STREETS IN SHANGHAI TRADITIONAL WATER TOWN � XINCHANG TOWN AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

In the past 20 years, Shanghai’s urban development has been much concentrated on its Central City. Taking up the role of an economic centre of China, the urban population in Shanghai has been growing at a fast rate, which brought about the periphery development and satellites towns. After entering the second era of urbanization, Shanghai is presently undergoing this transitional phase where urban regeneration programmes and town renewal programmes are focused on smaller scale urbanization. Urbanization has been taking place at a different rate between the Central City and town. The time lag in the development as a result of different urbanization rate has been problematic. Furthermore, the scale of urbanization in China is considerably bigger compared to the rest of the world. Often, the ‘top-down’ approach is adopted, resulting in non-participatory planning and the neglecting of micro issues. This problem is evidently significant in the course of urban renewal programmes. In the recent years, the traditional water towns in China Yangtze River Delta Region have been commonly highlighted. Forming an important sector of Shanghai, the traditional water towns deserve some attention, and to be looked into carefully. Town renewal programmes involves complex and multi layers of thinking, hence this research paper acknowledges the inability to answer to these question. Rather, this paper seeks to identity major issues and challenges that will be faced in the process of these town renewals programmes. The spatial organization of traditional water town would be the topic of research for this paper. The spatial organization of traditional water town is largely relevant to its growth, thus the need to gain a clearer understanding of the spatial organization is crucial. In this paper, qualitative studies will be done to better understand the nature of a traditional water town as well as the elements of the spatial organization such as the Street and its waterway. Also in this process of research, observations are made, major concerns and issues with regards to town renewal are raised. These issues identified are formulated through a first hand experience in the understanding of traditional water town. Therefore, it aims to serve as a pilot guide for considerations in the light of water town renewal planning and also an alternative view to the outsiders (foreigners) in understanding traditional water towns.