Urban village : how to survive?

Abstract

There might be without doubt the older inner metropolitan areas in China observed a substantial increase the quantity of development activities previously two decades. Both public and private sectors were positively urged within this behavior by property booms through urban regrowth. Among the interesting issues is when and why an area could be selected like a candidate site for redevelopment. Normally, it is dependent on some social, political and economic choice where it will likely be hard to obtain general agreement. From the purpose of supply-side approach, rent gap theory gives us important experience into this problem. If, for instance, we assume, an area consists of an enormous rent gap, it will likely be more prone to be restored due to an additional land rent which may be appropriated by the flow of national even world-wide banking capital to development. This indicates that the growing rent gap can instruct local property designers and rentiers essentially using the chance to invest. Two kinds of sites therefore become popular for redevelopment, there are abandoned industrial land and land from urban villages. The large rent gap embodied in abandoned industrial land is partially produced from capital depreciation and urbanization that has been clarified by Neil Cruz, and it is partially produced from institutional alterations in a privileges regime, which remains unclear within the Chinese context. The 1990s was an extraordinarily prosperous period in China when industrial sites redevelopment took a major form. However, Firms looking for cheap industrial sites have noticed possibilities closed off as industrial sites gradually disappeared in the late period. Therefore, Property designers diverted their targets in urban villages where rent gap also elevated. Generally, urban village redevelopment involves complete deconstruction of the existing low-rise dwelling housing and new construction of new qualities throughout the refurbished land. The primary driving pressure behind the projects, including the partnership in Chinese metropolitan areas is usually local government. These projects realistically reflect a simple principle of urban renewal guidelines that whose primary purpose is to achieve urban regrowth through getting and enabling investment of property development. In my thesis, I research current reconstruction mode of urban village in Guangzhou first, and then find a problem that during the reconstruction process, nobody cares about the migrants, the most vulnerable group living in the urban villages. Based on the consideration of this group, I put forward my argument that if we could find ways for urban village to survive. I choose a typical urban village, Longdong village, in Guangzhou as research object. Longdong Village is the largest urban village in Guangzhou, China. It is situated in the middle of Tianhe District in Guangzhou, with dense multi-story dwelling houses building in and lands for collective use. The village is supported by 170 narrow alleys yet surrounded by tall buildings and busy commercial streets. There are many shopping and entertaining centers as well as several institutions of higher education. With an area of only one square kilometer, it has over 50,000 people who come from the rural areas staying at Longdong Village. I try to construct new public interaction between Longdong village and Guangzhou City, and hope use these interaction to cure the problems in Longdong village right now, like environmental problems, crime, sanitation and so on, then this village would have chance to be reserved.