| Nowadays, urban regenerationl has become the focus of the public concern in China. Historic districts, which are usually the most valuable regions in a city, are imbued with struggles among different interest groups during the regeneration.In this thesis, by investigating the regeneration and protection of historic districts in kinds of ways, such as interviews, questionnaire survey analysis, live observation and literature research, the vicissitudes of Nanbuting Street during the past hundred years are reported and analyzed. Utilizing the "collective memory" theory, the collective memory and living culture of Nanjing are analyzed and concluded. From the interviews with citizens lived in Nanbuting Street, the role of collective memory of Nanjing during the historic districts regeneration is disclosed. Specifically, it is the symbolism of the historic districts'existence, the weapon of citizens to protect their community, the target of public campaigns organized by intellectuals, as well as the reason why all the activities for protecting Nanbuting Street happened.Also, the regeneration of the community structure in the city, which is caused by the regeneration and protection of Nanbuting Street, is analyzed. Kinds of social conflicts during the procedure are studied, including the conflicts between residents and demolition companies, the conflicts between residents and related government, the appealing of citizens for protecting the historic districts, the debate about the solutions between intellectuals and city designers, the arguments between protectors and developers in the symposium organized by the government of Nanjing, and so on. There are also some other activities aiming to developing plans for the city, such as the hearings of intellectuals and the participation of medias. In the case studies, four groups are involved:the government, the developers, the intellectuals which mainly include experts and media practitioners, and the residents of Nanbuting Street. For each of the four groups, the logic of their activities and operations are studied, mainly based on the theory that the available resources of a group and the social rules determined the way of their actions. In detail, the government and the developers want the regeneration of Nanbuting Street to be gentle due to the power and resource they have. On the other hand, with the "weapon of weak" and the rational strategy of maintaining legal rights, the residents try to protect their home. And they are supported by the other group, i.e., the intellectuals.At last, based on the regeneration of Nanbuting Street, from the aspect of city activities, it can be concluded that, with the efforts from different groups, the old model of historic districts regeneration, which harms both the citizens and the society development, can be replaced by a new model, which is more reasonable and considers benefits of different interest groups. The advance of such a new model is that it maintains a mature structure of city activities. In this structure, the leaders as the mainstay, the explicit organizations, the strong mobilization ability and varies of methods for right maintaining jointly promote the progress of citizens' subjective consciousness, and thus provide a supervision on the establishment of an efficient public management system for our cities. |
