Research On The Evolution Of Urban Form And Function Of Shanghai's Regional Health Centers

Garrison cities of Ming Dynasty are the main important part in Chinese historical urban system.With the main feature originating from the military wall cities,they become “common” cities including the function of civil administration.After Ming Dynasty,there were quite a few garrison cities that did not disappear with the disappearance of garrison system,but became the administration center of the city level.In Ming Dynasty,there were 5 independent garrison cities that did not belong to any town or city,including Jinshan City(It's Jinshan District now),Qingcun City(It's Fengcheng Town of Fengxian District now),Nanhuizui City(It's Huinan Town of Pudong District now),Wusongjiang City(It's Baoshan District now)and Baoshan City(It's the north part of Gaoqiao Town of Pudong District now).Among those cities,except for the disappearance of Baoshan City,the rest 4 cities,as the leading position of their own place,all become the locations of the corresponding city jurisdictions.This essay will try to compare the historical materials including local chronicles and other writings,ancient maps as well as large-scale topographical maps,and use field surveys to carry out the recovering research on the cities mentioned above through the historical morphologic method and the idea of regional analysis with the combination of the features of Chinese traditional history to display the detailed process of the urban sources,formation and evolution,to clarify the transformation of special cities in specific historical background which is regarded as a type of urban development of Shanghai in Ming and Qing Dynasty.In addition to Prologue and Epilogue,this essay comprising of seven chapters analyses the developing process of garrison cities of Shanghai in Ming and Qing Dynasty at the aspects of both urban historical morphology and functional evolution.The first chapter states the brief history of garrison cities construction in Shanghai.This essay will put the appearance of wall as the proof for the appearance of garrison military cities,focusing on the discussion about the evolution of walls and the reasons of the location selection.Though the author disagrees to the utilitarian view of history that makes the past serve the present,this essay quits the exploration of Baoshan City that has been submerged by Yangtze River.The content from Chapter 2 to Chapter 5 indicates the recovering research of the rest four cities.This essay demonstrates the feature and style of those four cities as possible as it can in accordance with the historical materials related to those cities and draw out the historical maps through the division of time section.Chapter 6 summarizes the feature of garrison cities in Shanghai and analyses the similarities and differences between their own original ones located to the south of Yangtze River on the basis of the first four chapters,deducing the shape and structure of those coastal garrison cities.Chapter 7 and Epilogue describe the functional change of garrison cities in Shanghai and evaluate the status of those cities in the process of setting up the urban system inside Shanghai nowadays.This essay discovers a “distinctive” feature of shapes and structures of those garrison cities including Jinshan City,Qingcun City,Nanhuizui City and Wusongjiang City based on the research.This “distinctive” feature is for the comparison with cities nearby as the water system plays an important role in influencing urban morphology in terms of the city and city settlements to the south of Yangtze River,which,however,cannot be shown in garrison cities in Shanghai completely.In other words,the most obvious feature of these garrison cities is “hydrophobe”.The source of “hydrophobe” is closely bound up with the function and constructing process of cities themselves.As the military cities of national coast defense system,those garrison cities reflect a strong will of the state throughout the constructing process because they are planned and constructed uniformly by the official government.In other words,they are the castles built up suddenly instead of the spontaneous urban settlement due to economic and social activities.Therefore,natural conditions inevitably cannot have a big influence on them,and rivers and streams----the most obvious natural feature of the areas to the south of Yangtze River----cannot decide the layout of the garrison city.