Activating eco-city in China: The system engineering for cities' green transition

The development of eco-city in China turns to a phenomenon recently, and some sample projects have been scheduled in the nationwide. Nevertheless, the planning of eco-city focuses on static construction with green technologies; in this study, the planning and operation of eco-city will be regarded as a complex system engineering that requires collaboration of systems from various categories and considerations for the sustainable development of eco-city. The framework suggests a core of circular economy that activates and maintains the development of eco-city; four key categories in the process of system engineering will interlink to each other and interact with economy activities in the framework. Several pilot international standards of eco-city, including LEED-ND, CASBEE-UD, and EEWH-EC are applied to monitor and evaluate the performance of entire eco-city system. Through the system engineering process, challenges and goals of eco-city will be analyzed and clarified at early stage, and a supposed framework of system design will be applied for planning and operating with monitoring mechanism. This work will enhance viewpoints of urban designing towards a more dynamic, systematic insight of eco-city development.