STUDY OF SPATIAL TRANSITION OF CITIES IN CHINA : WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO RESIDENTIAL SPACE IN SHANGHAI

Abstract

Various aspects including political, social, economic, and cultural forces shape Cities. This dissertation tries to do some investigation about the spatial transition of the cities in China. Research is made to illustrate how political and economic factors shape cities, and some physical dimensions are picked up as the measurements to compare the spatial characters of Chinese cities in different historical periods. Traditional cities in feudal china were built according to rigid planning theories which were generated thousands of years ago; most cities were layout after careful planning which responded to the political and economic demand of the feudal society. Chinese city development had its own logic; however this continuous process was interrupted in 19th century when early modern Chinese city was superimposed by western powers on the agricultural civilization rather than born from it’s within. Since then, Chinese society has been in ceaseless dramatic social reform that shaped and reshaped Chinese city in such an intensive way that had never happened in the previous two thousand years. All the transition has been translated and recorded in the city’s physical space. Responding to this social change, Chinese urban space transforms from physical segregation to quasi-physical segregation, then jumped to spatial openness. After 1949, Chinese city return to physical segregation and transforms to spatial segregation.