UPGRADING THE CHINESE URBAN VILLAGE: METHODOLOGICAL EXPERIENCES AND THEIR IMPACTS

Senmiao Guo

After the 1980s, China’s rapid urbanization process led to the outward urban expansion and the encirclement of former suburban villages, giving rise to the development of a new spatial category – the urban village.1 Due to China’s dualistic urban-rural and Hukou policy2 urban villages are not integrated into cities’ overall planning and management.3 These villages are often crowded, lack proper infrastructure and are portrayed as chaotic. At the same time, their affordable rents provide a transition area for newcomers to integrate into the city, and their thrivinginformal economy also provides jobs and opportunities for social integration. Appropriate interventions and transformation practices rely on adequate analysis and understanding of urban villages’ spatial patterns and social structures.4 Lacking proper studies, interventions can disrupt the balance of the social structure and cause displacement of urban villagers.5

This investigation consists of three aspects. Firstly, it elaborates on the changes and development policies in Chinese urban villages from a historical perspective, summarizing the timeline and typical renewal patterns from the early renovations to today’s systematic and comprehensive urban renewal process.

The second part takes Luntou Village in Guangzhou and Shuiwei Village in Shenzhen as examples of informaland social urbanisms, analyzing the architectural and spatial environment, community culture, economic structure, ecological environment, social organization structure, community management, and upgrading and transformation policies through the approach of empirical urbanism. Shenzhen’s upgrading policy in Shuiwei Village is a successful attempt to transform an urban village into a talent apartment. Guangzhou optimized its policy based on Shuiwei’s case by transforming Luntou Village into long-term rental apartments with makers as the primary target group.

The third part provides a comparative summary, analyzing the status before and after the renovation and exploring the differences arising from different models and policies. The focus of the study is to explore how to engage multiple agencies, such as urban designers, the public, and the government, more effectively in order to generate more appropriate upgrading methods.

Keywords

Urban Village, Empirical Urbanism, Upgrading methods, Social Urbanism, Urban regeneration URBANISMS

Informal Urbanism, Social Urbanism, Empirical Urbanism.

Notes

1. Wu, Fulong, Fangzhu Zhang, and Chris Webster. “Informality and the development and demolition of urban villages in the Chinese periurban area.” Urban studies 50, no. 10 (2013): 1919-1934.

2. China classifies household registration attributes into agricultural and non-agricultural hukou based on geography and family member relationships. Agricultural hukou can obtain land use rights in the rural areas where they are located, but cannot enjoy several policies in the cities

3. Xuejiao Li.Reflections on urban village transformation and planning. Building Materials Development Orientation, (2022) 102–104.

4. López, Oscar Sosa, Raúl Santiago Bartolomei, and Deepak Lamba-Nieves. “Urban Informality: International Trends and Policies to Address Land Tenure and Informal Settlements.” (2019)

5. Kamalipour, Hesam. “Improvising places: The fluidity of space in informal settlements.” Sustainability 12, no. 6 (2020): 2293, 22-27

TAIKOO LI: A MOVEABLE FEAST REFLECTION OF CONSUMERISM-LED URBAN RENEWAL SHUYUE LEI

Taikoo Li, Chengdu’s most recent landmark, symbolizes the unique identity of this city: a fashionable, diverse, complex and high-end commercial hub. As human creativity and consumption has become a more crucial resource for a city in modern society1 The success of Taikoo Li continues to attract more and more young talents to work and settle in Chengdu.

With the popularity of social media like Tiktok and Instagram, urban space holds a double nature, one in the physical world and the other in the digital one. Taikoo Li is one of the most popular Instagrammable places in China with its unique neotraditional architectural forms and diverse ephemeral cultural activities. Most of the programs are organized by the developer, together with the exclusive commercial tenants, mainly focusing on art exhibitions and fashion shopping. This robust programming and the sophisticated use of media targeting a particular user type, enrich the culture of the TaiKoo Li neighborhood and create a more diverse and creative atmosphere for consumers2

Taikoo Li used to be the largest low-lying shantytown in Chengdu. However, the construction of Taikoo Li demolished most of the previous buildings, diminishing the memories of this neighborhood and destroying the local identity to some extent. When the memory of past experiences and the relation to its surroundings is deminished, the identity of the place is also lost3. This approach to redevelopment erases existing networks and retains the power from the professional experts instead of partnering with ordinary people to retain the meaning of everyday life4

This essay will use the lens of Everyday Urbanism to challenge the commercial success of Taikoo Li and critique the consumerism-orientated urban renewal model. By using the empirical methods to record and analyze the everyday activities in Chengdu, trying to find the lost experiences and identities of this place. Based on the empirical analysis of everyday life, it offers possible redesign ideas for Taikoo Li, through which the importance of everyday life can be emphasized. Overall, the reflection and redesign of Taikoo Li aim to provide an illuminating sample for the many consumerist-oriented urban renewal projects in China, which aims to discover the immense human wealth that the humblest facts of everyday life contain5.

Keywords

Digital, Tiktok, Urban Renewal, Consumerism, Everday Life.

Urbanisms

Ephemeral Urbanism, Everyday Urbanism, Empirical Urbanism, Digital Urbanism.

Notes

1. Charles Landry, The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators (London: Earthscan, 2009).

2. Bin Liu and Zhongnuan Chen, “Power, Capital and Space-Production of Urban Consumption Space Based on the Transformation of Historical Street Area: A Case Study of Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li in Chengdu,” Urban Planning International 33, no. 1 (2018): pp. 75-80, https://doi. org/10.22217/upi.2016.265.

3. Kenneth Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr., 1979).

4. John Chase, Margaret Crawford, and John Kaliski, Everyday Urbanism (New York: Monacelli, 2009).

5. Henri Lefebvre et al., Critique of Everyday Life (London: Verso, 2014).