Fifteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

In post-reform China, urban redevelopment has come into the neoliberal phase, featured by “real-estate-led redevelopment.” The increasingly dominating market-orientation and land-based finance could rapidly reshape cityscapes through massive demolition, eviction, and reconstruction, thus hastening the move away from the old city fabric and traditional lifestyle of local communities. Declined inner-cities are most subject to urban redevelopment because of their deteriorated physical conditions and high location values. Meanwhile, inner-cities hold high historic-cultural value because of the concentration of historic buildings and historical traces of city evolution. Such asymmetric value perceptions underlie the intense conflicts between neoliberal urban redevelopment and heritage preservation in China, whereby utilitarian reconstructions at the sacrifice of urban heritage have become a common occurrence. As interest conflicts are at the basis of this dilemma, it is necessary to figure out the different focuses, actual needs, expectancies, and practical difficulties perceived by different stakeholders. This study identifies the local government, developer, and residents as major stakeholders of urban redevelopment and heritage conservation programs, using a representative case to demonstrate the heterogeneous concerns of multi-stakeholders. The study area is a sharp-cut reflection of the contradictions between historic-cultural value and remarkable location value on commercial development, high market risks for local government and developer, and residents’ living dilemma. This study adopts fieldwork and semi-structured interviews as the research methods. Though clarifying uneven concerns about urban redevelopment and heritage conservation from perspectives of multi-stakeholders, this study explores possible strategies of heritage programs, which could strike a balance among multi-stakeholder interests.