The 5th International Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU) 2011 National University of Singapore, Department of Architecture Global Visions: Risks and Opportunities for the Urban Planet

EMERGENCE:

A POST-DISASTER² URBANISM IN DUJIANGYAN (SICHUAN), CHINA

Yan GUO*

*Universitá IUAV di Venezia, Prof.telderslaan 77, 2628VX, Delft, the Netherlands, [email protected]

ABSTRACT: The meaning sustainability is distorted in the Sichuan (west China) post-disaster (Wenchuan Earthquake, 14:28 May 12, 2008, 8M) urban condition, than its classical western definitions. It gives sustainability a different and specific reading on the post-earthquake urban region, which is associated with its economic recovery. In this name of sustainability, an emergent urbanity has been produced for Dujiangyan City during its post-disaster redevelopment. This essay tries to address the significant variations to the post-disaster scenarios that stand out from a regular urban development, by clarifying the risks and opportunities of a post-disaster city. The speculation intends to understand the complexity of how the contemporary Chinese urban planning system approaches its ambition for the post-disaster cities and regions. It argues the critical absence, in the existing body of urbanism, of a specific methodology for integral trans-disciplinary approach for a sustainable post-disaster urbanity.

KEYWORDS: post-disaster urban emergencies, risks and opportunities, post-disaster² (re)development, emergent urbanity, rural-urban integration, integral post-disaster² urbanism

The meaning of sustainability is distorted in the Chinese post-disaster urban reconstruction than its classical western definitions. In short, during such urban redevelopment, sustainability was lifted as a political slogan to promote magnified urbanization and developing values, mostly in an economically renewal and profitable significance. With this different reading of the concept of “sustainability”, the post-disaster development has not only modified the vision of the city far away from its original ambition, but it has also specifically intended to manifest a developing paradigm in a post-disaster Chinese city, and in larger sense, a paradigm to millions of medium and small-sized to-be-developed Chinese towns. SICHUAN POST-DISASTER URBAN EMERGENCIES

On May 12, 2008, a disastrous earthquake (Wenchuan Earthquake 2008’) struck the heart of the Sichuan province in China. Measured at 8.0 Richter Magnitude, more than 68,000 people died, 18,498 listed missing, 374,176 injured in the disaster, while 7.79 million houses collapsed and 24.59 million damaged, leaving more than 4.8 million homeless, whom were among 15 million inhabitants affected, according to the objective figures1 (as of July 21, 2008 12:00 CST). For its grievous loss, the region has aroused an acute international social concern and investment, resulting in, such as, a three-day’s national public mourning, as well as an ambitious and widely-incorporated urban reconstruction program.

Put Sichuan on Map Sichuan has been appointed as a strategic region, before the Earthquake in 2008. For its strategic geographic location between the “urbanized China” (PUC) 2 and other west China regions, for its extraordinary demographic figures, and for its paradigmatic regional urban form of dispersion, Sichuan’s development has been significant to China’s territorial development; therefore it expects specific recognition and interpretation. In the “National Conference of Urban Work ()” in 1980, Sichuan Province received its mission as a central developing region in the movement of “Small Town Construction ()”3, which has transformed 18,139 villages to small towns during 1978-2000, opening up the migration from rural to urban and breaking through the pattern that city majors industry while village majors agriculture. Sichuan was appointed as a key region in the program of “West Development ()”4 under the “National 10th Five-year Plan ()” in 1999. Together with Chongqing DCM5, Chengdu – the capital of Sichuan, formed up the Chengdu-Chongqing Experimental Zone for “Coordinated Rural and Urban Development”, which defines the west territory of China. Following up in the “National 11th Five-year Plan ()”, Sichuan elaborated its role as a primary region in the program of “Build Socialist New Village ()”6 in 2005, where upon it, as a paradigm, proclaimed a central role of farmer’s community in the modern China’s productive economy and gave the significance to harmonious societal developments. All these programs that the region has been assigned to briefly demonstrated the social, economical and spatial fundaments to pre-disaster Sichuan developments.

Action! Relief Right after the earthquake, by coordinating military forces and enormous social volunteers, the authority executed the post-disaster rescues and relief with impressive efficiency. Six days later, in May 18, 2008, the Central Post-disaster Coordination Committee, appointed by the National Parliament, set up 9 teams for disposing the relief. In the evening of May 23, a reconstruction planning team, which incorporates the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Housing and Rural-Urban Development,

1 "Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2008: North America and Asia suffer heavy losses". Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd. January 21, 2009, pp. 38, Retrieved, January 18, 2010. 2 Vendel, A., “People’s Urbanity of China (PUC)” in “The Chinese Dream: A Society under Construction” edited by Neville Mars and Adrian Hornsby, pp. 52-68 Rotterdam, 010 Publishers, 2008. 3 Kuang, X. and Jiang, J. “60 Years of China's Urbanization: 1949-2009”, Urban China Vol.40, pp. 36, 2010. 4 Kuang, X. and Jiang, J. “60 Years of China's Urbanization: 1949-2009”, Urban China Vol.40, pp. 42, 2010. 5 en.wikipedia.org: “direct-controlled municipality (DCM): is the highest level classification for cities used by People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), North Korea, South Korea and Vietnam with status equal to that of the provinces in the respective countries.” 6 Kuang, X. and Jiang, J. “60 Years of China's Urbanization: 1949-2009”, Urban China Vol.40, pp. 41, 2010 Sichuan Provincial Government, was assembled. Soon after, 19 other provincial governments were appointed to associate with the local municipalities for assisting the post-disaster reconstruction. By May 14, the Ministry of Civil Affairs stated that 10.7 billion Yuan (approximately US$ 1.5 billion) had been donated by the Chinese public. On May 16 China stated it had also received $ 457 million in donated money and goods for rescue efforts so far, including $ 83 million from 19 countries and four international organizations.7 During the period, approximately 4.98 million social volunteers devoted themselves in the relief. This was the most efficient post-disaster relief action in China, which integrated governmental powers, NGO initiatives, technical professionals and enterprises contributions in such short time.

SICHUAN POST-DISASTER URBAN (RE)DEVELEOPMENT

Plan for Post-disaster The Earthquake, as social events, was not only concerned in damages and loss, but it has been also noticed as a rare opportunity by the Chinese authority. It very much represented the optimistic Chinese philosophy for the region’s redevelopment. Political slogans, such as a formula of “ (crisis)= (hazard)+ (opportunity)”, promoted public medias, widely social involvements in this movement. Shortly after essential settlement for the victims, that was a couple of months after the disaster, the reconstruction was on the way, with an urgency and ambitious intention. With approximately 800 million farmers, the shift from rural to urban in China has been heavily underway. In such specific post-disaster context, Sichuan, among all the peer regions, again, underlines a key role in this transformation. More than to achieve the ambition of a damage region, it seeks for the integral interpretation of sustainability for the long-term regional development. At the first place, the plans came up in the “top-down” governmental vision. Similar to the typical way that China launches urban constructions, the priority of Sichuan post-disaster reconstruction was to focus on transport and housing infrastructure, whereupon commercial and other facilities followed up. It is the intention of the authority to optimize the economic growth, by expanding the domestic demand. Based on the assumption of the success of the government’s ambition, the construction of transport and housing facilities so far has always turned out to generate enormous economic profit, regardless the construction would act for its meaning or not. In Sichuan reconstruction, this approach, again, created numerous employments and addressed immense investments.

“One-on-one Assistance Reconstruction” Different from the previous urban developments in post-disaster Tangshan or Lijiang, the central government of China has appointed many municipalities of “well-developed” provinces or DCM’s from the other parts of the country to assist each of the local municipalities in post-disaster Sichuan region. Each of the “external” municipalities forms up a “one-on-one assistance” ( ) association with each of the local municipalities for the reconstruction in Sichuan. This has been the first, and so far the only, development model that cooperates on a municipal level for a post-disaster urban reconstruction in China. The regulation of matching the external provincial government and local municipality is mainly based on the GDP ranking 2007’ of the municipalities from both sides of the partnership. The principles were claimed that,

7 "Strong aftershock hits China quake epicentre". Yahoo! News. May 16, 2008, archived from the original on May 19, 2008, Retrieved, May 16, 2008. 8 Data source: Beijing Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences, (2008), http://www.bjpopss.gov.cn/ the assisting municipalities will be responsible to the finance, program and execution of the reconstruction of the assisted municipalities; therefore, it is to ensure the municipality with higher GDP will be capable to complete the assignment to support the damaged municipality with higher GDP, usually the municipality with graver economic loss. For instance, Shanghai DCM, with the highest GDP (¥ 1,176.5 billion) in 2007, was appointed to assist Dujiangyan City (¥ 11.62 billion), among the highest GDP 2007’ of all affected municipality; same for Foshan City (¥ 355 billion, 7th rank in China, 2007’) in Guangdong (Canton) Province assisting the epicentre, Wenchuan County (¥ 2.88 billion)9. It appears logical that this principle was set based on the economic criteria, yet it somehow has indicated the main goal of the reconstruction was strongly relevant to the economic recovery and prosperity. For the political achievement, it is principally important for each governor to struggle for a “best development”, which is evaluated mainly by the economic performance. Therefore, each team associated by the “one-on-one assistance” is involved in a fierce competition among each other. This has contributed to the development with extra intensified governance, extra financial investment, extra construction, and of course, with extra efficiency.

NGO Initiatives Another feature of Sichuan post-disaster activities is that various non-governmental-organizations (NGOs) have emerged in response to the practical demand. Although it seems all the assignments for reconstruction have been fulfilled by the authority, NGOs have still played very active roles after the earthquake. They have been constantly looking for possibilities for constructive interventions. To optimize the efficiency for relief, the government has opened up a strategic policy to involve NGO initiatives after the earthquake befell. With this lift, the number of NGOs has once peaked up to approximately three million, among which 387,000 are registered, 2-2.7million are unregistered NGOs, social enterprises and grassroots organizations, alone with 1,000 government non-profit-organizations10. The discipline ranges from medical first-aid, finance management, to technical professionals and knowledge clusters, literally covering all classification. It has been a breaking through from the previous totalitarian restrictions to engage societal power in post-disaster relief. Despite the great number and categories of NGOs involved, there were two main patterns of NGOs in the field of architecture and urban planning, along Sichuan reconstruction: “big platform” and “small team”.11 “Big platform” is a pattern of systematic framework that offers a common ground for integrated professional exchange. It interconnects various external institutions, including governmental organizations, professional associations, academic groups, design institutions, enterprises, charity foundations, other NGOs and individuals. It plays multi-dimensional roles as docking interface between architects and other stakeholders. One of the representative cases is ReTumu12, which associates many major Chinese architecture figures and pursues their well-know key project of “New Campus Program”. As construction of a “big platform” requests substantial effort, finance and time on social networking and structural maintenance, it is limited by many practical difficulties. In contrary, “small team” is rather an immediate pattern of organization, which can be formed up as long as it meets its four essential conditions: project, investment, professional team and

9 Data source: National Bureau of Statics of China, (2008), http://www.stats.gov.cn/ 10 Data source: NGO Research Centre at Tsinghua University, (2008), http://www.cdb.org.cn/newsview.php?id=94 11 Feng, G. and Zhu Y. “” (“Big Platform and Small Team- Comparison of Two Nongovernmental Post-reconstruction Patterns”) in Urban China, Vol.31 “Post-Disaster Reconstruction & Crisis Management”, pp. 46, edited by Kuang, X. and Jiang, J., 2008. 12 ReTumu, , www.retumu.org, founded on May 18, 2008, registered on Feb. 17, 2009. moderate social contact. Most of the architecture professional NGOs in post-disaster Sichuan were in this type. They are project-based, with relevantly shorter life-cycle, and sometimes they can be based on a “big platform” as a projective component, too. One example was, Hualin Elementary School Transition Program Team 13, which is composed of a group of voluntary architecture students from Keio University in Japan and university students from China, initiated by Shigeru Ban Architects (Japan) and Beijing Matsubara and Architects (BMA Japan/China). With a sufficient budget and connection with ReTumu, the team successfully integrated social voluntary forces on an international level and completed the project to construct the temporary classrooms and teaching facilities for the school’s post-disaster transition request. Unfortunately, it was rare to find a successful case of NGO’s construction work. Actually, most of NGO’s attempting initiatives for post-disaster reconstruction have resulted in rejections or endless waiting before approval. During the “Sichuan Workshop: Dujiangyan Dreams”14, we had a chance to interview Mr. Gao, the coordinator of “Sichuan 5.12 Voluntary Relief Service Centre”, one of the most renowned and effective NGOs involved in the post-disaster Sichuan redevelopment. He argued that, the authority entirely opens the possibility for post-disaster relief to NGOs, but for post-disaster reconstruction, the criteria are rigorous and tricky enough to reject any initiative. With reasonable speculation, it is evident that to involve grassroots social initiatives improves the efficiency and complements the integrity of the relief work; however, considering the profitable construction market, the governmental stakeholders is still totalitarian in the construction work, and this dominance gives feeble opportunity for NGO to incorporate. Still, bottom-up initiatives need more support, and maybe further growth, to survive the dilemma, in order to be engaged with the existing totalitarian governance.

Post-disaster² Urban Emergencies The “post-disaster² urban emergencies” of Sichuan, in this essay, refer to the urban emergency context that is subsequent to a prospective projection of its post-disaster urban reconstruction. Therefore, it’s a post-post-disaster, (post-disaster) squared, urban condition. By this definition, it intends to clarify the dilemma in the post-disaster reconstruction, and further to discuss the sustainable visions of Sichuan’s future development. As the shift from rural to urban is extensively executed in China, the post-disaster redevelopment for Sichuan is a critical study case. The top-down planning and hast urbanization paradoxically threatens the strong agriculture quality and natural legacy of the region, while the municipal misreading of sustainability conceives an unsustainable “sustainable development” in the same territory. How, or whether to preserve its agricultural identity along the condensed post-disaster urbanization, concerns a paradoxical complexity. Seeing from the product of the process, a careless top-down planning manipulates massive consumption of the fertile land for a fantasized urban China. The authority’s projection for the reconstruction has disappointed the expectation of sustainable development, for who consider an accurate meaning of sustainability. Not only agriculture is concerned, but also the development itself is executed in extreme scales and speed. As long as there is investment, it literally transplants metropolitan scales to small villages, which hold totally different spatial quality. It is very often to see a high-speed train station and giant housing towers in a city of a radius less than 2 km. It is to satisfy a fantasy of to make everything “urban”; moreover, it is literally to

13 Hualin Primary School Program Team, , established in early Aug. 2008, disbanded after completion of the project. 14 Sichuan Workshop: Dujiangyan Dreams was an inter-university trans-disciplinary summer workshop (Jul. 19-Aug. 6, 2010) carried out in Sichuan. make everything big. This tradition has been deeply rooted in the Chinese philosophy of “Grandiose” since dynasties ago, yet it has substantially affected the principle of the reconstruction in Sichuan. In addition, it is also the objective to make everything rapid, under the state of post-disaster emergency. The extreme unbalanced development has resulted in unequal distribution of social resources. Accordingly, it leads to extreme inequity among different communities and social classes. On the positive side, the exceptionally rapid construction of the transport infrastructure and housing brought immediately numerous urban facilities to the post-disaster region. Yet, to execute these vast projects efficiently in a neo-liberalism market, the authority has to engage developers as much as possible. When thousands of external developers migrated to the place for the economic opportunity, housing market and consumption level increases sharply right away. In the country where social welfare is not well enough established, for most of the local inhabitants, it became impossible to afford their rents for their shops or apartments; for the post-disaster victims, as they had just lost their essential living base, the situation could be even worse. It once turned into a phenomenon that most of the locals with labour capacity left the region, trying to work and migrate in the better developed coastal regions or other megacities. They became the social labours who struggle lives, actually, a great number of second victims of their home city and at the same time, externals from elsewhere, whom a megacity is trying to exclude. In the contrary, business developers, those of opportunistic migrants, occupy the local market and economies. The more rapid the reconstruction goes; the more they earn; and the more dominant they could be. It is not only a social polarization between the rich and the poor, but it is also a fuse that leads to a Domino Effect of social crisis, towards the rise of local crime rate, towards decomposition of family unit, towards decline of social labour, so on and so forth... In the following section, I will investigate further on these issues, by confronting municipal vision15 with an independent urban professional’s critical point of view16, with urban scenarios and design proposals in the post-disaster² Dujiangyan City, as a representative case to accomplish an elaborate understanding of the urban development in post-disaster² Sichuan.

EMERGENT URBANITY OF POST-DISASTER² DUJIANGYAN

The municipal urban reconstruction was executed intensively by top-down governance, of the one-on-one association with Shanghai DCM municipality. Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute was appointed to be responsible for Dujiangyan reconstruction urban plans. Qualified firms and organizations from design and construction disciplines have been carrying out the product. The strong top-down planning tradition of the team has produced an emergent urbanity, while shaping the new urban spaces of post-disaster Dujiangyan. Critically confronting the top-down proposition, I try to assess the possibility to integrate an alternative bottom-up strategy, by arguing the absence of integration in the practical process and its problems. Integration has been deemed as a principal proposition to define the scenario and the strategy. Dujiangyan City As the only perfectly conserved oldest ancient irrigation system, the Dujiangyan Irrigation (UNESCO

15 / (Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute), “ 20082020 ” / (“Dujiangyan Post-disaster Reconstruction General Plan, 2008-2020”) in “” / “Dujiangyan Post-disaster Reconstruction Planning Exhibition”, Dujiangyan, Sichuan, 2008 16 GUO, Y. “INTEGRALISM: From A Post-disaster² City towards the ToUrbanistic Agropolis of Dujiangyan, Sichuan”, European Postgraduate Master in Urbanism (EMU) Thesis Project, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Jan., 2010. Heritage, since 2000’) was built in 256 BC. Having always been in perfect condition to fulfil its original purpose, the irrigation system, distributes the torrential Min River into several water streams to irrigate the Sichuan Basin for agriculture purpose. Dujiangyan were emerging with agriculture development, on top of the rich water resource managed by the irrigation over 2000 years. An extensive urban expansion has been a product of a massive urbanization since 1950s. Within a couple of recent decades, the city has been transformed its economic structure during several strategic urban developments. While more 72% total municipal inhabitants are currently dependent on an agricultural livelihood (making up only 35% of the total income) on a fertile agriculture land surrounded to the urban centre. However, it is radically shrinking, substituted by the product of a rapid urban expansion. Since the nomination of the irrigation system with UNESCO Heritage in 2000, the municipality has noticed the profitable potential to promote international tourism, followed by intensive conservation programs of the ancient heritages and construction of tourism facilities. Yet, with high-quality local agriculture productions and post-productions, the agriculture profile is still renowned in the whole country, which grants the city a strong agriculture identity.

Transport Infrastructure A hi-speed train program, connecting the Dujiangyan city centre and Chengdu metro network, has been immediately launched to promote the urban commuting activity. It was proposed as a strategy to connect Dujiangyan to Chengdu for its more efficient post-disaster recovery. The connection opened in May 12, 2010, two-year anniversary dedicated to the Earthquake. This bridges, much more intensively than ever, the city of a 420,000 urban inhabitant to the strategic branch of Chengdu metropolitan region. Despite of the benefit of an efficient revival development, the intensive connection has accelerated a strenuous construction for a metropolitan image in Dujiangyan. It is more difficult for the agriculture villages to follow the pace of urbanization in the city, thus it creates an even more extreme division between the urban centre and the agriculture villages. As a supplement to this shortage, the alternative proposal17 suggests a well-smashed secondary motorway network extending from the newly constructed ring road to the depth of the rural villages. A series of design guidelines proposed to define the proportion, density and accessibility of the road network, as well as the architecture profiles of a single road. A simplified interpretation of the scenario expresses the intention to re-integrate the divided urban and rural, by connecting them together in equilibrium, with a relevantly smaller scale infrastructures, simultaneously keeping the quality of the rural landscape as original as possible. This offers a physical base of the integration between rural and urban, upon a critical acceptance of the urban development.

Urban system It appeared very strange that the reconstruction didn’t bring any new opportunity for activity to the damaged city. Actually, the further the reconstruction has been implemented, the less active the city centre turned. In the contrary, the periphery has become more and more for urban activities, so as for crimes. With this suspicion, the analyses in the alternative proposal started over to identify the urban system of the city. By mapping the facilities with 5 types of different urban activities - production, commerce, dinning, leisure, tourism, and relevant route to access these facilities, I collected the pattern of the urban system,

17 GUO, Y. “INTEGRALISM: From A Post-disaster² City towards the ToUrbanistic Agropolis of Dujiangyan, Sichuan”, European Postgraduate Master in Urbanism (EMU) Thesis Project, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Jan., 2010. (The same for below when referring to alternative proposal). which is responsible to the urban activities. In comparison among the maps of the urban system, the maps of damage area of the city, and the reconstruction proposal, it is evident that the municipal plan failed to suggest an activated urban environment for the city, or it didn’t ever intend to. Hence, the alternative proposal focuses on the reconstruction of the damaged urban system by offer relevant urban facilities, instead of just rebuilding what was destroyed. In this task, it is strategic to recognize the significant continuity of the urban system from the central urban fabric to the peripheral rural landscape. Based on the road network proposed between the urban and the rural, it further brings relevant facilities along the infrastructural connection from the damaged city centre to the concentration of rural villages. It suggests a synergy between the damaged urban centre and vulnerable agricultural villages, by proposing integral network of urban systems for both the urban and the rural.

A “Slabia” 18 of Housing As mentioned previously, housing projects are also on the prior list in the reconstruction. In Dujiangyan, it was shown both in scale and speed. Slabs of giant housings were cultivated on the land speedily. The tallest housing tower reaches 18 storeys; the complex of biggest volume contains 8,100 households on a land of 10.7 hectare. Many of them are above 10 storeys and over 3,000 units. They are located at the new urban periphery, where a couple of years ago were agriculture lands. They are mainly mono-functional housing complex, and to most cases, they are gated. The municipal proposal reveals the interest to construct metropolitan image, theatrically named as a “Slabia”, in the mid-sized city of Dujiangyan, with a typical Chinese urban construction approach. Therefore, the alternative proposal tries to compose an appropriate program of mixed function into the mono-functional housing complexes. With this allocation of mixed program in the local communities, it not only opens the local communities, connecting them to the city, but also, more importantly, it brings the new activities to the street level, making the city more attractive.

A Transplant Identity and Urban migrants After the disaster, a great number of opportunistic migrants arrived at Dujiangyan to help the post-disaster city in reconstruction, but mostly, to share the economic market. Their business ranges from housing developing, construction material trading, to institutional agency and other urban services. Most of them settled down with a secondary house in Dujiangyan in the relevantly cheaper local relief housing market. On the other hand, the housing price has actually increased dramatically during the reconstruction, far more than the locals can afford. Aside with other reasons, such as shortage of social subsidies, breaking down of family by losing family members in the disaster, radical transformation of economic structure and labour market, a majority of locals lost their essentials for carrying on the life in the city. This vulnerable group, usually are ones affected by the Earthquake, has run out of options but been force to leave home. Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen are some of the most chosen destinations. By the one-on-one association with Shanghai, the professional teams from Shanghai have introduced plenty of “Shanghaist” urban typologies, while designing and executing the reconstruction projects. Interesting enough, some of the newly constructed streets were even named with some street names from Shanghai. Some of the locals have found this attaching “Shanghaist” identity is stylish; some others deny. Nonetheless, a new identity has been transplanted from external. With the dramatic change of the demographic

18 Literally translated as “a city of slab-like housings”, “”, which gives a simplistic profile of the generic “slab-like” housing towers in many Asian megacities. composition, urban migration plays a catalyst role to shape this transplant identity, and its role will become more and more significant. Dealing with such process, the alternative proposal tries to identify and intervene in the key driver of the double direction migration, radical change of local urban economies. By reconnecting agriculture community to the current economic network, it aims to achieve a cycle of exchange values, among agriculture, tourism, and other urban economies. In this way, the benefit will be shared by all of these communities, instead of excluding agriculture in the economic network by promoting urban constructions in extreme scale and speed.

Future for Sustainable Development in Sichuan With the discussion on sustainable development for Dujiangyan, it clarified some of the guidelines which could indicate a direction for the sustainable development for post-disaster² Sichuan. Policy, without an exception, is principally significant. In the case of Sichuan reconstruction, it would have absolutely been an enhancement, if the governance were more open and modest to incorporate with some NGOs. As constantly addressed, the scale and speed is an essential to consider. We have to be more careful to operate with it, especially when it is necessary to concern the urgencies of relief and reconstruction. It has been self-evident that the excessive reconstruction in Sichuan has brought more problems than it has solved. It also showed how important it was to recognize the original quality of the city. Instead of destroying it, to identify the potentials in it may open up a new, maybe also better, alternative.

INTEGRAL POST-DISASTER² URBANISM

With an overall view of the on-going reconstruction, I try to explore the possibility and approach, as urban professional, to intervene in the process. Starting with a critical understanding of problems and opportunities of the post-disaster urban reconstruction is fundamentally important to address the post-disaster² urban questions. However, a specific methodology, which could help urban practitioners to identify the problems, to recognize the potentials, to develop scenarios and to define strategies, towards the sustainability of post-disaster² cities and regions, is yet absent. The self-critical speculation and review on the authority’s projection of the Sichuan post-disaster reconstruction clarified the problems of the existing planning system and governance of China dealing with the post-disaster sustainable urban development. The experience to develop sustainable scenarios for post-disaster² urban condition in Dujiangyan has elaborated the understanding of the sustainability in a post-disaster city, through the strategic and representative case study in Sichuan. Based on this acquisition on Dujiangyan, to fulfil the assignment to propose sustainability in post-disaster urban conditions, it request an integrative platform from governance and policy for common interests from different stakeholders, it request an overall perspective for integral urban vision of problem and potentials, a holistic scenario and strategy for integrated urban development.

With integration as a key, the emergence towards an integral post-disaster² urbanism19, as a methodology for urban professional exploration and intervention, emerging from the contemporary body of urbanism, is in emergency demand, to be defined…

19 GUO, Y. “Emergence: Towards an Integral Post-disaster Urbanism – a methodology for urbanism, in response to the urgencies of post-disaster urban developments in the contemporary China.”, Dottorato di Ricerca in Urbanistica, Ph.D. in Urban Planning research proposal, Università Iuav di Venezia, Venice, 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

An uncountable amount of knowledge presented in this essay was acquired from a teaching experience in the “Sichuan Workshop: Dujiangyan Dreams”, which was an academic research program initiated by the author, with Urban Emergencies (UE) at TU Delft, International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU) and Southwest Jiaotong University in Sichuan. The program was conducted in a Master of Science in Urbanism studio at TU Delft (Spring 2010) and an on-site workshop (Jul. 19-Aug. 6, 2010), which brought graduate students in Europe to Dujiangyan, Sichuan, to work with Chinese students on research and design projects for integral sustainable development of the Sichuan post-disaster region. For this reason, my particular gratitude goes to the above mentioned organizations and institutes, all the colleagues who have support the initiative, all the teachers and students who have devoted themselves for the impressive work. It is them, who have facilitated this precious opportunity of cooperation, who have shared this extraordinary experience of exchange. Their collective contribution has made this exploration valuable!

REFERENCES

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Kuang, X. and Jiang, J. “60 Years of China's Urbanization: 1949-2009”, Urban China Vol.40, 2010.

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GUO, Y. “INTEGRALISM: From A Post-disaster² City towards the ToUrbanistic Agropolis of Dujiangyan, Sichuan”, European Postgraduate Master in Urbanism (EMU) Thesis Project, TU Delft, 2010.

GUO, Y., “Emergence: Towards an Integral Post-disaster Urbanism”, Ph.D. research proposal, IUAV, 2010