Shanghai Poly-Center Urban Planning and the Impact of Transport System

Shanghai is one of the largest prosperous cities in China with the population over 17million. From the 1940's the major urban planning strategy is trying to de-centralize the overcrowded population in the central part of the city, where the density was even as high as 70000 people/sq.km, now decreased to 40000 people/sq.km. The still very high dense city contributes relative less motorized travel, as over 50% of people travel by foot and bike. But it also creates the problem of congestion in the city center, degenerated quality. And the rapid growth claims more space to accommodate more diversity and dynamic economic activities. The tendency shows Shanghai should transfer its spatial structure from Mono-center to Poly center. But the de-centralization strategy to encourage the people stay in the satellite town has not been success. Recently the municipal government has put great attention to support the secondary city in the suburb of Shanghai, according to the plan the most important three new towns will be with the population of one million. More and more industry has also been moved out to the suburb due to the lower cost for land and convenient for freight transport. In the year 2010, the world expo will be held in shanghai, some major infrastructure is now under-construction, which including the 400km metro system, and several the major passenger interchanges, all those will have a big influence on the spatial structure of Shanghai Region. The transformation of shanghai urban planning policy and the vision of the urban spatial structure will be analyzed in this paper.