Tag Archives: Shanghai

Rural tourist spaces in the Yangtze River Delta

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Emmanuel Véron (2013) “Rural tourist spaces in the Yangtze River Delta, between town-country integration and rural development”, EchoGéo [Online], n° 26 | published online on 19 December 2013, accessed 06 January 2014. URL: http://echogeo.revues.org/13607 ; DOI: 10.4000/echogeo.13607

Abstract

Domestic tourism in China is still a little discussed topic in French geography. However, the touristic phenomenon is under diversification and maturation. The recent interest of city dwellers to discover and travel to the countryside as an “elsewhere whishes” gives new perspectives in geography, in particular, new relationships between urban and rural world. The national policy of rural modernization “construction of new socialist countryside” from the 11th five year plan (2006-2010) provides a rural tourism planning. We take the lower Yangzi area to exemplify a spatial organization of rural tourism around Shanghai.

Contents

Introduction

The evolution of a domestic tourism industry: a new interest for the countryside
Free time, leisure time
Increased tourist mobility on the city outskirts
A fresh appreciation for the countryside?

Typology of revitalised spaces for and by tourism: the result of a new rurality
The villages and water towns of Jiangnan
Chinese rural guesthouses or Nongjiale
Parks and agritourism

The spatial organisation of rural tourism in the outskirts of Shanghai
The expansion of tourism to the rural outskirts beyond municipal boundaries
The municipal territory of Shanghai, leisure outskirts of an emerging metropolis?
Around the Lake Tai: a tourism strategy for short stays
New urban-rural relationships: the role of rural tourism

Conclusion

The article is written in French. Read it here.

Aurélia Martin

Chargée de communications et des médias pour l'UMR Chine Corée Japon (CNRS)

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Residential satisfaction in China’s informal settlements

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Li, Zhigan1, Wu, Fulong2 (2013) Residential satisfaction in China’s informal settlements: a case study of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Urban Geography. Published online: 22 Jul 2013 [Ahead of print]

China’s informal settlements—villages inside urbanized areas—are often characterized by local governments as dirty, chaotic, and dangerous places. This negative discourse inevitably leads to recommendations for demolition. A number of criteria have been invoked in state decisions regarding the demolition of informal settlements; however, rarely are these places evaluated from the residents’ perspective. This paper, following a long tradition of residential satisfaction research in Western nations, uses a household survey to examine this topic in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. We find that local contexts not only matter, but may be the principal determinants of residential satisfaction. The residential satisfaction of village dwellers is not necessarily low, and most socioeconomic attributes are not statistically significant determinants of resident satisfaction. Migrants and low-income groups are not less satisfied than nonmigrants or middle-range income earners; the most important determinant is social attachment within the community. The perception of being excluded, or lacking neighborhood social attachment, significantly reduces residential satisfaction. No facilities can compensate for this negative exclusion factor. We conclude that demolishing informal settlements does not help to build a “harmonious society,” which is the purported goal of such programs. Removing the social and institutional barriers for migrant integration into the city is likely the most effective way to enhance residential satisfaction and neighborhood quality.

Full text available online (restricted access or purchase options)

  1. Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation , School of Geography and Planning Sun Yat-sen University
  2. Bartlett School of Planning , University College London

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Smart cities: perspectives from Germany and China

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ICT as an enabler for intelligent city development: perspectives from Germany and China

The development of Intelligent Cities is a topic of interest to public policy makers,
researchers, and businesses in both the developed and fast developing worlds.
China has made Intelligent City development a national priority and has already
developed a number of initiatives, not only in major cities such as Beijing and
Shanghai, but in newly developing centers such as Wuxi and Ningbo. Information
and Communications Technology are playing an essential role in these
developments.
The Chinese Academy of Engineering, acatech – the German National Academy of
Science and Engineering, and the Münchner Kreis have all been active in research
and discussions concerning Intelligent City development. In this conference, these
three organizations will bring together academic and business experts to present and
compare research, examples, and future visions both in China and Germany for the
development of Intelligent Cities using information and communication technology as
an enabler. This conference should be of interest to researchers, business
practitioners, but also local, state, and national government policy makers.

Date

September 11 and 12, 2013

Location

Haus der Bayerischen Wirtschaft, Munich, Germany

Registration

Not later than 4 September 2013

Participation fee

€ 420,- per person.

More details on the conference webpage

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Participatory processes in urban planning projects in China

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Kern, Abigaïl-Laure1  and Bolay, Jean-Claude2 (2013). Participatory processes in urban planning projects in China: the example of Caoyang Village, Shanghai. In Silvia Hostettler and Eileen Hazboun (Ed.) Technologies for sustainable development : a way to reduce poverty? (pp.209-223). Springer International Publishing. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-00639-0_18

In order to provide the first elements of a participatory process initiated and led by Chinese authorities, this paper will look at the citizen’s involvement in an urban planning project in China and discuss possible avenues to sustain the process in a specific local context over the long-term. Since the end of the 1980s, most community participation projects in China have been implemented in rural environments. This participatory process was carried out in Shanghai’s historically and culturally symbolic Caoyang Workers’ Village, without the external influence of international bodies. Even if some constraints have emerged in the participation of citizens during the pre-project phase, this participatory process seems to have fostered local governance to make significant breakthroughs. It was also the opportunity to reflect upon the minimum conditions to ensure the sustainability of this type of practice in Chinese urban planning projects by adopting the vision of an adapted participatory process.
  1. Doctoral Program in Architecture and Science of the City, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  2. Cooperation and Development Centre, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Internal migration and urban dynamics in Shanghai

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Zhao, Yeqin (2011). Construction des espaces urbains et rénovation d’un quartier de Shanghai : la problématique de la migration et du changement social. Shanghai : Sanlian shudian, 2011. (In French)

The book is based on a Ph. D. thesis in sociology, Cachan, École normale supérieure, co-tutoring with Shanghai Huadong shifan daxue, 2008.

Abstract

Since the economic reform in the late 1970’s, China has undergone trmendous changes in poltical, social and cultural aspects. Two of the most important transformations are the urban growth and the flow of internal migration which is unprecedented in the history of China. This flow of internal migration has transformed the urban population.

The objective of this research is to analyze the complexity of relationships between migrnats from rural China and the indigenous inhabitants, who are often former migrants, in the context of ownership of an urban space (a poor community of Shanghai) which is dedicated to the renovation. These issues affect urban dynamics of contemporary China. This research has conducted a thorough analysis of previous empirical research, both Western and Chinese. The close link between migration and the city has directed towards a broader debate, particularly on internal migration and urban dynamics. We adopted the method of micro-sociology and regarded Yuanhenong, a poor neighborhood of Shanghai, as the unit of observation.

The research seeks not only to describe the transformation of Shanghai through a neighbourhood. it intends to show more generally : 1) that one must study the urban transformations from the activities and choies of people who “organize” the city, 2) how the internal migration and the mobility of population are transforming the cities of the emerging countries and how to build the new urban societies, and 3) the need to consider the question of Chinese specificities and its limits.

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Hotel Shanghai, a bitter story

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The Park Hotel in Shanghai (brown building), Goulard Sébastien

The old Shanghai and her concessions, has provided the setting for numerous works of fiction. Various authors have been inspired by Shanghai’s chaotic atmosphere in the first half of the 20th century. Millions of European children have learned about Shanghai’s contemporary history and the opium trade through Hergé’s comic book “The Blue Lotus”.

“Hotel Shanghai”, a novel by Vicki Baum (1888-1960), a well-known Austrian writer, is another example of the importance of Colonial Shanghai in world literature.  In this novel, Vicki Baum tells the story of nine characters who all died in a hotel in Shanghai during the events of the so-called “Bloody Saturday” on August 14, 1937, when Chinese aircraft accidentally dropped two bombs on the Cathay and Palace Hotels while trying to bomb a Japanese man-of-war ship.

The nine characters in “Hotel Shanghai” all have difference backgrounds; there is a Hawaiian photographer, a Japanese reporter, an American nurse, a failed German musician, a Jewish doctor, a Chinese gangster and his son, a Chinese coolie and a Russian princess. It is their destiny to meet and die in Shanghai.

At that time, because of the foreign concessions, Shanghai had become a genuine global city where East meets West, attracting people from all over the world. It became a shelter for thousands of Jewish people fleeing European extremism. Shanghai’s prosperity also attracted Chinese migrants and symbolized modernism. But Shanghai was home to inequalities, and many migrants’ ambitions (both Chinese and Western ones) faded in the face of the hard realities of Shanghai. The international concessions provided opportunities for some to succeed, but in the absence of governance, the city’s prosperity was unfairly distributed.

What can we learn from this novel regarding Shanghai’s new leading role?

Shanghai is trying to revive her global past, but the authorities need to be prepared for the challenges created by this ambitious goal. As this novel demonstrates, global cities suffer from many afflictions including inequality, deep poverty, crime and health issues (for example, New York and Paris are victims of a resurgence of tuberculosis). The foreign concessions in Shanghai could be compared to an ivory tower where (some) inhabitants felt they lived thousands of kilometres from China. But in the end, reality caught up with everyone. This proves that Shanghai, like all cities, cannot live apart from its environment, and that inequality is an issue that must be dealt with firmly in order to survive.

 Hotel Shanghai, where a large part of this story takes place, does not appear to have ever existed. However, as described by Baum, “Hotel Shanghai” is a combination of the Cathay Hotel, the Palace Hotel (now the Peace Hotel) on the Bund and the Park Hotel facing the People’s Square.

 

Sebastien Goulard

Ph.D. in political science (EHESS, Paris); M.A. in social sciences (EHESS, Paris); M.A. in international relations (IRIS, Paris), B.A. (Hons) in international political studies (ESE - Nottingham Trent University)

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Is China about to introduce a national carbon price?

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Arup, Tom. (2013) Where there’s smoke there’s China. The Age World, 8 May (accessed 7 June 2013).

As a former top diplomat in Beijing, and after three decades of professional and personal engagement with the country, Professor Ross Garnaut is no stranger to China.

In January, the respected economist and former Labor climate policy tsar found himself in Beijing again, this time to open a workshop hosted in part by China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission.

Gathered were a group of international policy wonks, including many Australians and local government officials. They met to discuss options for what some in the public debate deny is happening – the introduction of a national carbon price in China.

In just over a month China will begin a massive experiment in emissions trading when the first of seven regional pilot schemes kicks off (and which one day may develop into a national scheme).

The stakes are high. China emits one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases. It is easily the world’s largest consumer of coal. In 2011 it released an estimated 9.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – more than the US and India combined.

In his speech Garnaut painted a cautious, but encouraging, picture of where China stands on climate change.

Read more here

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Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Urban vegetable retail in China: the example of Shanghai

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Zhang, Qian Forrest and Zi Pan (2013). The transformation of urban vegetable retail in China : wet markets, supermarkets, and informal markets in Shanghai. Journal of contemporary Asia p.1-22.

Abstract

The state-monopolised system of vegetable retail in socialist urban China has been transformed into a market-based system run by profit-driven actors. Publicly-owned wet markets not only declined in number after the state relegated its construction to market forces, but were also thoroughly privatised, becoming venues of capital accumulation for the market operators now controlling these properties. Self-employed migrant families replaced salaried state employees in the labour force. Governments’ increased control over urban public space reduced the room for informal markets, exacerbating the scarcity of vegetable retail space. Fragmentation in the production and wholesale systems restricted modern supermarkets’ ability to establish streamlined supply chains and made them less competitive than wet markets. The transformation of urban vegetable retail documented here shows both the advance that capital has made in re-shaping China’s agrifood system and the constraints that China’s socialist institutions impose on it. Shanghai’s experience also shows that the relative competitiveness of various retail formats is shaped by the state’s intervention in building market infrastructure and institutions.

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Shanghaing Mumbai: Theorizing the Asian cities

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“Shanghaing Mumbai: Comparative urbanism, exceptionalism and theorising the Asian city”.

A conference by Mrs Pushpa Arabindoo, University College London, Department of Geography Co-director, UCL Urban Laboratory.

Date

  • 18 April, 2013

Time

  • 5 p.m to 7.30 p.m

Venue

  • Université Paris Diderot – Bâtiment Olympe de Gouges – rue Albert Einstein – salle 870 (8ème étage)
  • Métro 14/RER C Bibliothèque François Mitterrand
  • Tram : arrêt/stop Avenue de France
Registrations

Please note: A badge must be taken at the reception to go up to the 8th floor

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Cities in Asia: International summer program in architecture

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Taught by a diverse group of faculty members from the University of Hong Kong, and speakers from internationally renowned universities and independent research groups, the course offers participants a design studio experience within Asia’s  contexts.

Fundamental to the study of architecture and cities is the question of rapid urbanization and innovation on the multiple fronts of society, culture and the economy. For the purpose of this summer program, the three key cities in east China, the Pearl River Delta and Southeast Asia will serve as platforms for the understanding of such issues, in the current neo-liberal world of urbanization, where international corporations have grown far more powerful than sovereign governments.

Through this course, participants will focus on different architecture and building types that have emerged from the current state of rapid urbanization. These urban building types are unique in the way they resist and subvert, or become mutated or subsumed by the prevailing urban conditions of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. The design and research studio would be based on the examination and re-invention of a number of these building types.

Participants will have the benefit of visiting numerous cities under-going massive change, exploring broad-ranging issues such as identity, migration, cultural production, colonialism, nationalism and globalization through topics in architectural history and theory. This program will include study trips to the cities of Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou and Shenzhen. In support of the design and research studio, a daily lecture and seminar program will further enrich the participants’ knowledge in these fields.

Deadline for registration

  • April 15, 2013

Dates

  •  SHA: Jul 5-18, 2013
  • HKG: Jul 19-26, 2013
  • SIN: Jul 27-Aug 2, 2013

Program directors

Faculty

Website

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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The Shanghai alleyway house: A vanishing urban vernacular

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Bracken, Gregory. (2013) The Shanghai alleyway house : A vanishing urban vernacular. London : Routledge. 200 p. (Contemporary China series). ISBN 978-0-415-64071-8.

As a nineteenth-century commercial development, the alleyway house was a hybrid of the traditional Chinese courtyard house and the Western terraced one. Unique to Shanghai, the alleyway house was a space where the blurring of the boundaries of public and private life created a vibrant social community. In recent years however, the city’s rapid redevelopment has meant that the alleyway house is being destroyed, and this book seeks to understand it in terms of the lifestyle it engendered for those who called it home, whilst also looking to the future of the alleyway house.

Based on groundwork research, this book examines the Shanghai alleyway house in light of the complex history of the city, especially during the colonial era. It also explores the history of urban form (and governance) in China in order to question how the Eastern and Western traditions combined in Shanghai to produce a unique and dynamic housing typology. Construction techniques and different alleyway house sub-genres are also examined, as is the way of life they engendered, including some of the side-effects of alleyway house life, such as the literature it inspired, both foreign and local, as well as the portrayal of life in the laneways as seen in films set in the city. The book ends by posing the question: what next for the alleyway house? Does it even have a future, and if so, what lies ahead for this rapidly vanishing typology?

 More info

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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2013 Shanghai International Conference on Social Science

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 SICSS 2013 aims to build a platform allowing parties interested in it to share and discuss their studies from various perspectives in the aspects of social science, including: Culture, Economics, Education, Law, Mass Communications, Politics, Psychology, Society, Tourism, Transportation, Urban Planning, and so forth. All theoretical, empirical, and practical papers (qualitative or quantitative) from scholars and professionals in the above fields (but not strictly limited) are all highly welcomed.

 Location

  • QUBE Pudong, Shanghai, P.R. China

Date

  • July 11-13, 2013

Submission deadline

  • March 31, 2013

Contact

Web site

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Divorce to skip property tax

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Couples in rush to divorce as house sales tax looms

By Hu Min, Mar 6, 2013 (accessed 6 March 2013)

SHANGHAI saw a rush of people seeking a divorce over the past two days as couples worked out a way to escape the looming 20 percent tax on the profit from house sales.

Marriage registrars confirmed that the dramatic surge was triggered by the central government’s property curbs announcement last week, with many couples seeking a quick divorce but a remarriage shortly after.
Houses bought more than five years ago as a seller’s only residence are exempt from tax when resold. But families who own two houses and want to sell one of them are now targets in the government’s bid to curb speculation in the property market. If the couples divorce, each spouse will then own a property and one of them can sell the apartment that is tax exempt. After the transaction is complete, the couples get married again.
The registration center in Zhabei District saw a record 53 divorces yesterday, its director surnamed Yin said. “We have never seen so many couples seeking a divorce in a single day, and by 2pm the number had already surpassed the previous high of 42 couples,” he said.
Read the full text article on ShanghaiDaily.com

Till taxes do us part: Chinese divorce to skip property tax

(Reuters) – At Shanghai’s Zhabei District marriage registration centre, officials divorced a record 53 couples in a single day this week – that’s about one every five minutes – as couples rushed to untie the knot to avoid tougher tax laws on home sales.

There were similar scenes in Wuhan, Nanjing and Ningbo as married couples opted for ‘quickie’, uncontested divorces – costing just a few yuan – that would allow them to split ownership of their properties and sell without having to pay capital gains tax of as much as 20 percent.

Beijing last week signalled it wanted local governments to be tougher in implementing rules to curb property speculation – the tax on gains from selling second homes has been in place for almost two decades but never strictly enforced. Chinese tend to park much of their wealth in real estate as they have few other alternative investment options, and home prices in the biggest cities have risen for 9 straight months.

Reckoning that primary residences owned for more than five years will remain tax exempt, some couples hope that divorcing and dividing up real estate assets will allow them to sell properties as individuals, and not pay tax. Once the sale is complete, they can remarry.

“It’s a practical attitude,” said Li Li, managing director of International Strategic Group, a real estate consultancy in Shanghai. “It’s strange, but policy forces people to do it.”

While homeowners and prospective buyers await details on how the tightened property rules will be implemented, the official Shanghai Daily quoted one unnamed official at the Yangpu District registration office as saying the rise in divorces was driven by unapologetic tax evaders, including a pregnant woman.

“I told all of them to come here again for remarriage registration as soon as their transaction is finished,” the official told the newspaper.

Read the full text article on Reuters

Webography

  • Chinese divorce to avoid property tax, South China Morning Post, March  6, 2013. (accessed 6 March 2013)
  • The unexpected result of China’s new policy to curb property price: Higher divorce rate, OffBeat China, March 5, 2013. (accessed 6 March 2013)
Couples fake divorce to cheat house rules, Chinadaily.com.cn, December 19, 2012. (accessed 6 March 2013)

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Christmas in Shanghai

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“Dazzling winter wonderland” at IFC Mall
 

Developed by the Hong Kong Group Sun Hung Kai Properties and designed by Cesar Pelli, the IFC Shanghai International Financial Center is one of the latest additions to the heart of the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone. It comprises two office towers, a shopping mall, and a 5-star hotel. As its sister commercial development in Hong Kong, the shopping mall is decorated with Christmas motifs during these days creating an atmosphere for what promises to be a “tasteful Christmas experience”.

 


 


 


Miguel Elosua

Spanish qualified lawyer; PhD in Chinese Law. UrbaChina Research Officer. Has lived in China since 2006.

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