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)