Chengdu, China The first Park City Forum was held in Chengdu, China, on April 22. The development concept and life scene of future cities have become the focus of global experts' discussion. In the process of urbanization, China has made frequent efforts to set up Xiongan New Area and issued the development plan of the Greater Bay Area of Guandong ,Hongkong and Macao. The concept of “park city”, which began in Tianfu New Area of Chengdu, has opened up a new exploration of building a better future city in China.

Tianfu New Area is a state-level new area approved by the Chinese government in October 2014, with a planned total area of 1578 square kilometers, including 564 square kilometers of Chengdu directly administered area. Different from the traditional urban development path in China, Tianfu New Area is exploring a new paradigm of Park City development with harmonious and unified human-city environment.

Tianfu New Area is an important node of China's “one belt and one road” initiative and the development of the Yangtze River economic belt, and is endowed with the expectation of building an inland open economic highland in China. At the beginning of 2018, when Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected Tianfu New Area, he urged the local government to plan and build Tianfu New Area well, especially to highlight the characteristics of parks and cities, take ecological value into account, and strive to build a new growth pole in China and an open economic highland in China’s inland areas. This is the first time that China has publicly put forward the idea of building a park city. Subsequently, the park city was included in the new path of urban development in Chengdu.

In February 2018, Tianfu New Area defined the development strategy of Park city. In order to build a world-class Park city, the local government established the first Park City Construction Bureau, set up the Park City Research Institute, overall considered of urban space layout and optimized the functional layout of “Tianfu Center, Chengdu Science City, Western Expo City and Tianfu Cultural and Creative City”. And the new exploration of Park City construction was started. Tianfu New Area, as the first place of “Park City”, fully implements the new development concept, adheres to the philosophy of 70% blue and green space, and constructs 1200 km Tianfu ecological greenway and underground sewage treatment. A harmony and unity of “people, city, environment and industry” environment with open windows and green doors should be built.

In the global urban development, New York Central Park in the center of New York City, Hyde Park in the center of London, Luxembourg Garden in Paris, Phoenix Park in Dublin, Wuji Zhima Nature Reserve in Singapore... These large urban parks have become beautiful green lungs in busy urban centers, allowing cities to live in harmony with nature. Because of their respect for nature, these urban parks enjoy a good reputation all over the world.

According to local officials, “sustainable development” and “livability” are common themes in terms of global urban development----London 2062: sustainable city, healthy city, prosperous city and world city. New York 2030: greener and better New York. Berlin 2049: zero environmental damage and sustainable development. Singapore 2030: a high-quality livable city... Tianfu New Area hopes to learn from the development experience of the world’s advanced cities，focus on people and build a park city. In the layout of urban construction, Tianfu New Area fully considers the harmony and unity of “people, city, environment and industry”, forms the ecological network of human and nature coexistence, and according to different industry orientation and different crowd needs, pertinently lays out life supporting and creates consumption scenarios. At present, the Luxi River ecological area covers an area of 3,800 Mu; Tianfu Park with 110,000 square meters of recreational lawn and 12.5 kilometers of aerobic running track inside; Smart Valley greenway has been built and opened successively to build up the green ecological background of the city. Like many European urban parks, the lawn of Tianfu Park is accessible. Children can play on the lawn. Adults can bring a book to enjoy the leisure and comfort of the park city. The spatial pattern of production and living in Tianfu New Area has been continuously optimized, forming numerous “15-minute life circles”. Open parks, greenways, wetlands and ecological corridors have been built successively, which has become a new living scene for local residents.

In addition to the spatial layout of the city, there are many innovations in local economic development. On July 30, 2018, the world's first industrial carrier focusing on the incubation and cultivation of unicorn enterprises -- “unicorn island” -- officially started construction in Tianfu New Area. In March 2019, the local government will also issue the latest policies on attracting investment to the whole world and vigorously develop an open economy. In addition to the “unicorn island”, the construction of Sino-Italian cultural innovation park, Sichuan and Hong Kong design and creative industrial park and other cooperation parks has been promoted orderly. China-Cuba-Canada brain mapping project was launched, China-Singapore kiwi fruit joint laboratory and MW Reach-Now headquarters were put into use. Band La Mancha rural complex in Spain and other projects were signed. In 2018, when the global economy was not developing smoothly, the local foreign investment actually reached 33.296 million US dollars, increased 30.57% over the previous year.   

In 2018, globalization and the world city GaWC released the world city roster in 2018, Chengdu leaped up again and entered Beta level; the Brookings Institution, an American think tank, released the Global Metropolis Monitoring Report 2018, which launched the global 300 metropolitan economic performance index list, Chengdu ranked third in the world... In fact, Chengdu has become a very important new economic and industrial base in China, which has a tremendous driving force for the development of the whole western region of China. The construction of “Park City” in Tianfu New Area is regarded as an important force to help Chengdu build a world-class city.

In 2019, Tianfu New Area has also continued to optimize the international business environment, which is included in the annual key work plan. The local government is committed to promoting the convergence of international resource elements. Some multinational enterprises from Singapore, the United States and other places have also found new investment opportunities in the region.

In the process of urbanization, countries all over the world have made great achievements, but at the same time they are facing many problems such as coordinated economic and social progress, unbalanced development and so on. As early as 2015, the Chinese government put forward five development concepts: innovation, coordination, green, open and sharing. In urban construction, Tianfu New Area implements green building development action. Some scholars believe that the construction of parks and cities in Tianfu New Area is the vivid practice of the "five development concepts" advocated by China, and is also China's new contribution to world economic development.

Liu Taige, the first chairman of Singapore Livable City Center Advisory Committee and "Father of Singapore Planning", has arrived in Tianfu New Area for investigation. In his opinion, compared with garden city, Park City is a further term. The Park City to be built in Chengdu is a grand and beautiful urban form, which reflects agricultural civilization, industrial civilization and ecological civilization. It is a bold exploration of urban development with a high degree of harmony and unity among people, city, environment and industry.

Harrison Frick, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that the park city was first proposed in the Tianfu New Area of Chengdu. Chengdu's integration of parks into the city and its attempt to bring nature into urban life is a great progress in urban planning and design.

Nowadays, you can see scientists and professionals from all over the world at any time in Tianfu New Area. The “park city” in Tianfu New Area of Chengdu, China, opens a new exploration of building a city with a bright future and brings more beautiful expectations to the world's urban development!