Beijing has long been China’s center of power, but its exponentially growing population, high rate of construction, and lingering air pollution all continue to strain its core functions as the national capital--something that mayor Cai Qi promises to change.
Comparing the move to "peeling off cabbage leaves," Cai envisions a wholesale restructuring of Beijing to inject greater efficiency into its cityscape, without making economic growth unsustainable as seen in its status quo of thick smog and seemingly never-ending construction, the Financial Times reported.
Having been the political, cultural, and economic seat of China for more than 700 years, Beijing has grown from being a walled city and a military garrison to a capital of various Chinese predecessor-states. The 13th-century Yuan Dynasty was the first to make the city the national capital.
Rapid population growth took off in Beijing during the takeover of the Communist Party of China in 1949, and another boom took place during the reform years with the relaxation of "hukou" (residency) requirements and the expansion of the city's property market.
Now with over 22 million people living within city borders, Beijing has experienced an influx in changes to its cityscape. Traditional architecture gave way to infrastructural developments such as highways and commercial buildings, giving rise to traffic congestion, dismal air quality, and water supply strains.
To address the problems currently blighting Beijing, Cai looks at imposing a definitive limit to the city's population to 23 million and introduction restrictions to construction zoning, effectively relegating people to outlying cities near or away from the capital as well as distributing property development elsewhere.
A high quality of life is central to Cai's plans for Beijing, as he plans to clean up its air pollution problem through green reforms. Deliberately discouraging migrant populations from flocking into the capital, which has since decreased in 2015, is key to the mayor's move to lessen population growth.
In turn, redistributing Beijing's population would entail more people to flock to surrounding areas, most especially within the neighboring port metropolis of Tianjin eastwards from the capital, as well as booming areas within Hebei Province. That, in turn, is also set to cap the city's growth in property values.