MCLC: mega city

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: mega city
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Source: News Track India (12/9/12):
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/12/09/175-China-to-spend-2-2
bn-pounds-flattening-700-mountains-to-create-mega-city-.html

China to spend 2.2bn pounds flattening 700 mountains to create mega-city

London, Dec. 9 (ANI): China's Communist Party has announced an audacious
plan to flatten 700 mountains to make way for a new super-city.

In what is being dubbed the biggest mountain-moving project in the
country's history, the ambitious scheme will see a metropolis created 50
miles from the city of Lanzhou in the northwest of China.

Demolishing the desolate mountains in the country's Gansu province will
cost developers 2.2 billion pounds, but, according to the state-run
newspaper The China Daily, more than seven billion pounds of corporate
investment has already been invested, the Daily Mail reports.

The project is the first planned for the country's interior and the fifth
of the so-called state-level development zones.

The scheme, which was reported in the China Economic Weekly on Tuesday,
was given the green light by authorities in August.

However, it has raised concerns from environmentalists who point out that
Lanzhou which is home to 3.6 million people who work alongside the Yellow
River is already considered one of the most polluted places in the world,
the report added.

According to the report, Liu Fuyuan, who previously worked as a
high-ranking official at the country's National Development and Reform
Commission, told China Economic Weekly that the project was unsuitable
because Lanzhou is frequently listed as among China's most chronically
water-scarce municipalities.

The project is due to start in October next year with the first
construction to be a new urban district of almost 10 square miles, the
report said.

Multi-millionaire developer Yan Jiehe's company, China Pacific
Construction Group, is in charge of the work and China's second wealthiest
man has dismissed suggestions that the project is flawed financially and
environmentally, it added.

According to the report, a promotional video posted on the Lanzhou new
area website shows a digitally-rendered cityscape of gleaming skyscrapers
and leafy parks. (ANI)