Concerning the role of urban village in the rental market, early renewal damages the immigration of the lower income groups, thus affect the supply of the primary labor force. Therefore, a right time of urban village renewal play an important role in labor flow which is a critical attribute to economy growth. Previous studies mostly focus on the urban planning and social problems in these areas. But this thesis will regard the urban villages as an indispensible part of the housing market especially in the transitional stage of Chinese economy which indicates a suitable renewal policy of urban village. In order to research on the role of the urban village, the sample analysis of urban village in Shenzhen is made. The thesis will evaluate the urban village’s role in different sectors, i.e. local government, house owner, tenant and the real estate developer, aiming to find a suitable justification to the urban village existence in current transitional society in China. The role of urban village is common problem in China and other emerging economies since the urban village is an inevitable phenomenon in the rapid urbanization. In the circumstance of low social welfare society, the urban village solves an exceptional part of housing problem.

No description available.

A case study of Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood examines the cultural, structural, economic and political impacts of a glbtt (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and two-spirited) community and a gay urban village on its city. This work also queries the role of municipal government in the regulation and maintenance of the social composition and identity of a neighbourhood. Finally, the future of gay urban villages is discussed as their role in promoting solidarity and safety transitions toward a commercial and nodal one. This research involved three local key informant interviews and nine community residents who participated as photographers in a community visual analysis. Results unveiled a neighbourhood intrinsically well suited to serving a transient gay male community with an increasing dispersion of the identifying demographic. For the foreseeable future the significance of the Davie Village in the socio-sexual landscape of Vancouver appears secure through the nodal nature of gay retail, bars and services, reinforced by business interests. As an urban typology supporting a comparatively young glbtt culture, the gay urban village plays a unique role in the city, providing spaces of experimentation and invention — a stage for new systems of cultural (ex)change to emerge. / October 2007

A case study of Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood examines the cultural, structural, economic and political impacts of a glbtt (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and two-spirited) community and a gay urban village on its city. This work also queries the role of municipal government in the regulation and maintenance of the social composition and identity of a neighbourhood. Finally, the future of gay urban villages is discussed as their role in promoting solidarity and safety transitions toward a commercial and nodal one. This research involved three local key informant interviews and nine community residents who participated as photographers in a community visual analysis. Results unveiled a neighbourhood intrinsically well suited to serving a transient gay male community with an increasing dispersion of the identifying demographic. For the foreseeable future the significance of the Davie Village in the socio-sexual landscape of Vancouver appears secure through the nodal nature of gay retail, bars and services, reinforced by business interests. As an urban typology supporting a comparatively young glbtt culture, the gay urban village plays a unique role in the city, providing spaces of experimentation and invention — a stage for new systems of cultural (ex)change to emerge.

A case study of Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood examines the cultural, structural, economic and political impacts of a glbtt (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and two-spirited) community and a gay urban village on its city. This work also queries the role of municipal government in the regulation and maintenance of the social composition and identity of a neighbourhood. Finally, the future of gay urban villages is discussed as their role in promoting solidarity and safety transitions toward a commercial and nodal one. This research involved three local key informant interviews and nine community residents who participated as photographers in a community visual analysis. Results unveiled a neighbourhood intrinsically well suited to serving a transient gay male community with an increasing dispersion of the identifying demographic. For the foreseeable future the significance of the Davie Village in the socio-sexual landscape of Vancouver appears secure through the nodal nature of gay retail, bars and services, reinforced by business interests. As an urban typology supporting a comparatively young glbtt culture, the gay urban village plays a unique role in the city, providing spaces of experimentation and invention — a stage for new systems of cultural (ex)change to emerge.

This research applies an archaeological lens to an inner-city master planned development in order to investigate the tension between the design of space and the use of space. The chosen case study for this thesis is Kelvin Grove Urban Village (KGUV), located in inner city Brisbane, Australia. The site of this urban village has strong links to the past. KGUV draws on both the history of the place in particular along with more general mythologies of village life in its design and subsequent marketing approaches. The design and marketing approach depends upon notions of an imagined past where life in a place shaped like a traditional village was better and more socially sustainable than modern urban spaces. The appropriation of this urban village concept has been criticised as a shallow marketing ploy. The translation and applicability of the urban village model across time and space is therefore contentious. KGUV was considered both in terms of its design and marketing and in terms of a reading of the actual use of this master planned place. Central to this analysis is the figure of the boundary and related themes of social heterogeneity, inclusion and exclusion. The refraction of history in the site is also an important theme. An interpretive archaeological approach was used overall as a novel method to derive this analysis.

No description available.

Urban redevelopment is increasingly used as a policy tool for economic growth by local governments in Chinese cities, which is taking place amid rapid urbanization and in an expanding globalized economy. Along with the spatial transformation, urban redevelopment often entails socioeconomic change in the form of processes of gentrification, which is propelled by the dominance of neoliberal market-oriented policy and practice in the country. This thesis analyzes the spatial political economy of urban redevelopment in China through a case study on Baishizhou urban village in Shenzhen in south-eastern China. Setting out from the broad concern over urban inequality, socio-spatial segregation, ‘the right to the city’, and sustainability in contemporary critical urban theory, the thesis constructs a theoretical framework involving the concepts of neoliberal urbanism, gentrification, sustainable urban development, as well as ‘bottom-up urbanism’ approaches. Employing this framework, the case study conducts a macro-level city comprehensive plan analysis, a meso-level urban village redevelopment site plan analysis, and micro-level interview study and ethnographic observations of everyday life and space in the urban village. On the basis of this study, the thesis makes the arguments that: Neoliberal urbanism is certainly active in the spatial political economy of urban redevelopment in Shenzhen and China, and is markedly state-led under authoritarian governance structures that encourage increased marketization; The ongoing processes of gentrification in the urban village are intertwined with local and national political systems and social arrangements, and cause stress for the migrant tenants of the urban village, which clearly is not in line with the urban sustainability discourse of the UN’s New Urban Agenda; The tactic responses and individual coping-strategies found in the urban village reveals a condition of both precarity and agency in the everyday lives of the often marginalized poor that inhabit this urban space, which in turn point at emergent alternative urban (re)development trajectories. Moreover, the bottom-up urbanism approach sheds light on both discrepancy and compliance with the dominant top-down redevelopment policy, and is further suggested to inform the production of policy frameworks that can better facilitate local implementation of the New Urban Agenda in China. / Stadsomvandling och sanering används allt oftare som policyverktyg av kinesiska städers lokala regeringar för att uppnå ekonomisk tillväxt, vilket sker under en tid av hög urbaniseringstakt och en växande globaliserad ekonomi. Utöver den rumsliga omdaningen medför stadsomvandling även socioekonomiska förändringar i form av gentrifieringsprocesser, som i sin tur pådrivs av den i landet rådande neoliberala och marknadsorienterade politiska riktningen och dess praktiska tillämpning. Denna uppsats syftar till att analysera den rumsliga politiska ekonomin i stadsomvandling i Kina genom en fallstudie av ’stadsbyn’ (eng. ’urban village’) Baishizhou i Shenzhen i sydöstra Kina. Studien utformar ett teoretiskt ramverk som bygger på de analytiska koncepten neoliberal urbanism, gentrifiering, hållbar stadsutveckling, samt ’bottom-up urbanism’, och tar sitt avstamp i den samtida kritiska urbanteorins betonande av urban ojämlikhet, social och rumslig segregation, rätten till staden, och hållbarhet. Utifrån detta ramverk utför fallstudien en analys av stadens översiktsplan på makronivå, en analys av detaljplanen för saneringen av stadsbyn på mesonivå, samt en intervju- och etnografisk observationsstudie av stadsbyns vardagsliv och rum på mikronivå. På grundval av fallstudien drar uppsatsen följande slutsatser: Neoliberal urbanism är synnerligen tongivande i den rumsliga politiska ekonomin i stadsomvandling i Shenzhen och Kina, och har vidare en tydligt statsledd karaktär som tar sig i uttryck genom det auktoritära politiska styrets främjande av marknadskrafter; De pågående gentrifieringsprocesserna i stadsbyn är sammanflätade med lokala och nationella politiska system och sociala konstellationer, och förorsakar olika påfrestningar för de migrant-hyresgäster som befolkar stadsbyn. Detta ligger inte i linje med den hållbarhetsdiskurs för städer som presenteras i FN’s ’New Urban Agenda’; De praktiska och företagsamma reaktioner och handlingsstrategier som uppvisas i stadsbyn tyder på ett tillstånd av både sårbarhet och personlig agens i det dagliga livet hos de marginaliserade och fattiga som utgör befolkningen i detta stadsrum. Detta visar även på nya alternativa synsätt på stadsutveckling och stadsomvandling. Den analytiska ansatsen ’bottom-up urbanism’ synliggör dessutom både diskrepans och samstämmighet med den rådande toppstyrda (’top-down’) stadsomvandlings policyn, och anses således kunna ligga till grund för framtagandet av nya politiska ramverk som kan underlätta för implementeringen av New Urban Agenda i Kina.

As a unique form of rural-urban transition settlement in China’s rapid urbanization process, the “urban village” plays a very distinctive part in promoting urbanization, being a transit point for many rural people entering urban areas. The term “informal employment migrants” usually refers to those people, who have no formal employment status and work in informal, low-skilled, low-paying jobs in the city. These people often have no stable job security or social protection, facing problems with housing, education and healthcare, as well as a lack of social interaction and cultural and recreational activities, etc. They are the main force in the industry, promoting urban development and securing the service base, while having little power in terms of economic ability and social status.  The rights and interests of the millions of these non-local residents living and working in urban villages, are very important aspects but are usually overlooked by current planning instruments. In the daily life of an urban village, such as Kangle village, not only do the profits from the rental of collective land and property village-owned enterprises benefit only the household residents of the village, but the organization and participation in any public activities within the village have nothing to do with the tenants. As a result, these migrant tenants, who have come to Guangzhou to make a living in the case of this project, are mere outsiders in terms of the distribution of benefits or the share of spiritual entertainment in the urban village. As outsiders, they are often the most affected by the regeneration, the most opposed to it and suffer most directly from its benefits, however, have the weakest voice in the planning progress. Therefore, in urban regeneration planning, we planners should pay more attention to the existence and living needs of these informal employment migrants, provide them with better living and working conditions, improve their quality of life, and promote the equal development of urban society.

Urban Villages are a specific phenomenon raised in modern China due to the high-speed economic development and urbanization in recent three decades. And there are social, economic, cultural and architectural transformations happened in these villages during these years. They appear on both the outskirts and the downtown segments of major cities, and surrounded by skyscrapers, transportation infrastructures, and other modern urban constructions. They are commonly inhabited by the poor and transient. Most of Urban Villages are heavily populated, overdeveloped, and lack of basic infrastructure. Some villages' building density is higher than 70%. They are composed of overcrowded multi-story buildings from three to five (or more) floors, also with narrow alleys, which are difficult for vehicles to pass through. Inside these villages, it is dark and damp year round and the lights have to be kept on during daytime. However, they are also among the liveliest areas in some cities and are notable for affording economic opportunity for newcomers to the city. However, Urban Villages are rejected by the governor and face demolition–redevelopment programs in order to replace them with formal urban neighborhoods. But the demolition-redevelopment approach would be devastating not only for the rural migrants, but also for the city’s economy which is largely based on labor-intensive sectors. In my study, I take Gangsha Village, a typical urban village in Shenzhen City, as a study case, to explore an appropriate reformation approach that combines urban design and architectural strategy to solve social, economic and cultural problems in Urban Village. To provide them a better living condition, and make the village better serves the city.