Since our days in school, we have often been told to first define our terms before doing anything else. China is a country that does not shy away from acronyms, and “TOD,” or transit-oriented development—a concept that merges land use and transport planning—is one such acronym that has become wildly popular within the field of urban development.

So, recently, when government officials from seven Chinese cities and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development gathered to launch their China Sustainable Cities Integrated Approach Pilot Project on the topic of TOD, it was clear that they all had the same definition of this three-letter acronym. Or did they?

“What’s the right radius for a TOD zone?” “Can TOD work in brownfield in addition to greenfield developments?”  These were some of the definition questions raised by the cities in the last and longest session of the technical discussion. — blog.wb.org/blogs