Towards Open Urban Spaces in China

Author: Edited by Dieter Hassenpflug (Germany)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: Cities are legible, urban spaces are concrete manifestations of social life, from which people can read and interpret information. This book applies this understanding to urban development in China. China is experiencing a world-shaking leap in development, which is also reflected in the profound transformation of its cities. How should we evaluate the breadth and depth of this transformation process? Does China's opening to the West mean its Westernization? The essays collected in this book suggest that China is actively engaging with Western influences to find its own path. It is absorbing and digesting Western civilization to form a new Chinese characteristic, while the so-called "Westernization" remains absent. Scholars in urban studies know that cities can be "decoded," from which information can be obtained and analyzed and interpreted, because they are concrete manifestations of social life. Through urban spaces, we can observe the current state and trends of social development. When decoding cities, public space is one of the most important and complex concepts, as it reveals more systematically the ways, scale, and direction of social evolution than other urban space elements. This collection will show readers the close relationship between China's contemporary social evolution and urban space. This great nation is undergoing profound transformations in social, political, economic, and cultural aspects at a rapid pace, actively integrating into the process of globalization. How do Chinese citizens view the social development and changes since the reform? What expectations do they have for current modernization efforts? Does China's opening to the West mean its Westernization? To explore these questions, this book describes and analyzes China's urban public spaces from multiple perspectives. It contains some insightful insights, while some may also surprise readers. Around the theme of "The Changing Urban Spaces of an Open China," five scholars from different professional fields jointly present one aspect of this contemporary transformation of "China" to the readers.