New Urbanism And Suitable Residential Areas Research

This thesis contains three parts, including the background and theory study, the comparative study, and the application study. The background and theory study is the base, which covers an in-depth study and understanding of new urbanism and detailed knowledge of residential areas in China, and thus ensures avoidance of deviation in the direction of the follow-up studies. The key part in this thesis is the comparative study focusing upon the innate consistency between the New Urbanism and the development of Chinese residential areas, and the introspection of the existing problems in China. And then based on these two parts, in the application study, the framework and planning strategies for the development of residentially suitable areas are put forward for the intension of putting theories into practice.The thesis starts from the description of the industrial revolution and the development of urbanization in the 19th century. It reviews the developmental process of theories such as the modern city planning of garden cities, neighborhood units, modernism and introspection, sorts out the theoretical basic line for the residential planning, and points out the humanism tendency of city planning after 1970s in western countries.Then comes the major study upon New Urbanism. The thesis thoroughly analyzes the background and causes for its emergence, describes the whole process and illustrates its principles, structures and working methods, sheds highlight on its three practical areas– community planning, regional planning and ecologically sustainable development, and new urbanizational reconstruction of old cities– with elaboration of their features and account of examples, and then introduces other derivative theories of the new urbanism– Smart Growth, New City Development and Compact City. Finally, in this part, the thesis summaries the planning features of residential areas of New Urbanism, the attacks it has received both in theoretical and practical aspects, and its current significance to the development of Chinese residential areas.In the third chapter, the thesis reviews the development of urban residential areas from the period of feudalism, modern times to contemporary era. It summarizes the features, the progress and the problems in each phase. In particular, it analyses in details the new tendency in China after its opening up and reform, which embodies the dynamic features of the consistent development of the concept of urban residential areas with the development of the society and science and technology.In the part of the comparison study, based on the previous basic study, the thesis compares the new tendency of Chinese residential areas and the background of the development of New Urbanism, which leads to the finding of their innate consistency and thus establishes the base for further comparisons. By further comparisons, it reaches the conclusion that the existing problems and the inner causes of contradictions in the development of Chinese residential areas result from the deficiency of the three concepts in the development of cities—Humanism, Ecological and Sustainable Development, and Integration. Based on these, it then puts forward the concept of Suitability for residential areas and its framework for their construction.In the final part of the application study, by combining the theoretical framework of suitable residential areas with current condition of the cities and the development of the society and the features of the planning of the residential areas, the thesis discusses the related specific planning strategies, and puts forward the Mode of Suitable Construction– generally opening up, fractionally sealing off; generally mingling, fractionally compacting– to realize the integration of different aspects, and at the same to establish a system that respects the surrounding conditions, contains humanistic designs for traffic and enables sophisticated public participation, and thus embodies the concept of Humanism and Sustainable Development.