Xu LU ,
Email: xu.lu@polimi.it
ABSTRACT
Since the economic reform in 1978 and then the vastly expansion of the
real estate sector re-orientation of urban governance in the 1990s’,
property-led urban redevelopment in contemporary Chinese cities results
in the large scale demolition and reconstruction in a certain short
period. It was not only a process of damaging the physical environment
of a historical city’s fabric, but also damaging the matrix of urban
culture formed by local residents and communities with social
consequences. A close study on the practices and policies currently in
Xi’an reveals some of the sharpest urban redevelopment problems Chinese
cities is facing in the historical cities, such as the old city core are
experiencing the urban decline and gentrification. By stating the stages
and methodology of urban design and planning for China each period with
literature and data, to identify the what is the cause of urban fabric
of the Xi’an Walled City (XWC) and further how it can be transformed in
the future with a culture sustainable urban design tool.
keywords: Urban regeneration, Inner city rehabilitation, culture
sustainable,
This paper is based on the conference paper presented on LIVING AND
SUSTAINABILITY: AN ENVIRONMENTAL CRITIQUE OF DESIGN AND BUILDING
PRACTICES, LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY held by AMPS in London South Bank
University 2017.
1. INTRODUCTION
Cities with historical center core are facing real challenges now, for
one thing, they should carry the identity and represent the culture of
the city, for another, some of the old city core are experiencing the
decline and urban gentrification: The private housing in downtown area
is converting to rental housing for either tourists or low-income class
in private rental market, and the old housing are often left over to be
disrepair and in the most of the cases in historical centers, either
way, it losing it’s local residents. Since the historical center with
walls overlap with contemporary city of Xi’an, city wall become the
natural limit of the urban sprawl, the demand for more living space will
lead inhabitants to seek more space out of the inner city region. This
centrifugal movement took on massive proportions starts when families
entered a period of social ascension to move into a higher standard
living condition while the central part of the city suffers from a
general lack of both economic and residential attractiveness. Facing
this, Smith\cite{2006} proposing that
recreation of feelings of community or neighbourhood can be achieved
within the urban context by reuse of the existing housing stock while
Haberer’s [22[]
Haberer, P., G. De Kleyn, and W. De Wit. 1980. The Neighborhood
Approach: Improvement of Old Neighborhoods By and On Behalf of Their
Inhabitants. Netherlands: Ministry of Housing and Physical Planning.]strategy
is the “neighborhood approach”, which addresses urban renewal as a
social, financial, and organizational issue. In China, inner city
rehabilitation has always be hot debated especially in the historical
cities, given the rapidly expanding demand for housing in built up area,
and economic benefits generated by real estate market, it’s easy fall
into a large scale regeneration with no regards on the heritage of local
culture and demolish the old housing which could be seen as the identity
and cultural milieu for the city. With the lost of original urban fabric
and local residents, a historical city is actually losing the roots of
local culture and urban feature at the same time.
This paper aimed at first, by going though the housing development in
use in the past decades of China, it discussed the top-down planning
approach is widely used and the property-led approach might be the
causes of large scale demolition and damages for the traditional housing
and local culture.
Second, it also argues by the specific case of an historical city of
Xi’an, concerning the housing development and planning methods
specifically, from which it reveals the physical, social, economic
challenges related to revitalization and rehabilitation of historical
center in Xi’an.
Third, to meet the needs of regenerate dilapidated inner city,
protecting the local history and culture matrix of the inner city, the
paper proposing a culture sustainable approach which can be identify as
a combination of bottom-up and top-down methodology with the involvement
of addressing recent socio-economic and spatial considerations in the
process of inner city rehabilitation.
2. URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN
CHINA
2.1 China Urban Development after
Modernity
China’s urban development is tied with several crucial points after the
modernity. The first significant threshold points, is obviously the
foundation of the central governor (Communist Party of China) in 1949.
The most influenced issue on the urban space is that It has change from
private land ownership to state-owned. Influenced by the Soviet Union,
theory of urban planning and management in China had a strong state led
feature. The so-called “Soviet model” applied all over cities by
series clusters of state work-units. State work-units are more than just
economic entities but, rather, are a special form of ‘social
organization’.\cite{1989}Every
work-units works a integrated small scale city and society with all the
urban functions including residential, commercial, education, business
and so on\cite{Perry1998The}.(Fig.1)