Experts have warned that many cities in developed nations in the world have paid dear prices of environment issues during their industrial and urban development. For Binh Duong Province, the urbanization has been determined to be sustainable and environment-friendly in coherent manner.
Experts believe that Binh Duong Province, by its terrain characteristics, can make use of series, ranges, and locational models to plan for urban development. In this photo: Binh Duong Highway in Thu Dau Mot City. Photo: Xuan Thi
Rational and sustainable development
Binh Duong Province, located in relatively high land, holds the major advantages in sustainable urban development. Whereas, urban areas of Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta are listed as the regions at risks of increasing ocean water level.
According to Dr. Pham Van Boong of Ho Chi Minh University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology (HUFLIT), Binh Duong Province can make use of models of series, ranges, and locations for urban development while focusing on industrialization of rural areas so that a part of farmer population will not be leaving their homelands although they have quit farming for other work. In the process of designing and constructing urban areas, Binh Duong Province should pay attention to natural environment to create harmonious human-society-nature relation.
Dr. Architecture Ngo Viet Nam Son from Ha Noi City informed that to response to the rising water level, new urban areas in Binh Duong Province should be constructed in higher lands while the existing urban areas in lower lands should be in suitable architecture structures and lower construction density with spaces for water flows and higher grounds for significant urban constructions. If the water level may rise, Binh Duong Province would potentially become a place of attraction for settlement of people in flooded areas within Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta.
Besides, Binh Duong Province should pay attention to more spaces for water aside from spaces for traffic and public constructions to aim for sustainable urban development targets. The green zones are combined with urban areas and handicraft villagaes along Saigon River and Dong Nai River to be inter connected to create efficiency of identical urban routes along Southern Region in Binh Duong Province.
Besides, to protect living environment, Binh Duong Province should pay attention to major matters such as minimum green zones, projects pending for licenses should be of higher standards required by Ministry of Construction and be oriented to international standards.
Greenify the industry
According to experts, the lesson of overwhelming population, traffic jams, and flooding in Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi City as well as environment pollution and the same issues in various cities in the world should learned by Binh Duong Province during its urbanization process. As population and demographic density is the basis for urban development issues. In other words, any urban issue can be closely associated with population and its density.
Experts believe that urbanization and industrialization are concurrent as industrial development brings about the birth of urban areas. Binh Duong Province is no exception. In recent years, the presence of thousands of enterprises in local industrial parks and clusters has not undermined Binh Duong Province to control and protect the environment rather well. However, as industrial parks are to mushroom in faster and faster urbanization process, Binh Duong Province is required to have vision on environment protection until 2030.
According to Dr. Pham Van Boong, Binh Duong Province should pay attention to development of modern industry and the economy of knowledge. Beforehand, the province should promote high technologies to reduce exploitation of natural resources and mitigate hazardous wastes into natural environment. Concurrently, the technology of waste recycling during industrial and agricultural production with ideal models to form production chains whose wastes will become materials for other factories while mitigating wastes released to the environment and ecosystem at acceptable rates.
Some researchers put it that to satisfy the needs of rural industrialization, Binh Duong Province needs to focus on developing farm produce processing industries and material production for industries while diversifying plants and breeds with cross cultivation to protect the gene and bio-diversity. Binh Duong Province should also make use of resources to increase input and reduce output for healthy living environment for everyone.
M.A. Nguyen Thi Thuy of Binh Duong School of Politics said that the province should review and adjust its development planning for industry and services while conducting tight control of licensing to reduce demographic growth and ensure urbanization in one place to sustain the services of infrastructure. This can help to reduce physical population growth that can be uncontrollable in large cities such as Ha Noi City, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang City.
To promote inheriting advantages
The apparent lessons of large cities can be helpful for Binh Duong Province to orient its urban planning and development from 2015 to 2020 with vision to 2030.
Pollution rates in Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho City are 42.8% and 33% accordingly comparing to 26.1% in Binh Duong Province. The evaluation was made by the public and could be inaccurate; however, it reflected the advantages of Binh Duong Province avoiding various environment impacts during its urbanization and industrialization. This should be promoted more in the future.
Dr. Nguyen Huu Nguyen of Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities informed that Binh Duong Province made late start with good orientation to establishment of urban areas in the South, satellite urban areas in the North, and ecotourism along Saigon River, Dong Nai River, and Thi Tinh River. Thus, Binh Duong Province has planned for each specific urban area depending on its functions for modern urban development and healthy living environment.
A research of Vietnamese German University showed that Binh Duong Province could build up a smart city by the lessons of cities in USA, Germany, Canada, Japan, etc. The factors of incorporating a smart city including lives, citizens, traffic, economy, urban management and environment should be in smarter manner based on information technology and communication for all fields to generate infrastructure and supply facilities, urban services and environment protection for the communities, helping urban economy grow in sustainable manner.
Reported by Phung Hieu – Translated by Vi Bao
