Green spaces, blue sky not rhetoric in Shanghai

As one of Jakarta's sister cities, Shanghai, China -- with a total population of 13 million and an area of 6,341 square kilometers -- has similar problems. In a recent comparative study organized by the City Council, The Jakarta Post's Damar Harsanto was invited to visit Shanghai to learn how that city's officials deal with the problems. This is the second of three articles.

Hundreds of people gathered at a park adjacent to the Shanghai railway station on a Saturday night. They were watching a giant screen showing the Asia Cup soccer final in which host China met with Japan.

Most of them looked serious. Many yelled in disappointment when China finally bowed out to eventual winner Japan.

The scene evoked similar images of villages in Central Java and East Java when people gather outdoors to watch the wayang kulit (shadow puppet) show.

The big difference is that the Chinese were watching a soccer game through modern electronic equipment surrounded by high-rise buildings while the Javanese watched the shadow puppet show on the grass surrounded by wooden shacks.

Such a scene in Shanghai, as cultural observers put it, reflects the spirit of community amid rapid changes in society fueled by modernization.

But, for Zhao Yi, a Shanghai resident, the explanation was very simple.

"We are going out to cool off. The hot weather forces us to leave our apartments for fresh air because we don't want to pay for the costly electricity charges for excessive use of air- conditioning," he told The Jakarta Post.

He is lucky that the Shanghai administration provides many parks for its residents to relax and socialize. Over the last five years, the administration has turned about 2,600 hectares of land into parks. Shanghai covers an area of 6,341 square kilometers.

The administration also requires developers to leave 35 percent of the total construction area for public parks.

The percentage is far above Jakarta's plan to maintain 13.9 percent of its 661 square kilometers for open and green space by 2010.

Shanghai plans to provide an average of seven square-meters of green area for each resident within five years.

The administration also provides its citizens in downtown areas with a green area of at least 3,000 square meters within one kilometer of their homes.

One of the spacious city parks in downtown Shanghai is Renmin People's Square which is around 4,000 square meters.

The Shanghai administration launched a program earlier to provide more open spaces for its residents. It also introduced the motto, "living in a big garden". The program resembles Jakarta's motto of "blue skies, clear water and green land".

The motto in Shanghai, however, is not mere government rhetoric since the administration requires land owners to plant trees on their land.

The Post observed that even spaces under bridges and overpasses have also been converted into parks. The idea, to some extent, has been adopted by Jakarta Parks Agency with small parks under overpasses such as in Senen, Central Jakarta.

Expanding green spaces is not the only policy of the Shanghai administration to keep the city clean. It stopped using leaded gasoline in October 1996 while Jakarta only started phasing out leaded gasoline in 1999.

The Shanghai administration also requires around 643,000 public transportation vehicles, private cars and taxis to use cleaner fuel such as compressed natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas.

The administration also bans its 789,000 motorcycles from entering major thoroughfares and downtown areas as an effort to reduce pollution and chronic traffic congestion.

To improve air quality, Shanghai has been focusing on measures to tackle two major pollutants: vehicular emissions and thick sulfuric gas emitted by coal-fueled power plants.

Shanghai has invested around 4.74 billion Chinese yuan (US$571 million) to tackle air pollution and improve the environment. The city predicts that it will have over 300 days this year with an air quality above the Class 2 level (virtually harmless to health) every year.

Unfortunately, its sister city Jakarta currently only has 25.5 days with good air quality throughout the year, or 11.77 times less than Shanghai. Therefore, Jakarta still has a long way to go to improve the environment for its citizens.