Gentrification with Chinese characteristics? on Shanghai’s city center transformations

Abstract

Since Shanghai became the “dragon’s head,” its city center neighborhoods underwent tremendous transformations. Focusing on the western end of the French concession that largely survived (so far) the ongoing demolition-and-reconstruction cycle, this talk will unpack how the transformations in the urban fabric is embedded in its recent historic legacies, as well as how its global aspirations are specifically inflected by local frameworks. Not as eye catching as the towers that rise to echo GDP growth or the satellite towns, international schools and shopping malls that epitomize the former colonial metropolis’ re-globalization, the role for the centrality seem to remain important to the future development of the metropolis, despite its shifting identity. The presiding forces, including governance structures and public-private alliances that mediate the stakes for heritage, housing, and commerce, are crucial for strategies of future development of not only Chinese cities, but of historic city centers in developing economies undergoing accelerated structural change.