Analysis Of Urban Villages’ Development Based On Complex System Theory

Urban Villages is a common problem in China’s urbanization. In the past, people generally regarded it as a type of "urban disease". In the traditional research mode, all sides of the Urban Village problem would have been allocated to the scholars in the corresponding research field. Over and over again, scholars made decomposition of the problem as the research moves along. By doing this, they even make the problem deviates from its essence. In this paper, we viewed Urban Villages as a complex adaptive system, which has adaptability and is more similar to the "edge of chaos". Because of that, we propose studying Urban Villages’ issues from the perspective of complex systems theory. Only in this way, could we make a breakthrough in understanding of the issue, and guide the practice.We analyzed Urban Villages’ development from the following aspects.First, we analyzed urban villages" development stage and paths from a dynamic perspective, based on the actual development of urban villages’ in Beijing and previous research, we summarized four typical paths:the general path, the mainstream path, the upgrade path and the special paths. Based on the survey data and literature, we analyzed urban villages’ in Beijing from the aspects of number and size, spatial distribution, industry and employment, infrastructure and public services. The paper argues that "systems thinking" is essential mode of thinking. During its formation and development, urban village faced the problems which described as systems archetypes, such as "target erosion","tragedy of the commons","competitive upgrade","limits to growth" and "shift the burden". To addressing these problems, the Government must recognize the "Villages" is a complex system, and because there is a "slow response regulation loop" in this system, therefore we should not "harm than good." As for the already formed urban villages, government could consider inducing the "rich get richer" model to break to bottlenecks of their development.Second, in this paper we applied the Complex Adaptive System (CAS) theory to analyze urban village system. We point out the source of complexity and the metaphor of urban village. And we utilized Holland’s concepts,"subject" and "aggregation","tagging","flow","nonlinearity","diversity","internal models","building blocks", to explain urban villages’ basic features and mechanisms as a CAS. And according to the "stimulus-response" model, echo model and the idea of building blocks we proposed two ways of modeling urban villages’ development.Third, decomposed the Beijing Urban Village development system into four "module"(or "subsystem"):"urban planning","floating population","village development" and "governance". And analyzed the patterns and mechanisms within these four modules during the formation and development of Urban Village, and made historical reviews, interpretations and reflections.Finally, established a system dynamics model of urban villages in Beijing and made simulation using Vensim. The conclusions are:1. if government removed urban village in a large-scale and in a short-term, the balance of low-rent housing’s supply and demand will be difficult to achieve.2. by doing that, urban villages will quickly spread to urban development new zone and ecological conservation area.3. Government’s low-rent housing could gradually replace the existing "Villages" and avoid new urban village to form and spread outwards.4. by providing low-rent housing, government could apply the method of direct removal of existing mature "Villages", or strict urban-rural planning, both of them are effective in restrain urban villages’ formation,development and spreading.