What role is Arup playing in these two large-scale city planning and engineering projects?
Our role is in leading the master planning process. We are also providing a broad array of skills that feed into that master planning process, which, in this case, is a unique slant on how master plans have traditionally been conceived. Dongtan is a great example because China, which has a population of 1.2 or 1.3 billion people, has massive challenges in terms of urbanization. They have more than 100 cities with over a million people, and then cities the size of Shanghai and Beijing are of phenomenal scale. An estimated 300 million people are moving from rural habitats into the cities in the next 10 to 20 years. That poses a massive challenge, particularly when urban life is supported by and large by fossil fuel-based energy and inefficient coal burning power stations. They face major problems with carbon emissions and pollution. There is an imperative to do something different and we have been lucky enough to be involved. The site of Dongtan is on an island in the mouth of the Yangtz
