Streets lined with trees and hope for a cleaner future, state-of-the-art technology, a walkable city, zero waste, hydrogen-powered transportation, solar-powered buildings, 200 meters to the nearest rapid transportation, a hub for sustainable innovation. This city has been dubbed by famed British architect Norman Foster as “the world’s most sustainable eco-city”.
Is this a utopic vision or a reality?
Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, as described above, was created as the blueprint for a perfectly sustainable lifestyle, where residential and commercial sectors are situated in a city guided by the core principles of reducing carbon emissions, promoting sustainable innovation, and living in harmony with the environment. And yet, the quasi-utopian city funded by the UAE—a global power built on hydrocarbons and oil— has not gone according to plan. Over $20 billion later, the city has become a “digital ghost town” with merely a fraction of the promised population—300 full-time residents—and extraordinarily high costs of living and high commercial rent imposing barriers for more people to be able to afford to move to the area and live there. This idealistic city has amassed widespread criticism, with construction stalling due to investor pullout and an underwhelming population living in Masdar City. Unlike Shenzhen, China—a city that transformed from an economic zone into a global hub by fostering public-private partnerships and prioritizing scalable, adaptable infrastructure—Masdar’s top-down approach failed to cultivate the organic growth and socio-economic balance necessary for long-term viability. While Shenzhen invested in sustainable energy, efficient public transport, and workforce inclusion to support rapid urbanization, Masdar’s stagnation highlights the dangers of designing sustainability around exclusivity and spectacle rather than practicality and accessibility.
Critics argue that Masdar’s top-down approach and focus on exclusivity hindered its success. Unlike cities that cultivate organic growth, Masdar prioritized spectacle over practicality. While it implemented cutting-edge green technologies, such as expansive solar farms and passive cooling systems, these measures were not sufficient to attract and sustain a vibrant community. The result is a cautionary tale of sustainability efforts failing to account for socio-economic balance and accessibility to all .
From humble fishing village beginnings, Shenzhen, China— the ‘Silicon Valley of China’—provides a starkly opposed illustration of a sustainable economic metropolis from an incremental population growth. In contrast to Masdar City’s approach to building a sustainable city without a base populace, Shenzhen relied upon foreign investment and the attraction of high-tech businesses to form an innovation capital that attracted talent from around China and the globe. In 1979, the city was designated a Special Economic Zone, entailing preferential tax policies which enabled foreign investment to soar, increasing the standard of living and expanding city-wide infrastructure budgets.
Shenzhen prioritized the establishment of initiatives promoting “atmospheric environment, water environment and green urban landscape”. As a special economic zone which holds sub-provincial status, Shenzhen is afforded greater local autonomy from the Chinese Communist Party in the implementation of policy and urban planning. Through local autonomy balanced with centralized control from the control of the centralized Chinese party, Shenzhen has undergone an unparalleled transition from an underdeveloped village to an economic powerhouse.
The exponential population growth of the city and governmental authority has, however, presented many challenges to environmental sustainability, housing affordability, and autonomy for the citizens of Shenzhen.
Overwhelmingly throughout the globe, the movement towards sustainable cities is a critical advancement towards the mitigation of carbon emissions and the preservation of our planet. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that cities are responsible for 70% of global CO2, with transportation and buildings contributing the largest to this staggering statistic. For high-income and high-footprint cities, radical decarbonization measures may “require only a small investment relative to median income, yet accomplish large reductions in total footprint emissions”. Despite the small investment, high-income cities continue to contribute exorbitant shares of global carbon footprint.
Although both Shenzhen (SEZ), China, and Masdar City, UAE have encountered challenges to a sustainable city structure and operation, both cases inform a framework for metropolises throughout the globe on how to integrate sustainable city infrastructure in high-income cities which contribute so significantly to global CO2 emissions. Both Shenzhen and Masdar city have been coined by architects and climate change experts as perfectly sustainable cities, and yet, in the same vain the downfalls of both systems are widely acknowledged by climate advocates globally.
Despite the claims of perfectly sustainable cities, the lessons learned from building a new urban city with the most advanced green technology (Masdar City) and restructuring an underdeveloped village to become one of the largest economic powerhouses in South-Eastern Asia (Shenzhen) provide valuable insights to be applied to cities throughout the globe with large carbon footprints.
By synthesizing the lessons from these two cities, policymakers and urban planners can prioritize inclusivity, practicality, and adaptability in their sustainability efforts. In doing so, cities across the globe can move closer to realizing the vision of a truly sustainable future—one where environmental responsibility, economic growth, and a viable community coexist harmoniously.
The following are the insights for cities worldwide in order to mitigate carbon footprints and move towards sustainable growth.
- Sustainable Urban Planning and Infrastructure:
Cities built on must reduce car dependency and invest in adaptable infrastructure. Shenzhen’s pedestrian-friendly zones demonstrate the feasibility of integrating walkable spaces into urban environments which reduces the CO2 emissions from transportation purposes.
- Renewable Energy Integration:
Encouraging public and private sector adoption through tax incentives and integrating renewable energy sources based upon the given climate is imperative to minimizing reliance upon fossil fuels. Shenzhen adopted renewable energy sources into the urban grid and approached its transition to cleaner energy sources over time.
- Green Building Regulations and Technology
By instituting building codes and standards with an emphasis upon eco-friendly architecture and urban design, both cities are positioned to save taxpayers extensive quantities of money and minimize carbon footprint. Shenzhen incentivized businesses and residents to support eco-friendly architecture and strongly enforced green building codes.
- Education on Sustainable Lifestyles
By involving and educating the local community on awareness of sustainable practices taken by the city and how to implement those policies in their personal lives, city wide sustainable efforts were supported by the locale. Shenzhen implemented policies focused on promoting public awareness of eco-friendly living practices and the value of environmental preservation to their lives, and the lives of future generations.
By analyzing two “perfectly sustainable cities”, namely Shenzhen, China and Masdar City, UAE, we can better understand the infrastructure that has contributed to this title and apply the frameworks to urban metropolises throughout the globe, we can work to reduce the significant carbon emissions emitted into our atmosphere globally, and in doing so; move towards a more sustainable future.
