Manchester and Wuhan boost cooperation on smart city solutions

At the Smart to Future Cities event in London, attendees heard how a new Memorandum of Understanding between Manchester, UK, and Wuhan, China, would boost cooperation and exchange between the two cities to identify smart city solutions.

“The agreement has a two key aims; one is to develop policies at both city and state level and the other is to open the door for UK SMEs into China’s market,” said Steve Turner, Head of Future Cities, Manchester. “The reality is, we’ve learnt as much from China as we’ve been able to impart. We want to use this project as a platform to develop policies that enables smart cities to become smarter as well as overcoming some of the barriers for SMEs.”

Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province in central China and has a population of over 10 million. Wuhan’s recent GDP growth has outpaced the national rate and the city is set to be one of China’s eight megacities by 2025, with 10,000 developments currently on site and a new underground line to be built every year for the next five years.

Manchester and Wuhan will work together to highlight the challenges each city faces in tackling smart city issues and find ways for the cities and their companies to collaborate.

“We have an overarching forum, called the EU-China Smart Cities Forum, which has 15 European cities and 15 Chinese cities developing a roadmap for how the new Chinese smart cities will evolve, with Manchester heavily involved,” said Shaun Topham, President of the EU eForum. “All of these cities are working on a wide range of initiatives, including forming deeper relationships. Wuhan and Manchester have been actively working together for over 20 years since a sister city agreement signed in 1986.”

The strengthening of new national and civic relationships coincides with Building Design Partnership’s (BDP), a UK firm of architects and engineers with headquarters in Manchester, commissioned by the Wuhan City Government to plan and design a new Central Business District in the Wuhan Qingshan Riverside District.

The master plan is inspired by the industrial heritage of the area and produced by interdisciplinary teams at BDP studios in Manchester and Shanghai. BDP’s portfolio of work as an architecture practice in China equates to the total portfolio of all architecture practices within the UK and is expanding its Shanghai studio from 43 people to 80 designers by June 2015.

“China is building something like 100 smart cities,” added Turner. “So the scale involved and acceleration of activity in the country is massive. China does seem to consider smart cities as an answer to the rapid urbanisation that is occurring. The new project of the Wuhan Qingshan Riverside Central Business District will aid sharing best practice, solutions from SMEs and exchange of information.”