Murky waters raised underground

• Source: Global Times
• [08:20 September 03 2010]
• Comments

By Liu Dong

A democratic party is calling on the city to be more cautious in the urban planning of its underground spaces, after the construction of the newest subterranean commercial center was completed Thursday in Luwan district.

Fang Xiuhong, director of government and political affairs for the Public Interest Party in Shanghai, one of eight democratic parties in the country, said Thursday that his party will continue to lobby the local government to allocate underground resources in ways that will benefit the public rather than commercial businesses.

"Because the city has developed so quickly commercial developers are now looking to tap into underground areas, but these limited spaces should be saved for the interests of the public, not for those of business," he told the Global Times Thursday. "These spots should be used to create more libraries, museums, sports facilities and walkways."

Fang made his remarks in response to the latest undertaking by local governments, an underground commercial space that will span some 250,000 square meters when the Datong Mill opens to the public before the end of the year - a model for the future direction of subsurface developments in the district, according to Zhou Yi, director of public affairs for Luwan district.

"We're a small downtown district with very limited land," Zhou told the Global Times Thursday. "We need to make better use of space, and Datong Mill will serve as a model for future projects."

But Fang from the Public Interest Party said that projects like the below-ground development to house some 40 bars and restaurants about 1 kilometer away from People's Square, is not representative of the public's long-term interests.

"People's lives are not all about shopping and eating," he added. "The government should think about the future of the city and the needs of its public before too late."

Over the next five years the city plans to expand underground development around the city by adding to existing subterranean facilities.

The plans include additions for the underground subway system, which has a major subsurface shopping center beneath the Line 1 subway at Xujiahui station in Xuhui district. The city is also preparing to build an underground shopping center along the newly built Line 11 subway at Zhenru station in Putuo district, which opened late last year.

But with the city having already developed 40 million square meters of underground space for commercial centers, parking lots and bomb shelters, of which 6.7 percent of the area comprises downtown land, experts, too, are advising the city to exercise more caution in the planning of further underground commercial centers.

Shu Yu, director of the Underground Space Research Center at Tongji University, said that the danger lies in that the city will eventually run out of space to develop.

"The city is full of skyscrapers, and there's little room for more, so looking underground has become very convenient," he told the Global Times Thursday. "But we need to keep in mind that subterranean spaces are also limited, which is why governments need to get a handle on the issue now."

He said that the government has done a good job of developing a comprehensive subway system underground, and that this kind of collective approach to serving the interests of the public should be applied to underground projects in the near future.