Guangming New Town is situated in the northwest of Shenzhen in Bao’an district. Its population consists of more than one million people, of which most are unregistered. Guangming New Town wants to strengthen its position by creating an attractive environment for innovative technological and research companies and possibly tourists. It uses the transformation of the northern part of Shenzhen to upgrade its current industrial sectors. Moreover, Guangming New Town aims to become one of Shenzhen’s first carbon neutral districts. Since 2012, INTI is part of this process. 

Having been part of the INTI network for four years already, Songming Xu, representative of Guangming, understands the value of INTI’s knowledge and network.

"By means of the Quality team,” he explains, “INTI brings in a multidisciplinary thinktank to Guangming. Their practical and concrete advices aim at an integral approach to urban development. They are of great value to the quality of living and working in future Guangming.”

On a different continent, and in a completely different context, we find Tatu City, a 2,500-acre (1,000 hectare), mixed-use and mixed-income development with residential, commercial, industrial, tourism, social and recreation amenities for more than 100,000 residents and 30,000 day visitors. The city represents one of the many planned urban communities in Africa presently on the drawing boards, geared towards attracting the rising middle class and new international business. Exactly because of that, Tatu City will be represented on the International New Town Day. A vision is never fully complete unless it anticipates to future developments and the wider context. Therefore, Preston Mendeshall notes,

“the development is always eager to adopt best practices and experience on an international level.”