Strategies for Sustainable Urban Renewal: Community-Scale GIS-Based Analysis for Densification Decision Making

Jinliu Chen, Paola Pellegrini (), Zhuo Yang and Haoqi Wang
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Jinliu Chen: Department of Urban Planning and Design, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Paola Pellegrini: Department of Urban Planning and Design, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Zhuo Yang: School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
Haoqi Wang: School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: China is gradually shifting towards more sustainable urban development, and the local governments are increasingly promoting social and environmentally sustainable spatial planning practices. This article debates the potential contradiction between the goal of a constantly growing urban population and the limits to the consumption of land planned by this new direction of urban development. The analysis focuses on the wealthy city of Suzhou in the Yangtse River Delta region and explores the opportunities for densification of the residential areas as a possible solution for this contradiction, as already tested by some Chinese cases for land use efficiency. The research applies GIS-based spatial analysis and identifies some of the sites that can be efficiently redeveloped in the resettlement communities for their low floor area ratio (FAR) and obsolescent conditions, which do not correspond to the increasingly middle-class status of the residents in the urban region. The article investigates the different options of a densification strategy in the frame of the policies of urban renewal promoted in China in recent years for improving the quality of the built environment.

Keywords: sustainable urban renewal; densification strategies; resettlement communities; GIS-based analysis; decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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