Changsha Pursues for Balanced Development Along Xiangjiang River

(File photo)

According to Changsha s 12th Five-Year Plan (Draft, 2011-2015), efforts will be exerted to appropriately expand the downtown area of the city. Attention will be paid to promoting scientific and well-planned spatial development,, and stepping up the pace of shaping an urban spatial texture featured by one axis, two belts, one core area and seven districts. ( One axis is the principal landscape axis in the center. "Two belts are the two belt-like open greenspaces.

In addition, initiatives will be taken in the city to ensure rational layout of the major infrastructure facilities, improve comprehensive service function and promote city cluster development.

What would Changsha city look like 5 years later? Wang Huifang, chief engineer of the Changsha Urban-Rural Planning Administration Bureau, said that until then Changsha will have been built into a high-speed railway hub connecting Wuhan-Guangzhou railway and Shanghai-Kunming railway as well as an aviation hub accessible to a number of international airlines. While within the province, it will also have been developed into a happy and livable city with balanced development along both banks of Xiangjiang River.

The two high-speed railways Changsha linking are Wuhan-Guangzhou railway and Shanghai-Kunming railway. The former has been completed and operated for a year, and the latter is scheduled to open to public within 4 years. The high-speed transportation hub formed by these two railways will foster a window to the outside world along both banks of Liuyang River and become a sub-center of Changsha.

The planning and construction that implemented in the Changsha Pioneering District on the west of the Xiangjiang River has thoroughly transformed the city layout proposed in the 1990s and fulfilled the aspiration of "balanced development along both banks of Xiangjiang River".

Translator: Chen Yu