Urbanisation creates communities 'out of nowhere' along rail line

Subway Line 5 to Tiantongyuan is part of China's remarkable urbanisation rush.

Subway Line 5 to Tiantongyuan is known as the "sleeping train" because many of the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of this northern suburb of Beijing go home only to rest after a busy day in China's booming capital. This is the face of China's remarkable urbanisation rush. In Beijing's northern suburbs, tens of thousands of people rouse themselves every morning and spill out of the train on to a spotless, state-of-the-art platform at Tiantongyuan Central. They then shuffle across a walkway over a motorway, and take the train into China's ancient capital, once an Imperial centre but now home to 19 million people.

Stallholders on the bridge sell a wide range of goods including vehicle registration folders, live turtles, toys, bags and delicious Beijing pancakes. "Vendors are strictly forbidden. We will strictly crack down on vendors," says a banner behind the trinket sellers, illegal taxi drivers and food stands with sizzling fare. A KFC outlet is also crowded with people. On the other side of the bridge, modern tower blocks, many topped with neoclassical cupolas, stretch out as far as you can see, and the Fragrant Hills are in sight today after weeks of being hidden in fog.

"A neighbourhood of half a million people has emerged out of nowhere, its growth facilitated by mass transportation. This is what cities should be trying to achieve everywhere," says Neville Mars, an architect and the chairman of the Dynamic City Foundation, an international urban research and development organisation. "It proves we need to look at suburbanisation in a different context. In the West, we're scared of suburbanisation because to us it means sprawl. But Tiantongyuan shows that classic sprawl can quickly rejuvenate itself into healthy city tissue."

Tiantongyuan is in many ways a model for the growth of the super-city. The concentration of people can help control emissions from transport and other human activity. Beijing, which is at the edge of the Gobi desert, has long suffered from drought, and schemes such as the South-to-North Water Diversion Project are looking insufficient to support the city's rapid growth. Places such as Tiantongyuan need hospitals, schools, public transport, services, health, education, entertainment and other infrastructure, and many of these needs have been met during the suburb's planning process.

At times, when people call an ambulance or police, they will wait for more than half an hour, and the roads flood in heavy rains. These aspects of life need to be improved if Tiantongyuan is to be a truly liveable part of the super-city of Beijing. [e-mail]