides a reference for effectiveness analysis of administrative decree policy in big cities. In the deep decarbonization era against climate change, big cities set ambitious targets for road transport. As China's capital, Beijing has very strict vehicles quota-limit policies. This study contributes to the literature for its innovations on the evaluation of quota-limit executive policy for big cities which few studies have studied, and its improved method with integrated analysis model which distinguish itself for including future co-benefit estimation and enterprise-level data analysis. This study estimates the energy consumption and health environmental co-benefit up to 2030, results show that the ambitious policy will significantly reduce both CO 2 and key atmospheric pollutants emissions. Besides, the health economic loss from different illnesses attributed to NO X , CO, PM 2.5 and HC will be 65 %, 61 %, 19 % and 57 % lower than reference scenario in 2030. During the energy transition, gasoline will still occupy the biggest proportion of the passenger sector fuel use in Beijing. However, the quota-limit policy will have significant integrated impact on both emission mitigation and avoiding public health damage. This study provides a good reference for big cities in other countries for both its improved method and the effectiveness of administrative decree policy for urban transport planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]