Balanced urbanization is the way to make life in the increasingly larger cities better.

Yet the ever-rising vegetable prices, which have pushed food prices up by 7.5 percent this August compared with the same month last year, indicates unbalanced urban expansion.

Among other things, the dwindling supply of locally produced vegetables that quite a number of cities can provide for their residents is one of the major reasons of the expensive vegetables.

In some provinces the majority of vegetables have to be transported to cities that are a long way from vegetable producing areas. The transport costs and the chain of dealers involved have driven up prices.

Beijing can only provide 10 percent of the vegetables consumed by its residents. The remaining 90 percent is transported from other provinces. The situation is much better in Shanghai, where vegetable production in nearby areas supplies 50 percent of its vegetable needs. However, for most cities local vegetable production meets only 30 percent of their needs. The rest needs to be provided by vegetable producing provinces.

Real estate has been encroaching on the land around most cities previously used to grow vegetables for more than a decade. In Beijing, for instance, the land available for growing vegetables has shrunk from the original 11,300 hectares to the present 667 hectares over the past two decades. In Hangzhou, the capital of East China's Zhejiang province, vegetable-producing land is shrinking by 10 percent a year.

When vegetables, a daily necessity, need to be transported a long way to most cities, it is not just a waste of money in terms of fuel and manpower, it exerts a great pressure on traffic. In addition, there will be a lack of vegetables when extreme weather conditions, such as snowstorms or rainstorms, disrupt traffic.

What is even more worrisome is the urbanization followed by many urban planners. It seems planners seldom give enough thought to how urban life can be made easier, cheaper or more sustainable. The bigger and more luxurious the better seems to be the credo.

The State Council released a document last week, stressing that city mayors must put enough emphasis on the production of vegetables. The construction of vegetable production bases must be on the agenda of a city's authorities. Hopefully, this document will remind urban planners that a city can never be sustainable with only high rises and wide roads.

Rather, the ability to keep a city functioning in a normal and stable manner, including the supply of enough daily necessities such as vegetables, makes urban development healthy.

(China Daily 09/29/2010 page8)