Beijing Plans "Park City" Transformation
Beijing plans to become a "park city" by significantly increasing its forest coverage and restoring wetlands. The initiative is part of a draft five-year plan aimed at improving the city's environment and quality of life for its residents.
The "park city" plan is part of a broader, long-term vision laid out in the "Beijing Garden City Plan (2023-2035)". The city aims to increase its forest coverage rate to over 45% by 2035 and ensure over 75% of the municipal area is designated as an ecological control zone. This builds on significant past efforts; from 2012 to 2024, Beijing's forest coverage already rose from 38.6% to 44.9%. Specific targets for 2025 include reaching a 45% forest coverage rate, achieving a per capita green space of 16.7 square meters, and ensuring 70% of wetlands are protected. The city now has over 1,100 parks, with a goal of adding more while also building out 1,000 kilometers of greenways in 2025 alone. This initiative is an evolution of decades of greening policies. A major push was the Beijing Plain Area Afforestation Programme, launched in 2012, which added over 70,000 hectares of forest by 2015. The concept also aligns with China's national "National Garden Cities" program, which began in 1992 to reconcile economic development with environmental protection. A key technological and strategic component is the integration of the "Sponge City" concept, which gained national prominence after severe flooding in Beijing in 2012. This approach uses green infrastructure and nature-based solutions to absorb, store, and purify rainwater, mitigating both floods and water scarcity. The national goal is for 80% of urban areas to meet these sponge city standards by 2030. The plan details a complex spatial framework for this green expansion, described as "one screen, five belts, two axes, three rings, nine wedges, and fifteen slots". This structure aims to integrate green spaces with urban renewal, creating a vast network that includes everything from large-scale parks to over 600 "pocket parks" tucked into vacant corners of residential areas. Beyond parks, the strategy encompasses the creation of a 500-kilometer-long water-and-green belt and the development of more than 100 landscape corridors. This network is designed to connect mountains, rivers, and urban green spaces, creating a more cohesive and accessible ecological system for residents.
