Dream City

The Fifth Pacific Economic Congress included a theme discussion titled "Urban development: Asian and Russian cities of the Far East", which was devoted to the development issues of the APR and the Far East. Iwao Ohashi, Head of Moscow affiliation of Nomura Research Institute (Japan), moderated the discussion.

S.Yakushin, Director of the Primorsky Territory Town Planning Department, set the context for the discussion, having described the chronology of urban issues. The key discussion topic was the formation of the internal regional population exe, the Primorsky Territory agglomeration being in its centre. Vladivostok is to become its centre, while Nakhodka, Ussuriisk, and Artiom will be within 2-hour distance.

Nicolas Buchoud, the international expert for AREP Architectural Company development (France) declared that the "dream city" is not difficult to build. The first thing needed for this is consideration of landscape and environs, when engaging in town planning, as well as population mobility system, which shall be thought through.

Kazunobu Minami, Vice President of Shibaura Technology Institute (Japan) and Professor of Architecture, presented in his speech the Japanese experience of creating appealing cities. Safety under the conditions of earthquakes, tsunami and other natural disasters becomes the major constituent of the city's appeal. Then follow cultural heritage, balanced ecology and economy, efficient energy consumption. Moreover, the appealing city should be compact - this helps avoid commuting issues, operate new communication technologies and combine business and leisure opportunities.

According to A.Sukhov, the strategic plan for the urban agglomeration development has been adopted, aimed at the formation of the political, economic and cultural centre in the APR.

I.Makieva, Vice Chairman of Vneshekonombank and Head of the Group for Monocities Modernisation, who has been in charge of this initiative for several years, developed the issue.

According to Professor Minami, it is necessary to more actively involve local population in the process of urban planning, and he suggested that the Russian specialists should educate their foreign colleagues on local business rules.

In the end, Iwao Ohashi pointed out that it is next year tha Vladivostok citizens will need to demonstrate the appeal of their city to the guests from the ARP countries at the APEC Summit. Vladivostok may become the Russian gateway to Asia.