3.3 Challenges for Xi’an
Inner city revitalization is being defined widely to include economic,
social and physical development and aims to promote cultural aspects and
historic preservation\cite{2002}. The speculative
property investment and its detrimental impact on historic city centers
have been recognized and are being addressed. A number of charters like
the European Charter of the Architectural Heritage 1975, UNESCO Charter
1976, and ICOMOS Washington Charter 1987 specifically highlight the need
to protect and conserve the built and social composition in urban areas
against threat posed by neglect, deliberate demolition and incongruous
new construction\cite{2000}. which are inherent in the
revitalization strategies. The emphasis is not only on visual
management\cite{Pendlebury_1999} but on the need
for coherent economic and social development policies at the urban and
regional levels through partnership initiatives\cite{Forsberg_1999} , good governance and the
proactive role of the state\cite{Schuster1997Preserving} and the community \cite{Davidoff_1973}” in\cite{Reade_1973}. Since the early 1990s, the expansion of the real estate
sector as well as the entrepreneurial re-orientation of urban governance
in Chinese cities has led to the prevalence of property-led urban
redevelopment\cite{He_2009}.This large scale regeneration implies major physical, social and
economic changes often at the cost of the traditional culture and local
inhabitants’ living environment.
Economic
As we mentioned before, A large scale regeneration is easier to operate
from the authority point of view, which tends to benefit the local
government and the developers. This is why the local authorities have
not given much attention to alternative proposals suggested by prominent
planners and academics in the city. Proposals include small scale
organic renewal or in situ up gradation projects, which means less cost
to the overall heritage of the city and also less relocation
costs.\cite{Acharya_2005} Very often, the deteriorating environmental condition of the traditional
neighborhood is cited as the reason for large scale redevelopment
despite the fact that there has been no effort to improve the
environment or for that matter to ascertain the cause of deterioration.
Is the urban regeneration on dilapidated courtyard houses enabled local
state to a facilitate revalorization and bring the bigger economical
benefits than the large scale of redevelopment? It can be. For example,
efforts are usually conducted on a small scale and often focus on the
most profitable projects, such as those portions of historic areas with
tourist potential\cite{Steinberg2015Revitalization}. Mostly inner city regeneration
process has led to the relocation of a large number of people most of
whom are from the low socio economic groups. They consist of elderly
people as well as low income, low skill and less educated families
working in small enterprises of local governments, there is a urgent
needs financing and creating jobs for these people . How to seek way to
combine the cultural and economical development together, how to be the
sum of various developments whereby the area is (re-)appropriated by
groups that are economically more advantaged than their prior residents
or users. In this process, manage to connect the social and economical
networks among the housing areas, is very challenging.
Social
The first challenge on social point of view, is property rights and
compensations. The Chinese policy on resettlement is set out in
national, provincial and municipal laws and the government has evolved a
system to pay compensation to the families which are relocated by the
urban regeneration projects. Compensation varies, “ranging from more
than 6 million Yuan ($75,000) for a high ranking official’s home, to $
10,000 to $ 50,000 for some affected families, to $ 0 if the residents
do not cooperate with the developer in the relocation process”.
\cite{Zhang_2004} In Xi’an Old and Dilapidated Housing Redevelopment (ODHR) program, the
policy for the local residents is “get what you had” (chai yi huan
yi), which means that government will compensate the same amount of the
living space before the renewed projects or you can cash it with money
according the current real estate market price. Most of the residents
would rather take the renewed apartments in a collective compounds since
the relocated sites are normally where they lived before. Some will have
to leave because of the high value land inside the wall, if they want to
stay at same place before redevelopment, market pricing of the relocated
space is unaffordable for the original
residents. (According to the Hong Kong based Information Center for Human Rights
and Democracy, residents in Xi’an mounted hundreds of demonstrations
against relocation practices during the five years following that
city’s initiation of old neighborhood redevelopment in 1993, including
one involving more than 200 protesters in the week before U.S.
President Bill Clinton’s June 1998 visit. See S. Liu, “Xi’an Shimin
Zhunbei zai Kelindun Fangwen Qijian Da Guimo Shiwei [Citizens of
Xi’an Prepare Large-Scale Demonstration for Clinton’s Visit],” Wire
Report, Taiwan Central News Agency, 1998 (cited Monday, June 22,
1998).) This process is actually a destroy of the
social connections which was built by the tradition residential spaces,
and the internal and external linkage in the neighborhoods will also has
to be reestablished. In the 1990s, land ownership is still not allowed
to be traded [1313[]
China State Council, 1990, Ordnance for State-owned].
However, during renovation of old neighborhoods, the land use rights of
many private proprietors has not been recognized and duly compensated.
This has led to a gap between the actual market value of the houses to
be dismantled and the compensation to their owners. In many instances,
real estate developers cheat the people by following the old rule which
does not compensate for the land use right of private houses but when
selling, they follow the new rule of market value by including the land
use right. Compensation is very often for the built up area and not the
plot area, which considerably undervalues the
property[1414[] Li J.
2004. “Constitution Helps Man Fight for Home.” China Daily, April 6,
2004, p.3.]. The problem gets worse because the
current property evaluating institutes are part of the government
departments closely related to government and real estate developers.
The number of such institutes is also limited, leaving people with few
alternative property evaluation
opportunities.
(Acharya 2005) The second one, is the involvement of participation from stakeholders.
Normally, the principal actors involved in redevelopment are the
following: (1) government departments at different levels; (2) property
owners; (3) renters; and (4) the developers. Municipal and District
governments are important actors. Despite large scale demolition and
relocation, the involvement of the civil society institution is very
margina. In
China’s urban contexts, the limits of residents’ participation in
planning and decision-making processes make it difficult for residents
to ‘voice out’ collectively. The absence of intermediate civic
organizations aggravates this situation\cite{Tomba_2005}. Participation in
the community level needs to be strengthened in a way, the grassroots’
voice need to be heard by the decision makers. Actually, community
participation and resistance to redevelopment is high in places like
Xi’an, it’s expensive to demolish and compensate, and where the citizens
and officials proactively participate in protecting the
heritage\cite{Abramson_2000}.
Physical
On the physical aspect, the first challenge is needs for upgrade the
living condition, both interior and urban environment. As we mentioned
before the compensation for the depilated housing policy is “get what
you had”. Originally the housing before the ODHR project is rather
small (average living area of 6.19 sq.m). This fact led to the relocated
housing from ODHR is accordingly small. (From the incomplete data from
housing rental website and company, most of housing is blew 50 sq.m.)
However, the living standard has improved constantly, by the new version
of Design Code for Residential Buildings (MOHURD,
2014, Design Code for Residential Buildings& Code for Urban
Residential Areas Planning& Design)\cite{Abramson_2000}, the average
housing space per capital should be at least 28
sq.m.(According
to the Sixth Census in 2011, and China Social Science Research Center
in Beijing University, China Family Panel Studies, CFPS, 2012, Beijing
University Press.) The gap between current
condition and standard is obvious. (Fig.11)