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Satellite Towns to Ease Population Pressure

Beijing is to build several new satellite town's to mitigate population pressure in downtown areas. Each will be designed for the living and working requirements of a population of 500,000 people.

Reporting to the second meeting of the 12th Beijing People's Congress, Ding Xiangyang, director of Beijing Municipal Committee for Development and Reform, "prescribed" a cure to the  metropolis syndrome which inflicts Beijing - the setup of new towns.

Ding said Beijing is to steer the development of district education, culture, hygiene and commerce toward the formation of satellite towns and enhance the capacity for including social investments. Beijing will select several satellite towns with favourable locations and good industrial foundations and living environment. High-standard programming will be decided through public bidding, allowing Beijing to build several such new-style towns. They will serve as important carriers to divert industries and population from the downtown areas and to attract farmers into the city.

The Beijing Municipal Government says in this years work report that the capital has defined a new pattern for the layout of the city. That is summed up as  'Two Axes - Two Zones -  Multi-centres'.

Two Axes represent the cross axes formed by Beijing traditional middle axis and Chang an Avenue.

The Two Zones refers to  the southern development zone which starts from the north along Huairou and Miyun with Shunyi, Tongzhou and Yizhuang as key areas, and the so-called 'western ecological zone' which includes Yanqing, Changping, Liangxiang and Huangcun.

Multi-centres refer to the construction of several comprehensive service districts in downtown areas including the CBD, Olympic Park and Zhongguancun, and of several new towns in the areas covered both by the city and the Two Zones.