A tiny pocket city built from scratch next to a crowded urban center could alleviate some of China’s crowding and pollution problems. A Chicago-based architectural firm designed a master plan for the city, which will be built within eight years and host 30,000 families, or roughly 80,000 people.

 

Chengdu Tianfu District Great City will connect via mass transit to Chengdu, a megalopolis of 14 million in southwest China. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture says its planned city will use 48 percent less energy and 58 percent less water than a conventional city with the same population. It’s designed to be self-sustaining and environmentally conscious, using waste summer heat to provide winter heating. A power plant will use co-generation technology to provide both electricity and hot water.

Great City will cover just 1.3 square kilometers, or 0.5 square miles. This is about 245 football fields of space. That is not a ton of space for 80,000 people. And that’s the idea--everything is supposed to be so close that you can walk anywhere within 15 minutes.