A Study On The History Of Wuxi Early-modern Urban Planning

Wuxi is located in the center of the Yangtze River Delta,the business of the city is very developed.Especially after the opening of the Grand Canal,Wuxi has gradually become an important transportation hub in the south of the Yangtze River.After the founding of the Qing Dynasty,Wuxi has became the country’s "four big market" for the first time for its geography,transportation,food production and trade advantages.At the end of the nineteenth Century,with the modernization of land and water transportation,the capitalist industry and Commerce in Wuxi developed rapidly,the city from a feudal County gradually evolved into the Jiangnan region economic center.The change of Wuxi is inseparable from its profound modern urban planning culture and its development process has great research value.The modernization of Wuxi began with the first modern factory in 1895,after half a century of development,the nature,function,scale and structure of the city changed greatly.In order to explore the development of modern urban planning in Wuxi,this paper makes an analysis of the development process of modern urban planning in Wuxi based on the historical process of modernization and urbanization in the city.The city planning process is divided into 4 periods: the period of both city reconstruction and new building(1895-1927),the overall planning of the city construction period(1927-1937),colonial planning period(1937-1945)and the city planning and recovery period(1946-1949).The first period is based on the construction of land and water transportation,with the transformation of the old city planning and construction plan as the representative of commercial district,it is the formation of the modern urban pattern in Wuxi.In the second period,the urban planning of Wuxi began to mature,forming a more complete urban planning program.In the third period,Wuxi was invaded by the Japanese colonialists,and the urban construction remained stagnant.In the fourth period,the Wuxi municipal government made the two urban revival plan,but because of the outbreak of the domestic war and stranded.Through combing the city planning development in the four period,this paper combined with history and sociology,city planning,science and other disciplines,reveals the main characteristics of Wuxi early modern city planning,including the evolution of urban planning management system,the nature of urban planning,the reasons for development of urban planning,types of urban planning and urban planning paradigm etc.Finally,this paper analyzes and summarizes the historical gains and losses of the modern urban planning in Wuxi,and puts forward the following research directions.This paper aims to research the modern urban planning characteristics of Wuxi,As a typical representative of small cities in modern China,especially the industrial and commercial cities along the Yangtze River and along the river,and the non treaty port cities.The study has important theoretical value and practical significance to the Chinese urban planning and the transformation of the old city in the future.