The Tianjin Eco-City model in the academic literature on urban sustainability

Abstract

Recent intensive eco-city development in China has been accompanied by rising enthusiasm for environmental sustainability indicators. Whilst there are calls for the indicators to be standardised, and criticism of the difficulties in applying them, little effort has been made to understand their scientific rationale. This article employs a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to investigate the use of environmental indicators from the Tianjin Eco-City Key Performance Indicators by the international scientific community working on urban sustainability. The findings draw a clear picture of the place of Tianjin Eco-City's indicators in the international scientific literature. China's ecological problems are found to attract interest not only from domestic researchers but also researchers outside the country. The indicators are used not only for urban planning and management but also for a wide range of urbanrelated and non-urban-related purposes. The scientific rationale of the eleven indicators is specifically addressed, revealing a number of underlying questions about the Tianjin Eco-City indicators.

Urban Planning and Reconstruction of Cities Post-Wars by the Approach of Events and Response Images

“…The process of responding to the event was successful, represented in integrating economic and social plans with the environmental dimension and giving it a leading role, also taking into account the adaptation and acceptance by the community of the city. Thus, the process of reading and responding was sound and achieved the desired goals [29,30]. See Figure 5.…”

Sustainable Cities, Rescue of Original Construction Methods and Use of Technology. A literary Review

“…It is also the most populated country in the world and suffers a constant migration to cities, so Tianjin is part of a series of sustainable cities with clear guidelines determined by 26 indicators (KPI) related to water, air, energy, transportation and waste, among its main aspects, and somehow are being "tested" in Tianjin, aimed at achieving a sustainable city that allows it to manage the particularities of its territory, such as the large amount of urban population it has and the fact that it continues to grow rapidly. [18,20,21] Developed in partnership with Singapore, it has proposed sustainable strategies in order not only to provide comfort to its inhabitants through energy efficiency strategies using renewable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal energy, but seeks to regenerate its initially polluted natural environment, as it is built on an old landfill, surrounded by highly polluted water. To achieve this, the city has a vegetation corridor that crosses it, but also combines its 7 sectors (Lifescape, Eco-Valley, Solarscape, Urbanscape, Windscape, Earthscape and Eco-Corridors) so that vegetation is within reach for all of them, in addition the views that the city presents, are managed in a way that takes advantage of the existing or designed topography, it also makes efficient use of vertical developments so that they take advantage of strategies of the sectors of the city, offering users different forms to inhabit from an urban environment of high density and height (Urbanscape), to a relaxed and natural environment similar to the life of a town (Windscape), passing through an intermediate space providing its inhabitants with a natural and relaxing environment typical of the Chinese culture with large public and green spaces (Earthscape) [20,21,22] The city is a high-density development; however, it is framed in a compact way to provide its inhabitants (350,000 permanent residents and 60,000 temporary residents in 34.2 km2), the possibility of close access to each of the spaces itself, thus reducing the need for a car, which is also enhanced by the development of pedestrian cycle paths, and an electric car park, as well as an excellent public transport system that is also electric [18,20,21,22] As mentioned in previous paragraphs, sustainability is not well defined and encompasses many characteristics within its concept, which intersects with smart cities that achieve sustainability through strategies with strong support from technology, as in this case, without forgetting the fundamental passive strategies to achieve energy efficiency, such as orientation.…”

“…To achieve this, the city has a vegetation corridor that crosses it, but also combines its 7 sectors (Lifescape, Eco-Valley, Solarscape, Urbanscape, Windscape, Earthscape and Eco-Corridors) so that vegetation is within reach for all of them, in addition the views that the city presents, are managed in a way that takes advantage of the existing or designed topography, it also makes efficient use of vertical developments so that they take advantage of strategies of the sectors of the city, offering users different forms to inhabit from an urban environment of high density and height (Urbanscape), to a relaxed and natural environment similar to the life of a town (Windscape), passing through an intermediate space providing its inhabitants with a natural and relaxing environment typical of the Chinese culture with large public and green spaces (Earthscape) [20,21,22] The city is a high-density development; however, it is framed in a compact way to provide its inhabitants (350,000 permanent residents and 60,000 temporary residents in 34.2 km2), the possibility of close access to each of the spaces itself, thus reducing the need for a car, which is also enhanced by the development of pedestrian cycle paths, and an electric car park, as well as an excellent public transport system that is also electric [18,20,21,22] As mentioned in previous paragraphs, sustainability is not well defined and encompasses many characteristics within its concept, which intersects with smart cities that achieve sustainability through strategies with strong support from technology, as in this case, without forgetting the fundamental passive strategies to achieve energy efficiency, such as orientation. The city is oriented so that the openings such as windows face South in order to obtain more hours of sunshine and with this greater natural lighting reduces energy use, while the north side of the buildings has small windows that allow the entry of lighting, but limit thermal losses, maintaining the air conditioning of the interior environment, which they achieve with the support of materials such as glass, thermal insulators, or intelligent self-regulation systems, which have the most advanced technologies to achieve greater energy efficiency [20,22] In this city we can find technological advances such as the power generators (solar, wind and geothermal), already well known in sustainable environments, and which in the case of Tianjin cover at least 20% of the city's demand, but we also find new strategies, which, although they are in the development phase, are surprising for their potential and ingenuity, as is the case of systems that take advantage of the forces of nature, generating small tornadoes for energy production. None of the needs of the city is forgotten, in this way the cleaning of the water is carried out by means of innovative engineering methods that, using textile materials, allow cleaning the water and together with other nontraditional sources, the city is overwhelmed by 50 % of the water supply necessary for its operation [20,21,22] The city of Tianjin mixes passive strategies such as orientation, lighting, ventilation or insulation already mentioned, which has even le...…”

“…The city is oriented so that the openings such as windows face South in order to obtain more hours of sunshine and with this greater natural lighting reduces energy use, while the north side of the buildings has small windows that allow the entry of lighting, but limit thermal losses, maintaining the air conditioning of the interior environment, which they achieve with the support of materials such as glass, thermal insulators, or intelligent self-regulation systems, which have the most advanced technologies to achieve greater energy efficiency [20,22] In this city we can find technological advances such as the power generators (solar, wind and geothermal), already well known in sustainable environments, and which in the case of Tianjin cover at least 20% of the city's demand, but we also find new strategies, which, although they are in the development phase, are surprising for their potential and ingenuity, as is the case of systems that take advantage of the forces of nature, generating small tornadoes for energy production. None of the needs of the city is forgotten, in this way the cleaning of the water is carried out by means of innovative engineering methods that, using textile materials, allow cleaning the water and together with other nontraditional sources, the city is overwhelmed by 50 % of the water supply necessary for its operation [20,21,22] The city of Tianjin mixes passive strategies such as orientation, lighting, ventilation or insulation already mentioned, which has even led it to obtain, through the Eco City complex, the Passive House certification, as the first complex of passive housing in height of the world, however the strategies of traditional Chinese architecture are not a relevant element in the design of the city, except for orientation, since its characteristics and strategies respond to the requirements of its environment, which in this case are marked by the needs of its growing population, which drives city builders to use, promote and create new systems and strategies [20,21]…”

Past, present, future: Engagement with sustainable urban development through 35 city labels in the scientific literature 1990–2019

“…This study extends recent bibliometrics research into the significance of different city categories in three new directions: first, it takes a comprehensive approach encompassing 35 city labels, allowing for direct comparison and consideration of their singular and joint contributions to conceptualising sustainable urban development. This contrasts with bibliometrics on individual categories, such as 'sustainable city' (Perea-Moreno et al 2018), 'eco city' (Li et al 2019;Türkeli et al 2018), 'creative city' (Rodrigues and Franco, 2019;Lazzaretti et al 2017) and, reflecting surging interest, especially 'smart city' (Zheng et al 2020;Guo et al 2019;Dominguez and Sanguino 2019;Corsini et al 2019;Mora et al 2019;Li 2019;Winkowska et al, 2019;Fernandes et al 2019;Tiwari et al 2019;Moradi, 2019;Li 2019;Waheed et al 2018;Muhamedyev et al 2018;Komninos and Mora 2018;Tomaszesska and Florea 2018;Duran et al 2018;Alcaide-Munoz et al 2017;Mora et al 2017;Zheng et al 2020). Notably, so far only three studies have followed a comparative perspective, juxtaposing five (Fu and Zhang, 2017), seven (Wang et al 2019) and twelve (De Jong et al 2015) categories, respectively.…”