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Urban Growth in a Rapidly Urbanized Mega City: Wuhan

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Urban Development Challenges, Risks and Resilience in Asian Mega Cities

Part of the book series: Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences ((AGES))

Abstract

Wuhan, the largest mega city in central China, is not only a historic and cultural city but also a regional economic, transportation and educational centre. In the past six decades, Wuhan has witnessed massive changes in national and local policies of urbanization and urban development. Its spatial and temporal growth has shaped a representative urban morphology, which is interpretable from socio-economic and spatial processes in each corresponding period. Since 2000, Wuhan has entered a new era of economic boom and started the construction of metro system. However, such rapid urban development has addressed great challenges to local urban planning. After reviewing the process of its urban growth and evaluating the roles of urban planning, this paper aims to analyze the challenging issues in transport, population ageing, migration and environment and ecology. We argue the current local data infrastructure is insufficient to support comprehensive or integrated planning in Wuhan.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science and the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan University, M1 5GD, Manchester, UK

    Jianquan Cheng

  2. School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, 8 South Donghu Road, 430072, Wuhan, China

    Jie Zhou

Authors
  1. Jianquan Cheng
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  2. Jie Zhou
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jianquan Cheng .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    R.B. Singh

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Cheng, J., Zhou, J. (2015). Urban Growth in a Rapidly Urbanized Mega City: Wuhan. In: Singh, R. (eds) Urban Development Challenges, Risks and Resilience in Asian Mega Cities. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55043-3_16

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