VIRTUAL: Livable Cities – New York
Abstract
In the context of continuing urbanisation and increasing social-ecological pressures on the land, urban planners and practitioners must question their discourses regarding the values of a place. The article elucidates the values of neglected places by a case of Chinese urban villages. It situates in Shenzhen, a metropolis in southeastern China, where urban villages are widespread neighbourhoods and under transformations toward an uncertain future given the government’s official attempts. Chinese urban villages originated from rural settlements (which could be dated back to the imperial period) and were left over during the process of rapid urban expansion since the 1980s’ land reforms. In contrast to the surrounding densified urban forms, urban villages became half occupied as people moved out from the inner core. China’s Silicon Valley in Shenzhen is chosen as a study site where the village Ping Shan is enclosed by campuses, science and technology parks, and talent apartments. The article first looks into how the urban village has been neglected and by whom. It then discusses the values of being neglected and unoccupied in a city of high density. This echoes the reading of the common by Lieven De Cauter, ‘the common is that what belongs to nobody and therefore to everybody, or, what belongs to everybody and therefore to nobody’. Urban villages can be seen as common; they create values that are potentially ecological and cultural when they are not occupied.
Diwen Tan is a PhD researcher at the SPS section, department of Urbanism, TU Delft. She shifted from a trained physicist and environmental geographer to an urbanist with interests in cultural landscapes and inclusive urbanism. Her doctoral research focuses on the neglected socio-ecological values in Chinese urban villages that can be extracted from Chinese traditions. She completed her first M.Sc. in Sustainable Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She then worked at UN Environment Programme for about 6 years before pursuing an advanced M.Sc. in Human Settlements at KU Leuven.
Minh Quang Nguyen is a PhD researcher at OSA research group, KU Leuven. He is from Vietnam, a country that has a strong culture of settling with forests and water. He conceived that cities need to be understood in relation to the importance of ecological systems. His doctoral research focuses on forest and water urbanism as a strategy for climate change adaptation. Prior to that, Quang was trained as an urban designer and obtained M.Sc degrees in sustainable architecture and human settlements (both from KU Leuven). He has extensively collaborated with OSA/RUA on design research commissions and competitions.
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Wednesday 14th June, 2023