The Genesis of Urban Landscape: the Pearl River Delta in South China
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Detlev Ipsen Yongning Li Holger Weichler (editors) The Genesis of Urban Landscape: The Pearl River Delta in South China University of Kassel 2005 1 The Department of Urban and Regional Sociology and the Department of Urban Design and Settle- ment Planning in the Faculty of Architecture, Urban Planning & Landscape Planning at the University of Kassel are currently working on a project dealing with the Pearl River Delta called “The Genesis of Urban Landscape”. Involved is an international group of students under the aegis of Prof. Dr. Ipsen, Prof. Drey and Prof. Li. The project is sponsored by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). Publisher: University of Kassel Faculty of Architecture, Urban Planning, Landscape Planning Work Report: No. 161 Kassel 2005 ISBN: 3-89117-153-6 Reference Address: ISP-Press (Infosystem Planung) University of Kassel Henschelstrasse 2, 34109 Kassel (Germany) Tel.: ++49 (0)561/804-2016 Fax: ++49 (0)561/804-2232 E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.isp.uni-kassel.de Print: printery of the University of Kassel Cover photo: Detlev Ipsen 2 Preface In 2003 a project about the running process of urbanisation in the Pearl River Delta has been installed at the University of Kassel, the city where the exhibition of some parts of the Harvard Pearl River Delta Project under the guidance of Rem Koolhaas took place in 1997. This spade work tried to understand the urbanisation process in the South Chinese Delta in working out a net of new created concepts. We felt that it was now the time to come to a more systematic understanding of this process of rapid urbanisation. To prepare the project two of the editors of this book, Detlev Ipsen and Yongning Li, have done several interviews in the Delta and have studied the morphology of the ongoing process. Li started with a project to get a better understanding of the underlying process of migration. What means the migration for the development in the regions of destination and in the migrants’ home- lands? Ipsen started with some work on the Delta’s urban landscapes to develop a concept of urban landscapes, which is now the key concept of this study. Particular in any delta region, where a river system, the land and the sea interact, the nature aspect of landscape is extraordinary important. In future the aesthetical aspects of landscape will become more and more important if a region wants to attract human and financial capital. The leading hypothesis is that the integration of architecture and urban design, the infrastructure and the environmental conditions, the diversity of urban areas, areas of recreation, of agriculture and industry will lead to a high aesthetical quality of an urban landscape which is the basis of future social and economic development. The international student group attended a seminar hosted by Li to become familiar with the socio- economic, institutional and urban situation in the Pearl River Delta in the summer term of 2003. We did the field work in the Pearl River Delta in the same year’s autumn. Christl Drey and Detlev Ipsen discussed the results of the different working groups with the participants in a seminar in the follow- ing winter term. The production of thesis papers started in 2004. The concept of the book one may call a multilevel one: The first level contents theoretical and empiri- cal analysis. The second level includes essays and stories to contribute a portrait to the picture of the process. The third level discusses designs of future developments as some kind of scenarios to open the discussion of planning the future of the Delta. As the hidden outline of this book one may understand it as a preparatory of a „Future Conference“ of the development in the Pearl River Delta, which should be organized in the next two years to work out scenarios of future development. The aim will be to reduce the environmental and social problems and keep and enlarge the quality of this megacity as an urban landscape, which is competitive in China and South East Asia. 3 4 Contents Detlev Ipsen - Urban Landscape and Landscape Urbanism 7 Yongning Li - From Growth to Development: The Institutional Arrangement and Strategic Planning for the Pearl River Delta 15 Detlev Ipsen - High Speed Urbanization 27 Ilya Maharika - Projecting Identity: Mapping the Genesis of Differentiations in the Pearl River Delta 33 Detlev Ipsen - Report on the Gruenderzeit 45 Yongning Li - Balloons in the Sky. Rethinking of Phenomena in a Fast Developing Society 55 Herbert Glasauer - Building the City as a Whole: The Dongguan Immigration Museum Could Tell the Hidden Story 59 Gu Guowei - The Introduction of Housing Market Operation in Shenzhen 63 Meicai He - The Water Household as an Example of Ecology in the Pearl River Delta 77 Yongning Li - Voices of the Migrants 85 Holger Weichler - Guangzhou Planning Trends: The Striving for the ‘Figured’ Metropolis 93 Gang Li - The Narrow Corridor 103 Gunter Wehmeyer - Design of New Modules in the Urban Landscape 115 Christl Drey - Urban Landscape Pearl River Delta: Looking for Identities 121 References 135 List of Figures 140 5 Fig. 01: Guangzhou - urban landscape 6 Detlev Ipsen Urban Landscape and Landscape Urbanism The title of this book, The Genesis of Urban Land- cal infrastructure; networks of water, power and scape, uses the term ‘landscape’ not as a meta- gas mains emerge, which add to the accelerated phor, in the sense of scenery or backdrop, or figu- urbanization of the region because costs for new ratively, as in economic or industrial landscape, settlements and industrial estates decrease as a but rather as a concept with substance which consequence. is applied analytically as well as normatively. We regard Urban Landscape as an expression In these regions the traditional dualism of city which facilitates the understanding of extensive and country loses its meaning. Cities, small and complex forms of urbanization. Landscape towns and villages merge with suburbs, new cit- urbanism is a normative concept by which stra- ies and suburban villages. Agriculture, forests, tegic planning shall be managed, thus supporting recreation areas, traffic areas are added. In order the preparation of planned targets. This approach to understand this type of space in its unique- is not only applicable to the particularly dynamic ness, the term of the urban landscape actually developments in China or even just the Pearl suggests itself. Comprehended as landscape, it River Delta. However, there are a number of rea- could be possible not to view the urban region sons, to be addressed later on, which render the as an agglomeration (accumulation) of detached landscape concept of the Delta desirable. and contradictory elements. The urban region determines itself not only as “intermediary city”, The term Urban Landscape appears ever more developing between the poles of “real” cities, frequently at conferences because the pattern but as an independent process with its own set of urbanization changes. A regionalization of the of problems and potentials. The analysis of dif- urbanization process can be found in many parts ferent patterns of land use is viewed in connec- of the world today. In Europe and North America, tion with natural spatial conditions (topography, this process assumed the form of suburbanization stretches of water, soil, vegetation) and can during the 1970s. The middle class left the more thus be understood as an ecological unit. The densely developed urban space and lived in one- examination of spatial perception and images and two-family houses in new settlements be- of space introduces a systematic approach by yond the city limits. Multi-level apartment com- means of the concept of landscape. Therefore, plexes were built for the lower income groups, Urban Landscape is an analytical term which some of which were located up 30 km outside of should facilitate the comprehension of regional the city, not unlike the Grand Ensembles in Paris. urban spaces. Landscape Urbanism, however, is Enterprise zones and industrial estates were a normative concept; it relates to the planning added in the following decades. Small towns in concepts and projects which should provide an- proximity to larger cities became the core of an swers to the following three questions: urbanization which then moved towards regions as well. Thus, in many countries a new type of • How can the ecological quality of a space be city gradually developed which can be called re- safeguarded or reestablished? gional city. Within a larger space, suburbs and • How can an urban region develop an internal new urban centers merge. Remnants of agricul- image for its inhabitants and an external ture sustain in the intervals, small forests are image for other regions? designated as recreation areas. Highways thread the space and build the backbone of trade and • How can an urban region maintain or newly residential areas, weaving through the region develop quality of life for its inhabitants and like strings. The regional city requires a techni- visitors? 7 All three questions are closely related to the group which cultivated the land, and the mean- concept of sustainable development and directly ing extended to even denoting a territory. The linked to aspects of economic development. Qual- country man (“Landmann”) is the man working ified workers will only settle down in a city when the prairie, the “Landetal” (land valley) means a the quality of life is high. In turn, this has an ef- place in a space which still needs to be cleared. fect on the job market which plays an important In the ninth century, “Landscaf” refers to a ter- role in terms of investment decisions. The image ritory and is synonymous with the Latin terms of a region is of great importance for investors as “regio” or “provincia” (Müller 1977).