A ’City within a Park’: Chengdu, China’s New Blueprint MEGACITY

Southwest China’s largest metropolis and greenest big city, Chengdu, has a population of nearly 21 million. It exemplifies Beijing’s quest to modernize the country’s vast interior and is the lynchpin of an emerging eco-friendly mega-region in Sichuan province. Subscribe to TDC: Scenic mountains ring the fertile basin of Sichuan province, a land known for its agricultural abundance and famous cuisine of chili-infused sauces and spicy hot pot. Its capital has been continuously inhabited for more than 3,000 years, the only major city in China to have an unchanged name and location throughout the imperial, republican, and communist eras–a history that remains remarkably well preserved. In the second century BC, Chengdu was one of Earth’s largest civilizations, with 350,000 inhabitants. In the 11th century, the world’s first widely used paper money was created here. Unfortunately, things turned bleak in the 1500s when its residents were nearly