The Making of Public Open Space Accessible to Underserved Populations in Urban Village
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK THE MAKING OF PUBLIC OPEN SPACE ACCESSIBLE TO UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS IN URBAN VILLAGE A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Architecture and Planning COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Urban Planning by XIAOWAN ZHANG May 2012 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK Abstract Urban village, as a unique form of slum in China have developed from rural settlements, representing an existing conflict in the allocation of public resources to different social groups. Public resources, such as public infrastructure and social services, have been poorly provided in these areas. The majority of residents in urban villages are low-income, migrant workers. Unfortunately, the needs of these migrant tenants for a fine living environment have not been sufficiently incorporated in cities’ urban planning policies. The purpose of this study is to explore the usage of Public Open Space by urban villages’ residents, using a case study of Baishizhou Village, the largest urban village in Shenzhen, China. I have conducted a questionnaire survey towards 150 POS visitors and in-depth interviews with public officials, residents, and related design professionals My findings suggest that, in the planning process of POS, policymakers have considered only the needs of the landlords, while neglecting the fact that the majority users of the POS are in fact migrant tenants. Thus, incremental planning of urban villages that incorporates the need of urban migrants is necessary during the process of urbanization. I further argue that “incremental upgrading” rather than “comprehensive redevelopment” of UVs should be better understood and be pursued by Chinese planners, and citizenization of residents in Urban Village should be the pioneering transformation approach. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Literature review ........................................................................................................................................... 3 The relatively better approach to manage UVs ........................................................................................ 3 The integration of mixed-income groups in urban patterns .................................................................... 4 The influential aspects related to public open space usage ..................................................................... 4 The need and usage of public open space in low-income communities .................................................. 6 The planning tools used to resolve existing planning conflict .................................................................. 6 Setting and Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 7 The Land Tenure System in Baishizhou Village ....................................................................................... 10 The composition of residents in Baishizhou Village ............................................................................... 12 Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 15 Data collection – observation & documentary ....................................................................................... 16 Data collection – questionnaire .............................................................................................................. 17 Data collection – interview ..................................................................................................................... 17 Descriptive findings ..................................................................................................................................... 19 Socio-demographic characteristic ........................................................................................................... 19 Recreational characteristics .................................................................................................................... 21 Motives ................................................................................................................................................... 22 Behavior change...................................................................................................................................... 24 Specific counterpoint .............................................................................................................................. 25 Specific group .......................................................................................................................................... 26 Discussion.................................................................................................................................................... 31 Hypothesis............................................................................................................................................... 31 Verification .............................................................................................................................................. 34 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 36 The usage and planning of POS in Urban Village .................................................................................... 36 The strategy of Urban Village redevelopment in Shenzhen ................................................................... 37 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 39 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 45 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK Introduction Urban villages are a unique form of slums in China as a consequence of China’s dual land ownership arrangement and urbanization(He et al., 2009). The existence of slums is incompatible with the formal urban planning due to a series of physical and social problems, such as overcrowding, violation of building code, substandard living conditions, etc. However, slums also provide affordable housing for low-income households. In the case of urban villages, the majority of residents are migrant workers. Urban village (referred to as “UV”), or Chengzhongcun in Chinese, are developed from rural settlements and become transitional neighborhoods under rapid urbanization. Urban Villages are characterized overall by narrow roads, face-to-face buildings and inner streets packed with shops, grocery stores and service outlet (Liu, He, Wu, & Webster, 2010). It is an existing planning conflict concerning the original production relations against the new economic relations in urban development(PAN & WEI, 2012), as well as the allocation of public resources to the different social groups in the city. The primary residents in Urban Villages are low-income people, the majority of whom are migrated workers living as tenants. Current urban planning system and policies in China often ignore the need of this type of social group, concentrating solely on the development of the city as a whole. Public resources provided by the city, including public infrastructure, cultural resource, and social intervention, are distributed poorly, if any, to this social group. The majority of existing research on the UVs in China mainly focuses on the formation and transformation of the Urban Village regarding its incompatibility with urban development. Through empirical studies, the binary urban-rural structure of China and the land expropriation policy orienting at benefit-maximization by the government are believed to be the most crucial element for the formation of urban UVs(J. Zhang & Zhao, 2007; S. Zhang, 1998). From the perspective of formation process, however, UVs are derived from the combination of diverse demands of interest from different stakeholders, especially in terms of the needs of low housing price from residents in UVs and the vision of future city from local government (Jia & Zheng, 2011). Along with the deepening of urbanization, UVs are under transformation. The general approaches of transforming UVs are eliminating the conflict through relocating residents of UVs into public housings, and rebuilding UVs into urban areas by simply tearing them down. Taking a different perspective, this study examines how the planning and development of cities accommodate existing Urban Villages. The planning conflict regarding the incompatibility of urban resource allocation to Urban Village should be remedied through planning tools offered by city planners, rather than brutal measures(Weinstein, 2009), for example, knocking down the UV entirely and removing the residents. The purpose of this study is to explore the big question: how do planners use planning tools to make public resources accessible to underserved populations in cities? More specifically, I will examine the usage of the public open space (referred to as “POS”) by UV residents, using a case study of Baishizhou Village in Shenzhen, China, as it is