Many local construction companies have also halted their projects due to tight controls on China's real estate market. The sudden jobless population of construction workers will be another big challenge for the New Area's management committee and the local government.
The management committee said that it has already rolled out a series of measures to ensure their employment. Over 80 central-government-owned enterprises and local enterprises have provided 100,000 jobs in the counties, and Hebei authorities launched campaigns to provide new training for locals in accounting, housekeeping, afforestation, gardening and even tea ceremony.
Big city diseases
One of the symptoms of "big city diseases" is the separation of residential and work districts, resulting in extremely long commutes. In Beijing, for example, it is not uncommon for people to spend two to three hours on their daily commute.
"One of the biggest problems with Chinese cities is their unbalanced functions. When we talk about development zones, we think of a large zone of factories with no place for night snacks. On the other hand, districts like Huilongguan and Tiantongyuan in Beijing are colossal residential areas with no industries around," Li Xiaojiang, dean of the China Academy of Urban Planning And Design, told China Newsweek.
The result, he concluded, is that people must travel many hours to commute between such areas, which is "really inhuman." Li added that Xiongan will try to alter that problem to become a city where multiple functions develop in balance, thus becoming a model for future cities.
An unnamed official at Xiongan's management committee told China Newsweek that the New Area will be divided into several districts, each several dozen square kilometers. At each of these districts, the people's needs for work, life and public services will all be met.
A study by Xu Zhenqiang, Deputy Director in Chief of Digital City Engineering Research Center, Chinese Society for Urban Studies, showed that as a metro train can travel seven stops, or seven kilometers, in 15 minutes, a 7x7 kilometer grid (about 49 square-kilometer in area), is probably the best size for each Xiongan district.
Public transportation will be the primary means of transport in Xiongan. Most of it will be underground, as well as the city's water, electricity and gas supply and disaster relief systems, according to plans revealed earlier.
Sinopec Green Energy Geothermal Development has been developing geothermal resources in Xiongxian and Rongcheng counties since 2009. Sun Caixia, the company's technology director, said the geological conditions beneath the surface of Xiongan is very good for underground development. "The spacious subterranean area will make underground tunnels and three-dimensional traffic possible," she told China Newsweek.
In August, China's geological authorities announced that after two months of surveying, they concluded that Xiongan is "very suitable for underground development."
Geological departments are also currently building a digital platform, which will provide statistics for future city planning and risk management.
Affordable housing
Quite often when future plans are announced for a Chinese city, a construction spree follows, along with speculators who drive up property prices. Such "land finance" has been part of the engine behind the booming Chinese economy for the past 20 years.
Xiongan hopes to avoid that. In April, after the blueprint for the New Area was first announced, it rolled out a series of measures to stabilize property prices and curb speculation. "The New Area will not rely on land finance (as its development model)," Chen Gang, head of the management committee, told China Newsweek.
In the half year since its announcement, no residential housing was built. Over 1,000 homes, both for commercial and residential use, have been rented to non-local enterprises and individuals who have swarmed into Xiongan over the past six months. Officials say rentals in Xiongxian and Anxin counties rose by 10 to 30 percent, while in Rongcheng, where the New Area's management committee is located, rentals rose by 100 to 300 percent.
To cope with this situation, the local governments of the three counties under the administration of Xiongan put forward a series of measures, including shutting down illegal real estate agencies and establishing a government-led house-renting platform to provide free information to lessors and tenants.
In the future, Xiongan's housing market will very likely follow the model of Singapore, whose government directly manages many lands and constructs public or low-rent housing for those in need, according to Wu Hequan, deputy head of the expert advisory committee on the collaborative development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei under the State Council.
Xiongan's local authorities are already planning to boost the construction of affordable rental properties for newcomers. The authorities will also establish a point-based system to determine which migrants will be qualified to purchase these homes. Only those who have lived and worked in Xiongan for a certain number of years will be eligible to purchase homes.
