Princeton,NJ/ 360prwire/ November 24/
The leaders of China have decided to stop what they call “vanity projects,” which smaller cities in the country were starting to build.
Restrictions aiming at Smaller Cities
Some of the tallest buildings in the world are located in China. The skyline of Shanghai, Hong Kong or Taiwan offers a spectacular view to citizens and tourists. But the Chinese government does not want smaller cities to imitate the larger ones, as they believe that they do so, just because they want to shine. The exact words that they have used, in their limitation regulation, to be precise, is “vanity projects.”
That does not mean you won’t see work camp for construction sites being built up, here and there, all over the Chinese territory. In fact, construction projects are still in full bloom in the country. But the builders will have to limit themselves when they put up plans for their next high-rise. There won’t be any Shanghai Tower (128 floors), for the smallest Chinese cities any time soon. It is said that local reports also agree with the central Chinese government on the new measures. They are said to have questioned the real interest of building super high-rises, in towns with low-density population. The answers they came up with was that it couldn’t be for practical reasons; therefore, it had to be vanity projects.
The Chinese People mostly approve the New Restrictions
This announcement did not come out of nowhere. There already exists a ban on buildings taller than 500 meters in China, but it was sometimes bent a little, and the authorities wanted to reinforce the message. They are certainly happy about the results, since most comments on the new rules have been going in their favours, on Chinese social networks like Weibo. Most were saying that these super high-rises were simply not needed and were only built to show off. Others also implied that their construction did not help, in any way, making those cities more beautiful, calling these tall buildings “ugly architectures.”
The problem came up, according to authorities, because some people feel the need to create buildings that will go down in history. Architects want to build landmarks, so that they can be remembered in time. And it would seem like city planners and developers were helping them get their wish, at least up to now. But the results were always quite strange and the novelty just did not fit the context, most of the time.
A Look at the New Rules
The new building restrictions were announced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural development and the Ministry of Emergency Management. In a joint statement, it said that cities with a population below three million people would now have to restrict skyscrapers construction to under 150 meters. For the other ones, the tallest new building to rise from earth shall not be over 250 meters tall. To approve a project that did not fit the new rules would come with a “lifelong accountability,” for those that ruled over their creation. That clearly means that the new legislation will have to be followed by all.