Suzhou Industrial Park, 30 years and beyond
This year, Suzhou Industrial Park marks 30 years since it was established in 1994. This article is a review of the recently concluded panel discussion held at the 11th Annual Meeting of the Urban Planning Society of China. In an effort to support the policy making for, and governance of the Park, new research, planning innovations and design experiments were produced by professors, researchers and graduate students from Soo Chow University, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Xi’an-Jiaotong Liverpool University and the National University of Singapore.
Zhao Xin,
Lecturer
Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), a pioneer in China's economic reform and modernisation, has achieved remarkable results in promoting high-quality urban and industrial development over the past 30 years, since it was established in 1994. Alongside other commemorative government-to-government (G2G) events, academics and planning professionals also came together this year to re-examine the twin-engines of modernisation – industrialisation and urbanisation.
The main goal is to identify new strategies and research areas to better anticipate the overall state of urbanisation in China, and the challenges in modernising a city and its economy through industrialisation. The planning and construction of the SIP has the added element of a G2G legacy, as this collaboration was a distinct deviation from the more recognisable American or Soviet technical assistance model from the Cold War, from soon after the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Instead, SIP may be a part of what Berkeley Anthropology Prof Aihwa Ong describes as “zoning technologies” through a Chinese Axis. This new collaboration in 2024 is geared towards research and innovation.
For this new collaboration, Prof Khoo Teng Chye from the National University of Singapore (NUS) initiated the first exploratory meeting in Singapore, bringing together NUS Prof Heng Chye Kiang, former Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) planner Foo Chee See, and SIP Chief Planner Shi Kuang.
This is especially meaningful because Prof Khoo was the CEO of the URA in the 1990s, when SIP was initiated by the late Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. Prof Heng has won a number of key urban design competitions at SIP, most notably, the urban axis marked by the Gate of the Orient and Suzhou Central Park. Former Suzhou Chief Planner Yin Huili met Prof Khoo in Shanghai to take this collaboration to fruition. CEO of Singapore SCP Consultants (China) Chen Qining soon joined to form the Steering Committee of this collaboration, together with Prof Yang Xinhai, former Vice-President of the Suzhou University of Science and Technology. It was especially meaningful for CEO Chen to be a part of this steering committee, because he was in the first cohort of Suzhou planners who visited Singapore in the early 1990s.
New research by five universities
With strong institutional and funding support from the SIP Administrative Committee (SIPAC) and its various government departments, the researchers and students from five collaborating universities were able to formulate their research frameworks in a multidisciplinary manner. NUS also provided additional research funding.
The research groups were led by Assoc Profs Xia Zhengwei and Zhang Jing from Soochow University, Assoc Prof Chen Bing from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Prof Zheng Hao from Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Prof Hu Yike from Tianjin University, and Assoc Prof H. Koon Wee from NUS. They approached the research from organising concepts such as urban charm, green development, urban intelligence, and resilience. Their main aim was to contribute new findings from social, economic, environmental, technological and other vantage points. The Director of SCP Consultants’ Center for China Innovation, Jiang Shunjie, provided a strong bridging link between SIPAC and the universities.
This collaboration sought to serve as a vanguard for innovative urban development for a new era. The research argues for room for experimentation, especially in piloting new policies and new metrics of measuring success beyond economic growth. The focus on an integrated development of industry, the city and its people places importance on improving the liveability of Suzhou for its inhabitants. There is an encouragement to leverage off the purposefulness of policy and planning innovation, along with an appropriate use of technological advancements to create a platform for high-quality, sustainable urban development.
The research was presented at the 11th Annual Meeting of the Urban Planning Society of China in May 2024, along with an exhibition of the work by NUS researchers and students. Prof Heng was invited to give the keynote address on day 1. On day 2, the panel discussion was chaired by Assoc Prof Wee, and NUS Assistant Prof Dorothy Tang provided the closing address on the industrial estate as a transnational model of development.
The discussions drew on Prof Wee’s urban-industrial complex theory, which posits that industrialisation is an important driving force for modern urban development. The key argument is that industrial development drives city-making ambitions, and many social frameworks and workers’ welfare policies have grown from improvements made by governments and industrialists. It can be demonstrated that industrial development ultimately pushes the city to provide better education, housing, healthcare and social services, recreation and leisure, art and culture, and even urban greenery and public spaces.
By examining the trajectory of urban development, it is not difficult to see that industrial development provides the technological and socio-economic foundations for urban growth and innovation. The economic basis for industrial innovation can be coupled with effective social and environmental policies, ensuring a strong integration of different environments that make a city sustainable. SIPAC can conscientiously create urban sites with great intensity and a high degree of hybridity, such that the industrial functions and its workers are not segregated and pushed to the remote fringes of the city. Thus, social and ecological goals can be pursued alongside economic and industrial agendas, with shared goals of safeguarding the future of the natural environment, and attaining social and economic progress.
The perspectives and focal points of academia and the professional industry often differ when it comes to the analysis of problems. How to make these academic studies truly take root, transform into practical actions to promote SIP's high-quality development, and effectively respond to the people's aspirations for a better life is an important proposition facing policy-makers, planners and researchers. Through field visits and questionnaire surveys, many researchers in this collaboration have found that although SIP has made significant progress in construction, there is still a gap between the expectations of the inhabitants and the reality, in terms of its infrastructure, public services, living environment and the community. Although clear in their targets, policy recommendations still need further enhancement in terms of feasibility and specificity at the implementation level.
Making Suzhou smarter
Taking smart technological transformation as an example, the research from Suzhou University of Science and Technology focuses on how to use new-generation information technology to promote SIP's digital, networked, and intelligent development. They proposed a development path with digitalisation as the starting point, and intelligence as the orientation, emphasising the need to empower industrial development with new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.
They also suggest creating a batch of digital parks and factories, accelerating the layout of emerging industries such as smart transportation, smart environmental protection, and smart energy, to help SIP seize the initiative in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. This is of great significance for improving the levels of urban management and public service, optimising resource allocation efficiency, and promoting green and low-carbon development.
It is recommended that SIP management departments try to make the most of the opportunities offered by new-generation information technology development, increase strategic layout and policy support in fields such as digital economy and smart cities, improve digital infrastructure construction, promote the digital transformation of traditional industries and the clustering development of emerging industries, and create a first-class innovative highland for the digital economy in China.
Building urban resilience
Urban resilience building is crucial to SIP's sustainable development and the well-being of its citizens, and is an important aspect that must be enhanced for high-quality development. Currently, with global climate change intensifying, and uncertain risk factors such as extreme weather and natural disasters significantly increasing, SIP urgently needs to comprehensively improve its ability to cope with complex situations and resist external shocks.
The team from Tianjin University has put forward practical and useful suggestions from aspects such as constructing a city-wide Internet of Things system and developing intelligent risk analysis and emergency decision support platforms. Such systems aim to enhance SIP's comprehensive capabilities in prevention, control, and rapid response, in the face of major risk challenges in areas such as natural disasters, public health, and production safety. At the same time, the team suggests fully integrating the concept of resilience into all aspects of urban planning, construction, operation, and management, putting more effort into optimising the layout of emergency shelters and strengthening disaster prevention for important infrastructure, so as to build a solid safety foundation for SIP's high-quality development.
NUS has also proposed many valuable experiences and practices in this regard, which are worth learning and referencing by SIP. It is recommended that SIP management departments firmly establish bottom-line thinking and risk prevention awareness, quickly establish and improve the evaluation system and management system for urban safety and resilience indicators, accelerate the construction of smart emergency management platforms, comprehensively enhance the ability to investigate and monitor major risk hazards, and effectively protect people's lives and property safety.
Becoming greener in every way
Green and low-carbon development is an inevitable trend, and a necessary path ahead for SIP's ecological civilisation construction and sustainable development. The team from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University conducted a comprehensive and systematic analysis of SIP's green transformation and development, from aspects such as optimising industrial structure, developing green transportation, creating a liveable environment, improving infrastructure, strengthening ecological restoration, and innovating community governance.
Their proposed counter-measures are highly operable, and have strong guiding significance. For example, in promoting low-carbon industrial transformation, they suggest vigorously developing renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic and wind power, using market-oriented means and green financial tools to accelerate the elimination of backward and excess capacity, and to promote the optimisation and adjustment of energy structure. In improving the quality of the living environment, they recommend scientifically planning urban green corridors and leisure spaces, strengthening the treatment of black and odorous water bodies, improving building energy efficiency and garbage classification and reduction levels, and comprehensively creating a liveable and suitable green ecological home. The experience of, and practices from, in areas such as building sponge cities and creating near-zero carbon emission demonstration zones have also provided inspiration for SIP's future development. Another source of inspiration can be drawn from Chinese President Xi Jinping's thoughts on the concept of “ecological civilisation”. Here, the key ideas include: Integrating the concept of green development into all aspects of economic and social development; promoting green and low-carbon transformation in key areas such as industry, energy, transportation, and construction; accelerating the formation of green production and lifestyle; and creating new situations in the construction of an ecological civilisation.
Enhancing public spaces
Creating a high-quality and visually appealing living environment is a key focus for enhancing the city's soft power and core competitiveness. The team from Soochow University innovatively constructed a quantitative analysis and evaluation system for dimensions such as urban spatial form, public vitality, and landscape image. They systematically evaluated the quality characteristics and inherent shortcomings of different types of public spaces in SIP, and put forward many insightful views on improving functional layout, shaping characteristic features, enhancing cultural connotations, and increasing spatial interest.
These insights are of great significance for promoting SIP to quickly address shortcomings in the people's livelihoods, and so, enhance the city's liveability. The team from NUS provided many novel and unique ideas and practices regarding public space design, traffic systems, and community building, which are worth careful study and reference by SIP. One overall area of focus is that SIP should be based on a "people-centred" development concept. This means that, while optimising the urban spatial pattern, the improvement of shortcomings could be accelerated in culture, education, healthcare, sports and fitness, and other aspects of the people's livelihoods. Also, SIP should strengthen the refined design and precise supply of public spaces such as urban parks, greenways, and squares, so as to create convenient community living circles according to local conditions, and so, continuously enhance the people's sense of happiness and security.
Testing ground for more innovation
Overall, the research results of the expert teams from the five universities provide many new ideas, perspectives, and methods for SIP's future high-quality development, with strong foresight, pertinence, and guidance.
For SIP, learning from, and drawing on, these research results, fully absorbing the insights therein, and innovatively applying them based on its own realities is of great significance for further emancipating the mind, updating concepts, improving systems and mechanisms, clarifying development ideas, accelerating the construction of a modern economic system, promoting urban renewal and development, improving social governance, and accelerating the creation of a model for high-quality development. Especially as a "testing ground" for reform and opening-up, SIP should make full use of these intellectual achievements to further deepen reforms in key areas and crucial links; increase institutional innovation in fields such as science and technology, education, healthcare, and social security; use reform methods to solve development problems; and continuously enhance development vitality and endogenous motivation.
The key role of governance
In addition, to truly implement the people-centric development advocated by researchers from the five universities, it is necessary to further advance the mechanisms of urban policy and social governance in the redevelopment of SIP. A closer coordination between regulatory frameworks and self-governance would empower the citizenry for a better city. In planning formulation and major project construction, more attention should be paid to giving play to the main role of the people, smoothing channels for expressing public opinion and broadly gathering collective wisdom. It is useful to strengthen social networks and services, and improve the informatisation and intelligence of the community to better meet the multi-faceted needs of the inhabitants.
The 30th anniversary of SIP can mark the commencement of a new approach. It is expected that SIP would continue to boldly explore new aspects such as building an inclusive economic system, promoting a sensitive form of urban redevelopment and improving social governance and citizens’ participation. SIP can fully absorb and draw on the insights from the research results of the five universities, and innovatively apply them based on its own realities, focusing on creating new heights for digital economy development, and shaping a model of high-quality liveable life, continuously opening up new situations of high-quality development. In this process, SIP can serve as the platform to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with universities and think-tanks, and to build opportunities for a deep integration of industry, academia and research. With such collaborations, it would be possible to promote the transformation and application of more innovative research, and provide even more strong theoretical and intellectual support for the further development of SIP.