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Yet China is a country that is plagued by its own urban creations, hamstrung by the miracle of its own success. In its all-out race to modernize and urbanize, entire swaths of the country have devolved into environmental wastelands. The air in nearly all of China’s cities is harmful to breathe, half the drinking water is below international standards, and 20 to 40 percent of the arable soil is contaminated with toxins. And today’s Chinese population is no longer willing to sacrifice its health for breakneck economic progress.

To these ends, China has embarked upon what amounts to an eco-city extravaganza. Upward of 200 new eco-cities are being built across the country. Typically, these new eco-cities are built from scratch as self-contained, independent urban entities that sit adjacent to larger, conventional urban cores.

But are these eco-cities really environmentally beneficial urban alternatives or just an excuse for urban-enamored China to build yet another city?

China’s track record with building eco-cities is spotty at best. Some end as failed construction projects. Others don’t live up to their eco-labeling after construction is completed. It has been estimated that only one in five of China’s eco-cities “actually match low-carbon or ecological ideals,” according to Li Xun, secretary of the Chinese Society for Urban Studies. Bianca Bosker, the author of Original Copies, a book about China’s Western copycat towns, calls eco-cities “the same sprawling McMansions under a different name.”

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Huangbaiyu, an eco-village in the north of China designed by Hollywood hobnobbing, green-design “guru” William McDonough, doesn’t pollute, doesn’t have any cars and doesn’t consume any resources. In fact, it doesn’t even have any people. It’s almost a moot point that this eco-village drastically compromised the innovative ecological elements of its original design, using shoddy materials: Nobody ever wanted to live there in the first place. It was a project designed by foreigners out of touch with the needs of locals. They built houses with garages for people who didn’t have cars, failed to provide space for gardens and livestock for peasants who depended on such, built a biogas energy plant running off of corn cobs and stalks needed to feed the village’s economically vital Cashmere goats and expected people who have a tradition of building their own homes to suddenly want to pay many times their yearly salary for housing. Huangbaiyu is currently empty and rotting — which is perhaps the most ecological thing it can do.

Many other eco-cities were over before they even started. Beijing’s Mentougou eco-valley was never actually built; the Finnish visionaries who designed it claimed that the money they invested mysteriously vanished in the black box of Chinese bureaucracy.

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Austin Williams, a Jiaotong-Liverpool University architecture professor and expert on China’s eco-cities, put SSTEC to the test by comparing its ecological attributes with London. He found that 90 percent of London’s commuters traveled by non-car means — roughly the same amount that Tianjin aspires for. In terms of carbon emissions, London’s are currently one-third less than those projected for SSTEC. Since October 2011, all new domestic developments in London have a maximum water consumption rate of 120 liters per person per day, which is the same that the eco-city aims for in 10 years’ time. Even in green space — which China’s eco-cities cling to as a defining attribute — London trounces SSTEC with almost nine times more per person. “It would seem that London is actually way ahead in environmental terms of a purpose-made Chinese eco-city,” Williams concluded.

“[China’s eco-cities] have won a lot of awards, they’ve drawn attention, but the actual execution just isn’t there yet,” said Richard Brubaker, a professor of sustainability at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

It is precisely the labeling that is part of the problem. There is no established standard as to what qualifies a place as an eco-city: no seal of approval, no certification process. While China does have its “Three Star” Green Building Design Label rating system for individual buildings, its eco-cities remain less regulated. Worse yet, we’re forced to take what government officials, developers and urban designers claim to be “eco-friendly” at face value.

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The economics of eco-cities

With this apparent eco-incompetence, it’s easy to wonder why China continues to crank out eco-cities. The answer is simple: They make money.

“If a place has eco elements the price [of real estate] is bumped up,” Marco Zhou from Colliers, a global real estate services company, said.

China is trying to drive environmental consciousness by making it profitable. This is encouraged from the top-down by China’s central government, which is currently pumping massive amounts of subsidies into developments, buildings and technologies that carry the “green” label.

“Being an eco-city makes it easier to get funds from the central government,” said Daan Roggeveen, the founder of the Shanghai based MORE Architecture, “which is important, since many cities do not have the funds to improve their livability.”

Today, supporting eco-labeled development initiatives is a part of the criteria for promotion within the Communist Party. The impetus to ”build green” is greater than ever.

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have one pot of fortune plant or any other ornamental for that matter in your window sill, and china may believe you are an eco-warrior.

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