The great cities of East Asia, such as Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul are mature in terms of development and offer little scope for major environmental planning. But within the smaller cities around them exists room for improvement. The port cities of Layonko, near Shanghai, Kaoshang in Taiwan and Yokohama are cities where environmental planning is taking place. These cities are striving for an ideal: sustainable development, limited pollution, sound waste disposal/management systems and a decent quality of life. Their renewed emphasis on a healthier environment can serve as a model for other cities around the world.

In planning model port-cities such as Layonko, China looks both backward and forward. Its agenda emphasizes environmentally sound economic development. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping provided the real momentum toward modernization and market-opening, and coupled these goals with the slogan "to get rich is glorious." The resulting economic boom and major population movement from the hinterland to the urban centers placed sound urban planning in jeopardy.

In a single-party hierarchical political system such as China's, where there is little established legal order, a centralized bureaucracy plays a dominant role. For China, therefore, achieving environmentally minded city-planning means beginning from the very basics, such as education and human-resource development, administrative decentralization, infrastructure planning and changes in the tax system to give more funding to local governments. A major challenge for environmental planning in China is the harmonization of planning strategies at all levels -- local and central, urban and rural, provincial and regional and above all, economic and political. With China emerging as a colossal economic power, environmental planning in China is as critical for the rest of Asia as it is for the Chinese.