URBANISM VS SUBURBIA: MAPPING LIFESTYLE-LED POPULATION AGGLOMERATION IN SHANGHAI USING TIME-SPACE

The 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference
Tokyo
27-29 September 2005

Autores:
Jun WANG, Stephen S.Y. LAU, K.W. CHAU

Summary

The economic development of Shanghai took off at an intense and fast speed since the inception of Open Door policy in 1990; Shanghai people experienced a dramatic enlargement in perceived boundary of city area, as well as steadily increased population. Echoing the discourse by academician world wide, sustainable development emerges as a significant topic for urban sprawl that provokes attentions in the studies of Chinese cities.
This study starts from the aspect of residence agglomeration with a purpose to identify forces within home relocation mechanism. It is hypothesized that, different from the phenomenon of ‘Suburbanization’ in western cities, the currently observed massive outward-moving in Shanghai is arguably a temporary compromise to political and economic constraints rather than a response to an ideal life image. This paper describes a survey by questionnaire and interview, which is designed to focus on lifestyle-driven activity pattern, current and probable future choice of home location. Output of the survey suggests that the observed urban sprawl can be better understood as a regional process of urbanization, during which expanding of the CBD and superior residential zone push out the original inner-city residential lands to suburban area. As a result, a large amount of families with lower economic status are filtered out of city; however, driven by the regional attachment to city living, probability of moving back to city can be very high.

1 Introduction

2 Literature review
2.1 Residential structure in market economies: expectation through filtering mechanism
2.2 Residential structure driven by regional attachment

3 Residential structure in Shanghai:
3.1 Regional cultural system
3.2 Mode of intra-urban migration
3.3 A chronological review

4 Data and samples

5 Superior housing location defined by time-space consumption in shanghai
5.1 Regional living style: Time-Space allocation
5.2 Commuting time: time wasted
5.3 Current and next choice

6 Discussion and conclusion:

Temporary reaction to historical stage in city development This paper raises doubts on the way to justify urban growth tendency simply using superficially observed massive migration pattern because of great variance in historical urban context between Chinese cities and developed regions. In fact, the exploration to regional image of ideal living style shaped by social-cultural context uncovers a sensitive and constant attachment to city life. The current outward-moving in Shanghai is argued to be a temporary reaction to its historical developing phase in economic terms coupled with transition phase in political terms:
Outwards as trade-off by governments to improve land value through replacement of land use,
Outwards as compromise by groups who could not afford city housing so far,
Outwards as pushed-out by the enlargement of the CBD and high class settlements
The city of Shanghai is experiencing a stage which experiences an imbalanced development with some parts closely synchronized with that in advanced regions and others lags far behind. The economic-directed guidelines encourage massive replacement of low-productive land uses to high-productive ones; more specifically, original inner city neighborhoods by infrastructure, commercial, business projects. This leads to a large amount of migrants with moving direction fixed to rural areas because they were not capable for commodity housing. As a result, the direction of a mass forced migration is strongly determined by government, investor, and in root by economic-driven policy. Further migration could be expected by this group once any conditioning factors change.
Regional attachment to city living This study also argues that an understanding of regional preference of ideal living style which locates the status pole is a prerequisite for urban growth prediction. Close links between superior settlements and CBD is supported by the historical review on shift of residential status poles and survey on living pattern by time-space consumption. Shanghainese show a sensitive attachment to city: they spend quite a long time in city center where they work and enjoy entertainment, they appreciate quick and convenient access to the CBD. Along the urban renaissance where traditional CBD extends towards the southwest, the pole of high-status settlement follows as well. Original rural area adjacent to the CBD developed quickly into a new, modern city with many kinds of land use involved rather than a separately built residential district.
Concentric zone filtered by economic status Driven by urbanism orientation, desirable residential areas are closely associated with the CBD. Along the westward-extending of the CBD, superior neighborhoods follow as well. Choices of individual are influenced by their economic status from the perspective of how close they can live to the status pole. It is because that the location of the CBD shifts westwards, old north- east part was overlapped by newly constructed western parts with respect to different distance to the CBD physically. Therefore, the urban structure map in Shanghai is suggested to be concentric zones around the CBD with the rich at inner zone and the poor at outer zones.
In conclusion, it is doubtful to label the residential structure in Shanghai with either urbanization, suburbanization, or gentrification – which are used to describe middle class’s home relocation pattern in western regions. In Shanghai, the advantaged group lived in the western part of city – west side of the CBD - in the socialist period when social welfare was distributed by occupation and industry sector, and now live in the expanded high class districts – around the CBD – when property is purchased by capital. It is to say that those who have priority in social welfare distribution never leave the city at all. However, those who experience outward-moving now and expect opportunity to move back to city are disadvantaged group – blue collar working class in the socialist period and low-income class now in the preliminary market-driven period. The preference study reveals that, the attachment to urbanism is constant and might keep on.

Reference:
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