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Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest

China: history of change with dual urban–rural
characteristics

Yun Gao, Adrian Pitts & Wen Jiang

To cite this article: Yun Gao, Adrian Pitts & Wen Jiang (2022) Peri-urban villages in Kunming,
Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics, The Journal of
Architecture, 27:7-8, 1063-1089, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2022.2156911

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 1063 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

Peri-urban villages in Kunming,

Southwest China: history of change
with dual urban–rural characteristics

The process of absorbing villages into urban areas in China is of major Yun Gao
significance and can follow several paths. Specifically, the dual urban
and rural characteristics of villages located close to cities provide new Department of Architecture and 3D
opportunities and constraints for active community engagement. This Design
paper examines two related options through case studies in Kunming, University of Huddersfield, UK
Southwest China, and the interface between the urban and the rural y.gao@hud.ac.uk
in peri-urban studies. One village was transformed from a collective
landholding system into a village shareholding company. In this case, vil- ORCID 0000-0001-6097-9503
lagers’ self-construction and redevelopment activities significantly
changed the built environment in the settlement. The second village
was transformed into a new urban residential community by property Adrian Pitts
developers. In this process, villagers also had their hukou [household
registration] status altered from ‘rural’ to ‘urban’. The study illustrates Department of Architecture and 3D
the variable transition processes between rural and urban in this particu- Design
lar region and highlights the relationship between villagers and their University of Huddersfield, UK
surrounding environment. It is argued that peri-urban spaces in South- y.gao@hud.ac.uk
west China retained their distinctiveness and certain rural characteristics
despite the integration through the urbanisation process, and that the ORCID 0000-0003-1848-7251
relationships between villagers and their surrounding built environ-
ment are constantly being re-appropriated and reinvented.
Wen Jiang
Introduction
School of Arts and Design
The process of peri-urbanisation began to be recognised in the mid-twentieth Southwest Forestry University
century in European countries, although there is still no unified definition of the People’s Republic of China
concept.1 In many European countries, cities have expanded outwards into for-
merly rural areas, which led to housing development on farmland. Existing
research in this context suggests that peri-urbanisation signifies the expansion
of urban areas that is accompanied by large-scale decentralisation and uncon-
trolled urban sprawl infiltrating rural farmland. This has resulted in different
types of transition zones between cities and rural areas. These transition
zones became known as peri-urban areas, which are variable in size and
nature. These processes of peri-urbanisation in particular countries also vary
in terms of how they have been described and defined.2 Despite discrepancies,

# 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an
Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1360-2365 https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2022.2156911
1064 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

peri-urban areas in European countries have strong urban influences with close
access to urban facilities, markets, and labour. They have close links with cities
due to the considerable geographic mobility of the inhabitants, and highly
developed telecommunication, information technology, and transport links.
In Asia, however, and particularly in parts of Southeast Asia, there are differ-
ent types of transition districts between urban and rural designations. One of
those types has been identified as an ‘urban village’ or ‘city village’.3 As
David Simon, Duncan McGregor, and Don Thompson argue, the emergence
of the ‘transition area’ between urban and rural zones ‘reflects the phenomenal
economic buoyancy of the Pacific Asian region’, signifying that ‘“hi-tech” pro-
duction now spilled out of the heavily congested metropolitan cores to
cheaper, and more accessible areas beyond’.4 In this process, the urban villages
retained their distinctiveness and some rural activities, but at the same time,
they were integrated into manufacturing or processing industries as part of
the wider economy. This new process calls for a redefinition of traditional
urban and rural distinction and provision of guidance that is suitable to use
in these dual rural/urban areas.5 This need is reinforced because China’s
urban villages, of which there are many, were created during a process of
rapid urbanisation during which the government expropriated villages’ farm-
land for urban expansion. In this process, because the property rights for home-
stead land belong to the village collectives, the village’s residential area
‘ownership’ would normally be retained by the original villagers. Migrants
from rural areas who were looking for employment in cities tended to settle
in urban villages because those villages provided cheaper accommodation
and easy access to urban areas wherein existed those employment opportu-
nities. As a result of these combined influences, traditional rural zones have
been gradually transformed into new combinations of urban and rural areas.
In this process they have become an essential part of the urban economy
and, therefore, need to be understood in more detail in order to derive policies
to achieve sustainable development.6
Existing research has so far considered the phenomenon of peri-urban areas
to be part of an advanced form of sub-urbanisation or counter-urbanisation.
Very often the management of peri-urban areas is relatively independent of
both rural and urban controls because they are located beyond the administra-
tive boundaries of those areas; however, they are closely related to the ecologi-
cal footprints of cities which have significant impacts.
Urban villages in China have mixed characteristics of urban and rural identi-
ties and have close links with both rural and urban economies. They also have
their own special characteristics, as the original villagers generally have a strong
sense of belonging arising from the long history of the development of their
settlements.7 Unlike informal urban settlements in other countries, the original
villager residents have a higher income than their counterparts elsewhere; this
is often derived from renting living space to new incoming migrants. In order to
satisfy housing demand, this has led to the rapid increase of concrete construc-
tion in villages and, thus, totally transforming the rural landscape. The lifestyle
of villagers in those settlements has been impacted by their increasing mobility,
 1065 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

the income from tenants, and the influence of the surrounding urban environ-
ment. Some villagers actively seek for employment in urban areas and engage
with the training programmes provided by the local government and agencies.
This paper explores how urban villages in Kunming City interacted with
urban life before and after the development projects which have impacted
upon them. It argues that the urban villages in Kunming present a special
form of the sub-urbanisation process. Departing from existing studies focusing
on the decline of the rural villages and traditional heritage in China, this study
argues that transformation of the landscape of the peri-urban areas in South-
west China highlighted the processes of those areas becoming more cosmopo-
litan and, at the same time, becoming locally focused. In order to explore the
changes of the peri-urban spaces in Southwest China and explore potential
to influence future development, the paper analyses two case studies: Xiaz-
huang village which underwent fundamental change from being a village col-
lective unit to a village shareholding company; and Taihe village which was
redeveloped into an urban residential district where returning villagers took
up residence in the newly constructed accommodation and shared public facili-
ties with other urban residents.
The paper is structured as follows: the first section explains the impacts of
China’s hukou system, the household registration system, on the spatial
changes in peri-urban areas. The Liveable City Assessment Standards (2007)
released by China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development are
analysed to provide the context of the development of peri-urban area in
China. The literature review in the following section explores the definitions
of urban and rural areas in China; this is important because the hukou
system categorises citizens into urban (non-agricultural) and rural (agricultural)
residents of a particular location. Whist many villages in peri-urban areas have
managed to maintain a distinctive village morphology along with rural activi-
ties, they also have to integrate into the process of urban development. Existing
studies on urban villages primarily focus on the changes of ‘urban villages’ in
Eastern China, studying how rural villages have been affected by the urbanis-
ation process. However, little research was done regarding the peri-urban
studies in Southwest China which are markedly different from other regions,
giving a valuable focus for the research.
In the Methodology section, the two case studies in Kunming chosen for
detailed analysis are examined. The first example, Xiazhuang village, went
through two stages of changes: a bottom-up transformation before 2014
and top-down approach implemented after 2014. As part of this, interviews
were carried out with both the management team and villagers to identify dis-
tinctive aspects involved. The second example, Taihe village, has been trans-
formed into an urban residential community. In this case, returning villagers
retained some aspects of their former lifestyle and tried to adjust them to
the urban environment. One of the authors was closely involved in the devel-
opment project of Taihe village, thus allowing ease of access for analysing
documents and making observations, as well as interviews. In the sections of
the two case studies, the paper analyses how building forms and landscape
1066 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

in the village have changed due to the increased mobility of the population,
such as the migration of rural villagers to work in cities, or of urban population
to rent accommodation in villages. The analysis also considers how the func-
tions of domestic and public space in the villages have changed, linking to
the residential communities themselves and the integration between the city
and rural areas.
At the end of the paper, conclusions are drawn indicating the contribution of
this paper to the field of understanding, and broader implications arising from
this research. The study of the two peri-urban development projects highlights
two key needs that peri-urban studies should consider that have been over-
looked in existing studies: first, the contributions of various stakeholders in
making the place; and second, the need to map the perception and actions
of the villagers and other local stakeholders to allow proper identification of
the characteristics of the place. It is argued that the transformation of the land-
scape of the peri-urban areas in Southwest China has become more cosmopo-
litan and, at the same time, more locally focused.

China’s hukou system

This section introduces the changes of the hukou system since 2014 that have
encouraged the migration of young workers from rural to urban areas.
Migrants from rural areas tend to settle in villages in peri-area urban because
those villages provide cheaper accommodation and easy access to urban
areas; these villages may also be more familiar. To meet the needs of the
increased tenant numbers, the peri-urban villages have developed to become
more closely integrated with the urban infrastructure systems. The Liveable
City Assessment Standards (2007) released by China’s Ministry of Housing
and Urban–Rural Development are here analysed to provide the context of
the development of the peri-urban area in China.
China’s household registration system, the hukou system, evolved following
the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949. It categorises citizens into urban
(non-agricultural) and rural (agricultural) residents of a particular location.
Urban residents are favoured in resource allocation compared to rural residents,
though some villagers in the above scenario can have their status transformed
from rural to urban residents. A study by Xu Huang, Martin Dijst, Jan van
Weesep, and Nongjian Zou suggests that hukou registration plays a significant
role in relatively more-developed municipalities, but is less significant in less-
developed municipalities, where access to civil amenities, such as social
welfare and public infrastructure, is already more readily granted.8 Farzana
Afridi, Sherry Li, and Ren Yufei have highlighted that major and persistent
gaps between rural migrants and urban residents existed in large urban
centres in terms of employment, social insurance, and social welfare benefits.9
Initially, the 2014 reform announced restricted access for migrants from rural
areas to pensions, education, and healthcare services. However, the 2019
Urbanisation Plan suggested relaxing hukou restrictions in small and
medium-sized cities with populations of 1–3 million.10 Together with further
 1067 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

changes enacted in 2020, these issues indicate a complex and changing situ-
ation which produces difficulties in understanding for many residents in
terms of who can benefit from the new hukou policies and how to benefit
from it, which is summarised below.
Currently, China has an advanced plan to settle about 100 million people in
towns linked to the household registration reform.11 In addition to loosening
hukou restrictions, the plan directs local governments to promote basic
public services for permanent residents and further develop urban infrastruc-
ture to handle increases in population.12 These incentives, however, tend to
favour young and educated workers rather than those without higher edu-
cation qualifications, such as rural residents. Many migrants from rural areas
would therefore struggle to gain hukou in the urban areas where they had
been working, and this has caused a variety of social problems.13 The dual
urban–rural character of urban villages in China has resulted from two
factors: the joint ownership of village land and properties; and the preference
of incoming tenants for dwellings located in the cheaper and more accessible
areas that urban villages provided. This has given village residents easier access
to employment, or the possibility of starting small businesses in the cities. Whist
many urban villages have maintained their distinctiveness in terms of village
morphology and rural activities, they have had to integrate into the process
of urban development, similar to the experience of peri-urban areas in other
countries.
The Liveable City Assessment Standards (2007) included six assessment cri-
teria: economic prosperity, environmental ‘beauty’, availability of resources,
access to facilities, and public security.14 Studies by Dongsheng Zhan, Mei-Po
Kwan, Wenzhong Zhang, Jie Fan, Jianhui Yu, and Yunxiao Dang suggest
that socioeconomic impacts on the individual also exert significant effects on
overall satisfaction with urban liveability. These individual factors are, in des-
cending order of importance: geographical location, type of housing, edu-
cation, family size, age, and hukou status.15 However, other studies
identified a different set of factors for villagers: the geographical location,
especially the distance from the nearest town or city (and the ease of accessing
public transport), the population size, the infrastructure provision for water and
electricity supply, and access to waste disposal.16 For development purposes,
factors such as average annual family income are used as criteria to provide
basic information for each village and thus drive development priorities;
however, those criteria may be different for a peri-urban area where different
social groups co-exist.

‘Urban’ and ‘rural’

Existing studies of peri-urban settlements provide support for new ways to

analyse the case studies of urban villages in Southwest China, as they focus
on two key aspects: the definition of the general concepts of ‘urban’ and
‘rural’, and the definition of urban and rural areas in China. Aidan Southall
has argued that, in late capitalist economies, the influence of the city pene-
1068 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

trates the remotest places to such an extent that they all become urban in a
sense.17 In his discussion of various studies by urban sociologists and urban
anthropologists, which explored how the ‘urban’ realm lost its distinctiveness
as an object of theoretical study and basis of disciplinary focus, Southall has
also analysed different situations in China. In From Village to City: Social Trans-
formation in a Chinese County Seat, Andrew Kipnis studied the transformed
landscape and changed ways of life in a village in North China between
2005 and 2012. Based on his analysis of the theories of biological sciences
and modernisation, together with the Daoist ideologies of transformation
that focuses on admixture rather than replacement, Kipnis suggests that
there is ‘recombinant urbanisation’ in China where ‘practices, ideas, ideals, fan-
tasies, dreams (and nightmares) are displaced, reinvented, or shifted rather
than simply eliminated’.18
Current studies on peri-urban areas suggest that they are a new form of the
extended metropolitan region beyond the traditional dichotomy of urban and
rural definitions.19 Urban villages are closely connected to other urban and rural
areas by transportation, telecommunications, and other service networks, and
this had led to a blurring of physical boundaries between urban villages and
other city areas, but less so in terms of status and economics. Urban lifestyles
have penetrated significantly into the lives of the previously rural villagers,
with the emergence of new hybrid forms of services and the associated
social, economic, and political needs.20 Fulong Wu, Fangzhu Zhang, and
Chris Webster also argue that urban villages provide resources for migrants
who need access to cheaper accommodation and informal job markets.21
Therefore, there are not only rapid changes of land-use but also a changing
social composition which needs to be supported by infrastructure and services.
Existing studies also show differences between the various social groups that
rent accommodation in an urban village. For example, a study by Mai Corlin
was concerned with the artists and intellectuals who were involved, the villa-
gers they met, and the local authorities they negotiated with.22 Another
example would be Hanwen Liao’s study of artists renting properties in villages
in the marginal area of Beijing that highlighted the different requirements for
the artists and the tension between villagers and artists. The difference
between the size of properties artists were able to afford compared to the
size of the homes of local villagers was one of the reasons for the negative atti-
tude of residents towards the artists. The more opulent lifestyle of artist tenants
was also significantly different to those experienced by the local villages.23
Scholarship published in Chinese has also contributed further to the under-
standing of the topic. Sophia Woodman has viewed the rural/urban distinction
as one of a number of factors that contributed to local variation in welfare, par-
ticipation rights, and relative value accorded to citizens in China.24 Beibei Tang
has also discussed how the ‘not rural but not urban’ governance modes of
urban villages in China represented special characteristics of the state-society
relationship and urban planning.25 Chen Li, Mark Wang, and Yanan Song Li
studied how households fared in the decade after land acquisition and their
capability to build the skills and knowledge needed for urban life and employ-
 1069 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

ment, thus showing how spatial change is linked to social change.26 The results
of these studies can provide guidance to inform future redevelopment projects.
In this paper, two case studies of urban villages in Southwest China, which
are markedly different from urban villages in Eastern China, show a need for
a different basis for comparison. This study contributes to ongoing debates
by identifying what events affect the development of living and working
spaces within the urban and rural element during the process of the change.
It asks how the cultural, social, political, and economic relationships between
villagers and the surrounding environment change, and what aspects of
mixed urban and rural functions may contribute to the characteristics of the
urban–rural interface.

Questions
The following are key questions as focal points for research and contribution to
discussions:

(1) What events affected the development of living and working spaces within
the urban and rural element during the process of change?
(2) How did the relationship between the villagers and the surrounding environ-
ment change in terms of cultural, social, political, and economic issues?
(3) What aspects of mixed urban and rural functions have contributed to the
characteristics of the urban–rural interface in this region?

Methodology

This paper studies the transformation of two examples in the city of Kunming,
the capital of Yunnan province, in order to explore how the development of
urban villages could reveal more about differences between rural and urban
issues in practices. In 2011 there were more than 380 urban villages in the
greater urban area of Kunming, with a total residential land area of about
19.5 km2. This accounted for about 7.8% of the area of the city (249 km2)
at the time.27 The authors’ field work indicated that, out of nearly 200 urban
villages within the areas defined by the third ring road, only about 30 had com-
pleted the redevelopment process by 2018. Many new development projects
have started, but due to the impacts of the Covid pandemic, they have not
been completed as planned.
The research also intends to challenge the predominant focus of existing
studies on urban villages of Eastern China, such as in Shenzhen and Guangzhou,
where urban village development projects were first implemented. Urban villages
in the west of the country, such as in Kunming, were created much later, and
generally offered fewer opportunities for developing village enterprises or
village industries compared to those rapidly expanding urban economies of
Eastern China. Many local government policies for increasing village incomes
in the west of China have focused on different top-down motivations, such as
tourism or setting up training courses, creating employability for villagers, or
changing the villages into a shareholding system, as the first case study demon-
1070 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

strates. Further, in the process of enacting the national ‘Beautiful Village Initiat-
ive’, the outcomes show that the processes of change are much more top-down
than bottom-up in their operation. Thus, although bottom-up approaches are
supposed to be valued and necessary, the research illustrates the more typical
top-down situation to be found in rural areas across the country, and this
study sheds light on some characteristics and issues of urban villages that are
present in many other similar parts of China.
For the first case study, Xiazhuang village, interviews commenced in May
2018 with the architect working on the village masterplan, and with the
Head of the Village and the management team (who coordinated the
process of transferring the village from a collective unit to a shareholding
company). Interviews were also undertaken with a group of villagers who
expressed their views regarding the changes.28 Further unstructured in-depth
interviews were utilised to create an informal atmosphere and encourage villa-
gers to express their opinions. The questions focused on the locals’ experience
of the changes in their village, but also allowed the villagers to tell their stories
in their own words. Staff in the village management group talked about the
process for managing change and their priorities in different stages. The inter-
view with the lead architect gave specific information on the changes to the
built environment in the village.
The second case study, Taihe village, involved analyses of the process of
transformation of an urban village into an urban residential community.
Returning villagers (who had moved-out during the development process)
retained some aspects of their former lifestyle and tried to adjust them to
the urban environment. One of the authors had also participated in the pre-
planning process for the development project of Taihe, which was completed
in 2010. The villagers then returned to the newly constructed residential district
and were visited for interviews and discussion in 2015 and in 2018. This
allowed the study of living conditions of residents in the new community and
of post-occupancy evaluation surveys. As a result of these studies, the research
highlights new aspects of mixed urban and rural functions that need to be con-
sidered in the redevelopment. This is especially important in relation to the
social and economic wellbeing aspects for redevelopment projects for urban vil-
lages and peri-urban areas in general.
In the following sections, this paper explores the following elements with
respect to the dual urban and rural elements: the changed building forms
and landscape in the village due to the increased mobility of the population,
such as the migration of rural villagers to work in cities or of urban population
to rent accommodation in villages; the changed functions of domestic and
public space in villages; and the changed residential communities that are at
the juncture between the city and rural areas.

Xiazhuang village in Chenggong

Xiazhuang village (also called Dalian village) is in the Chenggong New District
of Kunming, formed in 2005 and located about 25 kilometres away from
 1071 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

Figure 1.
Locations of the two villages in
Kunming in this study, Taihe and
Xiazhuang, drawn based on the
city map of 2019 by Yun Gao

Kunming city centre (Figs. 1 and 2) at an altitude of 1,900 metres. Kunming’s

urban planning strategy of 2003 identified Chenggong as a new district for the
relocation of universities, which was expected to release some pressures from
the rapid increases in population, congestion of traffic, and pollution in the
main city centre. From 2005, more than ten universities, along with provincial
governmental offices and a large medicine factory, have moved to expropriated
land in Chenggong, in new campuses, offices, and industrial areas. Chenggong
became a city district under the jurisdiction of Kunming in 2011.
Xiazhuang’s seven hundred years history stretches back to the Ming dynasty.
Historically villagers worked as farmers, planting rice, corn, millet, and pears,
with the local climate allowing crops to be produced twice a year. The original
village had a land area of 16,000 mu (about 10.72 km2); after the expropriation
of land for development purposes in 2005, about 3,000-4,000 mu (2–2.7 km2)
of agricultural land remained for the residents. In the original village, there
were 1,400 families, consisting of about 4,000 people.29
Interviews carried out in Xiazhuang showed that the older generations have
clear memories of the past and a strong sense of a traditional community. They
commented that in the past, the villagers had much lower living standards than
those found in urban areas. In the mid-1980s, residents of adjacent villages
started to grow flowers and vegetables rather than their traditional crops,
which attracted higher return; the villagers in Xiazhuang soon started to
follow the practice. Since the 1990s, more and more young people from the
village moved to urban areas to seek work. The impact of the lack of young
 1072 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

Figure 2.
Plan of Xiazhuang village in 2019,
drawn by Ling Zhou

people on village life was repeatedly mentioned in the interviews; farmland in

some adjacent counties became idle because of the loss of local population. In
2005, the relocated universities started to expropriate land and, by 2009, the
village had lost the majority of its farmland while one hundred and fifty families
moved elsewhere to rent farmland for agricultural activities. The local govern-
ment set up training courses to help villagers to gain new skills, and some vil-
lagers, generally aged between 45 and 60, moved to work in the adjacent
institutes as low-skilled labour, such as cleaners. People younger than 45
were encouraged to find jobs in the city or to set up their own small businesses.
Many villagers rented out some of their living space to gain additional income.
There was a demand for this because the majority of small businesses in the
village were run by outsiders rather than villagers themselves. This perhaps is
because villagers were sometimes reluctant to start their own businesses as
they felt they lacked skills or knowledge. In 2018 approximately 10,000
migrants and tenants were living in the village, two and half times the
number of the original villagers at that date. The villagers’ daily lives also
changed following close contact with new inhabitants such as from the adja-
cent university. Many staff and students rented space in the village houses to
set up training centres for music, art, or dance. Children in the village actively
engaged with the diverse opportunities and attended many training classes. As
one villager said, ‘villagers wanted to be beautiful’, yet the views of how to be
beautiful have changed fundamentally.30
With the increase in people’s incomes and influences arising from the urban
areas, the villagers’ desires to build houses ‘like those in cities’ were stimulated.
More than 500 families applied to renovate or rebuild their houses in 2010; it
was not, however, until new policies were published in 2013 to allow such
 1073 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

Figure 3.
Xiazhuang village in 2018,
photographed by Yun Gao

development, that a significant number of new constructions were carried out

in the village. Within a short period, a large number of traditional timber houses
were demolished and many new concrete houses were built on the sites of
original houses, ignoring the village’s master plan. It was difficult to implement
the village plan because the owners of houses located along the public roads
with more development opportunities were reluctant to relocate in order to
allow the planned redevelopment. Consequently, in order to meet the
demand, courtyards areas were utilised to facilitate new houses and extensions
to original property boundaries occurred, causing roads to become narrower.
The new houses also extended upwards gaining more floors, thus replacing tra-
ditional one-storey houses with concrete multi-storey houses, and the growth
of floor space available for renting was much extended. The proportion of new
concrete houses in the village increased from about 30% in 2013 to around
80% in 2015 (Figs. 3 and 4).31
Almost all the traditional courtyard houses were demolished, apart from a
few good quality examples that were converted into restaurants. Two listed
buildings, Wanfeng Temple and Guanshangong Temple, were also protected
from change. Some areas were rapidly transformed by small businesses, for
example, one of the most developed areas was named the ‘Home of Art’
which serves students from the arts university across the road. The formation
of the ‘Home of Art’ was not planned, but in 2010, heavy rain flooded the
properties of more than 200 families in the village. The local government
funded the construction of temporary accommodation for these 200 families
in the periphery of the village next to a newly constructed road; these were
simple one-storey houses built for families, based on a ratio of 20 m2 per
person. When the campus of the University was built along the other side
of the road, the convenient walking distance made the area a popular
 1074 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

Figure 4.
Xiazhuang village in 2018,
photographed by Yun Gao

business site. The temporary accommodation units were redecorated and

rented out to hot-pot or barbeque restaurants and other kinds of small
grocery shops. Therefore, in contrast to the traditional villages where
village spaces were decided by original location and orientation, external
influences impacted on commercial activities and increased the diversity of
spatial arrangement in the village.
A village community fund was established when the farmland was expro-
priated by the local government (10% of the compensation monies given by
the government was converted into this fund). Initially, the fund was placed
in the bank and interest payments were distributed equally to the villagers
every year, but in 2014 it was decided that the village’s collective landholdings
and the community fund would be converted into a shareholding company.
The community fund has since been used to pay for the construction of a
number of public buildings and improvements to the infrastructure such as
roads, drainage, and waste systems. The villagers therefore became share-
holders of public buildings including the Home of Art, a cultural centre, and
a school, each of which is paying a substantial rental fee each year. For
example, the Provincial Education Bureau would pay sufficient rental fees to
run the school in the village and the cultural centre was rented out to local
street administration offices.
In the interviews, the villagers declared that they are proud of owning the
shared dividends, which could pay out about CNY ¥4,000 (approximately
GBP £440) for each person every year. Residents also collectively own the prop-
erties in the village. It can be seen that, although the villagers and the tenants
are residents of the same village space, they have parallel but different ways of
living and working. Variations in buildings also occurred: the villagers preferred
concrete houses rather than traditional timber houses because they are ‘similar
to the ones in cities’.32 A restaurant run by students was one of the few remain-
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ing original courtyard houses which employed design emphasising traditional

village themes.
The simultaneous mix of rural and urban characteristics found in the village
was also a reason for some artists to rent workshops there as they preferred a
setting at some distance from the chaos of the urban centre. This allowed
them to participate in both urban and rural lifestyles, and their presence
added to the diversity of village life. However, the different life styles
ranging from new tenants, such as art students and staff, and those of
the remaining local villagers are clearly retained in the private spaces of
the buildings.
In Xiazhang village, many villagers had received financial compensation for
their farmlands that had been expropriated for the various forms of redevelop-
ment by the local government. Many villagers used the compensation to build
new houses, buy new cars, and engage in other new recreational opportu-
nities; further training and good education were not their top priorities.
However, twelve years later, after the funding compensation came to an
end, local villagers increasingly found it more important to acquire skills and
knowledge that could help with job opportunities. Therefore, provision of a
better education for the next generation to gain a better life has now
become a priority frequently mentioned in the interviews.
Despite all the changes to the existing houses and facilities caused by the
redevelopment of the area, a new overall master plan was designed for the
village by the local planning department in 2019; however, the master plan
has been difficult to implement. There are still questions about how best to
build a new residential area that could involve the residents’ participation
with design and development of their neighbourhoods, to have design
imbued with local identity and collective memory, and to do this in a sustain-
able way.
To summarise, for Xiazhuang village, all the major changes of the buildings
and space before 2014 were brought about by villagers’ bottom-up actions
that actively responded to changes, whether because of flooding, renting
houses to migrants from outside, or setting up shops or restaurants to meet
the needs of students in the nearby universities. Migrants and villagers collec-
tively made the place. Despite all the new concrete and brick houses that
replaced the traditional timber houses, ritual spaces, Wanfeng Temple and
Guanshangong Temple, were protected from change.
In 2014, management teams decided that the village’s collective landhold-
ings and the community fund would be converted into a shareholding
company. This top-down action initiated collective production of the space
compared with what happened on the ground. The immigration of artists
and students enhanced the close relationship with the adjacent university.
The villagers wanted ‘urban’ looking houses, and this was represented in
terms of construction details, building technologies, and materials; this trans-
formed what was available in the marketplace as well as the workforce.
Chen Li, Mark Wang, and Yanan Song argue that a part of this, involving the
recovery of public spaces and a sense of community identity, is possible if citi-
1076 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

zens take a leading role, collectively getting involved in their own projects and
in new residents’ projects that engage with the community.33 This leads to the
second case study, which describes a village that has undergone a redevelop-
ment project, prompting the villagers to move back into the newly constructed
residential district.

Taihe urban village

Out of a total of more than 380 urban villages in Kunming, 35 were developed
in the period 2009–2010, which gave rise to contrasting outcomes. These pro-
jects were to follow four guiding principles set up in the Suggestions for the
Development of Villages in the Cities by the Planning and Design Institution
of Kunming in 2008: ‘renovation’ and ‘reconstruction’ should be equally impor-
tant; optimal urban structuring should be considered the top priority of urban
village renovation projects; the overall profits of the renovation project should
be maximised; and the ‘one village one strategy’ approach should be empha-
sised in response to the particular condition and history of each urban village
before making plans.34
Taihe urban village, which began to be redeveloped in 2010, followed these
principles. It is located in the Dianchi Lake district, south of Kunming Old City,
5 km from the city centre (Fig. 1). The village had around 1,200 families with
about 3,500 residents (Figs. 5 and 6). The original village was laid out along
a small river, and all the streets, pedestrian paths, houses, and local market
layout followed the direction of the stream. Along both sides of the river
were public spaces for villagers, together with some small food and vegetable
stalls.
The aim of the renovation project was to integrate the residential area for
returning villagers with the adjacent new privately developed housing (Figs. 7
and 8). In the urban housing market, the roles of designers, developers, and
building owners also evolved during the design and construction phases.
According to the ‘No. 2 Report of Urban Village in Kunming’, the four develop-
ment stages for the renewal of Taihe were the following: firstly, the urban
village renovation project was set up by the government, then the developer
and the source of investments were introduced; secondly, the project was
closely linked to the development of local urban infrastructure and, therefore,
the developers would be responsible for the development plans for the neigh-
bouring areas; thirdly, the urban village renovation project provided new
opportunities and included the villagers’ participation in the decision making
processes; fourthly, the overall renovation project was led by the government
using community fund provided by the developer and the local government
to support the implementation.35
Proposals presented during the process of urban village reconstruction were
based on general urban planning regulation including the following items:

1. Achieving greater sustainability in the residential district;

2. Maintaining the vitality of urban spaces;
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Figure 5.
Taihe village in 2010, drawn by
Wen Jiang

3. Performing good urban design in relation to safe neighbourhood strategies,

appropriate scale of street layout, walkable residential areas, and so on.
4. Encouraging the sense of belonging among the original villagers who
moved back to the new residential area;
5. Developing a more reasonable way to carry out public participation exer-
cises;
6. Increasing levels of trust among the villagers towards the urban village reno-
vation;
7. Considering the benefits for migrant workers, low-income residents, and
new residents in the urban village renovation projects;
8. Finding ways to balance the distribution of profit among stakeholders;
9. Defining the roles of urban planner and architects, with the aim of improv-
ing overall sustainability.

According to China’s 1982 Constitution: ‘Urban land belongs to the state.

Land in rural and suburban areas shall be owned by collectives, except for
those which belong to the State as prescribed by law.’36 This means processes
of development in rural areas must follow different rules to cities. Under this
law, the negotiations among stakeholders were extremely complicated for
the development of Taihe as it took some time to clarify the ownership and
compensation amounts due to each villager. Between 2008 and 2015, the orig-
inal village and adjacent factory buildings were demolished and other neigh-
bouring sites included in the overall planning to form a new sophisticated
residential district. Stakeholder meetings were held to comment and approve
the plan, and to agree on the feasibility report which required a pass rate
 1078 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

Figure 6.
Taihe village in 2010,
photographed by Yun Gao

from local residents and enterprises not less than 90% and 80% respectively,
leading to the formal urban village renovation project. The design principles of
this project came from the master plan for the area.
Although opportunities were provided for the villagers to participate in the
decision-making meetings with other stakeholders relevant to the project, it
was difficult for the villagers to express their needs. The analysis of the docu-
ments for the development project showed these specific omissions were
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Figure 7.
New development in the Taihe area
in 2015, drawn by Wen Jiang

Figure 8.
Taihe village in 2015,
photographed by Wen Jiang

linked to the requirements for hybrid urban and rural functions while the
design principles did not include the consideration of the mixed nature and
functions of the living space. Those needs included requirements for con-
venient living facilities that would accommodate some of the necessities of
rural lives, such as space for drying crops and other agricultural products; the
 1080 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

Figure 9.
Taihe village in 2018,
photographed by Wen Jiang

travel needs of the villagers, who relied primarily on public transportation for
visiting other parts of the city; the impacts of different sources of income;
and the needs for a variety of housing types. Unfortunately, due to the lack
of a mechanism to help the villagers to express their concerns and to materialise
their needs into design solutions, there was a lack of ‘conditions’ included in
the planning and design process.
When the authors surveyed the area in 2018, housing for relocating the vil-
lagers and the educational facilities had been completed (Fig. 9); however, the
retail centre and office building, and most of the commercial housing, were still
under construction. The villagers had returned to the newly built residential dis-
trict and all the villagers’ hukou were transferred from rural to urban status. The
residents’ association was responsible for community services and facilities
associated with the relocation and resettlement of villagers, including street
cleaning and security services for the new residential community and for the
main road outside the community. Unlike the village community management
system in Xiazhuang village, residents’ committees in Taihe were not involved
in local economic activities. Old and overcrowded village houses were replaced
by new multi-storey apartments with unified management and construction
solutions, and after the renovation project was implemented, urban facilities
were introduced in the new residential district. Better constructed dwellings
also provided for a safer and cleaner environment (Fig. 10).
However, the most prominent change was the road system, which assumed
a car-dependent residential district and encouraged private vehicle usage. Pre-
viously, the villagers had depended primarily on bicycles and scooters as the
most popular and efficient transportation methods; the roads in the old
village were not set up to deal with car usage, and streets and houses were
maintained at a human scale. The changes to accommodate private cars
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Figure 10.
Taihe village in 2018,
photographed by Wen Jiang

were considered one of the criteria for a liveable community. The designs for
the new residential areas were, therefore, based on general urban design prin-
ciples rather than on the hybrid urban and rural requirements of returning vil-
lagers.
There was also a lower provision of pedestrian walking routes and fewer
measures to slow vehicle speed in the shared use areas. This occurred
despite preference of relocated villagers for public transport rather than
private cars. Access to the public transport system required about twenty
minutes walking time, which was much longer than previously in the village.
There were difficulties for the returning villagers to adapt to these changes in
a short period of time. In addition, despite the design principles aiming to inte-
grate the residential area of returning villagers with the adjacent newly built
private residential area, the different groups of residents kept to their separate
lifestyles with little contact with each other. The full integration of the returning
villagers into the new urban life would have also required the consideration of
socio-psychological measures of urbanisation beyond the redesign of the phys-
ical environment. Neglect of these factors had therefore impacted on the
overall sustainability of the redevelopment. In the development project to trans-
form Taihe urban village into an urban residential community, renovation and
sustainable design were considered. In contrast to un-designed public spaces in
Xiazhuang, buildings and public spaces in the Taihe project were closely linked
to the development of local urban infrastructure and, therefore, the developers
would be responsible for the development plans for the neighbouring areas.
Those measures focused on urban residents, but overlooked the fact that the
returned villagers also need space for their continuing agricultural activities,
1082 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

such as drying crops. The villagers also heavily rely on public transportation
system and other public services, such as shops and retail centres.

Discussion: urban vs rural?

The Taihe residential area has provided safer, cleaner, and more contemporary
urban facilities for returning villagers, but it lacks the vitality of community,
mixed-use development, and the local identity that Xiazhuang preserved.
Nevertheless, Taihe was developed based on the green building codes for
urban areas. New buildings and their environment, including both domestic
and public spaces, were designed to be more sustainable in terms of qualities
of outdoor and indoor environment and energy saving standards. The newly
designed residential area benefited from professional design in the aspects of
functional planning, sunlight analysis, parking configuration, and road
network analysis, and included fire evacuation plans. The returning villagers
were registered as urban residents and benefit from welfare, medical care,
and educational services.
In comparison, the spatial environment in Xiazhuang village was left con-
gested with many vehicles; poor hygiene and noise were also constant pro-
blems due to narrow streets, limited waste collection facilities, and the high
density of inhabitation. There was no overall plan for the supply of water, drai-
nage, or electricity in the village. However, Xiazhuang did benefit from its pos-
ition in the peri-urban area, such as having close links to other rural and city
areas, an important quality of peri-urban spaces. While it remains a rural
village with a strong sense of community and shared memories of the past,
it is no longer an isolated community. The lives of the villagers have become
more integrated within the urban economy and society. Instead of the pre-
viously enclosed and inward focused form of the village, the dynamism
inherent to the ability to attract outsiders and to develop other businesses
has enabled the villagers to have a much wider access to urban life.
The components of village life have become more complex and unstable, but
this has promoted further transformation and development, and had expanded
human capability. Birte Nienaber and Irma Potoč nik Slavic in discussing case
studies from Saarland, Germany, and Slovenia have identified the importance
of diversification for rural areas.37 The diversification of farm income contrib-
utes to the vitality of the rural region and helps to retain young people in
rural areas, and, therefore, attenuate demographic changes. In Xiazhuang,
the production of flowers and vegetables by the villagers was developed to
meet the demands of more distant markets. Some villagers in Xiazhuang
moved to other places to take advantage of larger scale agricultural activities,
or sought urban employment by travelling longer distances outside the local
areas. This in turn promoted changes in the village, leading to larger popu-
lations and more complex business activities. The influence of urban factors
on the villagers’ thinking and life planning is also evident: twelve years after
being paid the compensation fund, the villagers are now thinking about devel-
oping new lives for themselves and for the next generation. A school was set up
 1083 The Journal
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which was highly ranked in the needs expressed in the interviews with the
villagers.
In Xiazhuang, the innovative stakeholder system and the strong local govern-
ment development policy supported the diversification of incomes, thus contri-
buting to the vitality of the village. The Xiazhuang village management group
have largely been able to maintain control of their shareholding company to
pursue benefits for villagers. Studies of other urban villages in China have
suggested that the village shareholding company option played an essential
role in managing the village unit and coordinating governance tasks in an
urban environment.38 However, not all the villagers in Xiazhuang have been
able to benefit from the innovative measures and the networks with the sur-
rounding institutions. Many villagers lacked the skills and knowledge to inte-
grate into urban life and employment. The quality of the infrastructure and
of the villagers’ houses was in fact far below the standards that were required
by building regulations for safety and comfort. Although individual houses
were refurbished and re-decorated, the long-term plan for the village is to
move all the residents out and re-develop the village as a new urban area, simi-
larly to Taihe’s development.
In Taihe, the task of helping villagers to find employment opportunities
rested primarily with the residents’ committee. Their vulnerabilities are
related to the lack of skills and knowledge needed for urban life and employ-
ment. In this case, longer term skills and training development provided in
urban facilities may become more important than the short-term benefits
gained from renting out space in Xiazhuang. For Xiazhuang village and many
other peri-urban areas across the world, the fast-changing community land-
scape is the result of much larger scale land use changes. This can be caused
by urban sprawl or by the loss of farming land in rural areas due to policy
changes. At the same time, people migrate from both rural and urban areas
to peripheral areas of cities where rents and land prices are lower. Therefore,
there is a potential for rapid change involving population movement to areas
with employment opportunities and suitable living conditions.

Conclusion

The aims and objectives of the research were to explore the events that affected
the identities and development of the spaces in peri-urban areas in Kunming.
By analysing two case studies, the authors have explored the relationship
between the villagers and the surrounding environment, and changes in
terms of cultural, social, political, and economic issues. The research also con-
sidered aspects of mixed urban and rural functions and how they contributed
to the characteristics of the urban–rural interface in this region.
Based on the concept of ‘admixture over replacement’, Kipnis has argued,
that the urbanisation presented here is a form of organic change where
people are both increasingly cosmopolitan and nativist, and they actively recre-
ate the past and reinvent tradition.39 This is different from the existing studies
of Chinese rural areas that focus on the increasing emptiness of the rural vil-
1084 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

lages and the decline of the traditional cultures and landscape. Aligning with
Kipnis, the authors argue that both case studies demonstrate the so called
‘urban and rural’ architectural forms. Landscape and ways of life are increas-
ingly becoming more ‘urban and rural’ orientated in the urban village areas,
with peri-urban areas not only located at the edge of the cities but also in
the centre of cities.
The case studies discussed here highlight the difficulties to efficiently manage
spatial planning in these peri-urban zones and urban villages; this arises
because the fluctuating patterns of the built environment and, consequently,
the spatial planning methodologies. Taihe village and Xiazhuang village have
both had long histories and rural roots, characterised by cultural features
such as ancestor worship and strong patrilineages. As with other villages in
China, those cultural and social features, together with the traditional social
structure, helped to preserve the uniformity of the rural communities in pre-
modern China. The policies of household registration and migration restriction
policies set up between the 1950s and 90s closed off rural-urban migration and
defined the differences between rural and urban characters. After the 1990s,
China has largely relaxed the household registration; it is generally recognised
that the rural populations which migrated to the cities are to a large extent
‘urbanised’. The mobility of population between rural and urban areas has
had significant impacts on the built environment, and has contributed to the
formation of new types of settlement patterns and new urbanised landscapes
with dual rural and urban characteristics.
The development of villages and small towns has led to the presence in the
countryside of a large number of people who are disengaged from agriculture.
In both case studies, the physical environment of the communities has already
been to a large extent urbanised. Thus ‘urbanisation’ has become a re-appro-
priated and reinvented process that the villagers have undertaken or had placed
upon them. In each case, it has had to incorporate the need to adapt to the
fast-paced and high-consumption city lifestyle while at the same time trying
to improve quality of life. The case studies demonstrated that the greater the
residents’ participation in the change process, the stronger the integrated
relationship formed between the settlements and subsequent ecological and
social systems.
Afridi, Li, and Ren have also highlighted that major and persistent income
gaps between rural migrants and urban residents existed in large urban
centres.40 However, on an individual level, the villagers who want to integrate
more into urban life and the mainstream economy are looking for ways to
increase family income, improved transportation convenience, better employ-
ment prospects, and enhanced access to public facilities. The changed environ-
ment in both urban villages has provided various new opportunities for the
villagers to integrate into the city life and preserve their own identities.
Another group of residents involved in the village life in Xiazhuang are the stu-
dents and artists groups. Their lifestyle and use of spaces highlighted the differ-
ent requirements of these groups who are looking for new opportunities to
develop their own identities in mixed urban and rural areas.
 1085 The Journal
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The two case studies of peri-urban villages presented in this paper include
attributes that respond to the six assessment criteria defined by the Liveable
City Assessment Standards as detailed in earlier. The economic prosperity, avail-
able resources, and the convenience in accessing facilities are concerns for both
local villagers and tenants in Xiazhuang and in Taihe; however, looking
forward, the most important issue for both communities is how to integrate
into the mainstream (formal) economy and, at the same time, to enhance
the localities of the places.41
In his study of minority images and aspirations in China, Nicholas Tapp
argued that the way in which historical cultural traditions deal with vital
aspects of life, such as sickness and death, child-rearing, sexual desire,
and so on, have been constantly re-appropriated during the recent migration
processes from rural to urban systems in China.42 The analysis of the two
case studies presented in this paper suggests that peri-urban spaces in
Southwest China retained their distinctiveness and certain rural character-
istics when they were integrated in the city conglomerate through urbanis-
ation processes, and that the relationships between the villagers and the
surrounding built environment are constantly being re-appropriated and
reinvented.
This paper explores the peri-urban developments in Southwest China in two
forms. The first case illustrates that the morphology of the rural village space is
retained, but the ownership of the land and properties are jointly shared
among the villagers; in other words, there is an overlap of urban and rural
systems in the peri-urban area. In the second case, the rural village has
been rebuilt and transformed into an urban community, and villagers have
been registered as part of the urban population. By studying these two
peri-urban development projects, the authors highlight that peri-urban
studies should consider two aspects that have been overlooked in existing
studies. Firstly, in relation to practices, with the current escalation of climate
crisis and income inequities, the general concern of access to shared
resources, including farming land, common urban or rural space, is not only
about the overlapping rural and urban districts in the area, but more about
who is participating in making the peri-urban spaces, which should include
various stakeholders claiming their collective role towards the definition of a
right to the area. Secondly, in relation to geographic mapping, although
there is a more scientific approach available for architectural design and
urban planning based on the functions of the buildings and land, the
mapping should reflect the perception and actions of the villagers and other
local stakeholders that revealed the characteristics of the place. This goes
beyond the conventional definition of areas based on agriculture or non-agri-
culture activities, or the number of the residents. It is, therefore, argued that
the transformation of the landscape of the peri-urban areas in Southwest
China has become more cosmopolitan and, at the same time, more locally
focused. Clearly the situation is still evolving, but this paper provides key
insights that can help future development be undertaken with better insights
into possible consequences.
1086 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

Acknowledgements

The authors also would like to thank staff at Yunnan Arts University, Kunming,
China for help with data collection, villagers in Xiazhuang villages for help with
interviews, and PhD student Lin Zhou to help with drawings.

Funding

This research was partly funded by the University of Huddersfield, UK; the Arts
and Humanities Research Council, UK [grant number AH/R004129/1]; the
British Academy, UK [Award Reference CRFG\101033]; and the Vernacular
Architecture Group, UK [Award Reference RG17/04].

Notes

1. See Jan Brueckner, ‘Urban Sprawl: Diagnosis and Remedies’, International Regional
Science Review, 23 (2000), 160–71 (pp. 160–1); and Jadwiga Biegań ska, Stefania
Ś roda-Murawska, Zenija Kruzmetra, and Frank Swiaczny, ‘Peri-Urban Development as a
Significant Rural Development Trend’, Quaestiones Geographicae, 37 (2019), 125–40
(pp. 128–9).
2. Delik Hudalah, Haryo Winarso, and Johan Woltjer, ‘Peri-Urbanisation in East Asia: A New
Challenge for Planning?’, International Development Planning Review, 29 (2007), 503–19
(pp. 504–6).
3. Beibei Tang, ‘Not Rural but Not Urban”: Community Governance in China’s Urban Vil-
lages’, The China Quarterly (London), 223 (2015), 724–44 (p. 725).
4. David Simon, Duncan McGregor, and Donald Thompson, ‘Contemporary Perspectives on
the Peri-Urban Zones of Cities in Developing Areas’, in The Peri-Urban Interface:
Approaches to Sustainable Natural and Human Resource Use, ed. by Duncan McGregor,
David Simon, and Donald Thompson (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2005), pp. 3–12
(p. 5).
5. See Mark Yaolin Wang, ‘The Disappearing Rural-Urban Boundary: Rural Socioeconomic
Transformation in the Shenyang-Dalian Region of China’, Third World Planning Review,
19 (1997), 229–50; William Skinner 施坚雅, ‘The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Tran-
sition in Asia’, The Journal of Economic History, 52 (1992), 954–6; and Zhengxu Zhou,
‘An Approach to Explore the Formation and Evolution of Mountainous Minority Settle-
ments: A Case of Guizhou Province’, Journal of Human Settlements in West China,
31 (2016), 8–16.
6. See Lei Zhang, Simon Xiaobin Zhao, and J. P. Tian, ‘Self-Help in Housing and Chengzhong-
cun in China’s Urbanization’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
27 (2003), 912–37 (pp. 934–35); Pu Hao, Stan Geertman, Pieter Hooimeijer, and
Richard Sliuzas, ‘Spatial Analyses of the Urban Village Development Process in Shenzhen,
China’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37 (2013), 2177–97; Li Tian,
‘The Chengzhongcun Land Market in China: Boon or Bane? – A Perspective on Property
Rights’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32 (2008), 282–304; and
Ya Ping Wang, Yanglin Wang, and Jiansheng Wu, ‘Urbanization and Informal Develop-
ment in China: Urban Villages in Shenzhen’, International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research, 33 (2009), 957–73.
 1087 The Journal
of Architecture
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Numbers 7–8

7. Wen Jiang 姜雯, Yun Gao 高芸, and Adrian Pitts, ‘Improving Planning and Design
Approach for Sustainable Neighbourhood During ‘Urban Village’ Renovation Project in
Kunming: A Field Study on Tai He ‘Urban Village’ (2010–2018)’, in Architecture Media
Politics Society Conference: Tangible-Intangible Heritage(s) – Design, Social and Cultural
Critiques on The Past, Present and the Future (London: University of East London and
Architecture Media Politics Society, 2018), pp. 142–55 (p. 144).
8. Xu Huang, Martin Dijst, Jan van Weesep, and Nongjian Zou, ‘Residential Mobility in
China: Home Ownership among Rural-Urban Migrants after Reform of the Hukou Regis-
tration System’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 29 (2014), 615–36
(p. 615).
9. Farzana Afridi, Sherry Xin Li, and Yufei Ren, ‘Social Identity and Inequality: The Impact of
China’s Hukou System’, Journal of Public Economics, 123 (2015), 17–29 (p. 19).
10. State Council 国务院, ‘State Council Opinions on the Further Reform of the Household
Registration System’ [‘关于进一步推进户籍制度改革的意见’], Government website,
2014 <http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2014-07/30/content_8944.htm> [accessed
8 December 2019].
11. ‘China Helps 100 Mln People Settle in Towns, Cities Ahead of Schedule’, Xinhua, 2020
<http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/1008/c90000-9767082.html> [accessed 20 June 2021].
12. Ouyang Shijia, ‘Residency Shift Part of Plan to Boost Urban Base’, China Daily [中国日报],
2019 <http://english.www.gov.cn/policies/policy_watch/2019/04/09/content_2814766
00745146.htm> [accessed 2 February 2021].
13. Zoey Ye Zhang, ‘China is Relaxing Hukou Restrictions in Small and Medium-Sized Cities’, China
Briefing, 2019 <https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-relaxing-hukou-restrictions-
small-medium-sized-cities/> [accessed 2 February 2021].
14. See Shiyin Wang, Dajian Zhu, and Mandan Zhang, ‘Step out of the Paradox of Liveable City
Studies: Conceptual Model and Path Choice’, China City Planning Review, 20 (2011), 42–8
(pp. 43–5); and Jingzhu Zhao, ‘Exploration and Practices of China’s Urban Development
Models’, in Towards Sustainable Cities in China. ed. by Jingzhu Zhao (New York, NY:
Springer, 2011), 15–36 (p. 20).
15. Dongsheng Zhan, Mei-Po Kwan, Wenzhong Zhang, Jie Fan, Jianhui Yu, and Yunxiao Dang,
‘Assessment and Determinants of Satisfaction with Urban Livability in China’, Cities, 79
(2018), 92–101 (p. 92).
16. Editorial group of Yunnan Provincial Residential and Urban and Rural Construction Bureau
and Yunnan Provincial Planning and Design Research Institution 云南省农村人居环境整治
技术导则编辑组, ‘Code for Improving Rural Settlement and the Assessment Standard for
Green Building in Yunnan Province’ [‘云南省农村人居环境整治技术导则’], ed. by Yunnan
Provincial Residential and Urban and Rural Construction Bureau [云南省住房和城乡建设
厅, 云南省城乡规划设计研究院] (Kunming: Yunnan Provincial Institute of Urban and
Rural Planning and Design, 2018); see also Yun Gao 高芸, ‘Top-Down and Bottom-up Pro-
cesses for Rural Development and the Role of Architects in Yunnan, China’, Buildings
(Basel), 6.4 (2016), 47, 1–21 (p. 4).
17. Aidan Southall, ‘Urban Theory and the Chinese City’, in Urban Anthropology in China, ed.
by Gregory Eliyu Guldin and Aidan Southall (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993).
18. Andrew Kipnis, From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese Country Seat (CA:
University of California Press, 2016), p. 15.
19. See Terence Gary McGee, ‘Managing the Rural-Urban Transformation in East Asia in the
21st Century’, Sustainability Science, 3 (2008), 155–67 (pp. 156–57); and STEPS Centre
and Sarai, Contesting Sustainabilities in the Peri-Urban Interface (Brighton: STEPS
Centre, 2010), pp. 2–9.
1088 Peri-urban villages in Kunming, Southwest China: history of change with dual urban–rural characteristics
Yun Gao et al.

20. See Ling Hin Li, Jie Lin, Xin Li, and Fan Wu, ‘Redevelopment of Urban Village in China: A
Step Towards an Effective Urban Policy? A Case Study of Liede Village in Guangzhou’,
Habitat International, 43 (2014), 299–308 (p. 301–6); Yan Song and Yves Zenou,
‘Urban Villages and Housing Values in China’, Regional Science and Urban Economics,
42 (2012), 495–505; and Yuting Liu, Shenjing He, Fulong Wu, and Chris Webster,
‘Urban Villages under China’s Rapid Urbanization: Unregulated Assets and Transitional
Neighbourhoods’, Habitat International, 34 (2010), 135–44.
21. Fulong Wu, Fangzhu Zhang, and Chris Webster, ‘Informality and the Development and
Demolition of Urban Villages in the Chinese Peri-Urban Area’, Urban Studies, 50 (2013),
1919–34.
22. Mai Corlin, ‘Trojan Horses in the Chinese Countryside: Ou Ning and the Bishan Commune
in Dialogue and Practice’, Field, 2018 <http://field-journal.com/issue-9/trojan-horses-in-
the-chinese-countryside-ou-ning-and-the-bishan-commune-in-dialogue-and-practice>
[accessed 8 February 2020].
23. Liao Hanwen 廖含文, ‘Investigation on Migrant Population in the Marginal Area of Beijing
under the Background of Constrictive Development’ [‘紧缩发展背景下北京边缘地区流动
人口调查’], in 7th Sustainable and Creative Villages Research Network – Southwest China
Symposium: Preservation and Development in Rural Villages; Diversity Mutualism [第七届
中国西南乡村可持续发展研究联盟国际研讨会： 村落的保护与发展 - 多样性和共生性]
(Kumming: Yunnan Arts University 云南艺术学院: 2019).
24. Sophia Woodman, ‘Local Politics, Local Citizenship? Socialized Governance in Contempor-
ary China’, The China Quarterly (London), 226 (2016), 342–62 (pp. 348–54).
25. Tang, The China Quarterly, p. 724.
26. Chen Li, Mark Wang, and Yanan Song, ‘Vulnerability and Livelihood Restoration of Land-
less Households after Land Acquisition: Evidence from Peri-Urban China’, Habitat Inter-
national, 79 (2018), 109–15.
27. Kunming municipal planning bureau study group 昆明市规划局调研组, No.2 Report of
Urban Village in Kunming: The Investigation of Contemporary ‘Urban Village’ within
Urban Built-up Area in Kunming [昆明城中村报告之二: 昆明城市建成区内的当代’城中
村’考察] (Kumming: Kunming Municipal Publishing, 2008).
28. Interviews conducted by Wen Jiang, Yun Gao, and Adrian Pitts across 2018 include: eight
interviews with the head of village and the village management group; three interview
with a group of villagers in Xiazhuang village; and three interviews with the Architect
who completed planning drawings for the village in May 2018 in Chenggong.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Li, Wang, and Song, Habitat International, p. 299.
34. Kunming Municipal Planning Bureau Study Group, ‘No.2 Report’.
35. Ibid.
36. State Council 国务院, ‘Constitution of the People’s Republic of China’ [‘中华人民共和国
宪法’], Government website, 2019 <http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/lawsregulations/
201911/20/content_WS5ed8856ec6d0b3f0e9499913.html> [accessed 20 May 2021].
37. Birte Nienaber and Irma Potoč nik Slavič , ‘Is Diversification of Farm Households Still an
Option for Integrated Rural Development? Evidence from Slovenia and Saarland,
Germany’, Quaestiones Geographicae, 32 (2013), 39–48 (pp. 40–1).
38. See Him Chung, ‘Rural Transformation and the Persistence of Rurality in China’, Eurasian
Geography and Economics, 54 (2013), 594–610; and Elaine Jeffreys and Gary Sigley, ‘Gov-
 1089 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 27
Numbers 7–8

ernmentality, Governance and China’, in China’s Governmentalities: Governing Change,

Changing Government, ed. by Elaine Jeffreys (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 1–23.
39. Kipnis, From Village to City, pp. 29–30.
40. Afridi, Li, and Ren, ‘Social Identity and Inequality’, p. 19.
41. Adrian Pitts, ‘Establishing Priorities for Sustainable Environmental Design in the Rural Vil-
lages of Yunnan, China’, Buildings, 6 (2016), 32.
42. Nicholas Tapp, ‘Romanticism in China? Its Implications for Minority Images and Aspira-
tions’, Asian Studies Review, 32 (2008), 457–74 (p. 457).