City planning should serve the people

Foresight is not a pretense to build a station far from the city that people do not like to use, says an article in 21st Century Business Herald. Excerpts:

The city of Jilin in Jilin province constructed a long-distance bus station on a site far from the city. The project cost the government 300 million yuan ($48.09 million). However, there are no city buses connecting the faraway station to the city and there are not enough support facilities around the station. Few people would want to take a long-distance bus or arrive in Jilin at that long-distance bus station.

To solve the issue, the city government recently decided to build a new long-distance bus station near the city, which will cost another 1 billion yuan.

This is not an isolated case. Some city governments have built large new cities far from the old cities, or built new railway stations and long-distance bus stations far from the cities, just to boost economic growth. However, those decisions bring a lot of inconvenience to people, especially when the new cities or stations are short of necessary support facilities or public transportation connections.

Few new railway stations or new cities far from old cities prosper as the planners expect. Although many residential communities appear around the new spots, most of the homes are unsold.

The construction of empty new cities and new stations is a waste of land and government money. Local governments should not only think of boosting economic growth on paper. Serving the people is the major target of a government’s work.

Farsighted city planning not only avoids future troubles, but also meets immediate needs.