This book explores a more human-centered development pathway associated with the ideological shift from "quantity" to "quality" growth in the new era of Chinese urbanization. Sustainable urban and rural planning should be “people-centered” and concerned about urban-rural coordination. The authors argue that successful urban and rural development in China should promote social equity, culture diversity, economic prosperity and sustainable built form. This book prompts Chinese urbanists to reconsider and explore a sustainable and people-first planning approach with Chinese characteristics. The breadth and depth of this book is of particular interest to the faculty members, students, practitioners and the general public who are interested in subjects like urban and regional planning, rural planning, housing and community development, infrastructure planning, climate change and ecological planning, environmental planning, social equity and beyond. This book dealing with human-centered urban planning and development, rural planning and urban-rural coordination in China is part of a 2 volume set. Volume II discusses human-centered urban design and placemaking, human activities and urban mobility.

This book provides insights and discusses human-centered urban design and placemaking, human activities and urban mobility in China. It argues that sustainable urban design and mobility should be “people-centered” and concerned about “place-making” in the new era of Chinese urbanization. Successful urban design and placemaking should adopt interdisciplinary approaches to planning and designing “space” and “place”. A core vision is the delivery of urban spaces that can cater to the needs of an increasingly diverse crowd of urban dwellers calling cities home. The book prompts Chinese urbanists to reconsider and explore a sustainable and people-first planning and design approach with Chinese characteristics. The breadth and depth of this book is of particular interest to those faculty members, students, practitioners and the general public who are interested in subjects like urban design, transport planning, mobility analysis and planning, housing and community development, infrastructure planning, environmental planning, social equity and beyond. This book discussing human-centered urban design and placemaking, human activities and urban mobility is part of a 2 volume set. Volume I deals with human-centered urban planning and development, rural planning and urban-rural coordination in China.

This book proposes and systematically discusses four trends of thoughts in contemporary Chinese urban design. As the first book to systematically introduce contemporary Chinese urban design thoughts, this book objectively displays the macroscopic picture of contemporary urban design development of China from the time dimension, sorting out seven historical stages and three disputes. This book is mainly divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the vertical description, taking the major events in the seven historical stages as the context, combing the macro picture of the development of contemporary urban design in China in the last 100 years, and describing the three controversies in this process: contention, subject, and legalization. The second part focuses on horizontal observations, puts forward and systematically discusses the four trends of thought formed in the development of contemporary urban design in China, including “Design of Form,” “Synthesis of Design,” “Control of Design,” and “Design of Rule”. This part discusses their development background, theoretical support, and key concepts in detail and finally conducts critical thinking. The whole book is based on historical events, archives, and papers published in Chinese academic journals. While sorting out, summarizing, and objectively discussing, it also makes a critique of urban design activities and academic thinking in China, which will greatly benefit scholars and readers who are interested in urban design history of contemporary China.

An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities' development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners' dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities' productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.

Studies of compact cities have evolved along with the rising awareness of climate change and sustainable development. Relevant debates, however, reveal that the prevailing definitions and practices of compact cities are tied primarily to traditional Western urban forms. This book reinterprets "compact city", and develops a ground-breaking discourse of "Vertical Urbanism", a concept that has never been critically articulated. It emphasizes "Vertical Urbanism" as a dynamic design strategy instead of a static form, distinguishing it from the stereotyped concept of "vertical city" or "towers in the park" dominant in China and elsewhere, and suggests its adaptability to different geographic and cultural contexts. Using Chinese cities as laboratories of investigation, this book explores the design, ecological, and sociocultural dimensions of building compact cities, and addresses important global urban issues through localized design solutions, such as the relationship between density and vitality, the integration of horizontal and vertical dimensions of design, and the ecological and social adaptability of combinatory mega-forms. In addition, through discussions with scholars from the United States, China, and Japan, this book provides an insight into the theoretical debates surrounding "compact city" and "Vertical Urbanism" in the global context. Scholars and students in architecture and urban planning will be attracted by this book. Also, it will appeal to readers with an interest in urban development and Asian studies.

The trajectory and logic of urban development in post-Mao China have been shaped and defined by the contention between domestic and global capital, central and local state and social actors of different class status and endowment. This urban transformation process of historic proportion entails new rules for distribution and negotiation, novel perceptions of citizenship, as well as room for unprecedented spontaneity and creativity. Based on original research by leading experts, this book offers an updated and nuanced analysis of the new logic of urban governance and its implications.

The traditional Chinese city is undergoing an identity crisis. With the rapid development taking place, there is growing conflict between this new building and the existing urban heritage. An appropriate approach, both in design and in legislation, is urgently needed to deal with this problem. Furthermore, although Chinese cities have a remarkably long history, existing methods of urban form study in China are either descriptive or loosely structured, whereas a comprehensive methodology is necessary to 'read' Chinese urban forms in a consistent way, and thus inform designers and policy-makers. Chinese Urban Design targets these problems and offers an analytic and conceptual framework for both urban investigation and consequent design. Firstly summarising traditional urban design principles and how Chinese cities have transformed over time, it then introduces and offers a theoretic ground and scientific methodology for understanding the evolution of urban forms, initially developed in western countries. It demonstrates the theoretic model via real cases - from the city of Nanjing - and establishes a direct link between understanding of urban forms and design development. By providing a cross-cultural investigation on the theories and methods of urban typology and morphology, this book aims to suggest best future practice for urban design in China. It explores how urban designers and local policy-makers can produce culturally responsive designs and how they might better understand the formation and transformation of the built environment in which their creations sit. It also looks at how local residents' lifestyle, culture and demands might be reflected and respected in design process.