- Rethinking of the Current Property-Led Regeneration of Urban Villages in China: A Step Away from Liveable Cities    235 kb by    Gao, Zhe | zhe.gao@asro.kuleuven.be    Short Outline The paper focuses on the current property-led regeneration of urban villages in China. Special attention is given to the income redistribution as well as to the transformation of social space. Abstract Urban villages in China are commonly defined as those rural settlements which are deprived of arable land and are located in urban built-up area. Although often associated with bad environment, overcrowding and social problems, they are in no sense traditional slums. Conversely, they show a significant economic vitality because of low actual ground rent which provides new arrivals an access to the necessary socio-economic resources. However, these areas are being transformed by a government-led redevelopment. These flagship development projects were used vigorously to supplant the imagery of obsolete self-built housing and low-income residents which, they were assumed, would inhabit inward investment with the imagery of luxurious gated communities and middle-class. It is obvious that the redevelopment has caused socio-economic restructuring in the area. Is this helpful to create a liveable city? On the basis of a Guangzhou case, the author argues that the redevelopment strategy has caused an income inequality, rather than reduce it, which makes the area far from livableness. Keywords property-led regeneration Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper