Urban design in China

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Vol.:(0123456789)
URBAN DESIGN International (2022) 27:95–96
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-022-00188-8
EDITORIAL
Urban design inChina
MahyarAre1· PatriciaAelbrecht1,2
Accepted: 13 May 2022 / Published online: 17 May 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2022, corrected publication 2022
Aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid urbanization,
booming economy, and the conservation of historic urban
heritage continuously put China in the spotlight. This issue
of Urban Design International concentrates on a few articles
that highlight various aspects of the urban design agenda in
China. China’s booming economy and rapid development
have, in recent decades, captured the attention of urban
design and planning academics and professionals alike.
The breadth and depth of the publications on some of these
developments showcase the similarities and differences
between them and their increasing interest in applying the
so-called western development models. This issue highlights
five specific themes (TODs, the balance between rampant
rural tourism and cultural heritage, effective design control
systems, street restorativeness, and designing safe streets)
that, to some extent, shed light on some interesting aspects
of these discussions.
The first article entitled “Knowledge evolution in Transit-
Oriented Development: A comparative bibliometric analysis
of international vs. Chinese publications” by Shaofei Niu
etal., argues that the iconic lofty projects flanking main
streets per se, do not aptly capture all of China’s new devel-
opment paradigm. Transit-oriented developments (TODs),
represent a fairly popular design pattern in China over the
last two decades. This article compares and contrasts TOD
research outputs published in China vs. those published
internationally. While the author offers a typology of the
TOD projects in China, this classification also detects a
dilemma facing current Chinese urban governance. That is,
the incongruity between transportation and land use plan-
ning on the one hand, and shortage of land in historic cities
on the other, has led many Chinese scholars to focus on
TODs as a means toward the implementation of balanced
growth, thereby, diminishing rampant suburban sprawl.
The second article entitled “A typological approach to
the transformation of cave dwellings in Baishe Village,
Shaanxi, China” by Longpeng Cui etal., critically examines
the status of booming rural tourism in China. That rampant
tourism-based development could potentially jeopardize and
compromise the organic and indigenous villages in China is
not new. However, Cui etal., delve deeper into cave dwell-
ings in the Loess Plateau of China that have survived the
test of time despite the existential threats posed against their
authentic rustic lifestyles. The authors conducted a number
of interviews and administered a survey questionnaire. Data
analysis and synthesis guided them to propose a typological
approach for possible future interventions in the face of these
looming uncertainties that trump tourism over cultural herit-
age. They ultimately recommend a people-oriented approach
that would guarantee and protect the local authentic cave
dwelling life styles in that region of China.
In the third article “Image-oriented design control in
China: a case study from Nanjing,” Fei Chen examines a
new town in Nanjing, China South Railway Station (SRS)
known for its prominent large urban park flanked by high-
rise commercial buildings. The design concept used in this
project emanates from the long-standing Chinese planning
concept surrounding creating long linear axes flanked by
“cosmological high-profile” starchitecture buildings. The
author critically examines this type of iconic view toward
urban design by adopting various research methods includ-
ing participant observation and semi-structured interviews.
The study findings clearly show doubts expressed upon
sacrosanct design and planning principles that result in pri-
oritizing image making over functional demands or saniti-
zation of people’s everyday life. While definitely difficult
and iconoclastic at first blush, the author suggests that the
misgivings about the virtues of erecting the so-called para-
digm cities and pursuing “equality and livability” instead
constitute a step in the right direction by supporting every-
day life at the expense of portraying a hypermodern image
of the city with high-rise landmarks.
In the fourth article entitled “Measuring street restora-
tive expectations in Shanghai: Using restorative component
* Mahyar Arefi
mahyararefi@gmail.com
1 Jundi-Shapur University ofTechnology, Dezful, Iran
2 Cardiff University, Cardiff, UnitedKingdom

96 M.Arefi, P.Aelbrecht
scale as an explorative approach,” Kevin Thwaites seeks
to expand and broaden the scope of street “restorativeness”
beyond its obvious natural and environmental attributes. As
such, the author defines and operationalizes street restora-
tiveness under four specific classifications. Using an online
survey questionnaire with WeChat, the author explores the
concept of street restoration in a crowded city like Shanghai
and identifies the following four categories: landscape and
leisure, commercial, living and service, and traffic-oriented.
While landscape and leisure, expectedly, offers the high-
est restorative benefits (i.e., relaxation and entertainment),
traffic-oriented streets live up to people’s lowest expecta-
tions. Between these high and low performing attributes of
restorativeness, lie users’ fascination with commercial street
frontages and the service functionalities of living and service
streets. As such, the author broadens street restorativeness
beyond the obvious natural and environmental attributes.
In the last article entitled “The controversial impacts
of pedestrian guardrails on road crossing behaviors: evi-
dence from Hong Kong,” Gianni Talamini etal., explore
another dimension of street–pedestrian interface. Talamini
etal., measure the effectiveness of pedestrian guardrails in
Hong Kong. This multi-method research presents a before
and after observation of street-crossing guardrails at inter-
sections. While guardrails obviously serve to protect the
pedestrians from vehicular traffic, observation shows certain
aberrations (i.e., informality). Be that as it may, the authors
recommend a paradigm shift where pedestrians exert more
control at busy intersections compared to vehicles. This
study seems opportune, especially in light of recent public
unrests in Hong Kong, which resulted in damages to street
furniture and railings demanding new design thinking.
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