Assessing local food systems in China for building healthy mega-cities

Despite the long-lasting concern for food security in China at the national level, policy attempts to cope with this issue have often resulted to be ineffective. More importantly, they have rarely addressed the question from a local perspective. International experiences of urban food strategies proved to be quite efficacious in enhancing the local provision of food and improving the overall city sustainability by shortening the supply chain, preserving peri-urban areas and improving the nutrition of citizens. By reviewing existing practices of city farming in China, mainly ascribable to urban agriculture experiences, the intention of this paper is to reflect upon the challenges of implementing more comprehensive local food systems. In the conclusion the paper argues that, given the current institutional, socio-economic, and environmental constrains of Chinese cities there is a need of introducing holistic planning tool to assess local food systems in order to ensure the building of real healthy cities

Planetary Urbanisation and the Built Heritage from a Non-Western Perspective: The Question of 'How' We Should Protect the Past

The process of planetary urbanisation, which is currently affecting a large part of the world, impacts on the existing built environment in an unprecedented way. Its dramatic rapidity often implies the sudden disappearance of traditional urban and rural structures and the rapid transformation of local cultures. Contextually, as never before, attempts to protect culture in its tangible and intangible expressions are increasingly central to international agendas on sustainable urbanisation. However, this is by no means an easy task to achieve. The main reason for the controversy is that the consensus around the need to protect heritage and its tools, as formulated primarily in the Western world in the past, has changed. It has been challenged by alternative, non-Western, primarily non-materialistic views, or it has been delegitimised by the (often) exploitative practice of heritagisation, as a result of the process of protection itself. The main aim of this paper is to reflect on the implications of contemporary planetary urbanisation on the built heritage and its protection, considering that most of this process is taking place in fast-developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America and, at the same time, there is a redistribution of economic (and therefore cultural) power from the West to the East, and from the North to the South of the planet

Rise, fragmentation, infringement and fear: emerging urban issues in Chinese clustering in Italy

China is today facing rapid economic development and the long-term implications of China’s rise for European economy, society and culture, are constantly debated but still almost unknown. Moreover, only recently a new volume edited by Kunzmann has clearly pointed out a particular field of research like the EU spatial impact of China’s convergence in the global market. The aim of the present paper is to deal with the spatial issues related to the growing Chinese communities, especially in Italy, that are part of a more general and considerable transformation process of the traditional Chinese enclaves in EU cities: from recognizable “Chinatowns” to new hybrid urban formations where housing, retail, wholesale and even commodity production often tend to match. Key-Concepts like rise, fragmentation, infringement and fear are useful in analysing some of the more controversial socio-economic dynamics of Chinese clusters especially in a traditionally manufactured-based country like Italy, where it’s recognizable a unique paradox of a “double competition” from outside and from inside. This statement poses a serious threat to local economic systems in terms of sustainability and social cohesion, making it necessary to rethink the role and the nature of public action in facing new forms of marginality at urban and regional level

Opposition and resistance: Governance challenges around urban growth in China and the UK

This paper proposes that, different though they are, the processes of urban development in China and the UK can be analytically compared by looking at the commonly occurring opposition and resistance to that development. Such opposition and resistance can delay and limit the development of land in and immediately surrounding cities. The paper firstly reviews literature on opposition and resistance to development in both the UK and China, before going on to suggest that this opposition and resistance can in part be explained by a common cause – resentment at opaque and top-down/centralised planning processes. Consequently, the paper concludes that a common solution may applicable in both contexts – increasing participation and building institutional/civic capital amongst communities – and considers the likelihood of implementing this solution, particularly in China

Training and action-research for sustainable rural fringe development in urban China: achievements and limitations

There is a wide debate on which knowledge and skills can equip future urban planners with suitable tools to tackle with the societal and environmental challenges of massive urbanisation. This is urgent especially in fast changing societies like the Chinese one. One consolidated strand of research within urban studies has traditionally looked at the integrated topic of rural fringe management and urban food planning in order to achieve more sustainable urban development outcomes. As in other parts of the world, this would require discipline-related knowledge and skills, such as country-related ones. Thus, by establishing conceptually the nexus between sustainability and rural fringe development in the particular context of China, the main aim of the paper will be to unfold the pedagogic implications of this relationship. This will be achieved by reflecting on a series of heterogeneous but interwoven experiences employed in a foreign University located in China: the development of a new “Rural planning” module and the implementation of action-research activities, in form of international workshops, mainly located in the countryside of Suzhou in the Jiangsu Province. The paper will show in the conclusion the achievements and limitations of these teaching experiences, in this particular field of study, exploring the enabling factors in urban studies education for the sustainable development/management of the urban fringe of China

Book Review: Peri-Urban China: Land Use, Growth, and Integrated Urban–Rural Development

Peri-Urban China is a study of the characteristics of land-use change in the peri-urban areas of China, and its underlying social and economic driving forces. It adopts a case study approach focused on the three most developed regions of China (Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region) and its ultimate aim is to unveil how to achieve policies for sustainable land development in China. The theoretical framework employed is based on the new institutional economics, widely used in planning theory to link the functioning of institutions with the concepts of property rights and transaction costs. Each case study relies on a variety of methods of investigation, such as GIS mapping, indices of landscape ecology, and urban planning tools, thus providing suitable comparative understanding of different peri-urban dynamics across the country

INTREPID Futures Initiative: The future of Academia and trans-disciplinary knowledge production in the urban field, 6th INTREPID Report

The idea of hosting the 5th INTREPID Action Workshop in Gagliato, Calabria (Italy), between the 20th - 27th July 2017, raised during the London Workshop with the deliberate intention to embed one of the INTREPID research explorations within ongoing initiatives of some of the Universities involved in the INTREPID COST action: in particular a participatory design workshop on Creative Towns, coordinated by the University of Westminster, with the participation of Newcastle University. Other non-cost members involved are: ILAUD, The International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design, the London School of Economics, the Universita’ degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, the Università della Calabria and a local NGO, the Academy of the Nano-science of Gagliato. The participatory workshop has been funded by the Academy of the Nano-science of Gagliato and it has been fruitfully coupled with an INTREPID Workshop. The main aim of the participatory design workshop was to explore alternative scenarios for the sustainable local development of Gagliato, a small town located in a relative marginal area of the South of Italy, engaging various local stakeholders in the scenario exercise