Preliminary study on the integrated sustainable development of Chongzuo City in Guangxi
广西崇左市可持续综合发展及对策初探

The triangle method,as an intuitive platform for illustrating sustainability status and trends in economic development,seems to hold promise as an analytical management tool liable to be used by researchers and policy-makers at different levels due to its simplicity and flexibility.Based on the interrelationships among economic development,resource-energy consumption,and environmental pollution,in conjunction with the ecological performance and the triangle method,a definition to sustainable economic development was proposed,and a novel triangle method was designed to evaluate economic development sustainability.This paper selected Chongzuo City,a newly-established frontier trade city in western China,as a research region.Chongzuo City is located in the western zone among the country's three major zones of the eastern zone,middle zone and western zone.It had a total population of 2.3065 million in 2005.It covers a total area of 1.7345million hm2 with five counties,one city and one district under its jurisdiction.As a case study,the triangle method was applied to assess the sustainability status and long-term trends of Chongzuo's integrated sustainability development.The results show that the integrated sustainability development in 2005 represents a relatively common state of sustainability,and the seven administrative sub-units in Chongzuo City reflect sustainability positions ranging from weak sustainability,strong sustainability to common sustainability.The sustainability in the southeastern part is better than in the northwestern.The Chongzuo's integrated sustainable development revealed a common sustainable trend during 1985-1990,a strong sustainable trend during 1991-1995,a common sustainable trend during 1996-2000,and a common sustainable trend during 2001-2005,but is lower than the former stage.Chongzuo's unremitting efforts in environmental protection and in the increasing integration of the environmental considerations within the economic development process over the last twenty years are contributory to these status and trends.