The Production Of Space In Urban Renewal:a Study On Socio-spatial Transformation Of Nanbuting Historic District In Nanjing

Facing the inexorable urbanization and increasingly important urban problems,"urban renewal" seems to be a striving for a better city thus becoming a typical practice for cities all over the world. Urban historic districts have played an important role in China’s urban renewal since the late20th century based on their unique cultural connotations with becoming the significant space for cities to seek the "spirit of a place" and discover new growing space. The following questions occur:What are the different forces in historic districts renewal? What is the mechanism in the production of space? How about the produced space at both physical and social level after renewal? To focus on the production of space in urban renewal at the present stage will help to understand the structural framework of socio-spatial transformation in China’s cities and form the local context of urban sociology.This paper studies Nanbuting Historic District with the thoeries of space sociology, consumer society and socio-spatial transformation in order to analyze the production of space in urban renewal. Firstly, the paper summarizes the process of "spatial transformation" in Nanbuting Historic District and portrays the transformation mode of spatial form and spatial functions, which are the process of spatial reconstruction and functional resetting that can be seen from the urban center to squatter settlement and later to a commercial tourist cultural space. And then, this paper expands the analysis from the "production of space" to the "consumption of space". As to the "production of space", this paper analyze the spatial practices of local government, developers, intellectuals and residents in the process of renewal and points out there have been both bottom-up and top-down approaches in the production of space of Nanbuting Historic District. The production of space is the result caused by diverse forces while the Chinese "Urban Growth Coalition" co-structured by local government and developers plays the dominant role. As to the "consumption of space" this paper points out the ways how the historic becomes the "cultural consumer space" by spatial imaginer projects. In addition, the paper analyzes its logic of reconstruction by commercializing the cultural resources and consumerizing the historic memeory. Finally, through the perspective of "socio-spatial dialectic", this paper analyzes "social dis-function" of the production of space in Nanbuting Historic Distict. Based on the analysis framework of "the spatial mismatch hypothesis", this paper investigates the living situation of resettled residents, pointing out that resettled residents are experiencing the anxiety of suburbanization and this process is a metaphor of polarization of urban socio-space at the macro level.This paper tries to summarize the possible features of the socio-spatial transformation in new round of urban renewal and reflect on the "right of city" of urban residents, effects of culture in urban renewal and spatial rights of resettled residents. Therefore, the paper argues that every urban citizen should have right to the production of space and spatial justice should be an internal subject of urbanization.