Beijing will move some of its city administration out of the city center to the eastern suburbs as part of the capital's contribution to the national Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development plan, it was officially announced over the weekend.
The decision to build a new municipal subsidiary administrative center in Tongzhou, about 40 minutes drive from the city center, is one of several moves to ease "urban ills" and follow through on the regional development plan.
While the move has long been anticipated, it was officially announced at a meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Beijing Municipal Committee on Saturday.
"Remarkable progress" will be made on the center in Tongzhou by 2017, a statement from the meeting said.
GOOD START BUT NOT ENOUGH
Hu Gang, head of the South China Urban Planning Institute under the Urban Planning Society of China, said the decision is a good beginning.
"After a subsidiary administrative center is established, state-owned enterprises and public services will move out as well," he said, adding it can help set a good example for regional development in other areas.
The population explosion in Beijing during the urbanization drive has led to a host of problems, including traffic congestion and air pollution. The city is now trying to readjust its population growth, aiming to move 15 percent of its population out of the city center and keep the total population below 23 million by 2020.
However, simply moving government functions is not enough to address the city's bigger problems.
"Administrative and residential regulations are far from enough," said Liu Zhiyan, a research fellow with the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"Only after concerns for public services, such as education and medical care, are addressed in these areas, will be people be willing to move out [of the city center]," he said.
Lin Xiaohui, 38, who is employed with a foreign company and moved to an apartment in Tongzhou in 2010, said that so far, such services are lacking.
"Medical services here are really poor," she said.
Lin recently went to a hospital to get vaccinated after being scratched by a cat. "Later I learned that the vaccine they gave me is not proper at all," she said.
AVOID REPETITION OF URBAN ILLS
But Lin is most worried about the traffic, which is already bad in the east of Beijing. Commuting from Tongzhou normally takes around two hours, she said.
"At its worst, the traffic stops for half an hour without moving," she said. "Will the traffic get worse in the future?"
