Mayors and representatives from 21 major international cities gave reports and exchanged views on urban and environmental problems facing their cities at a Tokyo symposium on Wednesday.
The event was a part of Eco-Partnership Tokyo, an international conference jointly sponsored by the United Nations and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. During the session, city leaders discussed policies that have successfully managed growing populations and urban areas. "During the 10 years from 1986 to 1996, Beijing's gross domestic product quadrupled, the area of urban construction grew by 28.3 percent, the number of vehicles tripled .... However, the quality of the urban environment has not deteriorated accordingly," said Mao Zhang, vice mayor of Beijing.
However, some participants also touched on policy failures. Nagoya Mayor Takehisa Matsubara admitted that the city's waste management policies had focused solely on measures to dispose of waste already generated and failed to address measures to curb household garbage. "Nagoya has lagged behind in terms of reducing garbage and recycling it," Matsubara said.