Residential Integration: An Inductive Approach To Historic Housing Areas' Conservation And Revitalization In Beijing Old City

The decay of Historic housing areas in Beijing old city is a social-culturalproblem caused by political and economic issues. In the era of globalization, Beijingas a world city is being affected by global economy, de-industrialization andrevolutionary information technology, with the result of patent dual city character thatthe urban rich and poor get segregated. The phenomena of Social stratification andresidential segregation have touched historic housing areas in the urban core, so thattheir marginal and homogeneous status of middle-low income population wereintensified, which restrained the possibility of well-balanced development. At thesame time, as the urban middle-high income social group comes into being, historichousing areas is facing the tendency of gentrification in the form of population andfunction replacement, since the protection policy of Historic and Cultural ProtectedDistricts was carried out. This tendency will transform the social structure of localresidents, which is the element that will affect not only the continuity of traditionalphysical environment and culture, but also vitality of the neighborhood. Thus, themain goal of this dissertation is to find out feasible social structure, and how toinduce it's realization with policy and economic methods, with the precondition ofretaining the residential morphology of historic housing areas in Beijing old city,under the background of globalization. Followed this clew the dissertation analyzed the relationship among culturalcontinuity, social balance and legacy authenticity, which together represent thevitality of historic housing areas, and then proposed that the current homogeneousstatus of low-income population in Beijing old city historic housing areas should bebroken, with heterogeneous social structure instead. Secondly, according to theproblems in former urban renewal projects in Beijing old city, such as the mismatchof implementary institution and it's role, or the invalidation of transfer paymentmechanism, this dissertation proposed that the implementary institution should benone profit, and run the transfer payment mechanism through residential integrationof different social groups, with the social justice principle. It is a moderategentrification process that could be induced, controlled and utilized. - II -英 文 摘 要 The first three chapters illustrated that the decay of historic housing areas inBeijing old city is the manifest of residential segregation, with the homogeneouscharacter of middle-low income population. The forth chapter analyzed the negativesocial-cultural effect of residential segregation, and proposed the assumption torealize diversity of social structure. The fifth chapter introduced theories of socialintegration and social justice, and the cases of residential integration, which combinedthese sociological theories with urban planning practices, then indicate the inductivemeaning of residential integration for conservation and revitalization of Beijing oldcity historic housing areas. The sixth and seventh chapters made clear the possibility,limitation and corresponding strategy of realizing residential integration in Beijingold city historic housing areas. Finally is the conclusion of the whole dissertation.