Many cities around the world are being challenged by demographic shifts, globalization, technological innovation, and environmental changes. Their economic performance will be determined by how proactive they are at addressing these, and by the collective decision of the leaders and the citizenry to adapt. Some Chinese cities that have benefited from trade and traditional manufacturing for decades are currently undergoing these challenges. The “factory of the world” has been threatened with rising incomes among its labor force, aging population, technologies such as robotics, as well as emerging production centers in other countries.
Advisory Panel
Recently, I was in Foshan, China to serve for a second time in the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Advisory Panel Services. The ULI puts together seven to eight experts, with diverse backgrounds in land use, from its pool of 36,000 members around the world. It is an opportunity to visit a new place, and learn from esteemed colleagues in the Panel. I readily said yes as it is an honor to represent the most trusted real estate think tank in the world. I was the first Filipino, as well as the first Young Leader (member below 35) outside of the US, to have been invited to be part of an advisory panel.
The Panel was chaired by Tom Murphy, who was Mayor of Pittsburgh in 1994 to 2005. The "Steel City" of Pennsylvania, which was recently named as one of the 11 most livable cities in the world, shifted its economy from one dominated by steel mills. He is credited for the difficult decisions that had to be made for the city to de-industrialize successfully. Pittsburgh, as well as Austin in Texas, Barcelona in Spain and Birmingham, UK have become the envy of traditionally industrial cities such as Detroit – that are currently going through recession.
Other members of the Panel include In Keun Lee, who served the government of Seoul for 32 years. He led various urban planning and infrastructure-related projects that helped transform the Korean capital into a first-class city. Most notable of which is the restoration of the Cheong Gye Cheon waterway. Zongbo Tan, an urban planning professor in Tsinghua University, represented the academe. Developers were represented by Jane Lloyd, who has led big real estate developments in Australia, and Ken Rhee, who has advised several investments in China. There were two architects in the Panel – Allen Folks and Phil Kim, who respectively are leaders in AECOM, the world’s biggest engineering and design firm, and Jerde which was involved in successful retail hubs such as Roponggi Hills in Tokyo and Mall of America. We were supported by key ULI staff – vice president Tom Eitler, an urban planner who has been in several panels around the world, and Abel Xu who translated our whole presentation to Mandarin.
The panel work was characterized by site visits, stakeholder interviews, meetings, research and a lot of brainstorming within our team. At the end of the week, we presented our recommendations to the city government, and a report will soon be published. Our sponsor was Shui on Land, a developer that has been successful in creating high quality real estate centered on heritage. They developed Xintiandi, which transformed historical buildings into a car-free, live-work-play district in Shanghai.
Foshan?
Foshan is a city in Guandong Province, southeast China. It is 30 kilometers west of Guangzhou, and 140 kilometers northwest of Hong Kong. Its output value in manufacturing ranked fifth in the country at RMB 2 trillion ($313 billion). Foshan has been a center of production of furniture, lighting, ceramics and textiles. Two-thirds of the world’s household ceramics are produced in Foshan, particularly the districts of Shunde and Nanhai. Seventy percent of its economy is from the private sector, and this is rare as most Chinese economies are dominated by state-owned enterprises. It has a long history of trade and entrepreneurial culture, and many successful businessmen in Hong Kong and Macau trace their roots in Foshan.
It is the cradle of Lingnan culture, which characterizes the civilization of southern China, including Cantonese culture. It was one of only four “gatherings” in ancient China – with the others being Beijing, Suzhou and Hankou. These gateway cities of the Ming and Qing dynasties were the hubs of the rest of China, before goods were traded with other countries. Cantonese opera and cuisine, Chinese herbal medicine, and martial arts flourished in Foshan. One of the city’s famous sons is martial arts legend Ip Man, who had several students such as Bruce Lee. The city of seven million has such a great story to tell, and yet the well-travelled and international Panel has not heard of Foshan until this assignment.
(Part 2 to be published on December 16.)
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