Metropolitan regions: New challenges for an urbanizing China

Abstract

The author is President of Chreod Ltd., a consulting firm he founded in 1985 in Canada. Since 1988 the firm has worked on over 80 urban and regional development consulting projects in over 70 cities across China. Mr Leman's work has largely been on strategic development planning and policy development for municipal governments in China, and for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. He has worked in Shanghai,Tianjin, Beijing, Chongqing, and in Anhui, Hebei, Henan, Gansu, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan Provinces. Mr Leman has published articles on China urban issues in Ekistics, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the World Bank's Urban Age Journal, and the Far Eastern Economic Review's China Trade Report. Mr Leman is a member of the World Society for Ekistics and served as a member of its Executive Council from 1995-1998. This article is derived from his presentation at the international symposion on 'The Natural City," Toronto, 23-25 June, 2004, sponsored by the University of Toronto's Division of the Environment, Institute for Environmental Studies, and the World Society for Ekistics, and a subsequent paper that he delivered at the World Bank Urban Research Symposium held in April 2005 in Brasilia.