Villages in the City - A Guide to South China's Informal Settlements (Paperback)

Countless Chinese villages have been engulfed by modern cities. They no longer consist of picturesque farms and feng shui groves, but of high-rise buildings so close to each other that they create dark claustrophobic alleys - jammed with dripping air-conditioners, hanging clothes, caged balconies and bundles of buzzing electric wires, and crowned with a small strip of daylight, known as "thin line sky." At times, buildings stand so close to another they are dubbed "kissing buildings" or "handshake houses" - you can literally reach out from one building and shake hands with your neighbor. Although it is easy to see these villages as slums, a closer look reveals that they provide an important, affordable, and well-located entry point for migrants into the city. They also offer a vital mixed-use, spatially diverse and pedestrian alternative to the prevailing car-oriented modernist-planning paradigm in China. Yet, most of these villages are on the brink of destruction, affecting the homes of millions of people and threatening the eradication of a unique urban fabric. Villages in the City argues for the value of urban villages as places. To reveal their qualities, a series of drawings and photographs uncover the immense concentration of social life in their dense structures, and provide a peek into residents' homes and daily lives. Essays by a number of experts give a deeper understanding on the topic, and help imagine how reinstating the focus on the village could lead to a richer, more variegated pathway of urbanization.

General

Imprint:	University of Hawaii Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	September 2014
Editors:	Stefan Al
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 15mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	216
ISBN-13:	978-0-8248-4756-2
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Urban communities Books > Earth & environment > Regional & area planning > Urban & municipal planning > General Promotions
LSN:	0-8248-4756-3
Barcode:	9780824847562

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