Urban Loopholes

Ying Zhou

Urban Loopholes

Creative Alliances of Spatial Production in Shanghai’s City Center

Birkhäuser
Basel
6
Preface

14
Urban Transformation in Diverse Inner-city Neighborhoods in Shanghai
Foreword by Kees Christiaanse

17
Chapter 1: Introduction

22 The Context of the Transition Economy and the Chinese City

30 Conceptual Framework: the Urban Loophole
37 Research Methods
48 Existing Studies on Urban China in Transition
54 Content and Structure

69
Chapter 2: The Residential Neighborhood

80 Seeds of Housing Marketization, Foreign Investment, and

Reconnecting to the World
86 State Institutions, Housing Marketization, and the Gap of
Opportunity
90 Expedited Know-How Import and the Dual Market
99 Before the Tower: the Lilong
106 Origins of the Residual Conditions
111 Preservation of Ambiguous Property Rights
118 Demographic Shift and Commercial Spatial Demand
126 Incremental Conversions and Small Creative Entrepreneurs
129 Changing Habitat

143
Chapter 3: The Cultural Street

150 From First Recognitions of Architectural Heritage to

Implementation
162 Setting the Context for Heritage Policy Implementation
170 The Old House and the Club House—Changing Market Supply
and Demand
177 Localized Cosmopolitans and the Developing of Le Passage
Fuxing and Ferguson Lane
185 Conserving Heritage: Lane 1754 (Aka 1768) and Lane 117
198 The ‘Western’ District and Learning from the ‘Beautification Plan’
206 The World Primary School and Small Entrepreneurs
210 Approximating Globalization and the State’s Appropriation
235
Chapter 4: The Midtown of China

243 The Paragon of Economic Liberalization: Jing’an District and the Development
of West Nanjing Lu
254 Evocation of Heritage—Redefining Jing’an Villas
261 Jing’an Villas’ Commercialization and Creative Enterprises
272 The Precedent of Tianzifang for Commercialization
281 The Public Relations Wars and the Differing Visions of Jing’an Villas’ Future
287 The Neighboring En-Bloc Development of Dazhongli
296 Zhang Gardens: Jing’an Develops Its Heritage Value
313 Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics

335
Chapter 5: The New Economies

339 Alternative Business Plan for Creative Incubation: Anken Green

350 New Local-Global Alliances: the Upgrade of Yongkang Lu
364 The New Economies

379
Chapter 6: The Contemporary Art Ecologies

384 From Contestation to Appropriation: the Transformation of M50

394 “Made in China”: New Museums and the Business of Art
400 Uncertainty and Regeneration
404 Art and Architecture Catalyze Development
408 Contemporary Art Ecologies

423
Chapter 7: Outlook

425 Cases from Shanghai and Urban Loopholes

428 Shifts in the Urban Loopholes under Economic Transition
430 The Urban Loopholes as Equilibrators and Learning From the Urban Loophole

435
Acknowledgments

437
About the Author

438
Illustration Credits

441
Index of Persons, Institutions, and Firms
Preface
“If we don’t know where we come from, we are standing nowhere.”
Ai Weiwei, interview with Evan Osnos for the New Yorker Festival, 2014

When I want to describe what it was like to live under the strictures of a socialist
planned economy, I usually start with a fond memory of ice cream in the early 1980s.
In the sweltering summers of Shanghai back then, I would explain, there were two
kinds of ice cream to which a child like myself could look forward. Both were cubic
blocks wrapped in thin wax paper packed in blue cardboard boxes, and opened to
the creamy white ‘iced bricks [冰砖]’ with the only flavor possible to ice cream a child
of that place and that time could know. The choice between the ‘medium-sized brick
[中砖]’ and the ‘large-sized brick [大砖]’ was an obvious one, although I had to weigh
the melting speed of the larger piece against the infrequency of refrigerators in the city.
Ice cream is something to which almost everyone reading this can relate. I use ice
cream to explain because the abundance represented by the contemporary diversity
of flavors, sizes, types, not to mention places where one could procure them, is some-
thing that we often take for granted. My limited scope of ice cream corresponded with
a drawn-out era in Chinese history when central planning had also controlled every
aspect of daily life, from consumer products and housing to education and jobs. It iso-
lated the vast country of billions from the changing outside world. Central planning
and the political ideologies of socialism are abstract concepts. But the availability and
choice of ice cream is a concrete, lived experience. From our perspective of living in
globally connected market economies, where having choices is a given, a fundamental
reflection on the tremendous transformations that have taken place in China, bring-
ing it from one of socialist planning to market capitalism, or more concretely from pre-
ciously limited to overwhelming choices for ice cream, is crucial to any further studies
of the country, and other similarly managed places in the world today.
I use ice cream to explain, also, because, as an architect, I am also interested in the
place where I had lined up at the Dairy Factory [牛奶棚]. Today, it is where the white
tiled mammoth of the Shanghai Library stands. Like many parts of the city of Shanghai
that have undergone complete renewal since the early 1990s, the neighborhood—my
memories of ice cream queues took place here—which had been a suburban edge of
the 1980s city, has also become centrally located prime real estate in the expansive
metropolis of Shanghai today. In the proliferation of consumer choices and the spatial
expansion within the three decades since economic liberalization began, the transfor-
mations of Shanghai have been tremendous. The transformations in the municipal re-
gion of more than twenty-plus million are embodied in my memory of those ice cream
blocks. From the humble and locally produced blue-packaged Guangming brand, the
only one at the time, to today’s snazzy Häagen-Dazs parlors, fro-yo bars, iced moon-
cake fads, and whatnot, not only has consumerism, propelled by globally-circulated
capitalism, returned and blossomed; but together with policies and developments that
have made it all possible, it has resulted in locally specific urban spatial productions
that have fundamentally reshaped the city. Both the changing urban society and its
spatial transformations are important to the ensuing study. (Fig. 1) Through lenses spe-

6
Fig. 1 Photo collage of Deng Xiaoping from a large mural featuring the skyline of Shenzhen and representing
China’s economic liberalization as propelled by the Deng-led central government, with the skyline of Shanghai’s
Bund and Pudong, representing the central government’s decision to make Shanghai the ‘Dragon’s Head’ of
the nation, initiating accelerated economic marketization and the rapid urban transition that took place
(photo collage by author)

cific to the discipline of architecture and urban design, the following piece will try to
unpack how the mechanisms of urban spatial production facilitated and manifested
the rapid growth, transformations, and globalization in the contemporary Chinese city
of Shanghai. It is from the empirically gathered physical and social-economic manifes-
tations of the everyday that the study of urban spatial production reveals the broader
development in the political economy of rapidly changing cities.
I am of the urban generation born in the decade after the death of China’s great
leader Mao, and my memories span from the ones before me who experienced the
famines of the Great Leap Forward and the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and
those who came after me knowing only the rapid growth and change of economic lib-
eralization. I was a privileged child. I lived in a city, and a relatively well-off one for
the then impoverished China. My family had a refrigerator in an era when appliances
were limited and bought only through foreign currency exchange certificates procured
from overseas wires. I lived in a flat that, though crowded by Western standards, was
not shared with two or three other families and was not short on modern infrastruc-
ture. The winters were cold, for all indoor heating appliances had been removed by
the post-Liberation decree for cities south of the Yangtze River. Unscientific though
Preface

it clearly was, the authorities had perhaps really believed that central planning could
even overcome the weather and that the massive region south of Yangtze did not need

7
 heating. Nevertheless, with ice cream came summer, and then came the fridge, wash-
ing machine, television, and even television shows, on one single channel. Compared
with when I was born, with my mother’s hukou still not returned to Shanghai after
having been sent to the countryside like millions of other urban youths, and food was
rationed and coupons for agricultural products were still the currency of exchange for
the socialist planned economy, life was improving.
I was fortunate to grow up in the times of change, change for the better nonethe-
less. With Disney’s Snow White and Romy Schneider’s Princess Sissi showing at the cin-
emas, and jeans and sneakers appearing in street markets, not only was China no lon-
ger tormented by political upheavals and ideological wars that took tremendous toll on
the ordinary people’s everyday lives, but cities, particularly those like Shanghai, were
using their cosmopolitan pasts to reconnect to the outside world. In the midst of the
tremendous changes to come though, I left the country, with my parents. Like many in
Shanghai who had pre-1949 familial links to the West, a transcontinental change bod-
ed life’s even better betterment. It was only when we watched the hopes that had unit-
ed the idealistic students and pragmatic workers dashed, in the Tiananmen Square of
1989, from the safety in front of our tiny but colored CNN -looping television, that my
parents, like many Chinese students who had only planned on a short sojourn in the
U.S. before returning, decided indeed to remain away from their country. It was the
clarity of that defining event—perhaps magnified by the commentaries so openly ut-
tered—rather than the repeated uncertainties that they had suffered in the decades
before, that convinced them of the choice. It was, as I would only realize later, also for
my future. I was spared the trauma of the 1990s state-owned enterprise (SOE ) layoffs
and the mad optimism of demolition and urban renewals. But after an East Coast lib-
eral arts education and stints in cities like New York, Boston, Basel, I would arrive in
Shanghai, realizing that I have an understanding of China’s inherent logic and an out-
sider’s eye that saw many things that most who remained could not.

It was early one evening in Damascus, in the fall of 2009. I was teaching and had in
tow twelve architecture students. I noted out loud that the street we were walking
down reminded me of Shanghai. In daylight, the people, the signage, the buildings,
surely would have given away that I was not on Huaihai Lu, or the former Avenue
Joffre. But in the early dusk light, the proportion of spaces duped my ability to discern
the city. When we continued onto other boulevards the next day, my visceral confu-
sion of places was confirmed, by the realization that those trees were platanus. (Fig. 2)
Their distance apart, their relations to the sidewalk, the setback of the buildings and
the proportions of the road to the architecture, their role in the beautification of the
city were part of the spatial vocabulary for urbanism of the French mandate in Da-
mascus. The platanus were also the same ones in Shanghai. In the western-end of the
former French concessions where I was born and grew up, the trees had lovingly can-
opied over the freshly tarmacked streets in the summers. The convergence of the im-
ages made me realize the planning ideologies that had shaped mine and many others’
memories of cities.
Other things we learned in our two weeks in Damascus also made me realize that
I could understand its urbanism. This was not only because I understand already its
colonial legacies and planning ideologies; but also because I understand the logic of

8
Fig. 2 Photos of the platanus trees from Damascus, which triggered the theoretical framework for this study, 2009

another nation with a transitioning economy, China, whose city also manifested its
encounter with modernity, Shanghai. It was another strangely confirming moment,
when one of my students, a girl from Chongqing, burst into tears as the dean of Damas-
cus University explained their urban transformation processes. She was distressed at
how similarly the descriptions sounded to the ones we knew from China. Growing in-
equality deviating from the original tenets of socialism, the rampant commodification
of architecture heritage, the development projects on extra-territorial lands by glob-
al capital. The processes of change that the country is undergoing following its eco-
nomic liberalization, and specifically its urban spatial manifestations, echoed the ones
we knew. The concept of the ‘urban loophole,’ which will be the underlying red thread
through the ensuing text, grew out of my observations from Damascus, but would be-
come an important conceptual framework for deepening the understanding of how
the urban spatial production processes informed and were impressed by a transition-
ing political economy. The first inklings of the urban loophole came out in an article in
the issue themed “Resilient Cities” in the journal, Critical Planning, in 2010.
Shanghai, thus, came easily as the chosen site for a deeper study using this na-
scent conceptual framework. As someone with intimate knowledge of the city’s pal-
ettes, memories, culture, as well as my undetectably local dialect, doors opened more
Preface

readily and more easily for me than for transplanted scholars, even Chinese ones. I had
gleaned enough to understand the ticking of the city. My empathies as an insider are

9
 also supplemented by a critical outsider’s insights, garnered from extensive exposure
to many cities in the world. This double role of being both local and global, much in
the vein of the modern era Shanghainese—this I will explain throughout the ensuing
chapters—had motivated a fledgling undergraduate thesis about the city in the ear-
ly 2000s, reconstructing the contemporary urgency for the city’s renaissance. In my
ensuing trips, the city that I initially found coarse rapidly blossomed. Shanghai’s evo-
lution in the 2000s was undeniably radical. Every year made me feel like a muttering
old lady lamenting the disappearance of favorite haunts, especially the hole-in-the-
wall food places. At the same time, I was also impressed by the variety of new spots
that flaunt ever more cutting-edge entrepreneurial experimentation. Clearly, the city
is again taking on a role in shaping a global paradigm shift.
After living in the early 2000s Williamsburg of New York, I sought out and easily
found neighborhoods like Prenzlauer Berg, Bricklane, Nørrebro, Kreis 5, areas known
as creative quartiers in the cities I traipsed through. I was aware I am very much one
of these multilingual cosmopolites who gravitated toward places frequently by other
multi-culturals, finding my habitus in the patina of diversity and vibe of creativity. I
attributed my curiosity for the different and new also to my Shanghainese cosmopoli-
tan legacy, although in the city it was, at the time, still buried underneath the rubble of
its demolitions, but emerging. Aside from the ice cream anecdote, I am fond of telling
Westerners, especially Europeans I meet when I explain Shanghai, of the mont blanc
dessert that my mother grew up eating. The creamy vermicelli was supposed to be an
import from the Borgia household to the French patisseries and was made during the
fall harvest of chestnuts. But it was also the treat that little girls with grandparents
who studied abroad ate in 1950s Shanghai, just as the tap dancing lessons and Holly­
wood cinema were what their mothers indulged in the 1930s. To a world that had
belittled the poor, isolated, and backwards China in the 1990s, these stories spoke to
a worldliness and cultural affluence that was embedded in the everyday life of a city
which had rivaled New York and Paris in its former cosmopolitanism. After 1949 in-
deed, many emigrated from Shanghai: Yo-Yo Ma, I. M. Pei, and Vera Wang amongst the
well-known of these, far more worldly than their hosts would have suspected.
Even though this study initially set out to be contextualized largely in the two
decades from 1992 to 2012, the impact of historic legacy plays a crucial role to under-
standing the specificities of Shanghai’s contemporary developments. Chinese schol-
arly research has largely kept mum about the proceedings of the post-Liberation era.
Yet my own knowledge of the fates of many of the heritage buildings from my child-
hood neighborhood, for example, including the Palmer and Turner-designed building
in which I was born and lived, made this unspoken past crucial to understanding and
communicating the contemporary potentials for many of the neighborhoods being
studied. My privileged position, both as an insider and also as an outsider, able to, at
the very least, record this recent past, has compelled me to put in writing many things
that may seem obvious to locals but will soon disappear with the country’s contem-
porary eagerness to forget. The fieldwork and interviews that carry the weight for the
conceptualization of the study take the contemporary investigation as a lens through
which the historic layers are collapsed, relating spatial legacies to contemporary ur-
ban spatial production. Taking place largely in the city center neighborhoods, where
spatial complexities are multiplied by socio-political nuances, the surprising absence

10
of spatial specificities in the study of the socio-economic transition in the last decades
was another motivation for what I feel is an urgent piece in the fleeting ‘moving target’
of a rapidly changing Chinese city.
Writing as an architect, the frame for the study is spatial. I analyze the socio-eco-
nomic, cultural, political transformations through their spatial impact. The city as an
imprint of the multiple forces could be no better specimen from which to understand
the fundamental transformations to society, which, in turn, also inform the city as
spaces, people and forces itself. (Fig. 3) Fundamental questions like, why is this build-
ing where it is, why is it this kind of building, rather than that, and why is it this pro-
gram, rather than that, often lead to questions that overlap with realms examined by
other disciplines. Urban sociologists would ask, who and how many of these people
are here. Urban economists would ask, how much does it cost to own or rent, and how
long is the lease. Lawyers may ask for the tenure type and ownership contracts, pos-
ing questions that may traverse philosophy and morality. Historians may ask, how old
is this building, and what is the story of its creation. This study is thus most indebted
to the scholars who precede me in their detailed analyses of the transformation pro-
cesses, procedures, and statistics, from the disciplines of sociology, economics, poli-
tics, law, real estate, and many more. The quantitative data analyses that are outside
the scope of my research are important in grounding my grasp of the larger trends. My
own fieldwork- and interview-based mappings and qualitative analyses hope to con-
tribute to the larger body of knowledge on urban transformation.
The newest proclamation for a China Dream magnifies the growing anxiety of a
world watching the rising economic and political clout of the largest country in the
last decades. Despite the abstractness of the notion of a ‘China Dream’ itself and the
vagueness of its goals and realizations, even as it suggests and rivals the promise of
an ‘American Dream’, the pressing question seems what does this aspirational ‘Dream’
bode for the future, and what will it mean to the world. It is perhaps more than time-
ly that an examination of the urban transformation of the largest city in China could
yield insights to the global aspirations and their localizations since Shanghai was de-
clared the ‘head of the Dragon’ in 1992. As a modern city built to ease China’s global
integration and capital mobilization in the beginning of the 20th century, Shanghai’s
re-emergence as a global city since economic liberalization accelerated in the 1990s
marks it a specific case of the aspirations that motivate and are motivated by the speed
and quantity of the city’s spatial transformations.
Preface

11
Fig. 3 Commercial insertions into ground-floor street-front buildings taken in 2011 and 2012

12
13
Urban Transformation in Diverse Inner-city
Neighborhoods in Shanghai
Kees Christiaanse

Ying Zhou’s book Urban Loopholes focuses both on aspects of diversity in the specific
urban environment of the early 20th century modern(ist) quarters in Shanghai, as well
as on the more generic level of the Chinese, the Asian and even global city.
It brings these scales together by embedding the urban transformation of the
Shanghai neighborhoods into the economic development of China within the context
of global urbanization.
Ying Zhou is a native from Shanghai and was raised in the USA . She was born after
Mao’s death in the wake of the allocation of Special Economic Zones by Deng Xiaoping,
resulting in Shanghai’s designation as “The Dragon’s Head” in 1992. She grew up in a
pre-war modern apartment in the former French Concession, and followed her parents
who studied in the USA . Ying studied at Princeton and Harvard and worked in Studio
Basel in Switzerland for Herzog & de Meuron before landing in the Future Cities Labora-
tory of the ETH Zürich in Singapore, in my research team on Urban Breeding Grounds.
The timeline of the urban transformation processes described in her research runs
parallel with her biography. Having both a local and a diaspora background makes her
intimately related to the actors that drive urban transformation. Despite this relation,
Ying Zhou was able to keep sufficient critical distance to the subject. Her deep knowl-
edge of the local context was an advantage to her research.

Shanghai’s central neighborhoods show an amazing diversity. They are popular with
“localized cosmopolitans,” who are active in various forms of entrepreneurship and
real estate development. Superficially, the areas remind one of cultural districts in Ber-
lin or New York. But their urban transformation follows entirely different mechanisms.
Their vibrant dynamic balance lies in the frictions caused by the parallel regimes
of administration and economy on the one hand and the semi-controlled liberalization
of the market on the other.
The speed of economic change forced the government to test, adapt, and improvise
with its economic policies. This step-by-step engagement in market economy mecha-
nisms became known as “crossing the river while feeling the rocks.” The resulting am-
biguity in policy, legislation, and enforcement offered windows of opportunity for pri-
vate and governmental actors to engage in urban transformation. For these windows
of opportunity, Ying Zhou introduced the term urban loophole to describe the tran-
sitional, fuzzy, and ambiguous moments between different administrative regimes,
exploited by various actors in urban (re)development.
She meticulously describes how, over a time span of only 20 years, from 1992–2012,
the urban loopholes change from tolerating semi-legal small entrepreneurs to becom-
ing a deliberate instrument of urban renewal by the government. She shows how both
private and government parties are in a reciprocal “learning by doing” relationship,
steadily adapting their strategies.

14
In the early phases of economic liberalization, the urban loophole consisted of active
street fronts, caused by families moving out of houses originally designed for one
household but, since the revolution, overcrowded by multiple families, freeing up the
ground floor for retail and other commercial activities. The government deliberately
tolerated this informal use in order to stimulate micro-economic activity and the pro-
curement of daily amenities.
Simultaneously, a “dual market” emerged, consisting of cheap state housing under
plan economy, and commodified housing, of which use rights were sold to residents
who engaged in the real estate market.
The inertness of owner or user status regulated by the government created a certain
resilience of neighborhoods against rapid gentrification and indirectly stimulated her-
itage consciousness, when trendsetters from outside discovered the potential value of
the built substance (see the chapters on “Preservation by Inhabitation”).

In more recent cases, district governments commercially exploit “administratively-

allocated land,” which in fact is not allowed to be marketized, by creating an “official”
urban loophole, in the form of an exception for “creative clusters” to be allowed on this
land in order to stimulate the economy. Ying Zhou carefully sketches the development
of the urban loophole from an informal and bottom-up phenomenon into a deliber-
ate policy instrument for local governments. For her case studies, she selected three
squares of approximately one square kilometer in the specifically modern(-ist) and
central lilong neighborhoods, where contrasting developments and diversity are signif-
icant. She describes urban transformation in detail. The level of detail and the nuances,
the enormous amount of material she gathered, and the clear way in which she orga-
nized the material in a compelling narrative, leads to results that she describes herself:
“The scalar specificity with which this study has been conducted, coming from the
author’s discipline of architecture, offers a level of detail over a time span that is un-
precedented. A timeframe of more than two decades how past transformations have

Urban Transformation in Diverse Inner-city Neighborhoods in Shanghai

conditioned the present, an analysis that in turn can guide the instrumentality—or
design agency—of future interventions in the city.”

This work fills a gap and enriches current research and publications on the theme, as
Chinese studies are often rather uncritical, academically immature, or superficially
written for a non-academic audience. Western studies often tend to approach urban
transformation from the Western perspective of social democratic market economy.
This book convincingly mediates the quintessence of the history of Chinese economic
development in relation to urbanization. Secondly, it is a history of the urban develop-
ment of Shanghai, of the emergence of heritage policies, and of the upcoming creative
industries. But foremost, it is a precise rendering of how agents and governments in
complex urban conditions reciprocally react to changing circumstances and define
and exploit development opportunities by creatively interpreting and applying legis-
lation ambiguities.

15
Chapter 1
Introduction

The Context of the Transition Economy and the Chinese City

Conceptual Framework: the Urban Loophole
Research Methods
Existing Studies on Urban China in Transition
Content and Structure
 “… serious analysis of nearly all of the important aspects of life in China must, eventu-
ally, confront Shanghai and its special place in the Chinese scheme of things.”
Lucian Pye 1

“… if we find new words there is a hope of producing a framework of understanding.

Without a framework any means of instrumentality are futile.”
Rem Koolhaas 2

In old city center neighborhoods of Shanghai, socio-demographic, cultural, and eco-

nomic changes have produced and are producing new trend quarters with a vibe
echoing the likes of Berlin Prenzlauer Berg or New York Williamsburg, neighborhoods
known as the harbingers of the creative class. Less eye-catching and more everyday
than what has often been presented as the glossy “city on steroids,” 3 incremental
developments inside the fine-grained urban morphology are creating unique mixed-
used neighborhoods. The transformations are not only sustaining the culturally rich
and economically thriving neighborhoods; they are also attracting international talent
to the city. In the rhetoric of the global competition of cities, it is by attracting the mo-
bile, transnational creatives in whom the capital of knowledge industries is embedded,
that these areas physically manifest the urban transition to a post-industrial phase of
economic development. In light of the Chinese economy’s slowdown, these neighbor-
hoods, better than the new towns and development zones, represent the potential of a
more stabilizing shift from rapid progress to sustainable prosperity.
The Chinese city’s enthusiasm for roaring highways, rising towers, gleaming shop-
ping malls and more recently, the adverse effects of the rapid realization of their goals
are still what allures Western media. Academic studies have also focused on the spec-
tacular aspects of Chinese urbanism’s renewal processes, (Fig. 1) zooming in on the
most prominent productions of new global spaces. The following study, in contrast,
follows the several-decade-long transformation of Chinese city center neighborhoods.
It reveals the intricacies and underlying mechanisms of China’s urban spatial produc-
tion.4 Through the lens of urban spatial production, the study offers as yet unexam-
ined explanations for the rapidness of Shanghai’s economic transition and global inte-
gration. What do the urban transformations in city center neighborhoods reveal about
how the post-socialist city in a developing country, which had isolated itself from the
world for three decades, so rapidly re-globalized?
Scholars who have theorized China’s urban transformation have largely done so
from a macro perspective, relying on existing, Western models of governance to ex-
plain the Chinese city’s rapid transition.5 In contrast, the scalar specificity with which
this study has been conducted, coming from the author’s discipline of architecture, of-
fers a level of detail over a time span that is unprecedented.6 Using detailed case stud-
ies to document and analyze aspects of Shanghai’s urban transformations over a time-
frame of more than two decades—since China’s economic liberalization began—the
study engages a ‘genealogical mode of inquiry.’ 7 The genealogical mode of inquiry is a
critical analysis of how past transformations have conditioned the present, an analy-
sis that in turn can guide the instrumentality—or design agency—of future interven-
tions in the city. The cases unravel the localized nuances that confound Western pre-
sumptions of property rights, institutional stability and clarity. They disentangle the

18
 2000 2010

Fig. 1 Aerial photographs of Shanghai’s city center area’s transformation between 2000, left, and 2010, right

19
 actors, processes, and drivers that have produced the physical environment visible
today.8 They help explain how the pattern of processes has eased the rapidness of
China’s urban transition and facilitated its global integration. In the specificity of spa-
tial production processes the instrumentality crucial to the discipline of architecture
also becomes possible.9
Motivated by the need for a fresh framework that can support instrumentality,
the concept of the ‘urban loophole’ is proposed as a theoretical framework for under-
standing the processes and phenomena observed in the study. The term, as elabo­
rated in a following section, describes a mechanism for spatial production in a rapidly
transforming political economy.10 The urban loophole mechanism is not a convention-
al or sanctioned pathway to urban development, but rather a means for creating ur-
ban spaces to meet market demands by exploiting gaps and oversight in the formal
institutions and governance structures. The numerous small stores that have popped
up informally in Shanghai’s residential neighborhoods are prominent products of the
urban loophole. The subtler tactics in the commercial redevelopment of formerly in-
dustrial lands, under the guise of a developing creative industries cluster, for exam-
ple, also shows use of the urban loophole. The urban loophole’s existence, in short, is a
symptom of transition in the political economy. Its products in the physical environ-
ment manifest the mediation and facilitation processes that are enablers of a rapid
economic transition. Other manifestations and enablers of China’s economic transi-
tion, including what theorists have termed its ‘adaptive governance’, 11 ‘institution-
al amphibiousness’, 12 ‘dual market’ 13 and more, help produce and are partly induced
by the urban loophole. Understanding the spatial processes resulting from the urban
loophole thus helps clarify China’s urban transformation in the context of its econom-
ic transition. The concept of the ‘urban loophole’ is relevant to understanding not only
the transitioning political economy of China, but also other political economies under
rapid transition. Especially at a time when the so-called ‘Chinese model’ 14—in which
successful economic development does not preclude political autocracy—is becoming
increasingly convincing, this study is a timely and necessary investigation of the spa-
tial mechanisms of the ‘Chinese model.’
Despite the exponentially growing number of China analysts claiming to be de­
coding the so-called Middle Kingdom, the country remains largely a mystifying mono-
lith to the outside world. In all its complexities, it is incompletely understood.15 The
sheer size of China, as it remakes the world in its own image, from forays into sub-
Saharan Africa to the suburbs of North America, has fueled a growing anxiety about
the reach of its power.16 Shanghai’s rise exemplifies the simultaneous wariness and
fascination of China’s outsider observers. In 1992, the city was deliberately chosen by
the Chinese leadership to spearhead the country’s global conquest. Two decades later,
the sci-fi film Her used Shanghai’s sleek state-of-the-art skyscrapers to play the back-
drop of a future Los Angeles.17 It is thus surprising that few studies exist that explain
the nuances of China’s urban developments and relate them to its global aspirations.
This would not only diffuse the amalgamated anxieties but also clarify what makes
the country tick.
The city center neighborhoods of Shanghai, as a result of legacy conditions, exem-
plify the localized nuances that confound Western presumptions. They encompass
the ‘wicked problems’ of Chinese urbanism:18 the production of global-looking spaces

20
through local procedures, the persistence of dual markets where market and planned
economics continue to coexist, the perpetuation of ambiguous property rights, the
adaptive and discretionary local state, and more. Few other locales in urban China
show the coexistence of these wicked problems in such visible proximity. How these
neighborhoods have transformed into what look like new trend quarters is a question,
for which answers would be valuable to scholars of economic transition and urban
planning. Firstly, how did these neighborhoods survive the urban restructuring and
prevalent demolition-redevelopments that accompanied economic transition? Who
are the actors, what are the building types and urban structures, and what are the
urban spatial production processes, exogenous and endogenous, that enabled these
neighborhoods to thrive? In the context of local institutional frameworks that con-
tain vestiges of the planned economy, how was it possible that the market processes
of globalized consumption and production are not only realized but also innovated?
What are the urban loopholes, and why are they important to these urban transitions?
How have they impeded or abetted the transformation processes? More broadly, what
do these experiences and their take-aways offer to other emerging economies, transi-
tion economies, and their urban constituencies? How do the transformation process-
es observed in China help redefine existing frameworks and formulate new ones to
instrumentalize agency?
The first section of this chapter, “The Context of the Transition Economy and the
Chinese City,” gives an overview of the impact of economic transition on the Chinese
city. This background, elaborated in more detail in the chapters, is necessary for under-
standing the conceptual framework of the urban loophole, which serves as a red thread
through the study. The second section, “Conceptual Framework: the Urban Loophole,”
defines the concept of the urban loophole, explains its relationship to existing theories
on China’s economic transition from the fields of political science, sociology, urban
studies, and more. It also outlines the posited shifts in the urban loophole, reflecting
changes in urban transition. The section “Research Methods” will elaborate the rela-
tionship between the conceptual framework and the case study method used in the
research.19 The use of the case study method, with cases framed by a particular time-
span and bounded by geographic location of a specific scale, shapes the ‘spatial cases’
of the research, which are specific to the discipline of architecture. Given that the sub-
ject and location of study is in China, where productive criticality is often stifled, the
study’s alignment with the genealogical mode of inquiry, as one that problematizes the
dominant historic narrative 20 and incites instrumentality, is deemed especially neces-
sary. This aspect of the study’s relevance is elaborated in the section, “Existing Studies
on Urban China in Transition,” where a review of existing literature on Chinese urban-
ism, on Shanghai, and on the different topics of research also follow. The section will
show how the study fills an important gap in the lacuna of relevant studies on China’s
urban transition. It will also show the necessity of traversing the local-non-local divide
Chapter 1 Introduction

in any study on Chinese urbanism. Finally, an overview of the chapter will be outlined
in the last section, “Content and Structure.”

21
The Context of the Transition Economy
and the Chinese City
In 1992, the then paramount leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, declared Shanghai the
“Dragon’s Head [龙头]” in the acceleration of the nation’s economic transition. Economic
liberalization had already begun more than a decade prior, when the death of Mao Ze-
dong wrought a fundamental reconceptualization of China’s political economy. From
decades of ideologically fraught governing practices and economically isolating cen-
tral planning that had devastated the once economically vibrant, albeit politically un-
stable nation, the pace shifted to incorporate market elements in the 1980s, bolstered
long-stagnant productivity and sparked economic growth. From an insulated planned
economy to a globally oriented ‘socialist market economy,’ 21 China’s economic transi-
tion at the time also seemed to resonate with the broader bent towards privatization
and neoliberalism that was taking over the world at that moment.22 The first trial sites
for market economics within Chinese jurisdiction were set up in the 1980s; they took
the form of Special Economic Zones (SEZ s) in proximity to Hong Kong, a market econ-
omy British sovereignty that had often served as one of the only entry points of glob-
al flows into sealed-off Red China. With their success, the opening of fourteen coastal
cities to foreign investments in the mid-1980s further tested the viability of economic
opening within the confines of existing institutional structures.
From a nation state based on a centrally planned economy, formed under the te-
nets of Communist ideology, with all resources centrally allocated and consumption
centrally controlled, the transition to a market-oriented economy in the 1980s was
aptly called ‘reform and opening [改革开放].’ Motivated by aspirations for a xiaokang
[小康] society, one where the citizens lived comfortably and with above-basic living
standards, the pursuit of economic growth directly reflected the scarcities of every-
day life as a result of decades of failed five-year plans. Economic reform at first allowed
the setup of a parallel market system that could coexist and interact with the planned
resource conduits. The government instituted the parallel market to prod econom-
ic efficiency through limited competition.23
Farmers, the first to be encouraged to increase
productivity by rural reforms in 1978, were
able to sell their above-quota surplus agrari-
an products at the ‘free markets [自由市场]’ of
the 1980s. (Fig. 2) In cities where demand ex-
isted, small street markets also began to sup-
ply household goods sourced from southern
China. The proximity of southern China to free
market Hong Kong created a small group of in-
dependent entrepreneurs.
The central government also began to im-
plement devolution of the highly centraliz-
Fig. 2 Deng Xiaoping visiting Shanghai’s “free markets” ed bureaucratic and fiscal structure in the
in the 1980 s 1980s, giving regional and local states increas-

22
 ing autonomy in financial and urban
management. For Shanghai, one of
the largest industrial centers in the
country, and which had overwhelm-
ingly contributed to the national GDP
since the foundation of the nation
in 1949, growing fiscal autonomy
brought welcome relief. Obligatory LIAODONG
PENINSULA

remittance to the central government Qinhuangdao

Dalian
had extracted nearly 87 percent of Tianjin
Yantai
NORTH CHINA SHANDONG
Shanghai’s total revenue in the three INDUSTRIAL
ENERGY ZONE
PENINSULA
Qingdao
decades since 1949. This amounted to Lianyungang
HUAIHE ECONOMIC
as much as one-sixth of the Chinese Xi’an REGION
Nantong
state’s total revenue.24 While Shang- YANGTZE DELTA
REGION Shanghai

hai’s fiscal contribution bequeathed Wuhan Ningbo

Chongqing
central government-selected inland Wenzhou

cities with capital for their develop- Fuzhou

MINNAN DELTA
ments, it impeded the city’s urgent ECONOMIC REGION
Xiamen
and growing need for infrastructure PEARL DELTA ZONE
Guangzhou Shantou
and housing developments. In 1985, Beihai Shenzhen
Zhuhai
200 400 600km
the central government’s State Coun- Zhanjiang
Priority Development Areas

cil approved expenditure increases Hainan Special Economic Zones

14 Open Coastal Cities
for Shanghai. In 1988, it approved the
Fig. 3 Map of the Special Economic Zones and
capping of Shanghai’s annual reve- 14 Open Coastal Cities in the 1980 s
nue submission to the central gov-
ernment. With these two approvals, the municipality was, at last, able to accumulate
capital for reinvestment in its own development.
At the same time, the central government approved the creation of new develop-
ment zones in selected coastal cities, and set them up as the locales for the landing of
the first foreign investment flows. (Fig. 3) These coastal cities had developed manu-
facturing bases from the modern era. They also had historic links to overseas capital
through their diaspora connections, and thus were able to attract the first waves of
needed available capital from abroad.25 Loans made, by the Asia Development Bank
and the World Bank, to Shanghai in the 1980s also provided the first seed money for
basic infrastructural construction, fundamental for further economic development.
Incremental construction and renewal projects already began in the mid-1980s, con-
structing the first hotels, commercial housing and mixed-use typologies, in city center
locations as well as new development zones in the urban periphery.

Accelerated Economic Liberalization and the Political Status Quo

Chapter 1 Introduction

Before 1989, China was already on its steady way to economic liberalization, although
still “crossing the river while feeling the rocks [摸着石头过河],”26 as to whether market
liberalization would also be accompanied by more political changes. In the aftermath
of 1989, notably following the fall of Communism in the former Soviet-bloc countries,
China’s own unanticipated civilian protests, and its ensuing political switch-ups, the
nation’s course would be decisively chosen.

23
 The unambiguous verdict and assertion for the party-state’s singular political con-
trol in the crackdown of protesters at Tian’anmen Square on 4 June 1989, shocked the
developed world. Having just started to access and observe the long-closed China, the
developed world had expected the country’s Open Door policy to lead to a softening of
its political autocracy, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). More confound-
ing was the course of continued marketization,27 which had seemed unsustainable in
light of its hardline political stance.
The Chinese leadership preferred to err on the side of caution, having witnessed the
chaos that followed the IMF -compelled economic liberalization debacle in Russia and
Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989. In order to maintain what the leadership viewed as a necessary political stability
for the exceptionally large and socio-economically diverse country as it economically
transitioned, a post-socialist political change had to be avoided at all costs.28 For the
demonstrators in Tian’anmen Square and other public spaces in Chinese cities in that
summer of 1989, the ideological call for democracy and political change by the stu-
dents had, indeed, also been accompanied by an overwhelming social unrest by the ur-
ban middle class, against rising unemployment, high inflation, growing corruption, as
well as other economic woes of the incremental economic transition.29 The pragmatic
road forward for the leadership thus showed a necessary push in urban prosperity to
maintain the state’s grip on popular support.30
The choice of Shanghai as the “Dragon’s Head” in 1992, therefore, represented a
crucial decision to simultaneously proceed with economic reform while at the same
time asserting the validity and authority of the existing political system. Shanghai’s
designated role as the site of accelerated marketization not only had to reaffirm the
party-state’s essential role in sanctioning its economic and urban development, but
the city’s ensuing economic success would serve to legitimize the decision taken to
continue on the path of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’ In this adage by the
post-1989 leadership, “Chinese characteristics” denoted the continued opening up of
the market and policy reforms that support market economics, while “socialism” of-
fered continuity with the egalitarian tenets on which the party-state’s authority had
been built since 1949, the year of China’s ‘Liberation’ from the tyrannies of imperialist
capitalism.31 Aside from its ideological etymology, “socialism” was also an equivocal
substitute to denote the continued legitimacy of the existing political order and the
dominance of the party-state.32 The possibility of a successful economic liberaliza-
tion without an accompanying political one, as had seemed the inevitable and preva-
lent order of things, was the enigma that China would put forward to the confounded
developed world.
This pairing of seeming contradictions that appeared to clash, would also most vis-
ibly manifest itself in the spaces that were rapidly being produced in its wake. And it is
the continued reconciliation of these two ends that is fundamental to understanding
the pervasive logic of Chinese urban transformation.
The credo, of the Fourteenth Party Congress that took place in October 1992, of
the “Dragon’s Head,” not only marked a crucial turning point for the direction of the
development of a nation with a population of more than a billion people, but it more
immediately had a profound impact on Shanghai. The municipality, one of only three
provincial-level cities in the deep hierarchy of the Chinese bureaucratic pecking order,

24
 was anointed to set the shining example of
both accelerated economic liberalization and
political continuity. After bloodlessly diffus-
ing the citizens’ demonstrations and success-
fully convincing the workers to not stop pro-
duction and not to join the demonstrations in
the municipality in 1989,33 the rise of its mu-
nicipal leadership to key central government
positions was a validation of the chosen city’s
economic prowess and political pragmatism.34
Conversely, the long exploited and suppressed
city would greatly benefit from the political
patronage bestowed by its coteries from the
top. A decade after the creation of the SEZ s in
the Pearl River Delta, Shanghai would “finally
be re-awarded with the permission to attract
foreign investment on a lavish scale” follow-
ing Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 tour of the Yangtze
River Delta.35
Granted special status by the central gov-
Fig. 4 Views towards the Lujiazui area of the Pudong ernment consenting to the continued experi-
in Shanghai, from the 1850 s, 1984 , 2000, and 2010,
mentation with marketization, Shanghai’s ur-
top to bottom
ban development in the ensuing decade would
come to visibly showcase the performance of economic transition at the behest of
the central state. Statistics and metrics capture the momentous changes. GDP grew
more than ten-fold in two decades, from less than 1,000 USD per person in 1990 to
more than 13,000 USD per person in 2010. Books on the new urban age in the late
2000s announced the economic progress as represented by the city’s physical trans-
formation: there were only 12 buildings over 80 stories in 1980; by 2000, there were
3,529; and in 2005 this numbers had already reached 10,045.36 (Fig. 4) The roaring high-
ways, rising towers, gleaming shopping malls, and more recently the manicured golf
courses and international schools, have served as contemporary indicators for Shang-
hai’s re-globalization. But more importantly, they have come to represent China’s rap-
id economic rise and its growing political clout in an increasingly interconnected con-
temporary world.
Before 1989, large-scale spatial imprints had been made on tabula rasa sites, such
as the newly built cities of the Pearl River Delta. But after 1992, production of city cen-
ter commercial sites and commercial housing constructions, accompanying rapid ex-
pansions of development zones, would headily refine the spatial production processes
in sites of complex urban value chains, necessary to rapidly materialize the nation’s
Chapter 1 Introduction

global aspirations. And Shanghai was the chosen test bed. A return of the city that is
re-globalizing required spaces for the economic impetus. For the first decade after 1992,
the processes of land and housing marketization would lay the foundations for mo-
mentously transforming urban spatial production, which, together with the influx of
foreign capital and local government spearheaded initiatives, would spatially restruc-
ture cities for the transition economy.

25
Institutional Mechanisms Mediating between Market and Planned Economies Give Rise
to Spatial Opportunities
In the context of China’s economic transition, specialists have used theories such as
adaptive governance,37 and institutional amphibiousness,38 amongst others, to explain
how China’s successful economic marketization could continue despite its continued
single-party rule. To many political theorists and economists, the coexistence of mar-
ket liberalization and political authoritarianism has defied existing expectation, and
the success of the seemingly conflicting imperatives remains a conundrum, for which
China has been posited as a ‘Black Swan’.39 Shanghai, in this sense, when it was cho-
sen in the aftermath of 1989, could be seen also as the ‘head of the Black Swan.’ As po-
litical scientists and China specialists, Elizabeth Perry and Sebastian Heilmann, have
assessed, “analysts have tended to dismiss potentially powerful innovations [of Chi-
na’s economic transition] as irregularities, deviations, externalities, or simply dead-
ends.”40 Heilmann and Perry, instead, found these political innovations crucial to the
Chinese party-state’s aversion of social instability in the country’s rapid transition
from planned to market economics. To explain the Chinese party-state’s political re-
silience,41 they ascribed it to the political system’s adaptive governance and its subset
of ‘informal adaptive institutions,’42 as well as ‘guerrilla-style policy-making.’43 In the
party-state’s acceptance and embracing of uncertainty, fed by and in turn enabling its
guerrilla-style policy-making, Heilmann and Perry contended, they also benefit most
from its opportunities.44
Theorists have also reconceptualized the prevalent understanding of discrete in-
stitutions to elucidate the processes that have facilitated China’s rapid economic de-
velopment. As an alternative to a clear society versus state dichotomy, predicated on
the Western presumptions of institutional clarity and determinacy,45 the scholar of
contemporary China, Ding Xueliang, wrote of East Asia’s institutional amphibiousness:
“the states are organizationally pervasive, without clear-cut boundaries. Their pow-
ers and functions are diffuse, and they pay little respect to due process. Consequent-
ly, the lines between public and private, political and personal, formal and informal,
official and nonofficial, government and market, legal and customary, and between
procedural and substantial are all blurred.” 46 The tradition of ‘guanxi,’ informal so-
cial networks,47 complementing amphibious institutions, uphold the ‘developmental
state’ of China-in-transition, where the state directs and dominates economic devel-
opment.48
As the country underwent rapid economic transition, it has been the malleabili-
ty and porosity of its institutions that have helped the political system adjust to and
absorb socio-economic instabilities. Institutional adaptability and innovative capac-
ity for advanced economic growth, in turn reinforcing the party-state’s popular cred-
ibility and supporting its hegemony. Adaptive governance, reacting to rapid transition,
perforated regulatory stringency with a necessary porosity and flexibility, to propel
economic growth. Its capacity for testing out new solutions for institutions, processes,
and actors, is not only visible in the reformulated public-private sector relationships
and economic alliances. It is also visible in the urban developments that materially
demonstrate the economic transition. The urban loophole, as the mechanism that gives
rise to socio-spatial opportunities in the city, is the physical manifestation of adaptive
governance and institutional amphibiousness.

26
 Urban planning, a discipline relying on the logic of order and rules, similarly gained
a necessary porosity and laxity in the context of China’s rapid economic transition. As
planning scholar, Daniel B. Abramson, noted in his article “The Dialects of Urban Plan-
ning in China”, “other modes of urban planning that commonly protect public interests
in advanced market economies—regulation, incentivization, advocacy, community
enablement—have less obvious applicability in the developmentalist context. … pres-
sures exist in China that tend to favor the emergence of … other planning modes.”49
Planning experts Michael Leaf and Hou Li also attributed transition in China’s institu-
tional amphibiousness to the state’s adaptive governance in urban planning: “the lack
of a clear distinction between public and private realms, or in other words, that the
interpenetration between state and non-state structures creates ambiguity if not ‘am-
phibiousness’ in the institutional structures of governance,” which “underpins the
regulatory flexibility that in other contexts has been interpreted as local state ‘in­
formality.’”50
The conditions of ‘informality’ and ‘ambiguities,’ which emerged as a result of the
local state’s adaptive governance and amphibious institutions, created the urban loop-
holes for urban spatial production. In his book China’s Urban Transition, urban scholar
John Friedmann confirmed the kind of potential that emerges from the gaps of China’s
rapid urban transformation: “while this (unbounded social and economic relations)
creates ambiguities, uncertainties, and confusion aplenty, it may also lead to the discov-
ery of new opportunities for those who are willing to work within the shadow-land of
unbounded practices that are largely devoid of state-made rules.”51 Those private and
public sector entrepreneurs, especially in the first decade of rapid economic transition,
not only capitalized on the new opportunities, but also set the precedent for ensuing
spatial developments.
Marketization has created spatial opportunities. The spatial opportunities, as
Friedmann further assessed, manifested the devolution of control as a necessary con-
sequence of marketization: “the central state is naturally nervous about the prolifer-
ation of these spaces, of practices it can no longer control. But in the contemporary
world, boundlessness is a fundamental condition of the multiplex phenomenon of ur-
banization, the genie that no state knows how to push back into the bottle.”52 Eliza-
beth Perry, at the inception of the accelerated economic reforms, using the same met-
aphor of the market economy genie, had also foreseen: “the sheer expanse of mainland
China, suggests that centralized market control will be extremely hard to maintain as
the market genie is unbottled.”53 The scale of China and its deep bureaucratic hierarchy
presents unparalleled challenges to the centralized state as it undergoes economic lib-
eralization. The negotiations between top-down and bottom-up control—between the
central and local state, between the local state and private sector entrepreneurs—have
also created opportunities for spatial productions.
Chapter 1 Introduction

The Dual Land and Housing Markets: Spatial Manifestations of Transition Economy
Along with the institutional plasticity that resulted from China’s economic transition,
a visible spatial consequence of transition is the coexistence of multiple systems of
real estate markets. In both the housing and land markets, the establishment of a
commodity housing and land market after transition has not entirely replaced hous-
ing and land allocated under a planned economy. Instead, transition has created dual

27
 markets, in which ambiguous property rights have also created opportunities in spa-
tial production.
Under a planned economy, the erasure of the value of land, as a commodity, has
resulted in inefficient allocation and chaotic land use.54 Similarly, the provision of
housing as a welfare good under the planned economy, rather than it being defined
as a tradable good, has resulted in severe housing shortages and dilapidation.55 Eco-
nomic transition and growth required fundamental urban restructuring and develop-
ment. The re-establishment of land as an urban commodity, ‘land marketization’,56 and
the similar re-establishment of housing as a tradable good, ‘housing marketization’,57
were thus essential to urban development and economic growth.
After economic transition, the local state marketized large portions of housing
already in existence in cities, by selling them to existing residents. The central gov-
ernment also gave the local state authority to commodify all urban land, with the ex-
ception of ‘administratively-allocated land [划拨土地]’—land that had been allocated
by the state to state enterprises and institutes.58 Portions of existing housing, largely
historic buildings with ambiguous and disputed property rights, however, remained
un-marketized and managed by the local state, especially in the city center neigh-
borhoods. In the land market, administratively-allocated land also remained un-mar-
ketized as a vestige of the planned economy. Housing, which was left over from the
planned economy era and under public management, coexisted with commercial
housing, traded and exchanged in the commercial housing market. Together, they
formed the ‘dual housing market.’ Similarly, administratively-allocated land, which
remain banned from commercialization, coexisted with commercial leasehold land,
forming the ‘dual land market.’
Land as urban resource takes on market and planned economy properties. In
Shanghai, for example, as analysts Sun Sheng Han and Bo Qin assessed, “the emerging
property market … shows signs similar to those in mature market economies, such as
land price variations associated with the location of land parcels, and the mechanisms
that filter land and property users. However, Shanghai is still unique in terms of the
processes underlying the evolving property market.” 59
‘Rent gap,’ 60 as the difference between realizable rents—usually at rates deter-
mined by market supply and demand—and the undervalued rents actually charged,
resulted in land parcels and housing units left from the planned economy. The phys-
ical proximity of housing and land from the dual markets in the city center neighbor-
hoods made the undervalued legacy land and housing units lucrative for development.
Opportunistic private and public sector actors, who recognized their realizable value,
participated in their redevelopments.
Especially in the first decade of economic liberalization, when rapid transition left
gaps in institutional structures and regulatory oversight, the development and com-
mercialization of administratively-allocated land emerged from urban loopholes result-
ing from the dual land market. The central government, reacting to the local state’s
adaptive governance and amphibious institutions, manifested in its discretionary plan-
ning systems that condoned the developments, would retrieve authority on the devel-
opment of administratively-allocated land in the second decade of liberalization. The
central government’s ‘loosening’ and then ‘tightening’ of control of administratively-
allocated land created a newer set of urban loopholes, which were necessary to enable

28
 spatial production and to mediate top-down and bottom-up control between the cen-
tral and local state.61
On the other hand, city center housing, due to incumbent residents and complex
ownership, received little attention for development in the first decade of economic
transition. It would not be until large-scale urban renewal depleted large parts of the
city center buildings, that a growing interest in heritage architecture would make vis-
ible the realizable values of historic housing structures.

The Developmental State, Its Urban Regimes and the Opportunities for Urban Diversity
After the central government implemented ‘land marketization’ in the early 1980s,
land became an important revenue source for the local state. The local state in China,
financially autonomous since the economic devolution of the 1980s, has found itself
pressured by the central government to sustain continued economic growth, while re-
maining economically responsible for social welfare, a legacy of the planned economy.
The local state, as both landowner and land regulator, has used land as both market re-
source and political instrument in this framework. Urban analyst, Hsing You-tien, in
her analysis of China’s urban transition, puts it explicitly, “in post-Mao China, urban
land-use planning has replaced economic planning as the main vehicle of state inter-
vention in the local political economy.”62
Theorists of China’s urban transition have coupled the theory of the ‘developmental
state,’ which political scientists use for the phenomenon of state monopoly and con-
trol over economic development, to explain East Asian economic growth, with ‘urban
regime theory,’ 63 which theorists use to describe state and private sector collusion in
urban development. In the context of economic transition in China, analysts have used
the two concepts to critique the simultaneous state domination of economic and ur-
ban development and the neoliberalization of spatial production. As a result of what
the urban analyst, Zhu Jieming, refers to as ‘transition institutions’ of the dual land
market, “China’s local governments have become an economic interest group with
their own policy agenda and preferences.” 64 As a consequence, land-use planning’s
“rigid control is discarded and replaced by flexible and responsive rules,” 65 corroborat-
ing the local developmental state’s adaptive governance in its own interest. On the self-
interested and growth-driven party-state-affiliated ‘Red Capitalists,’ Ding Xueliang
also asserts that “the only reliability is that these guys aren’t reliable,”66 reiterating
the party-state’s embracing of uncertainty to maximize its benefits.
Leaf and Hou have also explained Chinese urban planning’s porosity:67 “it is not
the weakness of the local state nor the lack of governance capacity per se that accounts
for informality, but rather the entrenchment of private interests in local power struc-
tures and the lack of checks on regulatory abuse.”68
In the socialist market economy, the developmental state that is driven by growth
could easily become a ‘predatory state.’69 As a privileged player in the market and in
Chapter 1 Introduction

the city as a ‘growth machine,’70 the local ‘entrepreneurial state,’71 its ‘bureaucrat en-
trepreneurs’72 and ‘local growth coalitions’73 have preferential access to state real es-
tate assets. The local state, as both regulator and market participant, part of the ‘urban
growth regimes,’ also determines urban development with little viable resistance. Pro-
growth and developmentalist, the local state’s visions for new developments are often
mono-directional and homogenizing. These new developments also spatially polarize

29
 the growing social differentiation.74 As the central government implements curbs on
local authority, the local state also increasingly deploys its own sets of urban loophole,
via setting up regulatory exceptions, to retain its privileged position. Any leeway that
could counter such developments is not only relevant to discover but could also be
instrumental for the proponents of diversity as urban quality. Within this context, the
urban loophole becomes one of the ways possible to counter the homogenizing effects
of state developmentalism. Rather than overt contradiction of state vision and poli-
cies, the urban loophole allows a subtle and less confrontational means of resistance
against the growth regimes and the predatory state. The resultant spatial productions
undermine planned homogenization and foster socio-economic diversity, while simul-
taneously cultivating the local state to evolve beyond generic developments and value
the inherent urban qualities of the city.
This section summarizing the broader context for China’s urban transition briefly
outlined the institutional mechanisms that are systemic to China’s transition political
economy. The institutional mechanisms, including adaptive governance, institutional
amphibiousness, and the dual markets, exist to reconcile what have been posited as in-
congruities of economic growth, based on the market economy and global integration,
and political stability, based on single party-state rule. These local dimensions are cru-
cial in understanding the urban spatial production in Chinese cities. Even as the built
products physically resemble those in the developed West—taut glass-clad office tow-
ers, sleek shopping malls, boutiques and cafes with ambiances that could be found in
global trend quarters—the system of their production is entrenched in the specificities
of China’s political economy. Heilmann and Perry asked, referring to transition China’s
adaptive governance and guerrilla-style policy-making, “what if China is in fact pursu-
ing a unique path, and—due to its size, history, and surprising success—introducing
important unconventional, non-Western techniques to the repertoire of governance in
the twenty-first century?”75 Similarly, what if transition China is also showing a novel
repertoire for urban spatial production, in its urban loopholes?

Conceptual Framework: the Urban Loophole

Within the context of rapid change in the political economy, the concept of the urban
loophole 76 is proposed as the mechanism in the urban spatial production system that
has mediated the evolving institutions of the transitional economy. The concept is the
red thread through the cases presented in the ensuing text. The main proposition of the
study is that the spatial opportunities, which the urban loopholes have made possible,
expedited the appropriation of global know-how and market economics in the local
framework of Chinese urban transition, and this without forgoing political stability of
the single party-state rule.
The concept of the urban loophole in urban spatial production corroborates, and is
impacted by, theories from neighboring disciplines, such as adaptive governance, in-
stitutional amphibiousness, amongst others, which are also used to explain how the
seemingly conflicting imperatives of market and planned, global and local are recon-
ciled. The urban loophole also exploits inefficiencies in the dual market in urban spatial
production, a consequence of the transition economy creating spatial opportunities.

30
 The following subsection first puts forward the proposed properties of the ‘urban
loophole’ in relation to other aspects of the transition economy, and components in ur-
ban spatial production. The term is then posited as spatial opportunity in the Chinese
context. Finally, different types of urban loopholes are outlined in relation to the tran-
sition economy’s progression and the increasingly active role of the local state. As will
be elaborated in the section on methods, the theoretical proposition that the urban
loophole has facilitated Shanghai’s rapid economic transition and global integration, is
important in guiding the research in its data collection and analysis.

The Urban Loophole

Loopholes by definition, are a result of gaps, absences, or exceptions. Urban loopholes are
mechanisms of urban spatial production,77 which result from gaps, absences, or excep-
tions in the larger urban system. These conditions of gaps, absences, or exceptions oc-
cur under conditions of rapid change or transition. (Fig. 5) The changes and transitions,
for example, could include: industrialization, urbanization, global integration, transi-
tion from planned to market economies, transition from market to planned economics,
or a combination of the above. In the case of Chinese cities, it is the rapid transition in
the political economy, from a centrally-planned to a ‘socialist market economy,’ that
causes changes in regulations, policies, plans, and other formal processes, leading to
gaps, absences, or exceptions. These gaps, absences, or exceptions in turn cause the
urban loopholes in China’s urban transition. (Fig. 6)
The urban loopholes give rise to socio-spatial opportunities in the city and result in
physical manifestations in the built environment. If created but unexploited, these so-
cio-spatial opportunities would not manifest themselves spatially. These urban loop-
holes without spatial products are not readily detected. For example, in cities like Sin-
gapore, socio-spatial opportunities exist, but no one dares to exploit them. Exploiting
the opportunities created by the urban loophole requires risk taking and innovation.
Under ‘regularized’ governance, with institutional clarity, political accountability, and
containment—rather than an embracing—of uncertainty, urban spatial production
would render the urban loophole redundant. (Fig. 7) In political economies that are sta-
ble, with ‘regularized’ governance, the rewards from exploiting opportunities created
by the urban loophole are diminished. In political economies that are rapidly changing
and thus destabilized, on the other hand, the exploiting of opportunities created by the
urban loopholes may reap rewards worthy of the risk taken. Uncertainty, embraced by
the Chinese party-state under rapid transition, for example, is risky. But uncertainty
and its risks are also generators of rewards. The rewards may be financial. The rewards
may also help with image building, allowing the risk-taker to accumulate power. Thus,
it is when urban loopholes are exploited that they themselves become physically visi-
ble in the built environment. Their resultant spatial products are sometimes physically
anomalous, other times physically conventional but procedurally anomalous.
Chapter 1 Introduction

Because the conditions that create the urban loopholes rapidly change, the oppor-
tunities they create are also often limited in timeframe. Urban loopholes are windows
of opportunity between the absence and ambiguity of the existing system for spatial
production and the infill of a new system that is introduced. The opening and closure of
the urban loopholes are contingent on policy changes in the political economy. In insti-
tutionally malleable contexts, urban loopholes are also dependent on key sets of actors,

31
 TRANSITION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY

adaptations in
political economy
gaps ENTERPRISING
ACTORS
adaptations in ambiguities
urban
political economy loophole
exceptions spatial
opportunities
in regulations
adaptations in and policies
political economy

ECONOMIC TRANSITION WHILE MAINTAINING POLITICAL AUTHORITARIANISM

developmentalist
adaptive local state
governance
private
gaps ENTERPRISING
ACTORS
entrepreneurs
institutional ambiguities
urban
amphibiousness loophole
exceptions spatial
opportunities
in regulations
and policies
dual market

STABLE POLITICAL ECONOMY WITH INSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY

‘regularized’
state regulators
DEVELOPERS governance
and planners
market
spatial regulations
demands institution-
opportunities and policies
al clarity

Figs. 5, 6, 7 Diagrams of the urban loophole generated by transition in political economy, top;
urban loopholes more specific to China’s economic transition, middle; spatial production without the
urban loophole in an idealized stable political economy with institutional clarity, bottom

at whose discretion such urban loopholes are sanctioned. Like its neighboring concept
of adaptive governance, the urban loophole is not replicable through a finite set of spatial
or institutional variables. Rather, it follows a similarly “fluid, context-, situation-, and
agency-based modus operandi.”78 And because the urban loophole, pliable and robust,
does not conform to prescribed variables and emerge from change, one can only detect
its mechanisms in the consequent new systems and from resulting changes.
Just as rapid systemic transformation gives rise to urban loopholes, systemic com-
plexity also enables their creation. The more complex an urban spatial production sys-
tem is, with multiple contingencies, the more likely urban loopholes occur. China’s
rapid urban transformations under a transitional economy, for example, have created
a number of interdependent and time-dependent wicked problems, including, among
others, ambiguities created by deep state hierarchies, discretionary authorities, am-
phibious institutions, and inefficiencies created by the dual markets. As long as systemic
inconsistencies persist without transparency, urban loopholes will exist to compensate
for a lack of institutional clarity and determinacy. The scale of China’s centralized but
bureaucratically fragmented political hierarchy also compounds the complexity of its
urban processes, eliciting the exploitation of urban loopholes.

32
 The concept of the urban loophole is set against presumptions of urban rules for
planning. Urban rules presume institutional stability, accountability and transparency.
Few of these are prevalent in today’s rapidly developing and urbanizing world. At the
same time, the wicked problems in urban planning, as described by Horst and Webber
in 1973, are at once ill-defined, unique and “one shot operations.”79 The singularity of
the problems is symptomatic of the complex interaction of other problems.80 The urban
loophole offers a mode of explaining contemporary developments in cities undergoing
rapid structural change in a way that rethinks the prevalent modes of understanding
urban spatial production learned from the West. The unpacking of the mechanisms of
the urban loophole, thus, is a means of translating the logic of China’s economic tran-
sition, viewed through its urban spatial production. Its explanation for China’s rap-
id marketization while retaining planned economy institutions, viewed through the
nuances of its urban development, would be valuable to scholars of economic transi-
tion and urban planning.

In the Context of China’s Urban Transition, Evolving Urban Loopholes

From the initiation of accelerated economic liberalization in 1992 to the opening of the
World Expo in 2010, the urban loopholes underwent a broader shift. In the first decade
after liberalization, the urban loopholes resulting from gaps and ambiguities of existing
policies most often fed endogenous, or bottom-up, processes. The urban loopholes creat-
ed pragmatic opportunities, which also eased the influx of global resources, in capital
and know-how, condoned by the acquiescent local state. As transition progressed and
many of the initial changes stabilized, the urban loopholes also increasingly shifted to
ones resulting from exceptions and ambiguities. They increasingly abetted the devel-
opmental local state and its affiliated pro-growth coalition,81 balancing social stability
against economic efficiency in the transitioning economy. This change of urban loop-
holes reflects a maturing and stabilizing urban production system. It also shows the
growing participation of the local state in both determining urban loopholes and con-
trolling its spatial products. This shift, from bottom-up to top-down urban loopholes, has
reinforced the party-state’s control in the second decade of economic transition. (Fig. 8)

First Decade of Liberalization, Urban Loopholes Resulting from Gaps Caused

by Rapid Transition
In the first decade of accelerated economic transition, the local state was overwhelmed
with the financial burdens that came with fiscal devolution and liberalization. The lo-
cal state had to shoulder the financial responsibilities for infrastructure development,
public services, and social welfare, while also delivering growth targets to the central
government. Rapid urban restructuring in designated role-model cities like Shanghai
left many gaping policy voids. These policy voids, condoned by the local state, in turn
fostered the bottom-up developments responding to changing market demands.
Chapter 1 Introduction

Enterprising private entrepreneurs exploited urban loopholes formed from the lo-
cal state’s adaptive governance. These private entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to
fill in the gap created by the transition to a market economy and global integration. In
dense urban centers, services and commerce proliferated as result, feeding demand
that had been long suppressed under central planning.82 The informal networks of
private entrepreneurs drew up innovative new business plans for the development

33
 bottom-up
enterprising
adaptive gaps urban private entrepreneurs
governance ambiguities loophole state-affiliated
entrepreneurs
gaps
ambiguities private entrepreneurs
institutional urban
amphibiousness exceptions loophole state-affiliated entrepreneurs
developmental local
state

ambiguities private entrepreneurs

dual market exceptions
urban state-affiliated entrepreneurs
loophole developmental
local state

predatory ambiguities urban

state exceptions loophole developmental
local state
top-down

Fig. 8 Diagram of different urban loopholes ranging from bottom-up to top-down

of undervalued and under-utilized spaces. The spatial opportunities thus catalyzed

developments and spurred rapid transition.
State-affiliated local agents, from former SOE leaders of newly privatized com-
mercial entities to municipal or district government-backed enterprises, also actively
capitalized on the urban loopholes created by policy gaps and ambiguities. State-affili-
ated local agents converted and redeveloped administratively-allocated land, capital-
izing on the rent gap resulting from the dual land market.83 State enterprises, before
structural reforms and privatization of the mid-1990s, also executed rapid construc-
tion of housing, as part of the housing market liberalization that the central govern-
ment encouraged.84
For both state and non-state actors, pragmatism pervaded. The adaptive local state
tacitly acquiesced to novel processes of spatial production, so long as they were not
clearly defined, and neither the informal nor the formal was apparent. If the spatial
products that resulted were profitable and beneficial, then the rapidly learning local
state readily appropriated the processes of spatial production. The blurry boundaries
of formal and informal were conveniently hazy as the private stakeholders, state-affil-
iated agents and the acquiescent local state adapted to changing regulations from the
central government while accommodating necessary and pragmatic demands on the
ground. The readiness of the local agents to experiment and learn, together with their
agility in grasping unforeseen opportunities, pushed forward spatial productions that
quickly grasped international expertise. Global capital, as well as know-how, rapidly
filtered through the enterprising local actors, stimulating further development.

As Transition Progressed, the Shift to Urban Loopholes of Exceptions

As the rapid urban structuring of the first decade gives way to an emphasis on ur-
ban quality and post-industrialization,85 urban loopholes have also evolved. While the
earlier urban loopholes, engaged by bottom-up processes, continued on a small scale,
the local state and its local growth regimes formed new ones to counter central gov-
ernment constraints and to engage new priorities for urban development. The central

34
 government, concerned with economic and social instability from rapid growth, has
also been reasserting regulatory control over earlier decentralized local land politics.
Initially acquiescent, local state authorities have grown increasingly interested
in appropriating the earlier bottom-up processes and replicating their economic suc-
cesses. Heritage architecture and historic neighborhoods, opportune developments
by small-scale private entrepreneurs earlier, have also become part of the growth for-
mula of the local state. New urban strategies for city branding and tourism attraction
have replaced large-scale urban renewal in city center areas.86 To advance its interests,
the engaged local state affiliates deploy urban loopholes of exceptions, including that
for heritage conservation and public infrastructure development, to expedite devel-
opments. With the local state increasingly participating as a privileged market player,
competing private actors have also been compelled to innovate entrepreneurially and
to collaborate where possible. The pressure to innovate has seen new public-private
coalitions established, based on mutual benefits, while private actors not actively en-
gaging the local state and affiliates have been pushed out from the development pro-
cesses. The local state that had tacitly condoned earlier urban loopholes, has also since
closed them to reassert authority.
The dual markets of both planned legacies and market commodities had privileged
the local state players. Market distortions caused by the dual land market prompted the
central government to recentralize authority over land, and to close the earlier urban
loopholes for the commercialization of administratively-allocated land.87 In reaction, the
local state formed new urban loopholes to ease inefficiencies caused by the persistence
of the dual land market, facilitating continued development. The new urban loopholes
based on the promotion of creative industries, 88 for example, circumvented central
government authority while developing undervalued city center real estate.

The Neoliberalizing and Self-Interested State, Urban Loopholes as Counterweight

In China, the resilient, adaptive, and self-interested party-state is omnipresent. With
the hand of the local state as custodian of public good receding, while it increasing-
ly participates in development, the private sector’s deployment of bottom-up urban
loopholes is the only counterweight to top-down development. As Heilmann and Perry
have asserted, despite Maoist-era centralization of ideological control, the Chinese leg-
acy of a “decentralized initiative within the framework of centralized political author-
ity,” has created “far greater bottom-up input than would be predicted from its formal
structures.”89
The processes of commodification propelled by real estate demands and guided by
the developmental local state and its pro-growth regimes are threatening the existing
city center neighborhoods, where existing urban qualities of diversity and openness
are being pushed out by developments, which in turn would deactivate the area’s cre-
ative potential. With the system increasingly determined by the self-interested local
Chapter 1 Introduction

state, urban qualities and innovative urbanism could only be produced with the aid
of the urban loophole. As a vehicle for pragmatic opportunism, it is the only possible
counter to corruption, cronyism, discretionary policy, and the absence of transparency,
without openly confronting the growing control of the local state.
Paradoxically, the persistence of structures such as dual markets, for example, has
partially buffered against the state-backed neoliberalization of the city center. But

35
 their discretionary institutions and ambiguities in property rights make the rent gap
that may ease social polarization difficult to maintain. Rather, it is the multiplicity of
stakeholders and bureaucratic hierarchies that create systemic complexity and so al-
lows for urban loopholes. The multiple contingencies not only enable dormant urban
loopholes to counter the too-rapid destruction of diverse and culturally rich habitats
but also undermine the systemically predatory state.

‘Loophole’ as Paralegality and Opportunity, Towards Criticality and Agency

The term loophole has its etymological origins in medieval fortifications: as “a narrow
vertical opening, usually widening inwards, cut in a wall or other defense, to allow for
the passage of missiles.”90 In this original usage, the loophole was a mode of flexibility
in an otherwise solid and rigid physical structure. It also allows a both-and situation
of advantageousness. In contemporary usage, the loophole denotes “an outlet or means
of escape,” “often applied to an ambiguity or omission in a statute, etc., which affords
opportunity for evading its intention.”91 Most prevalently used today in jurisprudence,
a legal loophole, for example, denotes a fuzzy or grey area of ill definition, through am-
biguity, omission, or exception that allows the bypassing of otherwise clearly defined,
legally binding obligations.92
Whereas legal and moral loopholes often carry a pejorative connotation, the con-
cept of a loophole in the physical sciences denotes possibilities and opportunities that
open to new findings and definitions. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, for exam-
ple, “has loopholes—with sufficient ingenuity—(which) can be profitably exploited.”93
In physics, when creativity and resourcefulness adjust and revise given frameworks,
the results of such loopholes become productive.
In the context of developing economies, the use of the word loophole implies in-
formality, corruption, rent-seeking, graft, and other unsavory yet flourishing forms
of socio-economic rituals. Historian Samuel Huntington, however, points out the ne-
cessity of such “welcome lubricants” in developing economies: “in terms of economic
growth, the only thing worse than a society with a rigid, over-centralized, dishonest
bureaucracy is one with a rigid, over-centralized, honest bureaucracy.”94
The following study does not comment on the ethics of these ‘lubricants for polit-
ical economy.’95 While the use of the term ‘loophole’ for urbanism implicitly suggests
this aspect of para-legality, in the context of an opaque and partial system, the urban
loophole is also the only opportunity to undermine the developmental and predatory
state. More importantly, it is in analyzing the processes of urban spatial production,
through the framework of the urban loophole, that insight into the developmental logic
of rapidly growing and transitioning economies could be shown. The analysis through
the urban loophole reveals the conflicts and contradictions between the coexistence
of market and planned systems. Like adaptive governance, amphibious institutions, and
dual markets, the urban loophole is also the necessary mechanism that mediates cen-
ter-local divergences, institutional plasticity, ambiguous property rights, and discre-
tionary governance in the spatial productions of China’s transition economy.
Architects have used the term ‘loophole’ to compel design practitioners to agency:
“the loophole is a model of opportunistic deviance. Like lawyers exploiting contract
ambiguities, financiers engaging in arbitrage, or accountants practicing tax evasion,
the loophole suggests an opening for the dexterous professional.”96 The understanding

36
 of how urban loopholes are formed, in contexts outside those where urban rules func-
tion in stability, allows designers to rethink the infrastructures necessary to maintain
the equilibrium of the rapidly changing urban spatial production system. This is rel-
evant not only in Shanghai, but also in numerous industrializing cities in the devel-
oping world.

Research Methods
Analyses of China’s urban transition have largely been done from a macro perspec-
tive.97 In contrast, this study uses detailed ‘spatial cases’ to document and analyze
Shanghai’s urban transformations. The spatial cases, with the scalar specificity of a
neighborhood area, span more than two decades since China’s economic liberaliza-
tion began. Case examples, at the architectural scales, further unpack the actors and
drivers of the urban spatial productions, clarifying the locally embedded processes
for urban development. Through the genealogical mode of inquiry, they also show how
the evolving urban loopholes have, in turn, the potential to inform the future design
agency in the city.
The following section will outline the relationship between the theoretical frame-
work and the case study method used. It will elaborate on the choice of spatial cases
and their siting, in relation to the theoretical framework as well as to existing studies.
The methods of data collection, evidence type, and their analyses will be summarized.
Finally, the relationship of the genealogical mode of inquiry with the construction of the
larger case narratives will be explained.

The Theoretical Framework and the Case Study Method

The concept of the urban loophole, and its importance in facilitating China’s rapid ur-
ban transition, spatially manifesting economic liberalization and global integration, is
the theoretical framework that guides the ensuing research. It is based on this initial
a priori framework, which the author sets out at the beginning of the research process,
that the selection of cases, and the ensuing data collection and analysis have followed.
Whereas schools of ethnographic research, for example, deliberately reject an a
priori theoretical framework in order to obtain close-up and detailed observation, the
use of case study as method, engaged for this study, is dependent on a clear theoreti-
cal framework to guide research. “A comprehensive research strategy” for case stud-
ies, according to social scientist Robert Yin, in his book Case Study Research Design and
Methods, requires a set of how or why questions to guide research cases.98 Social sci-
entists Robert Sutton and Barry Staw summarize the why question as ‘theory’: “theory
is about the connections among phenomena, a story about why acts, events, structure,
and thoughts occur.”99 Theory, as social scientists Kaplan and Merton further explain,
Chapter 1 Introduction

“delves into underlying processes so as to understand the systematic reasons for a par-
ticular occurrence or non-occurrence. It often burrows deeply into microprocesses,
laterally into neighboring concepts, or in an upward direction, tying itself to broader
social phenomena.”100
Through the framework of the urban loophole, the micro-processes of Shanghai’s
urban spatial production are unpacked to reveal the actors and drivers that have

37
 expedited the city’s rapid economic transition and global integration. The urban loop-
hole’s relationship to the neighboring concepts of adaptive governance and institutional
amphibiousness also reveals how urban spatial production manifests the changing in-
stitutions of the transition economy. The broader phenomenon of growing state con-
trol that has accompanied the progress of China’s transition is also shown through the
shifts in the urban loopholes.

The Choice of Spatial Cases

The particular choices of the sites for closer study came from the premise that urban
loopholes have expedited China’s rapid economic transition and global integration while
preserving its political status quo. Shanghai, chosen by the central government as the
test ground for the nation’s accelerated economic liberalization and ‘Dragon’s Head’ of
‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ made it the obvious choice for further study. Its
economic growth in the two decades since 1992, visible in its built environment and re-
flecting its global capital flows, (Fig. 9) has also made it the ‘head of the Black Swan’ 101
for ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics,’ worthy of closer examination.
The new satellite towns, the Special Economic Zones of different political hierar-
chies and functions, the villages in the metropolitan hinterland, and more, in their
unique representations of China’s global integration, could have also been interest-
ing choices for further investigation. But the city center neighborhoods of Shanghai
chosen for analyses are known for their vibrant and ‘global-looking’ spaces that man-
ifest the country’s aspiration for the post-industrial knowledge-based economy. The
historic neighborhoods, in the western end of the former Concessions, have been the
preferred locales for the first wave of transnational capital, largely from overseas Chi-
nese returnees. Their modern era architecture and urban form have also enabled their
rapid transformation to accommodate the contemporary transnational creative class.
In ambiance, they resemble international trend quarters like Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg
or New York’s Williamsburg. Yet, despite the look and feel of being ‘global,’ aspects of
their spatial production are distinctly local. It is in the juxtaposition of the global and
local, manifesting the actors and value chains of advanced capitalism within spatial
legacies unique to the socialist-market economy, that the city center neighborhoods
were selected as the sites of this study.
At the same time, their legacy socio-economic complexi-
ty, and, perhaps because of it, the simultaneous under-elab-
oration of their spatial productions made them relevant and
important sites for closer analysis of China’s urban transi-
tion. Even though there is a boom in studies on Shanghai,102
closer spatial examination of the socio-economically di-
verse city center areas and their neighborhood-scale trans-
formations continue to be lacking. What look like careful-
ly cultivated global neighborhoods are in reality a result
of the multiple forces that have converged serendipitously,
utilized the existing resources, and sustained the resulting
effect. Only with detailed and multi-scaled analyses of the
Fig. 9 Shanghai’s global flows that selected areas’ developments since economic liberalization
expedited the city’s development could the drivers, processes, and actors involved in their

38
 25 km 5 km 500m 100m

Fig. 10 Diagram representing multiple scales of analysis for city center neighborhoods, zooming in from left to right:
municipal boundary Shanghai, core urban area, neighborhood scale, and architectural scale. Colors represent functional
uses at neighborhood and architectural scale, showing the diversity of the neighborhoods chosen for study

spatial production be unpacked. (Fig. 10) They would also clarify how the urban loop-
holes in spatial production have helped expedite the city’s global integration.

Undemolished Areas Harboring Local Complexities

The city center neighborhoods of Shanghai hold the wicked problems of Chinese urban-
ism in visible proximity. In these neighborhoods, the coexistence and persistence of
dual land and housing markets and ambiguous property rights have magnified the
already complex lingering social networks, left behind by post-Liberation events. The
challenges of managing and controlling such complexities have also compelled the
local state to be adaptive and amphibious. The rapidly executed demolition-and-rede-
velopment renewal efforts, in the first decade of economic liberalization, thus were
not only making space for new programs and new structures at higher built densities.
They were also imperative in ‘wiping the slate clean,’ clearing the complex challenges
of vestige institutions, and creating other wicked problems of Chinese urbanism. Ur-
ban spatial restructuring was the physical manifestation of economic transition from
planned to market economics.
It is the areas which have survived the renewal fervor, whether by virtue of loca-
tion, architecture, occupancy, use, or other circumstances, that also retained planned
economy institutions next to the market economy commodities. The adjacencies and in-
terfaces between the planned and market elements, and the differential between their
economic values, are the sources for urban loopholes and their spatial opportunities. It is
in the fragmented ownerships and transition ownership rights, both at the architecture
and urban scale, where enterprising private and state-affiliated actors could execute in-
novative spatial production. Resolutions by local stakeholders, taking on the circum-
stantial constraints, speak to their creativity. They also attest to the opportunistic and
discretionary accommodation by local state actors. The urban vibrancy of these areas,
with their openness to global trends while retaining a unique socio-economic hetero-
geneity, is visible in the spaces in these remaining and un-demolished neighborhoods.
Chapter 1 Introduction

Historic Legacy and Modern Morphology Attract Overseas Capital

and Transnational Creatives
The legacy conditions embedded in the historic neighborhoods chosen as sites also
laid the crucial foundations for China’s global integration. In contrast to early local
developers who favored new towns and tabula rasa sites in the periphery, many of
the first transnational investments, from overseas Chinese capital, preferred the city

39
 center neighborhoods. This preference for the city center came partly from nostalgia
for Shanghai’s modern era historic legacy, especially by the Chinese diaspora, who
had pre-Liberation economic and social links to the city.103 The preference for the city
center was also motivated by the value of its real estate, which in the inception of
economic liberalization, was under-appreciated. Early overseas investments catalyzed
the rapid transformation of the former Concession areas. Through such developments,
knowledge transfers also played a significant role in the re-globalization of Shanghai.
The pioneering role that many of the early ‘localized cosmopolitans’ played in develop-
ing the spatial opportunities, bridged the gap between market and planned econom-
ics.104 In the mediation of international know-how within local institutional frame-
works, these early spatial productions also capitalized on the urban loopholes created
by the absence of regulatory or procedural protocols.
Not only were the neighborhoods attractive to overseas Chinese capital, but their
inherent architectural and urban qualities were also appealing to the influx of trans-
national knowledge workers who increasingly came to Shanghai in the second decade
of economic liberalization. Partly because of their modern era architecture, unlike in
older historical areas in the city, the modern era neighborhoods survived the demoli-
tion projects of the first decade of rapid transition. Because of their modern era urban
morphology and building types, these neighborhoods were also able to adapt to con-
temporary uses for the creative and service economy.
The neighborhoods’ built environment has, since the last decade, been transformed
into diverse neighborhoods known for their range of both global and local commercial
functions, as well as both high-end and low-end residences. The reuse of their physi-
cal structures for ‘new economies’ today shows a viable alternative to the demolition-
reconstruction cycles that pervades the developmental urbanism of not only Chi-
nese cities but of many East Asian cities in the pursuit of global aspirations. Distinct
from the quantitative measured by performance statistics and premised on economic
growth, as manifested in newly built neighborhoods, the immeasurable urban quali-
ties of the historic neighborhood are also especially important in Shanghai’s shift from
‘progress to prosperity.’105

Neighborhoods of Socio-Economic Diversity

The historic urban neighborhoods could be seen as not being ‘representative’ of many
neighborhoods in the vast metropolitan territory of the provincial-level municipality
of Shanghai.106 A Sino-sized Shanghai, with its large-scale generic new urban-scape
found all over Chinese cities, is indeed much more prevalent and visible beyond the
city core’s first ring. There, outside of the city core, unencumbered by the complexi-
ty of fragmented ownership legacies that remain in the city center of Shanghai, most
developments are taking place in the large swaths of new developments. Land leases,
in larger quantities on the periphery, are expedited by the financial needs of the local
governments to fund infrastructure modernization, which would promote further eco-
nomic growth. The vast majority of the municipality’s spatial productions represent
the transition economy’s place-independent development strategy, which has since
multiplied in other Chinese cities, from the coast to inland.
From incumbent local residents, who have been in the area since before transi-
tion, to the transnational knowledge worker, the city center neighborhoods manifest

40
 the socio-economic diversity that is a consequence of economic transition. The wide
range of housing types, and broad choices of local with international consumer fare,
all coexisting within the same neighborhood, has made the neighborhood vibrant and
attractive, especially to the influx of international knowledge workers.
Exploiting the inefficiencies in the dual housing market in the city center, local and
transnational stakeholders, with the support of local bureaucrats, have actively con-
verted and reused depreciated spaces. These early opportune urban loopholes have di-
versified since the early 2000s, when the first wave of transnational entrepreneurs en-
tered the market and specialized in roles that quickly globalized the spatial products.
The introduction of new programs and experimenting with new development models
took place in the second decade of urban development, and in turn also set the pace
and tone for ensuing projects.

Different Districts, Differing Development Pathways

Different neighborhoods were also chosen for closer study because of their locations in
Shanghai’s different districts. The semi-autonomy of districts in Shanghai have made
their aspirations and policy implementations unique. The legacy conditions and dis-
trict authority personnel have also contributed to how each district has positioned
itself in the intense inter-district competition for economic growth.
Jing’an [静安] District’s large-scale and aggressive urban developments are com-
pelled by its small size and legacy resources. Its historic legacy of industrial-residential
mixed neighborhoods to its north and more high-end modern era housing to its south
has also made it one of the most eager districts to execute rapid urban renewal through
the demolition of vast older neighborhoods. The area around the West Nanjing Lu cor-
ridor, which has historically been an important commercial area, has undergone rapid
transformation since the 1980s. Jing’an’s leaders have prioritized program-specific and
large-scale urban development along West Nanjing Lu to maximize economic growth.
Its surrounding residential neighborhood, formerly in the western end of the Interna-
tional Settlement, contains both earlier and later modern era housing types that are
multifunctional and socio-economically diverse. The transformations in the neighbor-
hood, making one residential block an un-official but renowned—within certain cir-
cles—creative cluster, makes its closer study compelling.
Compared to the rapid changes executed in Jing’an, Xuhui [徐汇] District, on the
other hand, has undergone paced change. It is a well-endowed central district whose
sizable hinterland includes several manufacturing zones, acquired in the 1980s expan-
sion and consolidation of municipal central districts. Located at the western end of the
former French Concession, it also is home to some of newest modern era housing built
under the strict planning of the former Concession authorities. Not only could the dis-
trict afford large-scale conservation of heritage neighborhoods, but its elite occupants,
both affiliated with the state as well as those with transnational connections, have
Chapter 1 Introduction

also made its transformation exceptional.

The localized conditions make the study of the differing processes for urban de-
velopment under economic transition in the same city relevant and intriguing. It also
shows how the conceptual framework of the urban loophole, in the context of differ-
ences in agents and drivers, is still a productive tool for understanding urban spatial
production under the flexible, volatile, and developmental state.

41
Fig. 11 Map of Shanghai city center, with one-square-kilometer areas chosen for closer
analyses outlined in red. Places of creative economy are shown in colored dots
Urban Analysis and ‘Spatial Cases’
The construction of several case studies, which are at the scale of neighborhoods
around one square kilometer in area, incorporates both historic evidence as well as
contemporary socio-spatial findings, to deliver narratives that show the trajectory and
potential of each of the study areas.
Especially for an urban spatial production system that is rapidly changing within a
society that is demographically mobile, institutionally fluid, and growing economical-
ly, quantitative analysis, even if attainable with a limited number of variables, would
be unable to account for depth of the changing conditions. A number of quantitative
analyses that the author has encountered in existing studies on Shanghai, for example,
often draw conclusions that seem of little pertinence to both the broader research com-
munity and discipline-specific specialists.107 Despite exhaustive data collection and
correlations, the limited range of variables that are correlated often renders the conclu-
sions rather inept in explaining phenomena that are more process-driven and time-spe-
cific.108 Political pressures, in addition to the scale of the country, make the published
quantitative data only reliable as a point of reference. It is only through the aggregation
of large quantities of data that they become useful for giving an approximate overview.
At smaller sample sizes, the variance between locations, even within the same munic-
ipality, would become inadequate to describe a particular circumstance.
This project specifically sets out to go beyond the findings of these kinds of neces-
sary quantitative analyses to detect the complex, nuanced, and confounding ‘margins
of errors,’ through in-depth case studies via a mix of methods. The trends and devel-
opments that are otherwise unexplained by the big data methods, increasingly preva­
lent in urban research, need to be correlated to close-up investigations and zoom-ins
to qualify the unique instances over spans of time. Selective information provided by
the overlapping agents, from users, developers, investors, owners to academics, policy
makers, bureaucrats, and often permutations of their combination, have made many
of the spatial specificities possible. Knowingly difficult and time-consuming, firsthand
feedback on the developments, as well as physical experience of the spaces is of utmost
importance in clarifying the drivers, actors, procedures, pathways, and mechanisms
that make the different spatial products witnessed today possible.
Following initial site research, involving site documentation and mapping, three
one-square-kilometer areas were chosen for more extensive fieldwork. (Fig. 11) Al-
though the research extents exceeded the areas outlined, the areas were chosen as
bounded limits for in-depth fieldwork, since it would be nearly impossible to cover
the large area of Shanghai’s entire city center. Extensive urban analysis, including
detailed mapping and photographic documentation from fieldwork, was conducted.
Semi-structured interviews with selected stakeholders were also held. They comple-
mented and grounded the empirical research. Published sources, including govern-
ment publications, statistical annals, policy reports, legal issuances, and news reports,
as well as discipline-specific research analyses, are also included.
Fieldwork in Shanghai was conducted between 2011 and 2013. Extensive visits to
the three neighborhood areas were carried out. Selected interviews with stakehold-
ers, including users, developers, bureaucrats, and designers were held during the field-
work period. Detailed processes of development for particular sites and certain spatial
production mechanisms in particular were gathered through the interviews. In-depth

44
 First Exodus of capital and Second Exodus of know-how; also
know-how forcible “selling” of properties
1949 1960 1965 1976 1989 1991 1996 2001 2004 2006 2010

First housing cutoff for working period CITY CENTER (EXISTING) FOREIGNERS FOREIGNERS
commodification for Use rights 使用权 CAN BUY in CANNOT BUY
RETURNEES 华侨 Ownership rights 拥有权 certain areas unless have
花园洋房 NEW HOUSING
Commodity Housing 商品房拥有权
permit
Rental Multifamily
Garden house

Ownership Rental
Multifunctional
Ownership Residential Addition and Conversion Ownership regained

Ownership
Commercial

Multifunctional
Re-development

新式里弄 SOE possession

租赁卡 SOE possession
Lilong house
Rental age document
indicates all the program
distributions in the Rental Multifamily
property [功能发布]

Rental Multifamily

Ownership

Rental Single Family Commercial Insertion Function Change

Rental Commercial
居改非
Residential Commercial
must go through
Ownership district-level urban
management [城管]
公寓 落实政策 Ownership Commercial
Policies that settled
Apartment building
contested real estate assets residential
as result of the Cultural atelier
Revolution commercial
utility

Fig. 12 Diagram of changes in demographics, ownership, and program in different residential types through time

background research, including document collection, archival research, and site doc-
umentation were also conducted in parallel. Notable development projects were also
collected. Their roles as ‘critical case example,’ ‘unique case example,’ or ‘representa-
tive case example’ were assessed.109 Selective quantitative analyses, including cash
flow analyses, were done to understand the economic drivers and financial collabora-
tions for certain developments. Significant shifts in policy and their effects on devel-
opment implementation were further investigated, and assessments of whether ‘longi-
tudinal case examples’ could be established were also considered. Conversations with
local academics, planners, and policy makers were carried out at the same time to un-
derstand the broader developments in the city and the interrelation between larger
trends, often influenced by high-level policies, decisions and visions for development,
and their implementation on the ground.
In addition to analyzing the actors, drivers, and the processes of transformation,
built spaces are at the center of the analyses. Unique to the author’s discipline of archi-
tecture, the role of building types and urban form are regarded as equal contributors, if
not foundational resources, that need to be attributed to the specific patterns of urban
transformations that have taken place. (Fig. 12) By not only incorporating these archi-
Chapter 1 Introduction

tectural specificities, but also their locational particularities in time, the mechanisms
for these changing processes were elucidated.
Evidence from parallel events, comparable cases, as well as important precedents
is included to contextualize the kinds of developments that take place in the diversity
of conditions that co-exist in the contemporary Chinese city. In each episode, agents,
spaces, functions, locations, and the processes involved in urban spatial production

45
1840 1949 1965
Concession port cities created as result of Opium War, Flight of wealth and elites from Concessions to safer Coastal cities subsidized development of inland cities
expediting international trade. havens as result of the Communist Liberation of China. as industrial hubs.

Shanghai

Taipei

Hong Kong
Concession City inland industrial urban centers

1840 1949 1965

Population: 500,000 Population: 5,000,000 Population: 10,000,000
GDPP: 43 RMB GDPP: ---
Shanghai founded as result of designation as a Shanghai comes under Communist rule as the financial Even though half of national GDP is generated by
Concession port city. and economic generator of China. Shanghai, little of it returns to the city to invest in its
infrastrucutre or housing.

25 km

Fig. 13 Diagram relating the nation’s development in time to the urban development of Shanghai

are identified, to show the mechanisms that have made the urban adaptability under
rapid transformation possible.

‘Genealogy,’ Spatial Cases Developing in Time

Set out with the intention of instrumentalizing design agency, the research itself is in-
debted to the framework of genealogical mode of inquiry, as articulated by philosopher
Michel Foucault. In contrast to the historian’s history, which leaves the past behind as
the past, Foucault’s concept of genealogy makes the awareness of the present a crucial
part of the tracing of a historic trajectory leading up to this present. Foucault refers to
this as ‘effective’ or ‘living history.’110 This ‘living history,’ crucially, includes the mov-
ing target of the present moment. The positioning of the present in the selection of

46
1978
Following the death of Mao, Deng Xiaoping took over as
national leader and created the first SEZs in proximity to
market economy of British Hong Kong. The first wave of
emigration also began.
1992
Following inflation-induced protests of 1989 and their
successful quelching, Shanghai became the “Dragon’s
Head,” accelerating the transition to market economy
and influx of FDI.
2005
A maturing of the socialist market system and urban
develompent prepares for the city’s showcasing at the
World Expo, both to inland cities and to international
visitors/investors.

Shanghai Shanghai

Shenzhen

SEZs sources of investment capital

(Special Economic Zones)

1978 1992 2005

Population: 10,000,000 Population: 12,900,000 Population: 18,000,000 (4300000 floating)
GDPP: 2000 RMB GDPP: 9380 RMB GDPP: 67492 RMB
Shanghai built only 22.8mio square Shanghai began urban restructuring
meters of hosuing from 1950-1980, accompanying accelerated economic
accounting for less than 0.5%GDP. liberalization.

events leading up to the present forms the genealogy. It is also in this inclusion of the
present in the genealogy that a criticality of the present is possible. This criticality of
the present is fundamental to future interventions in the city.
Foucault noted, “genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary.”111 In
the following research, the relationship of spatial developments, requiring meticulous
Chapter 1 Introduction

documentation of events over time, is crucial to understanding their relationships to

the broader shifts in the political economy. This method of investigation shows how
the evolution of developmental thinking and the effects of changing policies are trans-
forming the way in which space is produced in the city. (Fig. 13) A deeply layered time-
line for each case is used to relate event to event, place to place, as well as policy to
execution. Land leases, development construction, evolution of certain entrepreneurs

47
 are included also to reveal the changes in processes and realization. As one of the most
prolific and prominent scholars of Chinese urbanism, Wu Fulong, once intimated, the
politics of scale is crucial to understanding the rapid development of the cities of tran-
sitioning economies. Key events or sets of events at the larger scale trigger or intro-
duce certain effects at the local scale, influencing decisions, reactions, and coinciding
opportunities. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the 2008 Financial Crisis, for ex-
ample, each had an explicit impact on the flows of global capital. Their repercussions
at the local scale, in turn, prompted policy responses, which changed the urban spatial
production system. At the scale of country, which is, again to be emphasized, by far the
largest in the world, central government decisions such as the granting of the World
Expo site to Shanghai, had bearing on the ensuing projects and procedures.
“Genealogy, consequently, requires patience and a knowledge of details, and it de-
pends on a vast accumulation of source material. Its ‘cyclopean monuments’ are con-
structed from discrete and apparently insignificant truths and according to a rigorous
method.”112 On a larger scale, a timeline of the policies of the central government and
the municipality are chronicled as are significant local and global events. (Fig. 14) Inter-
national events such as the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, national episodes such as cen-
tral government leadership changes and CCP Congresses, and municipal occasions like
the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai as well as local incidents, come together to show the
interactions of specific spatial productions with larger events in the world. The zoom-
ins show the effect of globalization on everyday life, revealing, for example, the effect
that high returns from North American private equity investment funds have on, and
that are, in turn, impacted by the land market in Shanghai’s historic neighborhoods.
The timeline is crucial to the understanding of the urban loopholes’ contextual evo-
lution. In the transition from an urban spatial production system under a centrally
planned economy to one under a partial market economy with vestiges of central plan-
ning, the urban loopholes generated by gaps and absences in the first phase of transition
have increasingly become urban loopholes resulting from ambiguities and exceptions.
Shaped by the changing policies of China’s deep bureaucratic hierarchy and their trans-
forming relationship with the omnipresent adaptive and developmental local state,
the urban loopholes’ evolution also reflects the growing involvement of the state. These
evolutions of both the urban loopholes and growing state involvement become appar-
ent when mapped onto the timeline, showing the maturing of the transition economy.
Although the identification of urban potential could have led to projective scenar-
ios, the author has chosen to refrain from detailed projections, limited by the scope
of the study. Aware of the perpetual uncertainty embedded in the transition econo-
my and the inherent adaptability of the urban spatial production system, the analysis
could be a precursor to potential proposals.

Existing Studies on Urban China in Transition

The literature on China’s accelerated economic liberalization has burgeoned over the
decades, ranging from academic to popular, all analyzing and explaining the multi-
ple aspects of China’s expedient transformation and rise. China experts such as Perry
Link,113 Roderick MacFarquhar,114 Geremie Barmé,115 Elizabeth Perry,116 and many

48
more, in the fields of Chinese studies, international studies, political science, econom-
ics, law, have produced insightful and incisive volumes on the country’s developments.
Scholars like David Harvey and Manuel Castells have included China as exemplary
cases in chronicles of broader global phenomena.117 More recently journalists, such as
Evan Osnos and Peter Hessler, have also produced insightful volumes that try to make
the rapid transformation to China and the drivers and agents behind change accessible
to an educated Western public.118 From the disciplines of geography and urban econ-
omy, the highly respected and prolific Wu Fulong and Zhu Jieming, for example, were
some of the earliest scholars of China’s marketization and urban development. Their
edited volumes have formed the basis of much later scholarship on contemporary Chi-
nese urbanism.119
Research into spatial production, initially confined to a handful of Chinese experts
in Western high academia, entered architecture discourse in the late 1990s. Based on
studio research conducted from 1996 to 1997, Great Leap Forward was published in 2001.
Seizing on the moment of China’s distinct economic transition, the study examined
the opening sites of the country’s marketization.120 The volume not only put China and
its transitional political economy on the radar for designers, but conversely, its spatial
probes highlighted the conceptual framework specific to architecture as a discipline.
The research dissected socio-economic and political transformations through the pro-
cesses of spatial production, in which maps, plans, diagrams, and visual documenta-
tion were not only illustrative but serve as instruments as much as, and complemen-
tary to, the more normative quantitative and qualitative analyses.
Even though a flurry of international architecture publications specializing in Chi-
na followed, highlighting the chance with which the foreign architects could build at
a scale and speed not encountered before, only few provided insight into what Great
Leap Forward called the “relentless building” and “maelstrom of modernization” that
“seems to be least understood at the very moment of its apotheosis.”121
Most of the books that are published have also often covered Chinese cities as a
singular phenomenon, where cities offer a range of developments.122 Only a few have
been incisive while being able to account for the scale of China and the significance
of its transition on the world.123 Many collated volumes have tried to bring together
diverse topics, where only a handful of individual essays actually bring to the table
new viewpoints and new content.124 Specifically themed research was most often the
most lucid and synthetic, bringing together rich content with illuminating concepts.125
Many of the others seemed still to be struggling to handle the enormity of both the
site, of China as a whole, and its transformation, as a singular phenomenon. A few
have appeared markedly philosophical in summarizing the experience of encounter-
ing the Chinese cities from the perspective of the West,126 with attempts to either dis-
till the logic of the phenomena,127 or summarize the most exotic and striking of their
parts.128 A few that do denote the specificities of context from the framework of space,
Chapter 1 Introduction

have been successful in their access to the complexities of China’s diverse but rapid
urbanization.129
Given the scale of China, the blanket pronouncements on a singularity of ‘Chinese
cities’ either reveal the urgency for fundamental research, or an inanity on the part
of the global intellectual community that continues to fail to grasp the magnitude
of diversities within a country that could be a continent. The serious and oftentimes

49
 1976 1989 1992 1996

Shenzhen as SEZ
Mao Zedong passes away

Rising Inflation

Jinmao Tower opens

Tian’anmen Incident

Shanghai becomes
Dragon’s Head
Jiang Zeming becomes
General Secretary of the CCP

SOE restructuring
Deng Xiaoping
passes away
Asia Economic Crisis
Hong Kong Handover

Pudong Airport opens

APEC in Shanghai
“Changes Every Year, Transformations “Build
Every Three Years” Preser
LAND REFORM AND DEVOLUTION OF AUTHORITY
1982 People’s Congress Standing State Council issues (1991) 中华 State Council 1994 State Council issues (1998) N. 256 中华人民共和国土地管理法
Article 10 of the Committee issues (1987/1/1) 人民共和国城镇国有土地使用权出 (1993) 城市房地产管理法 Urban Real 实施条例 [Regulations for the Implementation of the
Constitution states N.27 土地管理法 [Land 让和转让暂行条例 [Provisional Provisional Land Estate Admin Law control Land Administration Law of the PRC] grants property right
"urban land is owned Administration Act] Regulation on Granting and Value Increment of urban land to local government, but central government takes
by the state only" and state owns all urban land and Transferring Land-use Rights Tax on land speculation
small percent of land leasing premium
"not allowed to be collectives own rural land on State-owned Land in Cities State-owned
bought, sold or and Towns] Land Act Land Admin Bureau issues (1998) N. 8 国有企业改革中划拨土
transferred" 1988 Constitution amended to separate land 土地增值税 地使用权管理暂行规定 [Provisional Regulations on the
ownership from land use rights; the non-gratuitous Sh government promotes Property Right Administration of Allocated Land in
1979 transfer of land use rights came into effect 两级政府三级管理 the Reform of State Owned Enterprises] allows SOEs to
Ministry of Urban and Rural Standing Commit tee issues (1989) N.23 中华人 use state-allocated land occupied for real estate development, with
Construction and Environment Shanghai implements (1996/6/2) profits generated to compensate laid-off workers Shanghai i
民共和国城市规划法 [City Planning Law of the
Protection formed 修改《上海市
PRC] gives the local state the power to issue land use 上海市基准地价 [Basic prices of Urban
Bureau of Urban Planning formed to Amending
organize and approve masterplans and building permits, and enforce development control Land in Shanghai] rates defined for 12 land
through the urban plan classes corresp to 3 use types (mixed, residential Rights in S
Shanghai issues (1987/11/27) N.42 and industrial), but largely reflects 外销商品房 rights for com
上海市土地使用有偿转让办法 [Measures 1992
of Shanghai Municipality on the
Compensatory Transfer of Land Use
first land lease to foreigner in
Shanghai SLUM CLEARANCE AND REDEVELOPMENT
Rights] Shanghai issues（1992/3/13） Tax sharing reform Shanghai issues (1996/4/22) N. 18 关 Shanghai issues (1998/8/2) N. 33关于 365 Plan Shanghai is
Shanghai issues (1986/10/30) N.113 关于棚户简屋改造规划和实施情况的 deprives local 于加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造若干 加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造实施办 completed N. 68 关于鼓
上海市中外合资经营企业土地使用管理办法 报告 [Report Regarding Slum government of 意见 [Some Views Regarding 法 [Accelerating of City Center 365 Ha 轮旧区改造的
[Measures Concerning Land Use Housing Upgrade Plan and Accelerating of City Center Slum Slum Upgrade Implementation] Encouraging
Implementation] revenue Upgrade] authorizes district governments reduces land leasing fee, subsidies to demolished Move back,
Administration for Sino-Foreign Joint Equity round of pilo
the approval right for applications of private developers $40-$110/sm
Enterprises in Shanghai] Shanghai issues (1993/12） reduces landle
redevelopment proposals from private demolished
365 Plan - demolition of 365 Ha aimed developers who qualify
for 2000 Shanghai issues (1997/3/17) N. 20 关
Shanghai issues（1982） 于执行〈加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造若
上海旧区七年住宅改建基地布局规划 State Council issues (1991) N.78 干意见〉中有关问题的实施意见
[Shanghai Old District Seven 城市房屋拆迁管理条例
Year Housing Renovation Site Shanghai issues (1998/9/4) N. 53 关于加快 State Counc
[Regulations for the Management 管理条例 [R
Layout Plan] demolition of 540 本市中心城区危棚简屋改造的有关财税问题
of Urban Housing Demolition Housing De
Ha, 161000 families displaced and Relocation] [Regarding accelerating city center Slum
Upgrade-related Tax Issues] than residents

HOUSING MARKETIZATION
State Council State Council issues 1991 Shanghai pilots 公积金 State Council issues (1994) N.43 State Council issues (1998/7/3) N.23 关于进一步深 Shanghai iss
issues (1984) N. (1988) N.11 关于在 Housing Provident Fund 关于深化城镇住房制度改革的决定 化城镇住房制度改革加快住房建设的通知 [Notice 111 上海市城
140 关于扩大城 全国城镇分期分批准 (HPF) [Decision regarding Deepening of regarding the deepening of the Urban Housing [Detailed Re
市住宅补贴出售 行住房制度改革实施 Urban Housing Reform] supply System Reform and the acceleration of Residential Managemen
试点的通知 方案[Implementation 8th Five Year Plan (1991-1995) and demand side programs Construction] prohibits danwei from building or buying Demolition
[Regarding the Plan for a Gradual new housing units for employees Implementa
Pilot Sites for the Housing System 关于全面进行城镇住房制度改革的意见 danwei has to convert housing fund into monetary
broadening of Reform in Cities and [Urban Housing Reform Resolution] subsidies so employees can buy homes on market Shanghai iss
National HPF 公积金 184 上海市房
sale of housing Towns] begins sale of
subsidies in public housing at 除直管公房等
Large Cities]] discounted prices
1992 Shanghai establishes [Some Regu
Housing Reform Office Shanghai issues (1998) Doc N. 19 关于促进本市住宅产 Compensatio
10 Year Reform 房改办 Shanghai issues (1994) Doc N. 19 业的健康发展的若干意见 [Some views regarding Directly Man
Shanghai issues Strategy to promoting the healthy development of the residential the like]
(1984) 上海市出售
关于出售公房的暂行办法 industry in Shanghai]
encourages home
[Provisional Measures Regarding Sale
商品住宅管理办法( purchase, financing of Publicly-owned housing] Shanghai issues (1999/1/19) Doc N.
试行）[Measures and restructure rents 4 上海市公有住房差价交换试行办法
for the management Shanghai issues (1994) Doc N. 34 [Pilot measures for the exchange of
of Commodity Cutoff for working
period counting 关于出售公有住房的实施细则 Shanghai public housing with pricing
Housing Sales] 3 [Regulations Regarding difference] city center units allowed to be
types of funding for towards housing Implementation of Sale of purchased with ownership rights 25% increa
housing: Publicly-owned housing] 70% increa
1. state, 2. SOE, 3. 1987 Shanghai pilots
developer sale of 2000sm of
State Council issues housing
(1980/3/5) N.61 关于用侨汇 starts district level
Cheap Rental Housing (CRH) require
购买和建设住宅的暂行办法 developments small units Foreigners
[Provisional Regulations
Regarding using Overseas
Chinese Remittance to
purchase and construct
housing] 1987/9 侨汇商品住宅建设回忆 OVERSEAS CHINESE AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT
State Council issues opened 19 sites, 450000sm, 5000units Shanghai issues (1993/12/28) 上海 Shanghai issues (1995/8/28) 上 Shanghai issues (1999/12/01) Shanghai is
(1983) N.152 关于引进国 1988/3 上海市外商投资房产企业商品 市利用外资开发经营内销商品住宅暂海市利用外资开发经营内销商品 N.42 关于内销商品住房种类归并 (implement
外人才工作的暂行规定 住宅出售管理办法 [Administrative 行规定 [Provisional Regulation 住宅规定 [Regulation regarding 的若干规定 [Some Regulations 外销商品住
[Provisional regulations re Measures of Shanghai Municipality regarding using Foreign Investmentusing Foreign Investment for the Regarding the consolidation of [Some Com
the importation of Foreign Governing the Sale of Commercial for the development and development and management the Types Commodity Housing consolidati
Talent for work] Housing by Foreign Investment management of commodity of commodity housing sold to for Local Market] housing ma
1979 Law of Joint Ventures of Real State Enterprises] accelerates housing sold to the national the national market]
market] landlease for 70 years to (2001/9/1)
the PRC begins FDI overseas investment
foreign developers in the city center erased from
1986 上海市沿街 Shanghai issues (1994) N.43 上海 State Council issues (1996) N.152 卖的合同文
Shanghai issues (1990/3) 关于发展本市侨汇，外汇商
公有营业用房管理 品房的意见 [Thoughts regarding development of 市引进国外专家暂行办法 [Interim 外国人在中国就业管理规定
暂行办法 commodity housing for overseas remittances] forbids Procedures of Shanghai Municipality [Provisions on the Employment of
[Provisional selling of commodity housing for overseas Chinese to on the Intake of Experts From
Foreigners in China]
measures local enterprises Abroad]
regarding the
management of
street-front
MONUMENT PROTECTION
publicly owned Shanghai (1989) N.62 Shanghai (1993) Shanghai (1994) N.8 1997 Shanghai (1999) N.57 +162
commercial units] issues 59 locations N.47 amend +2 +175 Locations declared 上海市历史文化名城保护 Locations declared 优秀历史建筑
declared 优秀近代建筑 (became 61) 优秀 优秀历史建筑 规划 [Shanghai Historic
近代历史建筑 Cultural City Protection 1999.03 Shanghai Municipal
Plan] Planning Bureau publishes 上海市
State Council lists State National 建设部、文 历史文化名城保护规划[Conservation
(1982/2/8) 24 cities
as 国家历史文化名
城 National Historic
Council 化部 issues
(1986/12/ (1988/11/10) 关于重
GDP 121.1bio RMB Plan for Shanghai Historic Cultural
Renowned City]
Cultural Renowned 08) 关于请 点调查保护优秀近代 1999.03 上海市历史文化名城保护
Cities Shanghai issues (1991/12/05) Shanghai issues (1994/10/08)
公布第二 建筑物的通知 与发展关系基础研究 [The Basic
上海市优秀近代建筑保护管理 N.1101上海市房产管理局关于重申
批国家历 [Notice regarding Research on the Relationship of
State Council issues 史文化名 Key Investigations 办法 [Measures for the 加强对本市优秀近代建筑保护管理 Conservation and Development in
(1982/11/19) conservation and management 的通知
城名单报 into Protecting Shanghai Historic Cultural Prominent
中华人民共和国文物 告的通知 Excellent of Shanghai’s Excellent City]
保护法 [PRC Law for [Notice Modern-era Modern-era Architecture] 1997 publication of 上
Shanghai issues (1999/9/8) N.0678
the Protection of regarding Building] 海百年建筑史
Shanghai City Planning 关于本市历史建筑与街区保护改造
Cultural Relics] the 1840-1949［A history
Bureau, Tongji University, 试点的实施意见的通知 [Notice
announce-1988 publication of Shanghai Museum produce of Shanghai’s hundred regarding the recommendations for
ment of 上海近代建筑史稿 (1991/7) 上海历史文化名城保 years of architecture the implementation of the historic
the 1840-1949] by Wu architecture and neighborhood
[History Of 护规划 [Conservation Plan for
second list Shanghai Jiang conservation and upgrade pilot
Shanghai Historic Cultural

31,100mio RMB GDP 121,100mio

projects]
of Modern-Era Renowned City] proposes 11
National Architecture areas for conservation
Historic Manuscript]
Cultural by Chen Congzhou
Re-
nowned
43RMB GDPP 2,500RMB GDPP 1999 publication of 上
海近代建筑风格
[Shanghai Modern-era
9,380RM
Cities]
lists Architecture Style]
by Zheng Shiling

5,000,000inhab 10,000,000inhab 12,900,00

Shanghai
as one of
38
 2002 2004 2008 2010

Policy to tighten control over

land

Beijing hosts Olympics

China joins WTO
( 11 Dec 2001)

Hongqiao T2 opens

World Expo in Shanghai

Hu Jintao becomes
General Secretary of the CCP

rising prices

World Financial Crisis

Xi Jinping becomes
General Secretary of the CCP
Macroeconomic measures to cool

ding New is Development, “Better City Better Life”

rving Old is also Development”
36000 RMB/sm hsg
Land Admin Bureau issues N. 11 Land Admin Bureau issues N. 71 (2004) 关于继续开 2007 城市房地产管理法 [Urban
(2002) 招标拍卖挂牌出让国有建设土 展经营性土地使用权招标拍卖挂牌出让情况执法检查工作的 Real Estate Admin Law] Central Government
地使用权规定[Regulations on Lease 通知 [Notice on continuing on Inspection of and
Supervision over law enforcement for the Lease of Land and Resource Administration
of State-owned Land by Bidding, (2012) Doc. N. 53 闲置土地处置办
Auction and Market-allocated Land-use Right by Bidding, prohibits SOEs from real estate
Listing-for-Sale] requires all land for Auction and Listing-for-Sale] sets 31 August 2004 as development 法 [Regulation to handle unused Shanghai Municipal
deadline for all cities to ban negotiated conveyance for land]
business purposes (commercial, tourism, Development and
entertainment, commodity housing) to commercial development
Reform Commission
transfer publically after 1 July 2002 either State Council issues N. 28 (2004) 关于深化改革严格土
through tender, auction or quotation issues (2014/4/11)
地管理的决定 [Decision on Deepening Reform and
N.37
issues Doc N. 101 (2001)
市土地使用权出让办法》的决定 [Decision on
ever to reiterate the orders of n. 11 and n. 71 decrees
Strengthening Land Administration] strictest land policy
GDP 1’690bio RMB 关于推进上海市轨道
交通场站及周边土地
the Methods of Granting Land Use Shanghai Planning Dept issues N. 355 (2004) 加强中
心城内改变土地使用性质规划管理的暂行规定[Provisional 综合开发利用的实施
Shanghai]ensures that the granting of land-use
mmercial land is acquired via public bidding Regulations on the Planning Control of Change in 意见（暂行） []
Land-use in the Central City (Shanghai)] any
redevelopment and expansion projects on the land of existing
public facilities, including culture, education, health, sports etc, State Council issues N. 17 (2008/10) 上海市人民政府机
and the land of secondary industry like factories, warehouses 构改革方案 [Plan for the organizational reform of the
ssues (2001/02/09) Doc etc., should be strictly controlled accordance with the approved Shanghai Municipal Government] forms 上海市规划与国
鼓励动迁居民回搬推进新一 plans 土资源管理局 Shanghai Municipal Planning and Land
的试行办法 [Regarding Resources Administration as result of municipal reform and
g Displaced Residents to consolidated land resource management with urban planning
pushing forward new
lot for urban upgrade]
ease for selected developers
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Central Government issues Ministry of Housing issues (2011)
Cheap Rental Housing [Push Forward Social Security
cil re-issues (2001) Doc N.305 城市房屋拆迁 (2004) [Ways to provide cheap rental Guarantee Plan 2009-2011 Housing Construction in a Large State Council issues (2013/9) N. 35
Regulations for the Management of Urban housing for the poorest urban Scale] raises the ratio of urban 关于加快发展养老服务业的若干意见
emolition and Relocation] based on area rather residents] households covered by affordable housing [Some views regarding accelerating
s to about 20 per cent by 2015 elderly care service industries]

sues (2001/10/29) Doc N. State Council issues (2003/8/12) N. 18 State Council issues (2005/5/9) N. 26 关于做好稳定住房价格工作意见的通知 State Council issues (2010/4/17) N. 10 关于坚决遏制部分 Shanghai issues (2014/6/17) N. 关于
城市房屋拆迁管理实施细则 关于促进房地产市场持续健康发展的通 [Opinion on Doing a Good Job of Stabilizing House Prices] imposes a tax on 城市房价过快上涨的通知 [Circular on Steadfastly 开展老年人住房反向抵押养老保险试点
egulations for the 知 [On Promoting the Continuous and housing transactions at 5.5% of sale price on non-ordinary housing to curb housing Preventing Rapid Housing Price Inflation in Some Cities] 的指导意见 [Views regarding pilot and
nt of Urban Housing Healthy Development of the Real speculation State Council issues (2006/6/30) N.37 关于调整住房供应 a ban on mortgages for third home purchase steering elderly housing reverse
and Displacement Estate Markets] stipulates ordinary 结构稳定住房价格意见 [Opinions on Adjusting House State Council issues (2008/12/20) N.131 关于促进房地产 mortage]
ation] market housing should dominate housing Supply Structure and Stabilizing House Price] 市场健康发展的若干意见 [Several Opinions on Promoting
supply ‘for the majority of households to
sues (2001/11/09) Doc N. buy or to rent’ Ministry of Construction issues (2006/11/27) N.171 关于规the Healthy Development of the Real Estate Market]
房屋土地资源管理局关于拆 范房地产市场外资准入和管理的意见 [Opinions on
等房屋补偿款的若干规定 Regulating Access of Foreign Capital into the Real Estate
Market] stricter regulations for real estsate operations State Council issues (2011/1/27) N. 1
ulations Regarding 关于进一步做好房地产市场调控工作有
ion for the Demolition of Ministry of Commerce issues (2007/5/23) N.50 关于进一
步加强、规范外商直接投资房地产业审批和监管的通知 关问题的通知 [Circular on Relevant
naged Public Housing and Issues to Further the Control of the
[Notice on Further Strengthening and Regulating the
Examination, Approval and Supervision of Foreign Direct Real Estate Market] purchase restrictions
Investment in Real Estate Industry] requires local were imposed for units beyond first home
governments to have better supervision of foreign investment in
real estate market

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
ase in housing price in Chinese cities Shanghai Urban Planning Dept issues (2008) Doc N.
ase in Shanghai (2001-2004) 866 关于促进节约集约利用工业用地加快发展现代服
务业的若干意见 [The Directives on Accelerating the
Development of Modern Service Industry and the
Promotion of Intensive Utilization of Industrial
Land]
allowed to buy Foreigners no longer allowed to buy
2008 Shanghai establishes
上海市外国专家局 Shanghai Administration of
Foreign Experts Affairs
ssues (2001/6/15) N.22 Ministry of Commerce issues (2007/3/6) N.25 关于 State Council establishes
2007年吸收外商投资工作指导性意见 [Guidance on
tation 8/1) 关于本市内 Absorption of Foreign Investment in China 2007] (2012/09/05) N.53 外国人在中国永
住房并轨的若干意见 encourace investments in inland markets as well as in high-tech 久居留享有相关待遇的办法
mments regarding the industries, strict limitations on foreign investment in real estate [Foreigners’ Permanent Residence in
ion of commodity market China]
arkets]
CREATIVE ECONOMIES
‘W’, ‘N’
2004/11/6 上海创意产业中 75 sites given Creative Sh Economic Council issues (2008/6/13) N. 452 上海 Sh Economic Council issues (2011/9/2
m 商品房买
心 Shanghai Creative Center plaque 市加快创意产业发展的指导意见 [Guiding advice on 8) N. 51 关于推进上海规划产业区块外产业结构调整
文本 accelerating Creative Industries Development]
Industries Center (SCIC) 转型的指导意见 [Guiding advice on promoting
founded 上海市创意产业集聚区认定管理办法（试行） industrial structure reform and transition of
[Confirmation and Management of Shanghai industrial districts outside of planning in Shanghai]
Creative Industries Clusters (pilot)]

HERITAGE CONSERVATION
Shanghai approves (2003/11) 12 历+282 Locations declared
史文化风貌区 Historical Cultural 优秀历史建筑
Features and Styles Areas
Pudong included in Historical
declared = 27 sq km
and Cultural Area +12 sq km
Shanghai implements (2003/01)上 Shanghai issues (2005/11) 中心城
海市历史文化风貌区和优秀历史建 风貌保护道路规划管理办法
筑保护条例 [Regulations of Shanghai determines (2006) 144 风貌保护道
路 Historical Cultural Features and
Municipality on the Conservation of
the Districts with Historical Cultural Styles Streets and 64 永不拓宽的道路 Fig. 14 Timeline of the policies implementations by the central
Features and Styles And The Excellent Never-to-be-widened streets （一类
Historical Buildings] 风貌保护道路） government and Shanghai’s municipal government in relation
(2004)上海市衡山路复兴路历史文 Shanghai issues (2007/9/17) N.30
化风貌区保护规划[Hengshan Lu 关于本市风貌保护道路（街巷）规 to the different broader urban development issues under
Fuxing Lu Historic Cultural Features 划管理若干意见的通知 [Notice of
and Styles District Conservation Plan] Some Suggestions on the economic transition
Administration of Planning Work for
Shanghai issues (2004/9/11) N.31 Preservation-of-Historical-Look
关于进一步加强本市历史文化风貌 Streets (Alleys/Lanes)]
区和优秀历史建筑保护的通知
National 建设部 issues

477,100mio RMB GDP 915,400mio RMB GDP

(2004/03/06) 关于加强对
城市优秀近现代建筑规划
o RMB GDP 保护工作的指导意见

36,217RMB GDPP 67,492RMB GDPP

[Views and directions for
strengthening of thePlanning
MB GDPP and Protection of Excellent
Modern-era Building in the

4,300,000floating population
City]

00inhab 13,000,000inhab registered

 laborious academic tomes that are precise and focused on specific locations or topics
seem outnumbered by the shallow and sometimes glossy ‘narrative lites’ on Chinese
cities. Many more seem to be jumping on a popular bandwagon of increasingly fash-
ionable ‘tabloid urbanism’ than finding a new route to an interesting destination.
Books on the urban development of Shanghai especially are surprisingly lacking,
given the sheer number of international architecture firms and designers who have
settled there since the early 2000s. Even comprehensive volumes on the history of
Shanghai remain scarce.130 Studies in the style of the Endless Cities series, ask the ques-
tion of how exactly data matters in enlightening the understanding of a city.131 Vol-
umes that have focused on topics like public spaces seemed able only to superficially
explain a Western concept in the documentation of local phenomena.132 More spe-
cific studies, like the one on the development of Shanghai’s new towns, still showed,
especially in the selection of contributing essays, a marked distance from context; a
shortcoming that much of the Western language research on Chinese cities still large-
ly suffers.133 A few volumes have been able to give in-depth looks at particular topics.
An academic inquiry into the history of the lilong houses begins to offer a broader pic-
ture of the city and its historic context, from the perspective of understanding a very
specific and local architecture type and their urban aggregation.134 But few bring to-
gether the different layers of urbanism that have made a city like Shanghai unique and
gripping, despite its inherent draw. One most recent volume, in English by a Chinese
academic, gave an overview of the vastly different parts of the Shanghai metropolitan
area,135 but due to its coverage ambitions, could hardly get into each of the develop-
ments in any detail.
Whereas most English-language research on Chinese cities and Shanghai has been
deliberate in framing its content in a synthetic way, Chinese-language research, with
much more access to first-hand material, has largely been disappointing in its lack of
conceptual synthesis.136 Despite their privileged and often monopolistic access to ur-
ban archives, local academics have yet to bring together much of their studies beyond
cataloguing.137 In its nascent stages still, this first-hand collection and cataloguing
from recently opened archives is necessary, especially given the richness of content
drawn from material that is often difficult to procure. But it remains disappointing that
the analysis and assessments, that could complement the rich content, have been ei-
ther restricted or self-restrained. The context of the Chinese political system perhaps
makes this understandable. What history is allowed to be dissected and published
is confined to the era before the Liberation of 1949. The lack of published research on
Shanghai that clarifies the recent past, of the post-1949 era, makes it impossible to
make valid projections to the future while overlooking the most legacy-influential
era. The inability to relate history to the present reflects the cautious self-censorship
to which China’s academic community have yielded, a “cult of transgression without
risk.”138 The systemic aversion of the complex layers of recent history and their leg-
acies on contemporary developments have relegated local academic productions to a
continuing incompleteness that would be detrimental to the long-term intellectual
growth of an increasingly powerful nation.
In following the changes in Chinese research development, one seems to be follow-
ing also the most cutting-edge of global developments. Just as the rapid reproduction
of the likes of Apple gadgets has shown the shanzhai capabilities and economic prow-

52
ess of the Chinese value chain, so the swift and immediate learning and usurping of
the latest ideas shows how adept the Chinese are at localizing global concepts. Books
that do take on the interesting forms of creative templates on urban analysis from
precedent volumes disappoint in their clear lack of understanding of how the form
related to content in the original version.139 The increasing slickness of bureaucratic
publications still continues the often meaning-devoid sloganeering that has sustained
many verbose official publications since post-Liberation.140
If the Chinese language publications often fail to clarify complex phenomena,
many English language ones miss the point while analyzing Chinese changes. Be-
tween post-socialism and East Asian developmentalism, the framing of the Chinese
city’s radical transition has been confined to the established frameworks borrowed
from geography or economics. Scholars who look, for example, at the creativity of the
Chinese ‘creative industries clusters,’ without understanding the dual land or the ves-
tige of SOE hierarchies, in assessing the growth of the tertiary industries and eval­
uating their creativity capacities, often completely miss the relevance of creativity
as an alibi rather than as actual content.141 On the one hand, the actual ‘creatives’
often evade official classification, dodging the systematic institutional appropriation
of what they consider artistic freedom. The rapid shifts in sub-cultures often make
their presence deliberately undetectable, especially to scholars. On the other hand,
the central government policies that have limited the commercialization of adminis-
tratively-allocated land, for example, have also created numerous gaps in the central
areas of cities and these necessitate a reconceptualization of legal conversion.142 The
urban loophole, in such cases, becomes even more relevant to the understanding of
developments.
Combined with rising interest in heritage architecture and conservation move-
ments, the catch-all jingles for creative industries clusters and industrial reuse be-
came the front for a viable and, more importantly, legal, thus taxable, business plan
that has benefited the various stakeholders involved. For the SOE landlords, the de-
velopments gave them additional revenue without any effort made by the bureaucra-
cy. For the local government, the image-ability of redevelopments made the cityscape
cleaner, gave them more tax income, and also, importantly, scored them political per-
formance indicator points for service industry growth and innovation incubation. For
commercial tenants, the developments offered different spaces from the standard of-
fice buildings, nominally cheaper rents, and first-year incentives in the form of tax re-
bates and business registration priorities. The caveat is that the new spaces may not be
affordable to creative startups. After the first few years of pageantry and rapid growth
in the number of creative clusters, few new ones have been created. But the point here
is not that the development of these clusters is not interesting. Rather, the crux of the
matter is that the mantle of ‘creativity,’ as a globally circulated and fashionable policy
extraction, has been used, under local circumstances, to make the best of the existing
Chapter 1 Introduction

legal constraints. Creativity, thus, is of less importance than its deployment as an ur-
ban alibi that exploits the circumstantial loophole that has formed. It is not intention-
ally ill-meaning but rather a pragmatic resolution to the ambiguities and incoherencies
within the existing urban production system.
Many concepts, derived from the West, often North American or European, expe-
riences, become difficult to apply to the unique situation in a distinct context with its

53
 own specificities deriving from its historic legacies and cultural lineages. China, after
all, as emphasized already, is a sprawling country with a socio-cultural diversity that
spans the spectrum of theories. In-depth explorations of whether, for example, Shang-
hai’s socio-economic restructuring fits the broader narrative of globalization, neoliber-
alization, social polarization, and spatial segregation could only fail to account for the
range of drivers that interact in the complexity of the urban spaces.
More specifically, little attention has been paid to the socio-spatial and physical
transformations to city center neighborhoods at the neighborhood scale. This is es-
pecially so in areas that have not undergone wholesale demolition and renewal, and
where the complexities left over from the post-1949 era of the planned economy re-
main most visible; their impact on everyday life most palpable. Whether too challeng-
ing to tackle because of the cultural nuances involved with investigation by non-Chi-
nese or dialect speaking scholars, or whether the political sensitivities embedded in
unresolved and illicit distant and recent pasts have rendered clarity unworthy of local
inquiry, it remains surprising that these culturally rich but rapidly eroding bastions
of the city’s identity have been largely overlooked, indeed at their moments of “apo-
theosis.”143
This volume hopes to fill a visible gap in the current roster of research on the urban
spatial production of Chinese cities. It tries to give accounts, from a scale of analyses
that is much smaller than the territorial abstractions of geography and sociology, and
larger than the single-object analyses of architecture history. The study also reacts
directly to the very fact that little could be openly written about, especially with too
much clarity, for the period following 1949, despite ample excavated resources today
that would explain their relationship to contemporary development. From the position
of a foreign scholar who also happens to be born to the city and has access to many of
the places under examination in the volume, the author would like to introduce, at the
very least, the pertinent relationships between the past, present, and future, as well
as well their spatial manifestations.

Content and Structure

The chapters to follow will examine the urban loopholes of transition economy China
through closer analyses of urban spatial production in Shanghai’s city center. The em-
pirical analyses are broadly structured in two larger sections, each framed by a key
concept that characterizes the specific mechanisms and drivers for urban develop-
ment. The sections “Preservation via Inhabitation,”144 comprising Chapters 2 and 3, and
“Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics,”145 comprising Chapters 4, 5, and 6, present
specific case narratives that describe the development history, drivers and agents of
spatial productions in specific neighborhoods in Shanghai. In the first section, the first
and second chapters come together to tell the story of transformation at the neigh-
borhood scale. The second section’s third and fourth chapters take on a smaller scale,
and describe commercial transformations at the block scale. The urban loophole serves
as a red thread through the cases to corroborate the institutional vestiges, ambigu-
ous property rights and adaptive governance that have expedited the appropriation of
global know-how.

54
Preservation via Inhabitation
Accounts of China’s housing marketization often fail to acknowledge cultural and geo-
graphic specificities and legacy conditions, both from the pre-Liberation era as well as
post-Liberation periods, in considering how historic areas have remained part of a per-
sistent dual market in the transition economy. Similarly, accounts of the rising impor-
tance of heritage overlook their intersection with existing occupants. The first section,
entitled “Preservation via Inhabitation,” brings together the effects of selective hous-
ing marketization (Chapter 2) and heritage conservation (Chapter 3). The two chapters
cover the same area, a mixed-use residential neighborhood in the western end of the
former French Concession in Shanghai that has largely evaded the large-scale redevel-
opment process. The section deals with two processes that have thus far been studied
separately. The legacies of recent history, largely ignored due to sensitivities, are also
contextualized for the first time to allow for better solutions for possible projections.
Chapter 2, “The Residential Neighborhood,“ looks at the transformations of the
Wuyuan [五原路] and Anfu Lu [安福路] areas since housing marketization began in the
1980s. Commodity housing construction as the instrument for foreign capital attrac-
tion, especially in an area with legacy linkages, is juxtaposed against legacies of the
lilong housing, with an introduction of their history and transformation. But despite
what seems to be an overarching neoliberalization agenda in housing production and
provision, and the prevalence of demolition in the Chinese city for development, the
area still includes a majority of publicly managed housing that is a legacy of recent his-
tory. For the small entrepreneurs, the preservation of the legacy housing in the dual
housing market offers the bottom-up urban loophole for their redevelopment. The spa-
tial opportunities offered by the dual housing market could well also be the means for
slowing the erosion of social diversity.
Chapter 3, “The Cultural Street,” is approached from the perspective of conserva-
tion implementation. The chapter traces the development of heritage projects as part
of the re-globalization of Shanghai in both concept and implementation. The chapter
examines the interaction between planning ideas and the pragmatic interests of the
local state, as well as those of the diverse entrepreneurs. It traces the relationships of
heritage conservation as concept and the market demands of real estate, consumer
spaces, tourism, and shows how the heritage ‘project’ has resulted in a selective com-
mercialization of the residential neighborhood. Wukang Lu [武康路], one of the desig-
nated ‘Cultural Streets,’ is the culmination of this heritage ‘project.’ In contrast to the
bottom-up urban loopholes created from the dual housing market and ambiguous own-
erships, the top-down urban loopholes, using heritage conservation as alibi, show the
growing participation of the developmental local state.

Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics

The term used in the second section, ‘gentrification with Chinese characteristics,’ refer-
Chapter 1 Introduction

ences both the terms ‘neoliberalization with Chinese characteristics’146 and ‘socialism
with Chinese characteristics.’ The term ‘gentrification’ was chosen both because of its
popular accessibility and broad connotation.147 It characterizes the urban transforma-
tions in the context of China’s transition economy, where market economy practices
take place within the political status quo of the party-state. The Chinese characteris-
tics of ‘gentrification’ thus come from the adaptive governance of the local state and its

55
 increasing participation as the privileged player in the urban regime. And through un-
packing the processes of gentrification, urban governance structures, planning orga-
nization, in relation to shifts in land marketization, will also be elaborated.
The section includes three chapters of different scales. Chapter 4, “The Midtown of
China,” presents a neighborhood-scale case along the West Nanjing Lu [南京西路] cor-
ridor in the Jing’an District. The shutdown of the bottom-up creative reuse within the
historic residential buildings of the compound, Jing’an Villas [静安别墅], is contextual-
ized within the broader visions of the district for developments along the West Nanjing
Lu corridor. The shutdown seemed on the surface to be resolving the conflicts between
new commerce and incumbent residents. But a closer look reveals the developmen-
tal local state’s long-term aspiration for a “global Jing’an” and a “Midtown of China,”
in which non-state-affiliated actors are pushed out in favor of state-affiliated growth
coalitions. The closing of the urban loopholes, made possible earlier by the local state’s
adaptive governance and exploited by the enterprising non-state actors, also shows the
local urban regime’s recentralization of authority.
Chapter 5, “The New Economies,” brings together two cases, Yongkang Lu [永康路]
and Anken Green [安垦], recent developments where public-private alliances were
formed to exploit the urban loopholes produced by the dual market. In both devel-
opments, processes, and procedures learned from the Xintiandi [新天地], Tianzifang
[田子坊], M50 , and Bridge 8 [八号桥] projects were updated. These four are regarded as
the projects that created new paradigms for urban renewal and heritage conserva-
tion in Chinese cities. Collectively, these recent cultural-led urban regeneration projects
demonstrate that the Chinese characteristics of gentrification lie primarily in their em-
bedding within the local institutional framework.
Chapter 6, “The Contemporary Art Ecologies,” outlines the spatial impact of con-
temporary art development, zooming out to the scale of the metropolis to show how
the shift to cultural diplomacy has also affirmed the dominance of both the local and
central states.
Together, the sections show the ways in which the urban loopholes have formed,
developed and eased the embedded development contradictions in the transition
economy. From the specificities demonstrated in the transformation of the city cen-
ter neighborhoods in Shanghai, the designer’s singular anxiety about the rise of om-
nipresent generic cities, produced and proliferated by the flows of globalization and
eroded of unique qualities,148 is clearly unfounded. This is more so in the presence
of the ever-changing urban loopholes and their resultant spaces. Especially in some of
the now ‘emerging economies’ that predate the teleologically defined globalization of
the mercantilism to industrialization account,149 the inevitability of their inflections
of globalization’s accelerated flows should be even more self-evident with the ensu-
ing chronicle.

56
 1 Lucian W. Pye, “Foreword,” in Shanghai, Revolution
and Development in an Asian Metropolis, ed. Christopher
Howe, Contemporary China Institute Publications (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), xi–xvi. 2 Rem
Koolhaas, “In Search of Authenticity,” in The Endless City:
The Urban Age Project by the London School of Eco-
nomics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society,
ed. Richard Burdett and Deyan Sudjic (London: Phaid-
on, 2007 ), 320 – 23. 3 Howard W. French, “Searching for
Scenes From Shanghai’s Lost Past,” The New York Times,
November 28 , 2004 , sec. Movies / Movies News and Fea-
tures, http://www.nytimes.com/2004 /11/28 /movies/Mov-
iesFeatures/28 fren.html. 4 The author uses the term
‘spatial production’ to denote the processes and mech-
anisms that form the physical, often built, environment.
Although the term has affinities to sociologist Henri Le-
febvre’s concept of ‘production of social space,’ it differs
in that the author, as an architect, emphasizes also the
importance of the physicality of space. See Henri Lefe-
bvre, The Production of Space (Cambridge, MA : Black-
well, 1991). 5 Many of the foremost scholars of Chinese
urban transition have used concepts developed from the
Western examples, like ‘urban regime theory,’ ‘gentrifica-
tion,’ etc. They also use selected cases to support theories,
largely at the macro scale. The following study zooms in
on the processes of urban spatial production, and, more,
into their implementations. This, in turn, gives the study
instrumentality. 6 Some of the cases observe transfor-
mations at the neighborhood scale of approximately one
square kilometer over the span of more than two decades,
and include case examples at the architecture scale. The
scale and time span are chosen as representative of the
transformations in other parts of Shanghai and other
neighborhoods in Chinese cities. Other cases are smaller
in scale, at the architectural or block scale of the neighbor-
hood, and are chosen as representative of certain urban
spatial production mechanisms. The choice of the cases
presented will be elaborated in the methods section of
this chapter. 7 The ‘genealogical mode of inquiry,’ in brief,
comes from Michel Foucault, and is an analytical mode
of historical research that deals with complex processes.
In contrast to history ‘for history’s sake,’ the genealogical
mode grasps the present through the dissection of the
past in relation to this present. In this sense, it diagnoses
the present, and bears a degree of criticality that tradi-
tional historic analysis precludes. The genealogical mode
will be elaborated on in the section, “Research Methods.”
See Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in
The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pan-
theon Books, 1984), 76 – 100; Michel Foucault, “Introduc-
tion,” in The Archaeology of Knowledge: And the Dis-
course on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith, World
of Man (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 3 – 17. 8 This
disentanglement of actors, processes, and drivers re-
sponds to Foucault’s assertion that “genealogy is gray,
meticulous, and patiently documentary. It operates on a
field of entangled and confused parchments,” and “the
world we know … is a profusion of entangled events.” See
Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” 76, 89. 9 Archi-
tecture as a discipline and practice is engaged with pro-
jecting and designing future buildings, urban spaces and
scenarios. The practice of design and projection thus re-
sponds to existing conditions as well as projected future
demands. Especially in the modern era, with rapid indus­
trialization and urbanization in Europe and North America
(what are today developed or advanced economies), the
discipline took a proactive turn to rethink spatial condi-
tions and to use spatial design to improve existing so-
cio-economic challenges. This element of design agency
is what the author intends as ‘instrumentality’ in the text.
The word ‘instrumentality’ is also used by Rem Koolhaas
to mean this capacity for design to fulfill its agency. See
Koolhaas, “In Search of Authenticity.” 10 ‘Political econ-
omy’ is the field of studies that emerged in the 19 th
century, as the study of social relations, particularly the
power relations between the state and the governed—pol-
itics—that mutually constitute the production, distribution,
and consumption of resources—economics. In more gen-
eral usage, as intended here, the term ‘political economy’
refers to the political system of a nation-state that is
linked to its selection of a dominant economic system.
11 The concept of ‘adaptive governance’ is used to ex-
plain the resilience of the Chinese state and its success in
implementing rapid economic transition (from planned to
market economics) while maintaining an authoritarian
state. Previously, political theory posited that economic
liberalization necessitates political liberalization. See Se-
bastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, “Embracing Un-
certainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance
in China,” in Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Founda-
tions of Adaptive Governance in China, ed. Sebastian Hei-
lmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard Contemporary Chi-
na Series 17 (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press,
2011), 1 – 27. 12 The concept of ‘institutional amphibious-
ness’ is used to explain how China’s transition from
planned to market economy is different from that of East-
ern Europe. It provides an alternative concept to the di-
chotomous model of ‘civil society versus the state.’ See
Xueliang Ding, “Institutional Amphibiousness and the
Transition from Communism: The Case of China,” British
Journal of Political Science 24 , no. 3 (July 1, 1994):
293 – 318 . 13 The ‘dual market’ is the coexistence of mar-
ket and planned elements at the same moment in time
and in the same space. It is a by-product of the transition
economy. See, for example, Anthony Gar-On Yeh, “Dual
Land Market and Internal Spatial Structure of Chinese Cit-
ies,” in Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing Society,
Economy and Space, ed. Laurence J. C. Ma and Fulong Wu
(New York: Routledge, 2005), 52 – 70. 14 This Chinese
model’s adeptness at mediating the market and planned,
formal and informal, global and local has made possible
what political economists have termed ‘market socialism’
and ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics.’ 15 Since
it began its economic opening to the world in the late
Chapter 1 Introduction
1970 s, the largest country in the world has increasingly
become a regular feature of international news magazines
as well as of the bourgeoisie dinner party conversation.
The Economist has its own China section, separated from
its other sections structured on each of the continents, to
dissect the trends and logic of the country’s evolution. The
New York Times has been so inquisitive and precise in its
investigative journalism of China that it has been shut out
57
 from the country, but persists nevertheless in churning
out provocative scoops from the inside. The awarding of
a Nobel Prize to a Chinese author has been taken as a
given, despite reservations from well-known Chinese lin-
guists. Even far-flung architecture awards have come to
feature the token architect with projects from the post-re-
form China. After all, “China’s economy has been the sto-
ry of the century!” See Scott Cendrowski, “Ten Must-Read
Books That Explain Modern China,” Fortune, April 4 , 2015,
http://fortune.com/ 2015 /04 /04 /china-modern-econo-
my-10 -books/. 16 Notable recent studies of China’s in-
fluence have included the research of how knowledge
transfers from Chinese urbanism are impacting spatial de-
velopments in African countries, where Chinese econom-
ic interests are extracting natural resources. Similarly, Chi-
nese investment in American real estate after the 2008
economic crisis is also impacting the tenuous political and
economic relationship between the countries. See for ex-
ample, Holland Cotter, “Review: ‘Facing East’ Examines
Chinese Influence on African Cities,” The New York Times,
July 16, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/arts/
design/review-facing-east-examines-chinese-influence-
on-african-cities.html; Jamil Anderlini, “Chinese Property
Groups Look Abroad as Local Market Turns Frothy,” Finan-
cial Times, October 7, 2014 , http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
f 0 ff 80 fe- 4 4 6 a- 11 e 4 - 8 abd- 0014 4 feabdc 0 .html#ax-
zz3 NuWI0 yxY. 17 Christopher Hawthorne, “Spike Jonze’s
‘Her’ a Refreshingly Original Take on a Future L.A. ,” Los
Angeles Times, January 18 , 2014 , http://articles.latimes.
com/2014 /jan/18 /entertainment/la-et-cm-her-architec-
ture-notebook. 18 Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Web-
ber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy
Sciences 4 , no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 155 – 69, doi:10.1007/
BF01405730. 19 The ‘case study method’ is one that is
based on an a priori theoretical framework, which in turn
guides the research. The relevance of the theoretical
framework, the case study method and the criteria for the
cases will be further elaborated in the following sec-
tions. 20 The ‘genealogical mode of inquiry’ is one based
on philosopher Michel Foucault’s re-positioning of histor-
ic research as one that holds also relevance to the present.
The concept and its attitude will be elaborated on in the
section “Research Methods.” 21 The term ‘socialist mar-
ket economy [社会主义市场经济]’ is used by the Chinese
party-state of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP ) for the
establishment of a market economy while still maintaining
its ideological grounding in Marxist-Leninism. The term is
related to “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” For the
ideological evolution of the term, see Sukhan Jackson,
“Reform of State Enterprise Management in China,” The
China Quarterly, no. 107 (September 1, 1986): 405 – 32;
Stuart R. Schram, “China after the 13 th Congress,” The Chi-
na Quarterly, no. 114 (June 1, 1988): 177– 97. 22 David
Harvey, “Chapter 5 Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese Character-
istics,’” in A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 2005), 120 – 51. 23 Lan Cao, “Chi-
nese Privatization: Between Plan and Market,” Law and
Contemporary Problems 63 (Autumn 2000): 13 – 62 .
24 Yue-man Yeung, Yun Wing Sung, and Enrong Song,
eds., Shanghai: Transformation and Modernization under
China’s Open Policy (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press,
58
1996). 25 Laurence J. C. Ma and Carolyn L. Cartier, eds.,
The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Iden-
tity (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), http://linc.nus.edu.sg/
record=b2359406. 26 Peter Nolan, “The China Puzzle:
‘Touching Stones to Cross the River,’” Challenge 37, no. 1
(January 1, 1994): 25 – 31. 27 The term ‘marketization’ re-
fers to the transition of planned economics to market eco-
nomics. More specific processes, such as ‘land marketiza-
tion’ and ‘housing marketization’ refer to the specific
product that undergoes transition, such as land and hous-
ing. 28 Notable differences from the Eastern European
economic transition from planned economy have been
dissected. A largely agrarian basis for the economy made
economic growth via urbanization—the supply of cheap
labor for industrialization via rural-urban migration—a
possibility that largely urban former Soviet-bloc countries
did not have. Locationally, the growing market of East Asia,
as well as the entrepreneurial linkages of the Chinese di-
aspora, also made investment and economic develop-
ment dynamic. See, for example, Andrew G. Walder, “Chi-
na’s Transitional Economy: Interpreting Its Significance,”
The China Quarterly, no. 144 (December 1, 1995): 963 – 79.
29 Andrew G. Walder, “Workers, Managers and the State:
The Reform Era and the Political Crisis of 1989,” The
China Quarterly, no. 127 (September 1, 1991): 467 – 92 .
30 Ibid. 31 The year 1949, which saw the founding of
the People’s Republic of China (PRC ) under the leader-
ship of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP ) is, in China’s periodization, the year of ‘Liberation
[解放].’ Because the ideology-laden term has become
commonly used, the author uses the term ‘Liberation’ to
denote this time periodization, which corresponds with
the rule of the CCP . Thus, contemporary history that oc-
curred after 1949, despite structural changes, is institu-
tionally continuous, and is referred to as ‘post-Liberation,’
and the period prior, ‘pre-Liberation.’ 32 The 1992 New
York Times article had no qualms about clarifying the use
of ‘socialism’ in the adage ‘socialism with Chinese charac-
teristics’: “a term that they have shorn of most economic
meaning, … today “socialism” seems to signify little more
than that they (the CCP /state) retain power.” It added that
the government was “willing to free prices but not the
press, to loosen controls over companies but not citizens.”
See Nicholas D. Kristof, “The New China—A Special Report.;
Chinese Communism’s Secret Aim: Capitalism,” The New
York Times, October 19, 1992, sec. World, http://www.ny-
times.com/1992 /10/19/world/the-new-china-a-special-
report-chinese-communism-s-secret-aim-capitalism.
html. 33 Shelley Warner, “Shanghai’s Response to the
Deluge,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 24
(July 1, 1990): 299 – 314 , doi:10.2307/2158900. 34 Tony
Saich, “The Fourteenth Party Congress: A Programme for
Authoritarian Rule,” The China Quarterly, no. 132 (Decem-
ber 1, 1992): 1136 – 60. 35 Rana Mitter, Modern China: A
Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions 176
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 36 Richard
Burdett, Deyan Sudjic, and School of Economics and Po-
litical Science London, eds., The Endless City: The Urban
Age Project by the London School of Economics and
Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society (London:
Phaidon, 2007 ). 37 Heilmann and Perry, “Embracing Un-
 certainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance
in China.” 38 Ding, “Institutional Amphibiousness and the
Transition from Communism.” 39 Scholar, statistician and
risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb used the term ‘Black
Swan’ to describe high-profile events that confound sci-
entific and theoretical expectation until they occur. They
are ‘outlier’ events in statistical terms, but because of the
weight of their impact, become the center of studies for
explanations. Because of the rapidness of China’s eco-
nomic transition and the success of its economic growth,
despite what would be predicted as requisite political lib-
eralization to accompany the transition, China’s rise has
been considered a ‘Black Swan’ event. See Nassim Nich-
olas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Im-
probable (New York: Random House, 2007 ). 40 Heil-
mann and Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy
Style and Adaptive Governance in China,” 4. 41 Resilience
denotes the systemic ability to adjust to disturbances and
changes to a system. It has become an increasingly im-
portant condition as the physical environment undergoes
rapid physical and climatic change, and societies undergo
rapid economic and political transition. In light of impend-
ing effects to the natural environment, including global
climate change and the depletion of energy resources
compounded by humanity’s exponential demographic
growth, system resilience is studied for how human inter-
vention can reinforce system robustness, and avert system
instabilities leading to chaos. In the social sciences, polit-
ical resilience describes the robustness of a political sys-
tem when it undergoes structural change. See C S Holling,
“Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems,” Annual Re-
view of Ecology and Systematics 4 , no. 1 (1973): 1 – 23 ,
doi:10.1146 /annurev.es.04 .110173 .000245. 42 Political
scientist Kellee Tsai analyzes what she names as ‘informal
adaptive institutions’ of private sector entrepreneurs
co-opting state institutions to legitimize their enterprises,
in the process reinforcing the power of the state. See Kel-
lee S. Tsai, Capitalism without Democracy: The Private
Sector in Contemporary China (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2007 ). 43 Political scientist Roderick MacFarquhar
used the term ‘guerrilla-style policy-making’ in 2008. Heil­
mann and Perry attribute ‘guerrilla-style policy-making’s
flexibility and volatility to revolutionary-era stratagems
that are “fundamentally dictatorial, opportunistic, and
merciless.” See Heilmann and Perry, “Embracing Uncer-
tainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance in
China,” 13. 44 Heilmann and Perry wrote, “the rationale
behind guerrilla policy-making is precisely to embrace
uncertainty in order to benefit from it.” Ibid., 22. 45 The
reconceptualization of the ‘state versus society’ dichoto-
my arose to explain the different paths between China
and the Eastern European countries in their economic
transition from planned to market economy. The prevalent
explanation of economic transition to market economy
emerging from civil society’s demands against the oppres-
sive Communist state was inefficient to explain the eco-
nomic transition in China that took place without social
democratization. See also Philip C. C. Huang, “‘Public
Sphere’ / ‘Civil Society’ in China?: The Third Realm between
State and Society,” Modern China 19, no. 2 (April 1, 1993):
199. 46 Ding, “Institutional Amphibiousness and the
Transition from Communism,” 317. 47 ‘Guanxi [关系]’ is a
word of social connections and personal relationships in
Chinese. The term denotes the particular way personal
networks and other informal connections facilitate busi-
ness and other dealings in the East Asian context. Manu-
el Castells includes a section entitled, “Guanxi capitalism?
China in the global economy”, in his book. See Manuel
Castells, “Chinese Developmental Nationalism with Social-
ist Characteristics,” in End of Millennium, The Information
Age: Economy, Society, and Culture Volume III , vol. 3 (Mal-
den: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 311 – 28 . 48 The term
‘developmental state’ describes state dominance in steer-
ing economic development. The term has been used to
describe East Asian economic development, as controlled
by their strong states. The term was notably used for the
‘tiger states’ before the opening of China. See Gordon
White and Jack Gray, eds., Developmental States in East
Asia (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan,
1988); Adrian Leftwich, “Bringing Politics Back in: Towards
a Model of the Developmental State,” The Journal of
Development Studies 31, no. 3 (February 1, 1995):
400 – 427, doi:10.1080/00220389508422370. 49 Daniel
B. Abramson, “The Dialectics of Urban Planning in China,”
in China’s Emerging Cities: The Making of New Urbanism,
ed. Fulong Wu, Routledge Contemporary China Series 26
(New York: Routledge, 2007 ), 70. 50 Michael Leaf and Li
Hou, “The ‘Third Spring’ of Urban Planning in China: The
Resurrection of Professional Planning in the Post-Mao Era,”
China Information 20, no. 3 (November 1, 2006): 568 ,
doi: 10.1177/0920203X06070043 . 51 John Friedmann,
China’s Urban Transition (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2005), xv. 52 Ibid. See Elizabeth J. Per-
ry, “China in 1992: An Experiment in Neo-Authoritarian-
ism,” Asian Survey 33 , no. 1 (January 1, 1993): 12 – 21,
doi: 10.2307/2645282. 53 Perry, “China in 1992.” 54 An-
thony Gar-On Yeh and Fulong Wu, “The New Land Devel-
opment Process and Urban Development in Chinese
Cities*,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Re-
search 20, no. 2 (1996): 330–353, doi:10.1111/j.1468 -2427.
1996.tb00319.x. 55 Christopher Howe, “The Supply and
Administration of Urban Housing in Mainland China: The
Case of Shanghai,” The China Quarterly, no. 33 (January 1,
1968): 73 – 97; D. J. Dwyer, “Urban Housing and Planning
in China,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geogra-
phers, New Series, 11, no. 4 (January 1, 1986): 479 – 89,
doi: 10.2307/621942 . 56 The term ‘land marketization’
refers to the establishment of a market for land sales and
exchange. After land marketization, land would become
an exchangeable and tradable commodity, and it would
be traded on the commercial land market. The Chinese
government adapted the practices of leasehold land for
its land market: the ‘commercial leasehold land.’ However,
due to the legacies of the planned economy, when all land
Chapter 1 Introduction
was ‘administratively allocated’ to institutional work units
belonging to the state, there existed also a parallel land
market with ‘administratively-allocated land.’ The next
chapter will elaborate on the background of land mar-
ketization. 57 The term ‘housing marketization’ refers to
the commercialization of the housing system, from pro-
duction to exchange, after economic liberalization. The
next chapter will elaborate on the background to housing
59
 marketization, and the city center historic housing stock
that remained unmarketized. 58 The term ‘administra-
tively-allocated land’ refers to land that has been allocat-
ed by the state to institutional users, usually for free or for
a nominal price. Under the planned economy and prior to
economic liberalization, all land was ‘administratively-
allocated’ as there was no commercial land market. With
the introduction of the commercial land market, the
co-existence of administratively-allocated land and com-
mercial leased land would create the dual land market.
Although the central government prohibits ‘administra-
tively-allocated land’ from being commercialized, in the
early eras of economic transition, state-owned enterpris-
es (SOE s) along with private sector entrepreneurs infor-
mally commercialized some of the existing ‘administra-
tively-allocated land.’ See Yeh, “Dual Land Market and
Internal Spatial Structure of Chinese Cities.” 59 Sun
Sheng Han and Bo Qin, “The Spatial Distribution of
Producer Services in Shanghai,” Urban Studies 46, no. 4
(April 1, 2009): 893 , doi:10.1177/0042098009102133 .
60 The term ‘rent gap’ has been made prominent by the
theorist Neil Smith in his explanation of the ‘supply side
theory’ of ‘gentrification.’ See, for example, Neil Smith,
“Gentrification and the Rent Gap,” Annals of the Associa-
tion of American Geographers 77, no. 3 (September 1,
1987 ): 462 – 65. The use of the term in the Chinese context
does not necessarily suggest consequent gentrification,
but points out the systemic construct of the ‘rent gap’ as
result of economic transition from planned to market eco-
nomics. In most post-socialist economies, the transition
to market economy meant that the entire city would be
under rent gap. This, in turn, challenges the way theories
developed in the capitalist and developed societies could
be applied to other forms of political economies. 61 The
central government’s ‘loosening’ and ‘tightening’ of reg-
ulations for developing on administratively-allocated land
will be elaborated in the next chapters. 62 You-tien
Hsing, The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land
and Property in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010), 9. 63 Theorists have developed the ‘urban regime
theory’ in the field of urban politics and urban policy. It
originated to explain public-private relationships in North
American cities in the 1980 s. According to political scien-
tist Clarence Stone, whose analysis of Atlanta in 1987 first
made the concept prominent, the ‘regime’ is the “an in-
formal yet relatively stable group with access to institu-
tional resources that enable it to have a sustained role in
making governing decisions.” See Clarence N. Stone,
“Summing up: Urban Regimes, Development Policy, and
Political Arrangements,” in The Politics of Urban Devel-
opment, ed. Clarence N. Stone and Heywood T. Sanders,
Studies in Government and Public Policy (Lawrence, Kan:
University Press of Kansas, 1987 ), 269 – 90. See also Susan
S. Fainstein and Norman I. Fainstein, “Regime Strategies,
Communal Resistance, and Economic Forces,” in Restruc-
turing the City: The Political Economy of Urban Redevel-
opment, ed. Susan S. Fainstein and Norman I. Fainstein
(New York: Longman, 1983), 245 – 82. 64 Jieming Zhu, “A
Transitional Institution for the Emerging Land Market in
Urban China,” Urban Studies 42, no. 8 (July 1, 2005): 1378,
doi: 10 . 1080 / 00420980500150714 . 65 Ibid. 66 Xue-
60
liang Ding, “‘The Only Reliability Is That These Guys Aren’t
Reliable!’ The Business Culture of Red Capitalism,” in Rest-
less China, ed. E. Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul
Pickowicz (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Pub-
lishers, Inc, 2013), 37– 57. 67 Historian on East Asia, Pra-
senjit Duara, has termed ‘political involution’ for the phe-
nomenon of political incapacity of the local state despite
the expansion of state institutions. 68 Leaf and Hou, “The
‘Third Spring’ of Urban Planning in China: The Resurrection
of Professional Planning in the Post-Mao Era,” 568. 69 Ga-
briella Montinolla and her co-authors wrote, “… without
political reform, economic returns remain at the mercy of
political predation.” See Gabriella Montinola, Yingyi Qian,
and Barry R. Weingast, “Federalism, Chinese Style: The
Political Basis for Economic Success in China,” World Pol-
itics 48 , no. 1 (October 1, 1995): 50 – 81. Political scientist
Pei Minxin also discusses ‘decentralized predation’ as a
consequence of economic transition. He posits that the
decentralization of property rights from central to local
governments, and the lack of clarity of property rights
have led to asset erosion by state agents. See Minxin Pei,
China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental
Autocracy (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press,
2006), 35 – 40. 70 The city as ‘growth machine’ is a con-
cept developed by sociologist Harvey Molotch. This con-
cept shifted the understanding of agents and drivers for
economic growth in urban development. It counters the
previous assumption of city as mere receptacle of social
interaction, and locates the local business elite as crucial
stakeholders in urban politics to promote their interests.
See Harvey Molotch, “The City as a Growth Machine: To-
ward a Political Economy of Place,” American Journal of
Sociology 82, no. 2 (September 1, 1976): 309 – 32. 71 Po-
litical scientists Jean Oi and Jane Duckett described the
phenomenon of ‘local state corporatism’ and ‘entrepre-
neurial state,’ respectively, where the local state partici-
pates in the market as a privileged player in transition
China. Jean C. Oi, “Fiscal Reform and the Economic
Foundations of Local State Corporatism in China,” World
Politics 45, no. 1 (October 1, 1992): 99 – 126, doi:10.2307/
2010520; Jane Duckett, “Bureaucrats in Business, Chi-
nese-Style: The Lessons of Market Reform and State En-
trepreneurialism in the People’s Republic of China,” World
Development 29, no. 1 (January 2001): 23 – 37, doi:10.1016/
S0305 -750X(00)00083 -8 . 72 Urban scholar Hsing You-
tien, in her analysis of overseas Chinese business net-
works, termed the local and provincial government inter-
mediaries as ‘bureaucratic entrepreneurs.’ See You-tien
Hsing, Making Capitalism in China: The Taiwan Connec-
tion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 73 Urban
scholar Zhu Jieming brought together the concepts of
‘urban regimes’ and ‘developmental state’ to depict the
collusion of the local state with private resources in pur-
suit of economic growth, which he terms ‘local growth
coalitions.’ See, for example, Jieming Zhu, “Local Growth
Coalition: The Context and Implications of China’s Gradu-
alist Urban Land Reforms,” International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research 23 , no. 3 (1999): 534 – 548 ,
doi:10.1111/1468 -2427.00211. 74 Urban scholar He Shen-
jing called the displacement of residents from city center
areas, as a result of the urban renewal process, ‘state-spon-
 sored gentrification.’ Although the use of ‘gentrification’
is imprecise, as it would fit all demolition-relocation-re-
construction processes of urban renewal, she showed
how the changing priorities of the local state affected the
socio-spatial restructuring that magnified social differen-
tiation. Scholars Tian Yingying and Cecilia Wong also used
cases from two new developments to show the displace-
ment process, while Huang Yi used survey data at the
neighborhood scale to show the intra-neighborhood spa-
tial differentiations resulting from state-backed develop-
ments. See Yi Huang 黄怡, “大都市核心区的社会空间隔
离—以上海市静安区南京西路街道为例 [Socio-spatial segre-
gation in Metropolitan Nuclei Areas: a case study of Nan-
jing Xilu Street, Shanghai],” 城市规划学刊 [Urban Planning
Forum], no. 03 (2006): 76 – 84; Yingying Tian and Cecilia
Wong, “Large Urban Redevelopment Projects and Socio-
spatial Stratification in Shanghai,” in China’s Emerging
Cities: The Making of New Urbanism, ed. Fulong Wu, Rout-
ledge Contemporary China Series 26 (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2007 ), 210–31; Shenjing He, “State-Sponsored
Gentrification Under Market Transition: The Case of Shang-
hai,” Urban Affairs Review 43, no. 2 (November 1, 2007 ):
171 – 98 , doi:10.1177/1078087407305175 . 75 Heilmann
and Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy Style
and Adaptive Governance in China,” 4. 76 The author first
defined the term ‘urban loophole’ in 2010 in research on
an economically liberalizing Damascus under transitional
institutions. The author’s ability to understand the physi-
cal transformations in the Damascus of 2009 came from
her prior understanding of the logic of China’s economic
transitions, where the processes of urban transformation
and the changing institutional frameworks, if not the ex-
act spatial products, are similar. The urban loophole is a
concept that could be used to understand spatial produc-
tions in transitioning economies. In the following study,
the urban loophole and how it has been deployed is lo-
calized in the specificities of Shanghai’s urban spatial pro-
duction and mediates between globalization’s physical
manifestation and local institutional changes. See Ying
Zhou, “Urban Loopholes: Tactics of Survival and Manifes-
tations of Desires in Damascus,” Critical Planning 17, no.
“Resilient Cities” (October 2010): 88 – 107. 77 The concept
of ‘mechanism’ comes from its definition by the social
scientist, Jon Elster, as “frequent occurring and easily
recognizable causal patterns that are triggered under
generally unknown conditions or with indeterminate con-
sequences.” See Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior:
More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007 ). 78 Heilmann and
Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and
Adaptive Governance in China,” 22. 79 Rittel and Webber,
“Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” 80 Ibid.
81 The maturing urban production processes in Shanghai
contrast the “opportunistic exploitation of flukes, acci-
dents, and imperfections,” as mentioned by Rem Kool-
haas, in his study of the developments of the Pearl River
Delta in the 1990 s which sustained the most extreme ver-
sion of Chinese urbanism, when the country first plugged
into the global market economy in the hinterland location,
in proximity to market economy Hong Kong, where “the
slightest modification of any detail requires the readjust-
ment of the whole to reassert the equilibrium of comple-
mentary extremes”. It also reflects an already global city
sensibility which had been cultivated since its inception
in modernity. See Project on the City Harvard, Great Leap
Forward, Project on the City 1 (Cambridge, MA : Taschen,
2001). 82 Deborah S. Davis, “Self-Employment in Shang-
hai: A Research Note,” The China Quarterly, no. 157 (March
1, 1999): 22 – 43. 83 Yeh and Wu, “The New Land Devel-
opment Process and Urban Development in Chinese
Cities”; Jieming Zhu, The Transition of China’s Urban
Development: From Plan-Controlled to Market-Led
(Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1999); Chengri Ding, “Land Pol-
icy Reform in China: Assessment and Prospects,” Land
Use Policy 20, no. 2 (April 2003): 109 – 20, doi:10.1016/
S0264 -8377(02)00073 -X. 84 Jieming Zhu, “The Chang-
ing Mode of Housing Provision in Transitional China,” Ur-
ban Affairs Review 35, no. 4 (March 1, 2000): 502 – 19,
doi:10.1177/10780870022184507. 85 China has been
emphasizing the need to shift from a developing and
manufacturing-based economy to an innovation-driven
knowledge-based service economy. 86 The local state’s
shift, from large-scale urban renewal to heritage conser-
vation in city center areas, has been incompletely ana-
lyzed. See, for example, Tianshu Pan, “Historical Memory,
Community-Building and Place-Making in Neighborhood
Shanghai,” in Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing
Society, Economy and Space, ed. Laurence J. C Ma and
Fulong Wu (New York: Routledge, 2005), 122 – 37; Xuefei
Ren, “Forward to the Past: Historical Preservation in Glo-
balizing Shanghai,” in The Right to the City and the Pol-
itics of Space (University of California, Berkeley, 2006),
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/84 z0 j8 tv; Xuefei Ren,
“The Political Economy of Urban Ruins: Redeveloping
Shanghai,” International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research 38 , no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 1081 – 91, doi:10.1111/
1468 -2427.12119. 87 The central government’s recentral-
ization of power, in reaction to the growing property mar-
ket bubble and social differentiation, has been studied in
its changing land policies. See for example, Jiang Xu and
A. Yeh, “Decoding Urban Land Governance: State Recon-
struction in Contemporary Chinese Cities,” Urban Studies
46 , no. 3 (March 1, 2009): 559 – 81, doi:10.1177/00420
98008100995; Jiang Xu, Anthony Yeh, and Fulong Wu,
“Land Commodification: New Land Development and
Politics in China since the Late 1990 s,” International Jour-
nal of Urban and Regional Research 33, no. 4 (2009):
890 – 913, doi: 10.1111/j.1468 -2427.2009.00892 .x; Daniel
B. Abramson, “Transitional Property Rights and Local De-
velopmental History in China,” Urban Studies 48 , no. 3
(February 1, 2011): 553 – 68 , doi:10.1177/004209801039
0237. 88 The promotion of ‘creative industries’ and the
spatial production of ‘creative industries clusters’, will be
elaborated in later chapters. China has been emphasizing
Chapter 1 Introduction
the need to shift from the developing and manufactur-
ing-based economy to an innovation-driven knowl-
edge-based service economy. As part of this broader am-
bition, the promotion of ‘creative industries cluster’
became part of the formula for legitimizing the, otherwise
prohibited, commercialization of administratively-allocat-
ed land. See, for example, Zilai Tang, “The Renewal of Al-
located Industrial Land in the Perspective of Property
61
Right System: The Case of Hongkou District, Shanghai,” in political structure. See note 36. The economic growth
Institutions of Land Rights and Sustainable Asian Urban- within the authoritarian political system has been called
ization (National University of Singapore, 2013). 89 Heil­ ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ by the Chinese gov-
mann and Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy ernment and ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics’
Style and Adaptive Governance in China,” 8 . 90 In this by Western analysts. Shanghai’s rise, following the CCP
original definition for ‘loophole,’ the distinction between decision to proceed with economic liberalization while
the inside and outside and the widening inwards of the preserving the political status quo, thus leads this devel-
cut or gap in the defense system—the physical wall—al- opment of the ‘Black Swan.’ 102 Joshua A. Fogel, “The
lows the inside to conceal a dual advantage: the inside is Recent Boom in Shanghai Studies,” Journal of the Histo-
both able to defend through the barricade enclosure, ry of Ideas 71, no. 2 (April 1, 2010): 313 – 33. 103 Nostalgia
while the loophole also allows the inside the possibility plays an important role in the re-globalization of Shang-
of offense through its cut and gap, without making vul- hai. Nostalgia for the pre-Liberation cosmopolitanism of
nerable the integrity of the defense system—the wall—it- modern era Shanghai has been important both to attract
self. See “Loop-Hole | Loophole, n. 1,” OED Online (Oxford the first waves of overseas investment as well as the em-
University Press), accessed November 8 , 2013 , http:// brace of economic transition. The role played by the over-
www.oed.com/view/Entry/110180. 91 Ibid. 92 A specific seas Chinese returnees who have pre-Liberation links to
and well-known form of the legal loophole, the tax loop- Shanghai has been important in the rapid developments
hole, is one where omissions and ambiguities make of the city. This will be further elaborated in the following
possible the evasion of an otherwise well-defined legal chapters. See, for example, Hanchao Lu, “Nostalgia for the
obligation of tax contribution. Extreme cases of the ex- Future: The Resurgence of an Alienated Culture in China,”
ploitation of legal loopholes, through an ambiguity in a Pacific Affairs 75 , no. 2 (July 1, 2002): 169 – 86 , doi:
legal delineation, or unique unanticipated and exception- 10.2307/4127181; Jieming Zhu, Loo-Lee Sim, and Xing-
al circumstances that were not fully covered by legal defi- Quan Zhang, “Global Real Estate Investments and Local
nition, result in unexpected but sometimes remarkable Cultural Capital in the Making of Shanghai’s New Office
outcomes. 93 Gary Taubes, “Heisenberg’s Heirs Exploit Locations,” Habitat International 30, no. 3 (September
Loopholes in His Law,” Science, New Series, 263, no. 5152 2006): 462 – 81, doi:10.1016 /j.habitatint.2004 .12 .003 .
(March 11, 1994): 1376 – 77. 94 Samuel P. Huntington and 104 The term ‘localized cosmopolitans’ refers to the
University Harvard, Political Order in Changing Societies stakeholders in the urban development process in Shang-
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). 95 Nor does hai, who have an international background while at the
the author wish to expand on the sensational aspects of same time have access to local decision-makers and
development that are more readily covered by investiga- knowledge of the local processes and mechanisms. The
tive journalists. 96 From the abstract of a conference en- ‘localized cosmopolitans’ are more adept at detecting and
titled “Loopholes Conference” held at the Harvard Grad- exploiting the urban loopholes created by the state’s
uate School of Design in April 2005. 97 Many of the adaptive governance. The concept of the ‘localized cos-
foremost scholars of Chinese urban transition have used mopolitan’ will be elaborated in the following chap-
selected cases to support their theories, largely at the ters. 105 The adage ‘progress to prosperity’ refers to
macro scale. The following study zooms in on the process- Shanghai’s shift from the first decade of rapid modern-
es of urban spatial production and looks into their imple- ization and economic transition, focused on quantitative
mentations. This, in turn, gives the study instrumentality. growth, to the second decade of moderate but more qual-
98 Yin writes: “the case study inquiry copes with the itatively-driven development. 106 Some of the research-
technically distinctive situation in which there will be ers at Tongji University have looked at the neighborhoods
many more variables of interest than data points, and as selected as sites in this study for very different reasons
one result relies on multiple sources of evidence, with from the author. One of the researchers has also contend-
data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and ed that the areas are not the most representative of the
as another result benefits from the prior development of development of Shanghai. But for the large area of Shang-
theoretical propositions to guide data collection and anal- hai, there would be numerous kinds of representative
ysis.” Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and neighborhoods for studying the changes that have hap-
Methods, 4th ed, Applied Social Research Methods Series pened in the city. The author’s choice of these sites comes
5 (Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2009), 13 – 14 . Accord- from the premise set forth by the conceptual framework
ing to social scientists Abraham Kaplan and Robert Mer- of urban loopholes, and their facilitation of global inte-
ton, who wrote about methodology and theory in social gration. The choice also comes from the author’s knowl-
science research, theory is the crucial research framework edge and access to the particular kind of overwritten ‘local’
that answers fundamental queries of how and why. See history that explains the rapidness of global integration,
also Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodol- which is crucial to the development of these urban
ogy for Behavioral Science (New Brunswick, N. J : Trans- loopholes. 107 Numerous data-heavy studies, sampling
action Publishers, 1998). 99 Robert I. Sutton and Barry households seem neither entirely representative of the
M. Staw, “What Theory Is Not,” Administrative Science diversity of social structures that coexist in complex urban
Quarterly 40, no. 3 (September 1, 1995): 371–84 , doi: environments like Shanghai, nor do their correlations pro-
10.2307/2393788 . 100 Ibid. 101 China’s rise has been duce new previously unexpected knowledge. Rather, the
considered a ‘Black Swan’ event, because of its unexpect- conclusions often confirm known expectations that seem
edly successful economic growth despite its authoritarian rather inept. And the exhaustive data procurement only

62
serves to show the top-down directed access available to
the researcher. For example, the correlation between
household registration and the ability to purchase luxury
housing, seem to show the inadequacy of data-based
methods to understand the complexity of the drivers and
agents in rapidly transforming urban conditions. See, for
example, Xiangming Chen and Jiaming Sun, “Untangling
a Global—Local Nexus: Sorting out Residential Sorting in
Shanghai,” Environment and Planning A 39, no. 10 (2007 ):
2324 – 2345 , doi:10.1068 /a38446 . 108 It is also well
known in China that the annual numbers gathered by the
statistics agency in the world change, even in how they
are measured. 109 ‘Unique case examples,’ ‘extreme
case examples’ and ‘representative’ or ‘typical case exam-
ples’ are different categories for case studies that Robert
Yin elaborates in his book Case Study Research, Design
and Methods. See Yin, Case Study Research, 41. 110 The
original term Foucault uses is ‘wirkliche Historie,’ which
has been translated as ‘effective history’ or ‘living history.’
See Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” 111 Ibid.,
76. 112 Ibid., 76 – 77. 113 E. Perry Link, Richard Madsen,
and Paul Pickowicz, eds., Unofficial China: Popular Culture
and Thought in the People’s Republic (Boulder: West-
view Press, 1989); E. Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul
Pickowicz, Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Global-
izing Society (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001);
E. Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul Pickowicz, eds.,
Restless China (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, Inc, 2013). 114 Merle Goldman and Roderick
MacFarquhar, eds., The Paradox of China’s Post-Mao Re-
forms, Harvard Contemporary China Series 12 (Cambridge,
MA : Harvard University Press, 1999). 115 Geremie Barmé,
Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Lead-
er (Armonk, NY : M. E. Sharpe, 1996). 116 Jeffrey N. Was-
serstrom and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds., Popular Protest and
Political Culture in Modern China, 2nd ed, Politics in Asia
and the Pacific (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994); Elizabeth
J. Perry and Mark Selden, eds., Chinese Society: Change,
Conflict, and Resistance, Routledge Studies in Asia’s
Transformations (London ; New York: Routledge, 2000);
in Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, 3 rd
ed, Asia’s Transformations (London ; New York: Routledge,
2010); Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds.,
Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adap-
tive Governance in China, Harvard Contemporary China
Series 17 (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press,
2011). 117 Manuel Castells, End of Millennium, The Infor-
mation Age: Economy, Society, and Culture Volume III, vol.
3 (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998); David Harvey, A
Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2005). 118 Peter Hessler, River Town: Two
Years on the Yangtze, 1st ed (New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2001); Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones: A Journey
between China’s Past and Present, 1st ed (New York:
HarperCollins, 2006); Peter Hessler, Country Driving: A
Journey through China from Farm to Factory, 1st ed (New
York: Harper, 2010); Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dis-
patches from East and West, 1st ed (New York: Harper
Perennial, 2013); Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing
Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). 119 Laurence J. C. Ma
and Fulong Wu, eds., Restructuring the Chinese City:
Changing Society, Economy and Space (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2005); Fulong Wu, ed., Globalization and the Chi-
nese City, vol. 7, Routledge Contemporary China Series
(New York: Routledge, 2006); Fulong Wu, ed., China’s
Emerging Cities: The Making of New Urbanism, Routledge
Contemporary China Series 26 (New York: Routledge,
2007 ); Zhu, The Transition of China’s Urban Develop-
ment. 120 Harvard, Great Leap Forward. 121 This quote
from the introduction to Great Leap Forward acknowl-
edged the gravity of its task in formulating the first set of
conceptual frameworks for a yet-untouched topic. But few
have followed. See Ibid., 27. 122 Thomas J. Campanella,
The Concrete Dragon: China’s Urban Revolution and
What It Means for the World, 1st ed (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2008). 123 Friedmann, China’s Urban
Transition. 124 John Logan, ed., Urban China in Transi-
tion, Studies in Urban and Social Change (Malden, MA :
Blackwell Pub. Ltd, 2008). 125 Robin Visser, Cities Sur-
round the Countryside: Urban Aesthetics in Post-Social-
ist China (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010); Yomi
Braester, Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the
Urban Contract, Asia-Pacific : Culture, Politics, and Society
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). 126 Carl Finger-
huth, Learning from China: The Tao of the City (Basel:
Birkhäuser, 2004). 127 Dieter Hassenpflug, The Urban
Code of China (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2010). 128 Frédéric
Edelmann, ed., In the Chinese City: Perspectives on the
Transmutations of an Empire (Barcelona: Actar, 2008).
129 Michiel Hulshof and Daan Roggeveen, How the City
Moved to Mr. Sun: China’s New Megacities (Amsterdam:
SUN , 2011). 130 Marie-Claire Bergère, Shanghai: China’s
Gateway to Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2009); Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Global Shanghai,
1850–2010: A History in Fragments, Asia’s Transforma-
tions. Asia’s Great Cities (New York: Routledge, 2009).
131 Iker Gil, ed., Shanghai Transforming: The Changing
Physical, Economic, Social and Environmental Conditions
of a Global Metropolis, 1st ed (Barcelona: Actar, 2008).
132 Anke Haarmann, ed., Shanghai Urban Public Space
(Berlin: Jovis, 2009). 133 Harry den Hartog, ed., Shang-
hai New Towns: Searching for Community and Identity
in a Sprawling Metropolis (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers,
2010). 134 Gregory Byrne Bracken, The Shanghai Alley-
way House, Routledge Contemporary China Series 95
(New York: Routledge, 2013). 135 Yongjie Sha et al.,
Shanghai Urbanism at the Medium Scale, Springer Geog-
raphy (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,
2014), http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978 -3 -642-542
03 -9. 136 There are thorough volumes that catalogue
historic building types, but few books deliver a verdict in
the manner that many Western-language histories of ar-
chitecture could. See the content-rich early publications
Chapter 1 Introduction
like Congzhou Chen 陈从周 and Ming Zhang 章明, 上海近
代建筑史稿 [History of Shanghai Modern Era Architecture
Manuscript] (Shanghai 上海: 三联书店上海分店 Sanlian
Press, 1988). Hua Shen 沈华, 上海里弄民居 [Shanghai Li-
long Residences] (Beijing 北京: 中国建筑工业出版社 China
Architecture Industry Press, 1993). 137 The list of mas-
ter’s theses and doctoral dissertations from the Depart-
ments of Architecture and Urban Planning of Tongji Uni-
63
versity, the foremost academic institution in the discipline
in Shanghai, show the increasing analyses of historic doc-
uments as well as close collaboration with local authori-
ties. But many are not publically accessible. And few clear-
ly synthesize their rich content in a way that offers
potential for future developments, even though it is well-
known that many top students graduate into important
positions in practice, hence influencing developments
directly, rather than merely leaving a record of built-up of
knowledge that could benefit future analysts and prac­
titioners. 138 Barmé’s excellent and succinct piece
summarizing the transition of resistance in Chinese and
questioning the nature of critique within the intellectu-
al-cultural urban elites, with a carefully protocolled “cult
of transgression without risk” that permeates Chinese in-
telligentsia. See Geremie R. Barmé, “The Revolution of Re-
sistance,” in Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resis-
tance, ed. Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden, 3 rd ed,
Asia’s Transformations (London ; New York: Routledge,
2010), 288 – 317. 139 Xiangning Li 李翔宁, Danfeng Li 李
丹锋, and Jiawei Jiang 江嘉伟, 上海制造 Made in Shanghai
(Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji University Press,
2014). 140 Shanghai Urban Planning and Land Resourc-
es Administration 上海市规划和国土资源管理局 and Shang-
hai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute 上海市
城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design
Institute, eds., 转型上海 规划战略 [Shanghai in Transition,
Urban Planning Strategy] (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社
Tongji University Press, 2012). 141 From the most estab-
lished scholars to fresh graduates, this failure to look be-
hind the façade of globally generated concepts such as
creativity and heritage conservation, not to mention sus-
tainability and socially integrated cities, is easy, in face of
the rapid learning of official rhetoric in China. For two
studies that embrace creativity without assessing the land
policies that have made the use of creativity as business
plan for development possible, see He, Jinliao. 2014 . Cre-
ative Industries Districts, an analysis of dynamics,
networks and implications on creative clusters in Shang-
hai. London: Springer, and Kong, Lily, Ching Chia-ho, and
Chou Tsu-Lung. 2015. Arts, Culture and the Making of
Global Cities: Creating New Urban Landscapes in Asia.
Northampton, MA : Edward Elgar Pub. 142 Depending on
the entrepreneurial interests and capacity of their sitting
management structures, often regional SOE s that de-
pended on real estate assets for their pension and social
security responsibilities, the commercialization of their va-
cant real estate could be made possible by the changing
and time-bound government priorities. Thus, bequeath-
ing the title ‘creative industries cluster,’ as a well-known
example of one such government priority, incentivized the
conversion of former industrial real estate, abandoned
and derelict, into viable commercial entities. 143 This
quote from the introduction to Great Leap Forward ac-
knowledged the gravity of its task of formulating the first
set of conceptual framework for a yet-untouched topic.
But few have followed. See Harvard, Great Leap Forward,
27. 144 The topic of ‘preservation via inhabitation’ was
first presented at the American Geographers (AAG ) an-
nual meeting in 2013 in a panel on the dilemmas of hous-
ing in East Asian cities, organized by Wang Jun. See Ying
64
Zhou, “Between Development and Heritage Protection:
Cases of High-Density Low-Income Housing in City Center
Shanghai,” in Defining the Housing Question in East Asia’s
Post-Crisis Housing Boom (Association of American Ge-
ographers, Los Angeles, 2013), http://meridian.aag.org/
callforpapers/program/AbstractDetail.cfm?AbstractID =
48723.”plainCitation”:”Ying Zhou, “Between Development
and Heritage Protection: Cases of High-Density Low-In-
come Housing in City Center Shanghai,” in Defining the
Housing Question in East Asia’s Post-Crisis Housing Boom
(Association of American Geographers, Los Angeles,
2013 145 This topic of ‘gentrification with Chinese char-
acteristics’ was first presented at a public lecture of the
University of Hong Kong Shanghai Study Center in 2012,
as part of a series called “From Progress to Prosperity” or-
ganized by Daan Roggeveen. See Ying Zhou, “Gentrifica-
tion with Chinese Characteristics? On Shanghai’s City Cen-
ter Transformations” (Public Lecture, HKUSSC Spring
Lecture series 2013, HKU Shanghai Study Center, March 4 ,
2013), http://ash.arch.hku.hk/2013 /02 /28 /4 -march-lec-
ture-ying-zhou-future-cities-lab/. 146 David Harvey, in
his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, had notably ti-
tled his chapter ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteris-
tics.’ See Harvey, “Chapter 5 Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese
Characteristics.’” 147 The term ‘gentrification’ is a term
that was first coined by the sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964
when she witnessed the phenomenon of socio-econom-
ic and physical transformation to the neighborhood of
Islington, East London, where middle-class residents re-
placed working-class residents, changing the social char-
acter of the neighborhood. It has, since this first usage
been, expanded on by urban social scientists to include
a range of urban renewal phenomena. The term gentrifi-
cation has extended to take place in existing residential
areas and vacant industrial sites, in the city center and in
peri-urban areas, and in commercially active globally con-
nected cities and provincial towns. The term nevertheless
has continuously been used critically as a specific so-
cio-economic and spatial process and manifestation of
neoliberal urban policy. See, for example, Ruth Glass and
Centre for Urban Studies, London; Aspects of Change
(London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1964); Neil Smith, “Toward a
Theory of Gentrification A Back to the City Movement by
Capital, Not People,” Journal of the American Planning
Association 45, no. 4 (1979): 538 – 48, doi:10.1080/019443
67908977002; David Ley, “Liberal Ideology and the
Postindustrial City,” Annals of the Association of Ameri-
can Geographers 70, no. 2 (June 1, 1980): 238 – 58; Sharon
Zukin, “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban
Core,” Annual Review of Sociology 13 (January 1, 1987 ):
129 – 47; Loretta Lees, “The Weaving of Gentrification
Discourse and the Boundaries of the Gentrification Com-
munity,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
17, no. 2 (1999): 127 – 132 , doi:10.1068 /d170127; Zoltán
Kovács, “Ghettoization or Gentrification? Post-Socialist
Scenarios for Budapest,” Netherlands Journal of Housing
and the Built Environment 13, no. 1 (March 1, 1998): 63 – 81,
doi:10.1007/BF02496934; Matthew W. Rofe, “‘I Want to
Be Global’: Theorising the Gentrifying Class as an Emer-
gent Elite Global Community,” Urban Studies 40, no. 12
(November 1, 2003): 2511 – 26, doi:10.1080/0042098032
000136183 .1964 148 The concept of the ‘generic city,’
first proposed by Rem Koolhaas, has generated much anx-
iety. See Rem Koolhaas, “The Generic City,” in SMLXL , by
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, ed. Jennifer Sigler (New
York: Monacelli Press, 1995), 1239 – 64 . Treatises declaring
the ‘specificities’ of our contemporary urban condition re-
acted to the perceived threat of the ‘generic city.’ 149 The
author contends that contemporary presumptions of glo-
balization’s blanket effects, namely the account of knowl-
edge transfers and transplants from the developed West
to the developing East, or from ‘global North’ to the ‘glob-
al South’ overlook the contributions by legacy conditions
before modernity. Many of the countries and cities that
are today catalogued as ‘developing’ or ‘emerging’ econ-
omies, were important hubs in the pre-modern and glob-
ally connected world. Legacy conditions, from cultural to
socio-economic, affect their current modes of develop-
ments and how contemporary globalization’s circulation
of capital lands in each of their local contexts. For an im-
portant account of the pre-modern internationalization
of the world, see Janet L Abu-Lughod, Before European
Hegemony: The World System A. D. 1250–1350 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Chapter 1 Introduction
65
Chapter 2
The Residential Neighborhood

Seeds of Housing Marketization, Foreign Investment, and Reconnecting to the World

State Institutions, Housing Marketization, and the Gap of Opportunity
Expedited Know-How Import and the Dual Market
Before the Tower: the Lilong
Origins of the Residual Conditions
Preservation of Ambiguous Property Rights
Demographic Shift and Commercial Spatial Demand
Incremental Conversions and Small Creative Entrepreneurs
Changing Habitat
Fig. 1 Demolished site between Anfu, Wulumuqi, and Wuyuan Lu, with several remaining houses still occupied, and Chevalier
Place, The Summit, and The Plaza in the background, 2009
For the years since 2005, a large site in city center Shanghai, bound by Wulumuqi Lu,
Anfu Lu, and Wuyuan Lu, remained fenced and vacant, with the exception of a few
crumbling houses perched atop decrepit bases.1 (Fig. 1) Dim fluorescent light emitted
from their broken windows at night, imparting an eerie ambiance to the otherwise
well-groomed and increasingly upscale neighborhood.
The vacant site, identified as Plot 15, is in the “Western District [西区]” of Shang-
hai’s former French Concession, 2 an area known for its elegant streets lined with plata-
nus trees 3 and Western-style buildings. The streets, which many today prefer because
of their comfortable pedestrian scale, somehow escaped urban renewal’s frenzy of
street-widenings in the 1990s. Overseas Chinese, local yuppies, and expats have flocked
to this neighborhood, while many local residents have moved out to the suburbs.4 Since
the mid-2000s, the area has become a quartier popular for its charming heritage archi-
tecture and cosmopolitan vibe. While ever more cafés, fashion boutiques, yoga studios,
and the like were inserted into existing neighboring structures, the 29,428-square-meter
Plot 15 remained an urban void in their bustling midst. Speculations abounded for the
future of this empty plot. Proposals for a central park and novel architecture types for
mixed-use living and working have been tabled. Little, if decided, has been publicized.
This chapter unpacks the urban development processes and institutional frame-
works unique to China’s transition economy that made these seemingly inefficient and
illogical urban voids not only possible, but also not uncommon. The chapter analyzes
the neighborhood-scaled transformation of the area around Plot 15, in the residential
constructions and commercial upgrades that have proliferated since economic liber-
alization began in the 1990s. This case study of the neighborhood transformation re-
veals how, behind what appears to be a conflict between demolition and preservation,
many conundrums are systemically entrenched in China’s transition economy, where
market and planned economies coexist. Bottom-up exploitations of the dual housing
market formed urban loopholes for the unplanned and incremental conservation of his-
toric housing and their possible redevelopment. Ironically, the economic inefficiencies
of a transition economy have also buffered against the rapid erosion of social diversity
caused by state-backed neoliberalization and homogenization.
In 2001, the Xuhui [徐汇] District government put forward development plans for
Plot 15. Under China’s economic transition, land leases and real estate development
were some of the main instruments for economic development. As all urban land pri-
or to China’s economic liberalization belonged to the state, the local state authorized,
oversaw, and profited from land marketization through land leases and real estate de-
velopment.5 Residents initially welcomed the District’s plans for Plot 15, which was
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

dubbed a “project to capture the people’s hearts [民心工程].” Local residents were told
that there would be upgraded housing for them, and that they would be able to return
to their neighborhood after the project was completed.6 A municipal decree, Regard-
ing Encouraging Displaced Residents to Move Back Pushing Forward New Round of Pilot for
Urban Upgrade [关于鼓励动迁居民回搬推进新一轮旧区改造的试行办法], proposed further
urban upgrades in February 2001.7 This decree incentivized developers by lowering
land lease fees and absolving additional fees, on the stipulation that the approved de-
velopment would improve existing residents’ living conditions.
However, once the municipality granted the district-backed developer the land ac-
quisition rights for Plot 15 based on this stipulation, the developer changed the terms.

73
 The unveiling of a joint-investment by a District-owned developer with a Hong Kong
real estate conglomerate and the announcement of luxury housing as the end product
visibly diverged from the original publicized terms. Not only would the new housing
be unaffordable to original residents, but the minimal compensation offered to resi-
dents to acquire their units would also prevent them from returning to their neigh-
borhood. The fact that the land lease had been procured through and facilitated by the
alibi of upgrading residential units exacerbated the residents’ antagonism against the
state. The earlier optimism for urban renewal and the better life it promised quickly
gave way to skepticism and opposition.
It is not coincidental that in 2003 the new high-rise north of Plot 15 sold its pent-
house unit for over 6,500 USD per square meter, breaking that year’s real estate re-
cords.8 The unit is located atop the then newly opened residential compound called
The Summit. The real estate company of the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, Hutchin-
son Whampoa, developed The Summit, or Huixianju [汇贤居], its Chinese name mean-
ing the “gathering of the worthy.” 9 To the east of The Summit stands a 40-story office
tower by the same developers named The Center, or the Century Commerce and Trade
Plaza [世纪商贸广场]. Multinational companies such as Baxter, FedEx, and Estée Lauder
and the like have become the tower’s tenants.
Hong Kong was the source of many early real estate developers for China in the ear-
ly 1990s following economic liberalization. The arrival of market economics in planned
economy China, shaping its transition economy, was instrumentally introduced and
propagated by capitalist developers groomed under the laissez-faire political economy
of Hong Kong. Hong Kong investors, who were foreign direct investors with capital,
were also overseas Chinese with the cultural affinities that made them the emulated
role models for the then newly opening China. It is both their early financial support
of and institutional cooperation with local states that underlined their successful lo-
calization in Chinese cities like Shanghai. Hong Kong developers were crucial in trans-
forming vast swaths of urban China, propelling the rapid restructuring necessary for
economic development and global re-integration. By examining the transformations
of Shanghai’s city center neighborhood, this chapter thus also analyzes the early im-
pact of the overseas Chinese investments, which proved fundamental to subsequent
developments.
Before its development by Hutchinson Whampoa, the block north of Anfu Lu was
similar to Plot 15 in its urban form, composed of ‘lilong [里弄]’ housing, which is the
vernacular residential type built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Shanghai.10
The block’s development and successful opening in 2003 exhibited the lucrative poten-
tials for developing large urban plots in the well-located central neighborhood. It was
thus in 2005, half a year after The Summit and The Center opened, and in the rush to
push out the existing residents for new development, that an elderly couple died on
Plot 15, in a fire set by the District-owned eviction company.11 Although not uncommon
in the kinds of tactics used to coerce resistant residents to leave development sites that
had already been leased to developers,12 the incident nevertheless became nationally
controversial. With abundant reportage by the media, Plot 15 became untouchable,
blighted by its scandalous circumstances. The small number of ‘nail house residents
[钉子户],’ those who refused to be displaced in the demolition, relocation, and redevel-
opment process, remained.13 The handful of families who refused to leave their homes

74
Fig. 2 The demolished plot on the corner of Wulumuqi Lu and Anfu Lu, 2013

on Plot 15 came to represent the sole resistance to marketization and exploding real
estate prices in the centrally located and rapidly changing neighborhood, especially
to neighboring lilongs that were also warned of impending development.14 For sever-
al years the peril of eviction lingered, even after the management company changed
hands within the District.15 Ongoing negotiations remained heavy-handed with little
consolation for the remaining residents.16
It went thus largely unnoticed that on a clear September day in 2013 eight years
after the site came into limbo, the last houses on Plot 15 were bulldozed to the ground.
(Fig. 2) From the balconies of the adjacent three-story houses and the high-rise resi-
dential towers across the street, neighbors heard and watched the commotion.17 What
passed quietly but not inconspicuously was the early morning abduction of the remain-
ing nail house residents from their homes. When they were released in the evening, the
handful of houses that had withstood demolition on Plot 15, as well as the residents’
possessions, had been destroyed.
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

Aside from a perceptible increase in security personnel around the block after the
incident, the only consequent media coverage, in contrast to eight years earlier, was by
a correspondent for an online English publication, an American who lived in the tower
across the street overlooking the empty site.18 To the limited audience who could ac-
cess and read the reportages in English, the story seemed incredible, given the location
and time. Anywhere else in China, such proceedings would not have been surpris-
ing. Nor would it have been had it taken place in Shanghai a decade earlier. But in the
post-Expo euphoria for heritage appreciation in the standard-bearer city of econom-
ical liberalized China,19 the events boded a shift in the political economy of urban
development.

75
Fig. 3 The one-square-kilometer area under study in the context of the city, 2013

It is perhaps timely that a few weeks after the demolition of Plot 15, the West Bund
Biennale for Art and Architecture opened on the riverbanks of the same Xuhui Dis-
trict. The months-long cultural event, subtitled “Progress [进程],” was organized by
the who’s who of Shanghai’s architecture world and included prominent proponents
of heritage conservation. As the next chapter will elaborate, heritage conservation
has become the rallying cry for Chinese urbanists beginning in the mid-2000s. The
event and many more were also catalysts for the new eight-kilometer development
in the periphery of the district, also described in Chapter 6. The juxtaposition of the
mumming of the eviction and Plot 15’s demolition against the showcase of progressive
and globally oriented cultural projects, inaugurating a new development district, may
seem jarring. Yet, the concurrent events represent the simultaneous dominance and
growing sophistication of the local state. The events are merely two sides of the same
coin for the evolving spatial production processes of China’s transition economy.20
In tracing the developments of the neighborhood around Plot 15, this chapter an-
alyzes the urban transformations that took place as a result of economic liberaliza-
tion. What is unprecedented is the chapter’s examination of both the physical and
socio-economic changes at the neighborhood scale. The chapter lays the groundwork
for the ensuing chapters by outlining the processes of housing and land marketization
that were fundamental instruments of economic liberalization, and how these were
manifested in the residential neighborhood around Plot 15. Detailed mapping accom-
panies the tracing of the neighborhood’s developments over time. (Figs. 3, 4) The neces-

76
Fig. 4 Aerial photograph of the square-kilometer area around Plot 15

sity of clarifying and dissecting the historic legacies, which have made the present-day
challenges complex and confounding, also compelled the inclusion of the sections that
give historic background for the urban and architectural forms of the neighborhood
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

and their socio-economic composition.21 Together, historic legacy and contemporary

development shed new light on the coexistence of market economy developments and
planned economy legacy housing.
The chapter’s first section, “Seeds of Housing Marketization, Foreign Investment,
and Reconnecting to the World,” introduces how housing marketization first took
place in Shanghai. Selective developments by the local state in the neighborhood be-
gan in the 1980s, the early days of economic liberalization, in the effort to bring in
foreign capital through production of elite ‘commodity housing.’ It must be noted
that in market economies, housing does not require the label of ‘commodity hous-
ing’ to distinguish it from types of housing that have been allocated by central plan-

77
 ning. But in transition economies such as China’s, the term is necessary to distinguish
housing, ownership of which can be exchanged in the market, from that that is con-
strained by planned economy legacies. Even though commodity housing and ‘allocat-
ed housing’ may share physical characteristics, the differences in property right make
their spatial productions distinct. Tracing the development of commodity housing in
the neighborhood that tapped into attraction of the area’s historic legacy to diaspora
networks, the section documents the first privatized housing and the effect of its de-
velopments on the ensuing neighborhood transformations. In the existing literature
on China’s housing marketization, these projects and their impact have notably been
overlooked. The few agents of development in this early era of economic transition, of-
ten ‘localized cosmopolitans’22 from the diaspora, would pave the way for the ensu-
ing developments. It is in examining these developments that their influence, both on
subsequent development processes as well as the physical form of the housing devel-
opments, become visible.
Sections two and three, “State Institutions, Housing Marketization, and the Gap of
Opportunity” and “Expedited Know-how Import,” introduce how the coexistence of
market and planned economy institutions in housing provision formed the dual hous-
ing market under transition economy. With the acceleration of economic liberalization
in the early 1990s, en-bloc real estate developments took place on sites large enough
to be deemed profitable investments for developers, before the implementation of her-
itage conservation restricted development. Both state institutions, which were com-
pelled to evolve under economic transition, and overseas Chinese developers exploited
these development opportunities in the neighborhood around Plot 15. As elaborated
in section three, one high-end residential development, built on top of an old urban
village, reveals the link between new development sites and historic legacies, mani-
fested in selective demolition.
The first three sections, which show the spatial manifestation of economic liber-
alization and the mechanisms for consequent real estate developments, are followed
by sections four and five, which introduce the architecture types and their occu-
pants, which became the object and casualties of these very developments.23 These
sections, although largely historical, are important in showing the very sources of
the conflict between demolition and development, and how the spatial proximity be-
tween the planned economy legacy conditions and market economics exacerbate the
intransigent conflicts. Today, behind the façade of chic shops and transnational food-
and-beverage joints that lend Shanghai’s central neighborhoods a cosmopolitan vibe
approximating developed country trend quartiers, overcrowded and ill-maintained
housing remains. Many of these lilong houses, in addition to the modern era apartment
towers, harbor multiple tenants with complex origins. They live in conditions cre­
ated and exacerbated by historic legacies. Despite the housing and land marketization,
which have transformed the lives of many others since the 1990s, many of these res-
idents are unable to improve their living conditions, constrained by residual planned
economy frameworks that restrict development.
Section four, “Before the Tower: the Lilong,” introduces and contextualizes the
lilong, the predominant architectural type for housing in Shanghai, the modern form
of which was shaped from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The typological and
morphological distinctions between lilongs built in different time periods and in differ-

78
ent locations are important to understanding their contemporary developments. The
historic conditions that have created the fragmented ownerships in lilongs and other
modern era residences are further elaborated in section five, “Origins of the Residual
Conditions.” To many of the locals left behind in the residual conditions of these neigh-
borhoods undergoing gentrification, there are indeed reasons for their willingness to
forego the historic architecture in which they live and wipe away the memories of a
past imprinted in the built environment. The ambiguity of ownership rights and the
fragmented dwelling units in historic buildings epitomize the unspoken stigma that
the city center is also the very harbinger of recent history’s traumas and its physical
remnants.
Existing studies often have difficulty clarifying, not to mention problematizing,
the causes for contemporary conundrums, from those of fragmented ownerships to
that of dual housing market’s repercussions on development. This very inclusion of
historical legacies as the source of many contemporary predicaments distinguishes
this study from existing ones. Until these legacy issues are confronted, no planning or
urban design can take on a vision for the future.
“Preservation of Ambiguous Property Rights,” section six, contextualizes the trans-
formations of the historic residential buildings against the backdrop of China’s eco-
nomic liberalization, and shows how the preservation of planned economy frame-
works in historic buildings created the spatial coexistence of the dual housing market
in the neighborhood. The ambiguity of property rights as consequence is not only
visible in the urban environment, but is also symptomatic of the protraction of China’s
economic transition.
Despite the urban complexities caused by the transition economy and its resul-
tant dual markets, economic liberalization did re-establish global networks, which in
turn reshaped the socio-economic compositions of urban sites in residual frameworks.
Sections seven and eight, “Demographic Shift and Commercial Spatial Demand,“ and
“Incremental Conversions and Small Creative Entrepreneurs,” trace how residential
developments coupled with the neighborhood’s central location within the rapidly
expanding metropolitan area in turn changed the consumption demands of the urban
centrality around Plot 15.24 The pioneering role that a growing population of localized
cosmopolitans played as both consumers and producers not only helped revise the
neighborhood’s ambiance, but they are also closely tied to the burgeoning interest in
heritage conservation, to be elaborated in Chapter 3.
At the time of this writing, The Summit stands at the northeast of the Anfu and Wu-
lumuqi Lu intersection, enclosed by a latticed steel fence through which passersby can
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

only glimpse the manicured green of the compound’s park-like grounds. On the other
side of Wulumuqi Lu, northwest of the intersection, are high-rise residential towers
built slightly earlier. In contrast to the gated setback of The Summit,25 the residential
compounds of Kingsville [金苑], built in 1997, and Chevalier Place [亦园], built in 2002,
have a more urban relationship to the existing neighborhood, landing in the street
with their public accessibility and urbanity. Their ground floors are slightly set back to
give space to bicycle parking and other street amenities, which are often crowded on
the sides of the narrow historical streets. These ground spaces have opportunely be-
come internationally branded cafés, Western grocers, and other commercial amenities,
catering to the growing number of new residents. Many living upstairs in the towers,

79
 part of the inflow of expats to Shanghai, who prefer the neighborhood, have triggered
the commercialization and transformation of the neighborhood. At the southeastern
corner two-story low-rises from before 1949 have also been converted into small stores
as the street developed. The four corners of the Wuyuan-Wulumuqi intersection thus
represent the different built forms of the city center neighborhood that emerged as the
city transformed. (Fig. 5) On the northeastern corner, Plot 15, cleared, but still vacant,
remains in limbo.
The neighborhood around Plot 15 is the spatial embodiment of China’s dual market
under transition economy. Its social and spatial diversity is contingent on a precarious
balance, that between market forces that are re-shaping the “Western District” as the
particular type of high-end residential and mixed-use centrality and the remnants of
the planned economy that is mediated to also profit from transformation. The urban
loophole conditions created both by the dual housing market and by the exceptional-
ism of the area’s modern era architecture, resulting spatially proximate differences,
could forge the way for rethinking a less homogeneous ‘preservation via inhabitation.’

Seeds of Housing Marketization, Foreign

Investment, and Reconnecting to the World
In 1980, as China’s urban centers were recovering from the upheavals of the Cultural
Revolution (1966–1976), the nation’s leader Deng Xiaoping began to speak about hous-
ing ownership as part of the state’s new vision for economically revitalizing the phys-
ically impoverished and spiritually demoralized country.26 Before 1949, housing and
land were market goods, their values based on demand and exchange, as in other mar-
ket economies. After 1949, when the Communist Party took charge and founded the
People’s Republic of China (PRC), urban housing, as well as urban land, became a pub-
lic good belonging to the nation and its people under central planning. The abolition
of the land and housing markets rendered the use of urban housing, as well as urban
land under planned economy, inefficient. Housing design and land-use planning were
also based on ideology rather than function. Thus, urban housing reform that would
once again incrementally enable housing ownership, along with the establishment of
a land market, became increasingly important to the central government’s decision
for starting economic liberalization in the 1980s and its consequent urban develop-
ments.27 A series of pilots were tested on the cities of Zhengzhou, Changzhou, Siping,
and Shashi from 1982 to 1985 and in Yantai from 1986 to 1988. It was clear from the un-
successful housing reform implementations in these cities, unused to capitalist mar-
ket economics and having little financial resources, that these cities were not ready
for such reforms.28
Shanghai, in contrast to the central government-selected pilot cities for housing
reforms, was a city with historic experience in market economics and access to fi-
nancial resources. Shanghai was a city known as the capital of capitalism in pre-1949
China and was punished for its savvy market economics after 1949. The first steps to-
ward housing reform for Shanghai went hand in hand with the attraction of financial
investment, namely from overseas Chinese with connections to the city. Prior to 1949,

80
1

Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

3
2
4
1

Fig. 5 The four corners of the intersection of Wuyuan and Wulumuqi Lu, 2012

81
Figs. 6, 7 The arrival of American president Richard Nixon at Hongqiao Airport and shaking hands with Chinese
Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972, left, and the housing built on the occasion of his visit, right

Shanghai was a hub of international trade. After 1949, the city became the source of
massive exodus. Many who fled the impending Communist takeover in 1949 settled
in the proximity of Hong Kong, a British colony, and Taiwan, the Republic of China
(R.O.C.) ruled by the exiled Republican government.29 After two decades of receiving
intermittent news from family left behind in a sequestered China, many of these over-
seas Chinese, known as huaqiao [华侨], returned to Mainland China for the first time
in the 1970s. Despite its visible dilapidation and destitution, endured under decades of
upheavals and sequestration, Shanghai was ready to welcome the overseas Chinese as
returnees, along with the resources they could bring.
In March 1980, the central government’s State Council issued a notice from the Na-
tional Urban Construction Ministry [国家城市建设总局] and the Overseas Chinese Office
[华侨办]: Provisional Regulations Regarding using Overseas Chinese Remittance to Purchase
and Construct Housing [关于用侨汇购买和建设住宅的暂行办法].30 The policy encouraged
huaqiao and their relatives, known as qiaojuan [侨眷], to contribute to residential con-
struction. It was also part of the national strategy to project an outward-looking Chi-
na to the world, spearheaded by the engagement of the overseas Chinese diaspora. The
policy affirmed what was already being offered as investment channels in Shanghai’s
city center, a small number of ‘old houses [老房子]’ up for sale to attract foreign curren-
cy.31 It was no surprise that the seedlings of capitalism left behind were encouraged
again to flower in the soil of the former Concession city.
Residential construction had already resumed in the 1970s to accommodate the ur-
gent spatial needs of the overpopulated city. The constructions were just as important
in showing the tentatively approaching outside world a Potemkin urban front. In 1972,
Richard Nixon’s visit to China would give the American president and his entourage
a first rare glimpse of the sequestered nation. (Fig. 6) Landing in Shanghai’s Hongqiao
Airport [虹桥机场] at the western end of the city—the only airport amenable to foreign
visitors in the nation—his official motorcade passed along the east-west thoroughfare
of Huaihai Lu [淮海路] to the center of the city, where the visitors were accommodat-
ed. Prompted by the presidential visit, several six-story slab buildings were quickly
thrown up along Huaihai Lu, which still looked largely agrarian at its western end, to
present a socialist face of urbanism as the visitors passed through. (Fig. 7)
The Shanghai Communiqué,32 announced during Nixon’s state visit and fine-tuned
in the former Cathay Mansions off Huaihai Lu a mile down the road from those then
new constructions, seminally resumed ties between America and China, during what

82
Nixon called the “week that changed the world.”33 In the year prior, a series of US pol-
icy changes had eased the long-held travel bans and trade restrictions to China,34 and
these also prompted the first overseas Chinese to return to China.
The self-consciousness of the Chinese authorities, reflected in their rapid construc-
tions to project an image of normalcy and to conceal the reality of a battered city, was
visible in their ushering of the relatives of overseas Chinese, returning in the 1970s,
into better, less crowded accommodation where possible.35 The authorities wanted to
show the overseas visitors that their relatives in China had a comfort of living and pro-
visions of privacy, which the residents had in fact been deprived of in the meantime.
Despite the quickly erected structures and assurances to the outside world of Chi-
na’s resumption of normality, few relatives of the many bourgeoisie Shanghainese
who left and returned in that first decade of official opening, dared to purchase prop-
erty that authorities offered in exchange for needed foreign currency. Fear of future re-
prisal of the confiscation cycles, which have been ongoing since the 1950s, held sway.
What little the foreign press had gathered of class persecution, particularly attacks on
those whose relatives were abroad,36 could not compare to the stories of trauma re-
told in person. Nevertheless, for the few who invested—a few thousand US dollars for
a house with a garden in the “Western District”—their returns would grow exponen-
tially in the next two decades.
In 1979, the central government was also drawing up plans for the area of Hong­
qiao [虹桥].37 Designated as a “Development Zone [开发区]” for the inflow of capital
from abroad, it was one of a handful of sites selected for the country to resume and ac-
celerate economic development. The Development Zone’s proximity to the Hongqiao
Airport was deliberate for facilitating capital and resource flow. The creation of an en-
clave away from the existing city also served to insulate the incoming investors from
the decrepit and complex conditions of the inner city. In 1983, construction began on
the Hongqiao Economic and Technological Development Zone [经济技术开发区], one of
fourteen such Zones in the nation. This was followed by the State Council’s approval
in 1986. Central planning saw these designated areas as the sole location of foreign in-
vestments, in industrial and commercial functions, as well as residential accommo-
dations.38
While the development of Hongqiao was underway, the meeting of Shanghai’s
municipal Overseas Chinese Affairs Offices [市侨务办公室], Real Estate Ministry [市房产
管理局], Overseas Remittance Ministry [市外汇管理局], and the Peoples Bank’s Shang-
hai branch [人民银行上海分行] issued the policy document Administrative Measures of
Shanghai Municipality Governing the Sale of Commercial Housing by Foreign Investment
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

Real State Enterprises [上海市外商投资房产企业商品住宅出售管理办法] to accelerate over-

seas investment in September 1987.39 Two months later, on 29 November 1987, the mu-
nicipality issued the policy document Measures of Shanghai Municipality on the Compen-
satory Transfer of Land Use Rights [上海市土地使用有偿转让办法], which went into effect
in 1988.40 The two documents created the policy framework for the marketization of
urban land in Shanghai and the means for securing the initial financial capital for the
production of a housing market, via Shanghai’s overseas connections. It became the
first important turning point for the reform and development of the housing market.
The right to use the 12,900-square-meter Lot 26 in Hongqiao for 50 years success­
fully sold at the price of 28 million USD in Hongqiao in 1988. This became the first

83
 example of official land lease in Shanghai following the central government’s policies
for land marketization.41
Commodity housing sold to non-Chinese nationals, or waixiao commodity housing
[外销房]—products unique to the transitioning economy of post-socialist China—
emerged in Hongqiao as a result. In contrast to the nascent neixiao commodity housing
[内销房], which were restricted in their sales only to the Chinese nationals, waixiao
commodity housing units were developed on land that was required to have higher
land lease fees and could only be sold to non-Chinese nationals. With more expensive
units containing amenities and fixtures often not included in the more crudely con-
structed neixiao commodity housing, waixiao housing was targeted higher-end mar-
kets of overseas Chinese and non-Chinese buyers to encourage foreign investment.
Even though the government allocated the designated Development Zones as the
sites for foreign investment, many overseas investors preferred the inner city to these
new and remote Zones under construction. Shanghai’s city center districts that were
recovering from the two-decade economic misfortune were also ready to resume
localized developments after being given more autonomy to manage their own financ-
es in 1978.42 While Jing’an District [静安区] aimed for office and hotel developments
in the form of joint ventures with foreign capital along its commercial spine of West
Nanjing Lu [南京西路], as elaborated in Chapter 4, peripheral areas bordering the Xuhui
and Changning [长宁] Districts pursued an early initiative of elite housing targeted to
the overseas Chinese, many of whose relations already lived within these districts’
jurisdictions.
In the 1980s, Xuhui District was still located along the western edge of the city,
with rural functions like dairy production and semi-agricultural land still inter-
spersed.43 Its abundance of greenery and historic houses, which were constructed un-
der the strict zoning laws of the French Concession as high-end residences at the city’s
periphery, as elaborated in Chapter 3, provided excellent resources for further residen-
tial development. The district promoted waixiao commodity housing to raise funds. A
municipality-wide meeting in 1987 opened up nineteen sites for 450,000 square me-
ters of residential development in Shanghai. Between 1987 and 1991, a total of approxi-
mately 2,053 units of commodity housing for overseas Chinese investment opened. The
municipal-issued Survey of Shanghai Residential Development [上海住宅建设志] touted
this as far exceeding the numbers of the previous decades.44 Xuhui District announced
that one of the first commodity housing initiatives, which began construction in ear-
ly 1987 and was located in the District’s newly incorporated suburban Longhua [龙华]
area, sold all its units in one day.45 Even as the commodity housing development was
successfully taking place in the periphery, small developments in the central district
were already underway. In 1988, a six-story apartment tower called Huicheng Gardens
[汇成花园] opened on the prestigious Gao’an Lu [高安路] as one of the earliest forms
of waixiao commodity housing sold in the city. The precursor to what would be one of
many spinoff development companies of the district, the Huicheng Group [汇成集团],
was its developer.
The Huicheng Group and other District-owned development companies, including
the Xuhui Real Estate Group [徐房集团] and the Shanghai Urban Development Group
[上海城开集团], continued producing waixiao commodity housing, inserting at a small
scale into the area’s large blocks. Another project, the Xingguo Gardens [兴国花园]

84
 by Xuhui Real Estate, was a small residen-
tial compound of six four-story apartment
complexes, tucked in a lane off of Wukang Lu
[武康路], another prestigious residential street
in the district. The Xingguo Gardens develop-
ment opened in 1992 and hosted many prom-
inent huaqiao returnees. It was a proud open
secret in the neighborhood as the residence of
the famous painter and filmmaker Chen Yifei
[陈逸飞],46 who returned to Shanghai in 1992
after a 12-year stay in New York. It is not coin-
Fig. 8 The Huiyi Gardens, 1995 cidental that his paintings and films, depict-
ing the women of 1930s against sumptuous
Republican-era interiors, would be important in reviving nostalgia for the modern era
Shanghai.
Another compound, Huiyi Gardens [汇益花园], constructed by the Shanghai Real
Estate Group [上房集团], also opened the same year, a block away at Fuxing Lu [复兴路]
and Gaoyou Lu [高邮路]. The development rebuilt a group of existing two-story ‘gar-
den houses [花园洋房].’ (Fig. 8) A book published by Tongji University Press only two
years later, which reviewed the architectural accomplishments in Shanghai following
the economic liberalizations of the 1980s boasted: “covering a site of 20,000 square me-
ters and a total floor area of 10,000 square meters, Huiyi Gardens consist of 30 hous-
es with gardens in English, French, and Spanish styles, grouped into three clusters,
namely the Yuelai Villa [悦来别墅], Tianle Villa [天乐别墅], and Yijing Villa [怡静别墅].
An apartment building named Jewel Apartments [寶石公寓] was also built in Huiyi
Gardens.”47
The municipality-issued Survey of Shanghai Residential Development also further de-
scribed Huiyi Gardens, noting that the eastern portion was heavy with “Western Euro-
pean modernism,” the southern part “French,” and the northern part “English.”48 With
9 million R MB of investment, each villa had a private garden, as well as garage, con-
temporary facilities, infrastructure, and modern electronics. The entire development
also included a shopping center, currency exchange station, dining room, bar, and
kindergarten as its shared amenities.49 Even though the new development, even in its
neighborhood of former upper-class residences, contrasted drastically with the state
of housing in the rest of Shanghai at the time, it nevertheless outlined the aspirations
for Shanghai’s future housing developments.50
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

The following year, four eight-story towers in the President Mansions [总统公寓]
opened, with all units sold in US dollars. At Zhonghui Gardens [中汇花园], the munici-
pal-level development company of the Shanghai Real Estate Group presented a much
larger complex consisting of two ten- and two eight-story buildings, four villas and a
clubhouse, which also targeted the waixiao market of expat-returnees. Its location on
Wuxing Lu [吴兴路], in close proximity to the seat of the municipal government just
to the south, also meant that many high-level bureaucrats of the municipality be-
came residents in the newly finished building that was outfitted with many amenities
unavailable to the local market. The Huicheng Wukang [汇成武康], another five-story
apartment building constructed by the Huicheng Group, also opened in 1995.

85
 The use of the word “hui [汇],” which in Chinese could denote both “confluence” and
“remittance,” is notably repeated in the naming of these early compounds. The word
is also part of the designation of ‘qiaohui housing [侨汇房]’, which is a term synony-
mous with the waixiao housing but also refers in its Chinese form to non-Chinese na-
tional buyers. Although few of the early names for developments had English trans-
lations, the extensive use of the word “garden [花园]” and the choice of characters in
naming also announced that these residential compounds no longer belonged to the
austere lingo of the planned economy era. In parallel to the stylistic evolution of the
buildings, the nomenclature for developments would evolve elaborately in the follow-
ing decades.51
Although they are hardly noticeable today in the midst of more conspicuous behe-
moths, these early residential developments executed by a reforming and experiment-
ing local state, planted the first seeds of capital revival. Intended to reap the benefits of
foreign, namely overseas Chinese, investment in the city center, these projects infilled
gaps in the existing urban fabric. They also introduced new residential types for urban
densification and pilot processes for their spatial production, often without deliberate-
ly intending to. The insertion of these early commodity housing projects in the urban
fabric of legacy conditions also created early urban loopholes for ensuing developments.
They laid the foundation for a demographic change to the neighborhood, which would
also trigger an ensuing commercial demand, leading to the changing role of the cen-
trality in the metropolis.

State Institutions, Housing Marketization,

and the Gap of Opportunity
As the number of policies encouraging overseas Chinese investment by way of waix-
iao housing increased, economic restructuring to resolve the grave insufficiencies of
central planning in Shanghai created new opportunities for housing production, espe-
cially for state-owned enterprises (SOE s). Nationwide restructuring of the SOE s in the
1980s would create urban loopholes for the SOE s to develop housing.
Before economic liberalization and under planned economy, central planning di-
rected all value chains and almost all units of production belonged to the state un-
der SOE s. Housing provision, along with labor organization, was the responsibility of
SOE s. Almost all employment also belonged to the state. The basic unit for labor orga-
nization, called the danwei [单位], or ‘work unit,’ fulfilled its role for social provision,
including provisioning housing, childcare and education, for all its workers. As the
danwei was the means by which the party-state exerted social control, housing provi-
sion was also a crucial instrument for social structuring. It was the danwei, in lieu of
developers, which was responsible for housing construction. The danwei also managed
urban housing and allocated it to employees, in accordance to their rank, employment
duration and other measures of social hierarchy, at nominal rent. Over time, the ineffi-
ciencies of central planning resulted in too little housing construction given the demo-
graphic demand. Lack of resources also resulted in mismanagement and insufficient
maintenance of the existing housing supply.

86
 Under planned economy, all surpluses were centralized and redistributed to each
SOE and their danwei. After economic reform in the 1980s, fiscal autonomy gave SOE s
more control of their own surpluses, and the return to economic stability also meant
increased surpluses.52 Under the more centralized command of each SOE , more funds
were redirected into assets that are more secure in property rights. The property rights
of state assets are, as expert Zhu Jieming writes, “tactically lax, neither defined nor le-
gally secured, subject to circumstantial interpretation and competition.”53 Practically,
SOE managers had the de facto right to use, and collect income from the state assets,
but the state representing the people is the abstractly circumscribed “owner” of the
SOE . A collusion of interests of the SOE managers and workers to transform state as-
sets, which had ambiguous property rights, into forms like housing, which had more
secure tenure, and, under liberalization, could be exchanged for value. Housing con-
struction and allocation became one of many forms of state asset dissipation in the
early stages of economic transition.
The proportion of commodity housing danweis purchased rose from 47.5 % during
the period 1979–1987 to 79 % in 1988–1993,54 following the central directive to accel-
erate housing marketization. Despite the central government’s aim to liberalize the
housing market, the purchase of commodity housing by SOE s from state developers and
given to their employees at discounts, protracted rather than severed the last of the
ties between the state and housing. Between 1991 and 1995, 80 % of commodity hous-
ing was estimated to have been allocated with danwei subsidies. It was through hous-
ing that those remaining and surviving danweis consolidated their claims to access
and privilege in the transition economy. Even as incomes rose with economic liberal-
ization, rental costs as a percentage of household expenditure declined from 2.61 % in
1964 to 0.73 % in 1992.55
In 1998, the central government’s issuing of the policy document Implementation
Plan for a Gradual Housing System Reform in Cities and Towns [关于在全国城镇分期分批
推行住房制度改革实施方案] extended the impetus for housing purchase to nationals.
Three years later, the State Council presented the urban housing reform resolution,
the Advice Regarding Comprehensively Advancing Reform for Urban Housing Institutions
[关于全面进行城镇住房制度改革的意见],56 in the 8th Five Year Plan (1991–1995) to ad-
dress the severe housing shortage, congestion, and dilapidation that urban residents
had suffered in China for decades.57
It was this early gradualism of the transition economy that inhibited full matura-
tion of the housing market. On the one hand, a high price-to-rent ratio due to low rents
and low incomes, which were not compatible with the commodity housing prices, hin-
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

dered market accessibility.58 On the other hand, planned economy institutions such as
the SOE s and their danweis impeded full housing reform through their continuous and
even expanded provision of subsidized housing during the transition period, which ul-
timately distorted the market.59 Continued housing allocation disincentivized danwei
employees from accessing the commodity housing market, as housing purchase would
have deprived them of the employment benefit of allocated housing.
Especially in Shanghai’s city center, where the SOE s have since the 1950s been al-
located valuable and strategically located plots, the redevelopment of property, either
as offices and housing, became a way to upgrade and diversify the functions of the
SOE to meet market demands. Whereas commodity housing developers were required

87
 Central PLANNED Central TRANSITION
Government ECONOMY Government ECONOMY
surplus CCI for construction surplus

SOE SOE
wages land wages land
rent Local rent Local
Employee Government Employee Government

Fig. 9 Diagram of housing production from planned to transition economy

to pay what was called the “8-point price,” or “commodity price [商品房价]” for hous-
ing construction, SOE and state-institution-sponsored developments paid the “5-point”
version of the standard price, or “price at cost [成本房价].”60 SOE s were not only able to
access urban land at lower than market price, but they were also exempted from city
taxes and other fees required of commodity housing developers. (Fig. 9)
In the neighborhood around Plot 15, the built results of this early phase of economic
liberalization are visible. In 1992, the district developer of the Xuhui Real Estate Group
opened the Xingsheng Apartments [兴盛公寓], an 8-story and a 13-story tower. Devel-
oped for the party cadres of the Xuhui District, apartment towers like it and Xingguo
Yuan [兴国苑], the set of two five-story buildings, one 11-story tower, and three vil-
las, opened a few years later on the corner of Hunan Lu [湖南路] and Gaoyou Lu half
a block down. Alongside housing developed for foreign investment, these buildings
represented the kind of opportunities for development that the transition economy
presented for the institutions that had vested interest in maintaining the status quo
of privilege.
Many of the early development companies owned by Shanghai’s district govern-
ments were first opened offshore in the 1980s, where special economic zone status
allowed greater business freedom to facilitate their entrepreneurial activities. The
Changning District [长宁区] of Shanghai, for example, established the Shenya Devel-
opment Company [申亚实业开发总公司] in 1988, which was registered in the Special
Economic Zone of Hainan [海南]. When liberalization returned to Shanghai after 1992,
Shenya moved back to the city to establish the Shenya Real Estate Company, where it
became one of the first “pilot businesses for policy testing [制度试点企业].”61 Its 26-floor
tower of the Xingguo Apartments [兴国公寓], which was launched as a waixiao resi-
dence at the corner of Huaihai and Wukang Lu, opened in 1995. Shenya would contin-
ue to develop housing and offices in both Hainan and Shanghai, while diversifying its
investments into sectors including building management, tourism, education, agri-
culture, and forestry.
The role of the SOE as developer, contractor, and designer increasingly took shape
in the decade preceding the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. As economic liberalization was
rapidly accelerated, real estate development was the means by which the stronger and
more agile SOE s were able to survive in the increasingly competitive market economy.
In 1996, the Shanghai Construction Bureau issued a policy empowering Shanghai’s dis-
trict governments, at the level of local state, as the authority of approval for real estate
redevelopment applications from private developers.62 This decentralization of power

88
from the municipal to the district level also signified opportunities for the astute and
connected leaders of the SOE s who had access to local state authorities. The 1998 mas-
sive layoffs by the outdated and no-longer competitive industries that went bankrupt
ensured that the survivors would emerge more powerful and privileged. The termina-
tion of the danwei’s subsidized housing allocation system, declared in 1998, also freed
the SOE s of their obligations to provide housing for their employees and enabled their
residential developments to be part of the commodity housing market.
A former state institute for energy in Shanghai in the wake of SOE reforms and
downsizing, for example, nimbly transformed itself into a designer-cum-developer in
the mid-1990s and quickly took on contract work in the construction industry.63 Many
other forms of institutional adaptations took place, keeping beneficial state-affiliated
networks and assets, while discarding outdated functions and personnel. The former
state energy institute would, amongst other developments, acquire land behind a
handkerchief factory in the city center and erect a ten-story commodity housing on the
site, with top units reserved for key leadership positions and sold to friends.64 Interest-
ingly, two decades later, the same company saw the end of urban real estate growth, in
2012, as reason for returning to the now more lucrative venue of energy development,
its originally designated function.
On Anfu Lu and Wulumuqi Lu near Plot 15, a number of towers arose in the 1990s,
built by companies now named after their former SOE selves. The real estate devel-
oper Shanghai Port Real Estate [上港房产], which finished three residential towers in
1991 on Wulumuqi Lu called Wuzhong Apartments [乌中大楼], belonged to the Shang-
hai Port Authority, a national-level SOE . Nearby, the development arm of the Shang-
hai Bureau for Quality Assurance [上海市质量监督局建设], a municipal-level state insti-
tution, erected the Changle Apartment tower [长乐公寓] in 1998. Down the block, the
two residential towers, Yiping Yuanin [一品苑], were also erected in 1999 on the land
of the Shanghai Drama Arts Center [上海话剧院].
Housing remained tenuously linked to the planned economy institutions, and
perpetuated the inequalities in housing distribution created under state socialism.65
Housing also continued to privilege those with connections under the pre-reform sys-
tem.66 Cadres and administrators of SOE s would be the first to access the increasing
supply of new housing, perpetuating the existing inequality of housing access that
had been increasingly distorted towards upper-ranked state affiliates. When the sale
of public housing started at the end of 1993, the benefactors’ employment duration
and rank, both important in housing allocation under planned economy, continued to
determine the quantity of subsidy in the marketization of allocated housing.67
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

Housing construction and developing a residential market dominated develop-

ment policy, especially in the boom preceding the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis. It would
not be until after 1998 that commercial and shopping venues would also become a
more normative form of real estate development. In these early years of economic
transition, state enterprises capitalized on the urban loopholes created by ambiguities
regarding state assets and the weakness of non-state consumers to produce commodity
housing. Although also incremental and small-scaled like the waixiao housing devel-
opments, these developments would add to the physical and socio-economic diversity
enriching city center neighborhoods.

89
Expedited Know-How Import and
the Dual Market
When 1992 brought the “Dragon’s Head” title to Shanghai, the central government
sanctioned an accelerated marketization to be implemented in Shanghai. The first land
lease directly to foreign investors was signed in 1992 in the newly created administra-
tive district of Pudong [浦东]. Foreign capital was thereafter allowed to develop land
in the inner city as well as in the designated zones of the suburbs. 1993 and 1994 saw
the influx of capital by foreign investors pouring into the real estate market.68 Many
overseas Chinese invested in Pudong, with its plans for the new financial district of
Lujiazui [陆家嘴], the high-tech park of Zhangjiang [张江], the export-processing zone
of Jinqiao [金桥], and the free-trade zones of Waigaoqiao [外高桥]. But many also chose
to invest in residences given the changing demand in the 1990s.69
In 1992, the establishment of a Housing Reform Office [房改办] in almost every city
in the nation took over the responsibility of overseeing the transition of housing as
a welfare. The Shanghai Municipal Government issued a report in March of the same
year, Plans and Implementation Regarding Slum Housing Upgrade [关于棚户简屋改造规划
和实施情况的报告], which identified 365 hectares of inadequate housing in the city and
urgently required the upgrading of 3,300 sites. At the end of the same year, the 6th
Communist Party Congress of Shanghai announced plans to demolish these 365 hect-
ares by 2000.
Shanghai had been one of the cities with the most severe shortage in housing space,
with 3.6 square meters of living space per capita in 1979, the national average being
6.8 square meters. Shanghai was also a producer city that contributed continuously to
the national GDP while receiving little of its tribute to the central government back to
invest in its overloaded infrastructure and to construct housing for its growing pop-
ulation. The city hardly grew in physical size as its population multiplied. Therefore,
a comprehensive housing reform program in the city was introduced in 1991, imple-
menting a compulsory housing savings program through establishing a Housing Prov-
ident Fund (HPF ) [公积金]. With this Shanghai became the first city in the nation to pro-
vide an economic basis for housing consumption, based on Hong Kong and Singapore’s
mandatory savings fund models. The lack of funds for housing purchase in China’s first
pilot cities for housing reform had led to their failures. In contrast, the mandatory sav-
ings fund was a pragmatic measure that anticipated the future.
In 1996, Shanghai municipal government issued the policy document Number 18,
which gave district governments the authority of approving applications for land lease
and development.70 In 1998, the Shanghai Bureau of Construction issued the policy
document Number 33, which reduced land leasing fees and further incentivized urban
renewal through subsidies to private developers for demolition in the urgency to com-
plete the clearance of 365 hectares of inadequate housing.71 The State Council issued a
second most important policy document, Number 23,72 which expanded on document
Number 43, issued in 1994, which established the comprehensive framework for hous-
ing provision and housing finance.73 This was intended to stimulate the privatization
of housing development at the national level.

90
 1980 1990 2000 2010

SOE developments

Commodity housing

Overseas Chinese investments

1978 十一届 1992 Shanghai 1997 Asian 2001 China

三中全会 Dragon’s Head Financial Crisis joins WTO

Fig. 10 Diagram for the multiple tracks of housing markets under transition

Two commodity housing markets coexisted from early on under transition econo-
my. (Fig. 10) The 1992 permission for foreign investment within the city was followed
by the 1994 permission for foreign capital to develop housing that is sold to the nation-
als, slowly closing the gap between waixiao housing, sold to foreigners, and neixiao
commodity housing, sold to nationals. With the rising incomes accompanying econom-
ic growth, and the marketization of public housing—many cashed out on their existing
units to purchase new commodity housing, owning marketized housing through the
purchase of their publicly owned housing—neixiao housing also rose in demand. Neix-
iao housing steadily improved in quality. Nevertheless, in 1994, the average price for
waixiao commodity housing was still three to four times that of the neixiao, even though
building costs had only increased by 20 to 30 %.74 The discrepancy in price was on ac-
count of the differential in land lease fees for waixiao housing. It was in 1997 that the
Asian Economic Crisis caused a vacuum in the influx of foreign capital, reducing both
supply and demand for waixiao commodity housing. It was not until August 2001 that
the differentials of commodity housing for non-nationals would be eliminated and inte-
grated within the commodity housing market in Shanghai.75 Application for accession
to the World Trade Organization (WTO ) catalyzed a re-examination of the dual market
for commodity housing, which had been considered a barrier to global integration. The
WTO accession also encouraged procedural streamlining, increased transparency, and
promoted a single housing market.
Nevertheless, the waixiao housing of the late 1990s provided a model for housing
development, both in form and procedure. Many of these early housing developments
for the waixiao market had names like “Ambassy Courts” and “Joffre Gardens” to evoke
Shanghai’s modern era affinity with the West and its historic cosmopolitanism. The
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

names alluded to a new cosmopolitanism to which the city was again aspiring. The
early waixiao housing developments would be the realization of overseas Chinese de-
velopers and their architects at scales and speeds unrivaled in the new market. For de-
cision-makers in the until-then sequestered mainland China, these overseas Chinese
experts in real estate had the desired know-how for achieving international standards.
(Fig. 12) The resultant developments, insertions into existing neighborhoods, ranged
from modern-style low-rises to the more representative high-rise towers with ameni-
ties. They often included Western restaurants, swimming pools, and fitness studios on
the premises. Often larger in development area than earlier developments, they were
also the main participants in the 365 Plan’s expedited clearance of old blocks.

91
 The Ambassy Courts residential compound completed in 2000, for example, was
developed by a subsidiary of the global conglomerate founded by Macanese tycoon
Stanley Ho, a man known for his casinos in Macau and his portfolio of property and
infrastructural investments. Ambassy Courts was one of the most prominent enclaves
built with international standards for expats in the neighborhood near Plot 15, its three
towers dwarfing the surrounding neighborhoods. (Fig. 11) The compound is gated, as
was the protocol of exclusive developments in Hong Kong and Macau. Parking, green-
ery, and amenities such as tennis courts and a swimming pool, further distinguish the
compound from its surroundings. The structures themselves are a pastiche of Greco-
Roman embellishments pasted on towers that came from the standard template for
Hong Kong luxury housing developments of the time.76 Its Chinese name, Hongyi
Haoyuan [鸿艺豪苑], is composed of the character, ‘hong [鸿],’ from Ho’s name and the
characters, ‘haoyuan [豪苑],’ which means ‘luxury garden.’ The Ambassy Courts‘ Chi-
nese name evokes the kind of opulence that had been shunned and suppressed since
1949 under the austere socialism of the People’s Republic.
Ho’s other investment projects, which entered the market in the 1980s, include
Central Plaza [上海中区广场] near Huaihai Lu, from 1998, and Shanghai Town [上海城]
in Hongqiao, finished in 2001. Ho had expressed his optimism regarding Shanghai’s
future: “Shanghai’s economic development is extremely fast; its investment environ-
ment is getting better and better.” He said, “we are confident in the investment in
Shanghai. We are confident in the investment in the mainland.”77
This confidence in the growing Chinese market was shared by many who have
arrived in China in the first decade of economic liberalization. One of the earliest reviv-
als of the ‘huiguan [会馆],’ or clubhouse, in post-reform China would also appear on the
grounds of Ambassy Courts. The likes of Sun Yat-sen’s granddaughter, Asia’s wealthi-
est woman, Nina Wong, and other overseas Chinese tycoons could mingle here with
expats and local members of the club who were ushering in the new era of China’s

Figs. 11, 12 View of the Ambassy Court from lilong across Huaihai Lu, left, and unit types, right

92
 German
Embassy American
Embassy

Shanghai Xincun
Yicun [上海新村]
[逸村] Japanese
Embassy

Fig. 13 The Ambassy Court development (highlighted in blue and red) in the context of the neighborhood,
and a map from the French Concession 1938 plan showing the gap in planning in which it is today located, inset

growing prosperity. Called the Ambassy Club, or, in Chinese, Hongyi Club [鸿艺会], it
was an important part of the business model for real estate development. The Ambas-
sy Club also became a role model for how to program amenities in residential develop-
ments.78 The latest exclusive clubhouse by the Ho empire is in Chongqing.79
Despite its exclusive high walls that abut the small-scale buildings next to it, the
neighborhood nevertheless lends Ambassy Courts not only its name—the compound
is located across from the American embassy and behind the German embassy—but
also its claim to class, privilege, and culture. (Figs. 13, 14) On the other side of Huaihai
Lu is the upper-class lilong of Shanghai Xincun [上海新村], where many intellectuals
were housed and continue to live. A few doors down is Yicun [逸村], which coffee table
history books from the mid-2000s claim to be the original home of Chiang Kai-shek’s
son Chiang Ching-kuo, later to be the Nationalist leader in Taiwan. Farther down Huai-
hai Lu the protected former house of Madame Soong, wife of Sun Yat-sen, remains in
pristine condition, with its 1950s American fixtures and furnishings. It is not too far a
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

stretch to imagine the Ambassy Club as a contemporary extension of the Republican-

era glamour, but with updated and evolved participants from the new aristocracy.
The optimism towards the marketization process was understandable. The overall
effect of housing marketization in the first decade of accelerated reform was clearly
felt in the improvement of daily life for many Shanghai residents. With construction of
much needed residential buildings and simultaneous urban renewal through the dem-
olition and reconstruction plans, the average density quotients of 4 square meters per
person increased. From the 1979 3.6 square meter per capita, housing size impressively
increased to 9.3 square meters by 1998 in Shanghai, and to 16.5 square meters in 2007.
The number of housing units wholly occupied by a single household increased from

93
Fig. 14 Ambassy Courts, 2011
 1 8 15

乌中大楼 兴国大厦 一品苑

乌鲁木齐中路255弄7-12号 淮海中路1950号 安福路298弄
Year: 1991-1993 Year: 1995/6 Year: 1999/8
Price:40032RMB/sm (2013/1) Price:42122RMB/sm (2014/7) Price: 48079RMB/sm (2013/1)
3 towers, 2 6 story Units: 208, 26 floors 2 towers 17 and 15 storeys
Units: 560 Parking: 80 Units: 120,
Parking: 85 Green: 10% Parking: 64
Green: 45% FAR: - Green: 25%
FAR: 1.9 Built Area: 25000sm FAR: 2
Total Area: 15620sm Developer: 申亚房产 Built Area: 17000sm
Developer: 上港房产 Developer: 上海意安置业
2 9 19
Xingguo Garden Clove Apartments Ambassy Court
兴国花园 丁香公寓 鸿艺豪苑
武康路280弄 华山路800弄 6号 8号 16号 淮海中路1500弄
Year: 1992 Year: 1996/6 Year: 2000/1
Price: RMB/sm (2013/1) Price:56451RMB/sm (2014/7) Price: 59207RMB/sm (2013/1)
Units: Units: 360 Units: 387
Parking: Parking:28 Parking: 200
Green: % Green: 35% Green: 20%
FAR: 0.88 FAR: 4.3 FAR: 4.5
Built Area: sm Built Area: 168000sm Total Area: 40000sm
Developer: 徐房集团 Developer: 鑫安房产 Developer: 鸿日房产

3 Huiyi Garden 10 20
Beverly Court
汇益花园 兴国苑 嘉惠园
高邮路16号 湖南路308弄1～6号 武康路101号
Year: 1992 Year: 1996/12 Year: 2000, renov 2005/6
Price: RMB/sm (2013/1) Price: 55364RMB/sm (2014/7) Price: ~63115RMB/sm (2013/1)
26 villas rebuilt Units: 75 Units: 21
Parking: Parking: 15 Parking: 40
Green: % Green: 35% Green: 25%
FAR: FAR: 2.8 FAR: 1.5
Built Area: sm Built Area: 7840sm Built Area: 3540sm
Total Area: sm Developer: 住乐建设 Developer: 上海世杰
Developer: 城开集团
4 11 21
Joffre Mansion
兴盛公寓 丁香大楼 霞飞别墅
高邮路3号
华山路894弄 淮海中路1768弄
Year: 1992-6 Year: 1996/12 Year: 2001/1
Price: 47551RMB/sm (2013/1)
Price: 49685RMB/sm (2014/7) Price: 180788RMB/sm (2013/1)
Units: 72 Units: 288 Units: 27
Parking: -- Parking: 35 Parking: 28
Green: 23% Green: 60% Green: 45%
FAR: -- FAR: -- FAR: 2
Built Area: -- Built Area: -- Built Area: 9113sm
Developer: 徐房集团 Developer: 政府改造 Developer: 上海元汇房地产

13
5 Kingsville 24 Chevalier Place
President Mansion
金苑 亦园
总统公寓 安福路198号
华山路868弄1-6号 安福路168号
Year: 1997/10
Year: 1993/6 Year: 2001/5
Price: 54507RMB/sm (2013/1)
Price: 46066 RMB/sm (2014/7)
Price: 55377RMB/sm (2013/1)
Units: 102
4 8-Story Towers 33 storeys, Units: 113
Parking: 99
Units: 128 Parking: 200
Green: 35%
Parking: 150 Green: 10%
FAR:
Green: 30% FAR:
Built Area: 43180000sm
FAR: 2.1 Built Area: 41297sm
Developer: 上海金裕房地产有
Built Area: 52000sm Developer: 上海创名房地产发
限公司有限公司
Developer: 总统房产 展有限公司

13
6 Zhong Hui Garden 26 The Summit
长乐公寓
中汇花园 长乐路1225号
汇贤居
吴兴路25号 乌鲁木齐中路99弄
Year: 1998/1
Year: 1994/12 Year: 2004/6
Price: 48079RMB/sm (2013/1)
Price: 58797RMB/sm (2014/7) Price: 74089RMB/sm (2013/1)
Units:
4 towers, 4 villas, 1 clubhouse Units: 359
Parking: 64
Units: 486 Parking: 341
Green: 25%
Parking: 150 Green: 50%
FAR: 0.88
Green: 30% FAR: 4
Built Area: 10476sm
FAR: 2.1 Built Area: 80000sm
Developer: 上海市质量监
Total Area: 52000sm Total Area: 120000sm
督局建设
Developer: 上房集团 Developer: 长江实业(集团)
7 14 28 Chanter
汇成武康 康兴公寓 鸿丰香缇花园
武康路280弄 淮海中路1768弄
湖南路555号
Year: 1995 Year: 1998/4
Year: 2006/1
Price: 51724RMB/sm (2014/7) Price: --
Price: 106062RMB/sm (2013/1)
Units: 80 Units: 21
Units: 35
Parking:60 Parking: --
Parking: 57
Green: 35% Green: --
Green: 50%
FAR: 2.0 FAR: 3
FAR: 2
Built Area: -- Built Area: --
Built Area: 10515sm
Developer: 汇成集团 Developer: 东方国际
Developer: 鸿丰房地产

31.6 % in 1980 to 74 % in 2000. By 2007, nearly all housing units were wholly occupied
by a single household at 94.7 %.80
High-end residences and grade-A offices were an important part of the range of
products demanded in China’s liberalizing market. High land lease fees that funded
infrastructure development and other outlays by the local state, and the need for max-
imum rapid returns increasingly required commercially profitable spatial products
for elites rather than ones that could accommodate the social welfare of more ordi-
nary people. At the same time, overseas Chinese developers in particular chose well-

96
 26
16 12 24
13
11
15
5

10

14

3
4 20

19

24

15
*6

7
17
21

High-rise Residential
Multistory Residential
Low-rise Residential

Figs. 15, 16 Residential developments in the neighborhood, left, and the corresponding map of the post-1980 s
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

developments around Plot 15, with the different types indicated by color, right

positioned city center locations for the depositing of a contemporary lifestyle catering
to global demand. In doing so, they were anticipating a growing market of consumers
with cosmopolitan tastes, who would prefer the ambiance of the historic neighbor-
hoods. These consumers would have the proximity of the local neighborhoods and the
contemporary facilities and amenities of new residential towers. (Figs. 15, 16)
More than its prime location in proximity to historic sites and heritage buildings,
the existing architecture type that was on the site of Ambassy Court is the key to
understanding the development itself. The area was a Chinese settlement before the

97
 expansion of the French Concession in
1914. In a plan that would be translated
as the “French Concession Beautifica-
tion Plan,” the area was marked out like
a hole in the middle of a donut: a gap of
existing Chinese housing surrounded
by the new residential district dictated
by strictly-zoned modern building types
and planned road networks of the Conseil
d’Administration Municipale.81 (Fig. 13 in-
set) The architecture types and urban form
of this original “urban village,”82 with its
low-rise Chinese houses and network of
narrow lanes remained throughout the
Concession-era and the PRC period, even
as the surrounding neighborhood devel-
oped under French Concession gover-
nance. Informal additions compelled by
demographic pressures further densified Fig. 17 Plots within the gaps of French planning from 1938 ,
the settlement. In the 1960s, on the emp- with the largest being that of the contemporary Plot 15

ty plots adjacent, housing slabs were in-

serted. It was not until the 1990s, in the urgent effort to upgrade Shanghai’s dilapidat-
ed and overcrowded urban housing, that the architecture types lacking infrastructure
and facilities, and with coal stoves and no plumbing, would be the first to be leased to
foreign investors and cleared for development. Despite the fact that what eventually
became the shantytown by the 1980s was in fact the oldest of its neighborhood, the
area’s pre-modern conditions epitomized the squalor of inadequate housing, and be-
came the visible reason for removal and renewal.
It was also convenient in the newly implemented land leases that the plot of the
pre-modern village was large and profitable enough for real estate development by
contemporary standards, as deployed by the overseas Chinese developers. The loca-
tional importance of such plots in the city center, as well as the threshold size, often
took priority in the demolition deliberations over the actual state of housing condi-
tions. If the dilapidated and over-crowded housing was located on too small or frag-
mented of a plot, it would not have been worthy of investment, leaving the improve-
ment of residents’ living conditions very much an afterthought.
In addition to the Ambassy Court site, another of the “donut holes” of the French
plan was a larger area east of the Wulumuqi and Wuyuan Lu crossing. (Fig. 17) Wulu-
muqi Lu, formerly called Route Alfred Magy, was a key north-south connector, around
which the second of the pre-Concession settlements was already located.83 Plot 15, on
the southeast corner of Wulumuqi and Anfu Lu, and the block north of it made up most
of this pre-modern “urban village.” In 1995, when housing prices were low, the site of
Wulumuqi Lu Lane 99 was acquired by the Hong Kong development giant Hutchinson
Whampoa. By the end of 2002 the development for the residential units of The Summit
went up for sale at the price of 195,00 R MB per square meter (equivalent to 2,380 USD per
square meter); a penthouse unit cost an astounding 6,500 USD per square meter.84 The

98
Fig. 18 Plot 15 in context, and map from the French Concession 1938 plan, showing the gap in planning in which it
is today located, inset

same year the office units of The Center were available to rent, even though it was not
until two years later that the residences and offices were officially opened to occupation.
The Ambassy Court and The Summit, across the street from Plot 15, clearly represent
the opportunities offered by the urban loopholes of a different kind of ambiguity; name-
ly, the ambiguity marked out by historic developments and the contemporary read-
ing of heritage, (Fig. 18) which would quickly change within the following decade. The
economic feasibility of upgrading and the appeal of improved living conditions drove
much of the rapid developments of the 1990s, which would begin to unravel with rising
real estate prices and the recognition of new values for city center locations.

Before the Tower: the Lilong

At the end of 1992, Shanghai’s municipal government tabled the goal of demolishing
365 hectares of inadequate and congested housing by the year 2000, naming it the
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

“365 Plan.” The urban renewal effort, which had halted since 1949, targeted the 300,000
some families living less than 2.5 square meter per capita in Shanghai. To catch up on
the 32 years of less than an average 870,000 square meters per year of demolition and
renewal per year, the urgency to start from scratch and to clear the ground in the city
center became the impetus for the next decade’s development planning. By 2000, the
municipal government was largely satisfied that the goal of the 365 Plan was achieved.
New constructions in the city center replaced the most dilapidated of housing condi-
tions, including most shanty areas and older lilong areas.
This section outlines the typological and morphological differences between lilongs
that were built in different time periods, which often corresponded with their loca-

99
斯文里

20m

Fig. 19 Lilong developments of Siwenli [斯文里], Jing’an Villas [静安别墅], Dasheng Hutong [大胜胡同], and Shangfang
Gardens [上方花园], left to right

tions in the city. Although lilong are already much researched by scholars, 85 a brief
outline of the lilong types is important to understanding their contemporary develop-
ments, which is the central concern of this and the following chapters.
The dire urban living conditions that the demolition and redevelopment plan was
trying to address were found mainly in the predominant urban residential type in
Shanghai, the lilong. A network hierarchy of lanes, or long [弄], circulating and travers-
ing a neighborhood of predominantly residential buildings form the lilong, literally a
“compound,” li [里], of longs [弄], “lanes”. The lanes themselves are also called longtang
[弄堂], which refers to the spatial quality of the lanes. The term ‘longtang’ is also used
to describe the lane house compound or neighborhood, interchangeable with lilong.
From the end of the 19th century to the 1950s, at least 70 to 80 % of Shanghai residents
lived in lilongs.
Lilongs shape a morphology specific to Shanghai’s modern era urban formation. In
the early 1900s, as Shanghai became the dominant financial and cultural center in Chi-
na,86 rapid population influx resulting from cultural and economic opportunities as
well as for the security offered by the Concessions’ extraterritorial status, compelled
the production of the architecture type of the lilong house. From a simplification and
scalar reduction of the courtyard houses from the Jiangnan [江南] region of the Yang-
tze River Delta, to their aggregation into row-houses that was attributable to the form
of the European city, the hybrid type of the lilong house took shape beginning in the
1870s and continued to evolve until the 1930s. At the urban scale, internal lanes within
the block traversed the high-density low-rise housing of the lilong houses, structuring
their urban form. (Fig. 19)

100
静安别墅 大胜胡同 上方花园

Usually two or three rooms wide, the earlier lilong houses had a stone doorframe
with black wooden gates, which were called the ‘shikumen [石库门]’, or literally “stone-
rimmed door,” opening onto a courtyard. By the third expansion of the French conces-
sions in 1914, newer shikumen housing, with a reduction in size to one or two rooms
in width would also include a roof terrace called the shaitai [晒台] and densified ver-
sions of the vernacular courtyard into light wells called the tianjing [天井], or “sky
well.” These elements, spatial consequences of the regional cultural habits and climate,
would evolve in the lilong’s later iterations.
Because of the time of their construction, the shikumen lilong housing lacked ame-
nities such as plumbing and electricity that accompanied modernity and industrializa-
tion. Contemporary demand for infrastructural conveniences, such as indoor flushing
toilets and the shift to nuclear families as the basic social units, replacing extended
families staffed by servants, rendered these ‘old-style lilong’ types [老式里弄]—inter­
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

changeable with shikumen—outdated and economically infeasible to renew under

contemporary conditions. But because the shikumen’s stylistic hybridity and tectonic
appearance had increasingly become representative of a contemporary memory of old
Shanghai, heritage efforts have increasingly preserved their façade structures in com-
mercial developments, piloted by the seminal Xintiandi [新天地] project in 2002. This
re-narration of historic buildings for contemporary consumption will be further dis-
sected in the following chapter. Nevertheless, the prominent architectural feature of
the “stone-rimmed door” would bestow the lilong with its name: the term shikumen is
increasingly used interchangeably by the lay public with lilong, even though the lilong
also includes newer architecture types and urban forms.

101
斯文里 大胜胡同

2m 2m

Fig. 20 Plans of old-styled lilong type Siwenli, left; and new-styled lilong Dasheng Hutong, right

The architecture type of the lilong buildings changed in the 1920s, when modern-
ization and densification required buildings to be smaller and taller and to incorpo-
rate more modern infrastructure such as electricity, modern plumbing, and space to
accommodate the automobile. The term ‘new-style lilong [新式里弄]’ is used to describe
these lilong buildings and lilong compounds that were produced in response to these
modern requirements.87 The new-style lilong buildings have a smaller footprint, elim-
inating the Chinese-style courtyard of the old-style lilong houses, although the light
wells were retained as a feature in many. (Fig. 20) The new-style lilong buildings have a
higher number of stories, sometimes up to four floors in total. Often, in lieu of the Chi-
nese-style courtyard, the new-style lilong buildings may also include a modern-style
front garden and roof terrace.
The primary and secondary lanes, which also doubled as public space for the res-
idents, would continue in the new-style lilong types that also extended to what are
called huayuanshi lilong [花园式里弄] or ‘garden-style lilong,’ and gongyushi lilong [公寓式
里弄] or ‘apartment-style lilong’ types.88 The garden-style lilongs have more spacious
layouts with semi-detached houses, often abutted by a small garden. Similarly, apart-
ment-style lilongs are made up of a cluster of apartment buildings, from three to seven
stories high, which are accessible via a system of lanes. From their architecture type,
the apartment-style lilong buildings were different from all the other lilongs in that they
were designed for multiple families in each building. All the other types were original-
ly designed for one family, even if for an extended one in the older lilong types.
In their addressing of the compact city as a modern commercial center with rising
demographic density, these new lilong types infilling Shanghai’s modern street grids
contrasted with the low-rise low-density types of the more traditionally Chinese cit-
ies.89 The new-style lilongs, especially, were no longer one- or two-story buildings. The
long or lanes of the new-style lilongs were wider, with the primary lane wide enough to
support automobile entry. In contrast to the three-meter width of the old-style lilongs,
new-style lilongs had five- to six-meter-wide lanes, designed for the automobiles rather
than the rickshaw. The secondary arteries also were much wider at four to six meters
with deeper private courtyards of three meters, which also allowed the buildings to be

102
 Old-styled lilong
New-styled lilong
Garden-styled lilong
Apartment-styled lilong

Fig. 21 Distribution of lilong types in Shanghai, with the modern types more in the west, 1993

higher.90 Thus the density, network of open space, and building quality updated their
contemporary usage. The lanes that traversed both the garden-style lilong and apart-
ment-style lilong were similar to those of new-style lilongs in that parking garages were
often built into the developments, either on the ground floor of the houses or built as
a separate structure on the side of the compound.
In contrast to inner city housing in most Chinese cities, where the dominance of
one-story structures without indoor plumbing and amenities made their rejuvenation
after economic liberalization financially unfeasible, the standards of Shanghai’s mod-
ern era housing as implemented under the strict Concession-era building regulations
made their survival under contemporary development pressures possible. The mod-
ern housing type and its circulation networks, manifestations of the paradigm shift
in the city’s industrialization, had already prepared for the automobile as an import-
ant component of the city. Modern amenities, deemed luxurious by Chinese standards
at the time, included indoor plumbing, the modern kitchen, heating appliances, and
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

fireplaces. These infrastructural provisions as well as spatial configurations of many

of the new-style lilongs have facilitated their continued use by contemporary demands.
Today’s real estate demand for a certain type of the old house will also be further un-
packed in the next chapter in relation to the heritage narrative.91
In terms of development area at the urban scale, the new-style lilong decreased in
size. The development area for old-style lilong compounds could sometimes cover a
street block, such as at the old-style lilong of Siwenli [斯文里]. Often, several new-style
lilong compounds came together to cover a street block, and a block could be inter-
spersed with many different types of lilong houses. Especially towards the western
part of the former Concession areas, where block sizes became larger, the fragmenta-

103
 Fig. 22 1949 map of the neighborhood around Plot 15

tion of lilong compound developments would impact the redevelopment of the sites
under contemporary pressures.
The element of time is important in understanding the diversity of lilongs and their
spatial distribution in the city. Old-style lilongs made up much of the fabric of the older
part of the former Concession areas, closer to the River Huangpu to the east. New-style
lilongs were built later and dominate the expanded territories to the west, interspersed
with old-style lilongs also built there. (Fig. 21) Thus, the diversity of types was greater in
these newer parts of the city. The westward expansions of both the International Set-
tlement and French Concessions created larger network grids. The diversity of types in
each block was also more varied, which is visible in the neighborhood around Plot 15.
(Figs. 22, 23) Because of the differences in architecture types and built-in amenities, the
lilongs’ urban spatial distribution also reflected a class-based residential spatial dis-
tribution. Even though older wealthier locals may still maintain their old-style lilong
homes, which are larger if less modern in the old city or in areas, for example, behind
the Bund, 92 more Western-educated and white-collar Chinese in the 1920s onwards
would be found in the new-style lilongs, while more blue-collar Chinese would be living
in the old-style lilongs. Even up until the 1980s, for example, one’s address in Shanghai
revealed one’s family standing, background, and social position. Districts like Xuhui

104
Fig. 23 The buildings and network of lanes in the neighborhood around Plot 15 from before 1949

and parts of Jing’an were considered “upper corners” in Shanghai’s social hierarchy,
which also corresponded to the areas’ architectural modernity and later urban devel-
opment, as reflected in their lilong typology.
Because of the prevalence of the lilong as residential type, its influence on Shang-
hai’s cultural development has also been formative. The semi-public space of the long-
tang has been the subject of many analyses regarding the formation of community
networks.93 The role of small commerce embedded in crucial corners of the lilong com-
pound, as provider of essential amenities, has also been essential in the formation of
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

social networks within the dense residential neighborhoods.94 The effect of Shanghai’s
influence on China’s cultural development as manifested by its architecture was epit-
omized by the ‘tingzijian literature [亭子间文学]’ and ‘tingzijian writers [亭子间作家]’ that
emerged in the early 1900s.95 Many of these sometimes vagabond intellectuals sought
out the modern life of the metropolis and settled in the ‘tingzijian [亭子间],’ a room en-
tered from the stair landing in between the main floors, where the larger and south-
ern-facing rooms were placed. Because of its small size and less-preferred north-fac-
ing location this room was often sublet by the primary tenants to singles who sought
lower rent and ease of life in the lilong community of the city. It is thus in the tingzijian
that many of the representative works of Chinese modernity were formed: it was the

105
 productive space out of which many of the most famous modern era concepts and cri-
tiques emerged. As the site of cultural production, it is at the same time extremely spe-
cific to the architecture type of Shanghai’s modernity, that of the lilong.
From the 20th century onwards, insertion of factories as well as other functions
into the lilong compounds also took place. The term ‘lilong factories,’ for example, de-
noted these factories’ smaller size. Soviet-style slab buildings from the 1950s and 1960s
were inserted into empty spaces in lilong neighborhoods, even though many of these
buildings were typologically not lilong houses. Thus, the term lilong denotes more the
urban morphology, or the traversal of the lanes, than the architecture type. Lilong also
implies the density- and spatially-driven residential social network that is represen-
tative of Shanghai’s modern era development. But since Shanghai expedited urban
renewal in the city center in the 1990s, the terminology for lilong has been used as a
blanket term that often omits and overlooks the diversity and nuances of Shanghai’s
historic urban fabric in popular usage. After the advent of commercial destinations like
Xintiandi and Tianzifang [田子坊] in the 2000s, to be elaborated in an ensuing chapter,
the popular media often throws out the term shikumen to refer to Shanghai’s modern
era, even if the actual neighborhoods or architecture referred to may be neither.

Origins of the Residual Conditions

Historic housing in Shanghai’s city center areas has made them unique exceptions in
the process of housing marketization following economic liberalization. “72 residents
[家房客]” is a phenomenon where numerous tenants share the limited facilities and in-
frastructure of largely old houses in overcrowded and dilapidated living conditions. It
is a remnant of the misallocations and inefficiencies of the planned economy era. Its
persistence in Shanghai’s city center, notably in the remaining lilong neighborhoods,
however, has resulted both from the cumulative historic processes and how the build-
ings’ survival of urban renewals has entrenched them as planned economy legacies
in the transition economy. The following section briefly outlines the historic process-
es that have created the “72 residents” phenomenon in old houses. To understand the
urban loopholes that emerged from the neighborhoods like that around Plot 15, in which
the architecture type of the lilong in form, function, and governance makes up an im-
portant element, the previous and this section’s clarification of the historic origins of
the “72 residents” phenomenon is crucial.
During the first decades of the 20th century, when the country was politically un-
stable, relative security within the Concessions as exceptional zones of territoriality
led to a growing population density,96 requiring the subdivision of residential units
designed to house single families to host multiple families. With its growing demand,
housing became exploited for financial gains. A system of deposits called ding fei
[顶费] was initially required of leasees to secure a unit. The ding fei, in addition to pay-
ing rent, became the prevalent system of housing procurement. Many contracts were
made with second landlords, who made good profit from collecting rents for their sub-
let units. The Republican-era government tried to issue subletting licenses in 1942 to
monitor the practice. Under the existing laws, primary landlords who raised rents
were legally restricted, but second landlords were not controlled. Even after revisions

106
to rental laws in 1942, where a ceiling was set on percentage of profits for second and
third landlords, profit margins still far exceeded the set limit.97 Under the circum-
stances of impending war, most refugees accepted the exorbitant fees in order to se-
cure a place to live in the safety of the Concession city. A survey of selected residences
in 1953 showed that almost 80 % of the rental units, including lilong housing and apart-
ment buildings, were still rented out by second landlords.98 The CCP would regard the
practice as especially exploitative. They regarded the high rents charged by second
landlords as a capitalist abuse victimizing the proletariats.
Housing shortage in Shanghai was chronic.99 Even though lilongs made up a quarter
of total residential architecture in 1949, with 53 % being old-style lilongs and 20 percent
new-style lilongs, almost three quarters of the population of the city lived in them.100 A
detailed account of the Siming Mansions [四明别墅], a new-style lilong in the western
end of the former International Concession, describes the 1946 resident outlines [规范
户籍] of the 40 buildings, 21 of which were occupied by a single family while the oth-
ers were occupied by multiple families. Of the buildings with multiple families, most
housed one-to-three families but some as many five to nine families.101 Lu Hanchao,
a historian of Shanghai, estimated an average of 24 residents per lilong house.102 The
1949 film, Crows and the Sparrows [乌鸦与麻雀], which critiques the corruption of the
Nationalist-controlled China through a narrative of its crooked antagonists and their
domestic connivances, is set amidst crowded lilong housing of Shanghai.103
When the CCP takeover arrived in 1949, mass exodus took place from Shanghai.
Two to three million Chinese citizens left mainland China for Hong Kong and Taiwan,
and in the 1950s, 40,000 per year left for Hong Kong.104 The foreign population also
fled. Between 1948 and 1954, Siming Mansions, for example, saw the exodus of 20 % of
its population. Depending on the resources and affiliations of the neighborhood, high
percentages departed, especially in the elite areas in the western ends of the city. Con-
fiscation of properties belonging to the Nationalist escapees, expat capitalists, and oth-
er counter-revolutionaries gave the state control of a number of villas and apartment
buildings in the city center. These were allocated to state institutions or to individu-
als deemed valuable to the new government. Better quality housing was allotted to
party-endorsed intellectuals and cultural figures. Selected units were also distributed
to high-ranking cadres. The “proud family [光荣家庭]” signs, which indicate that the
occupants were part of the prestigious Long March that qualified them as members of
the select pantheon of party elites, are still visibly tacked to the front doors of units.
This revolution of property exchange was nothing novel, as each generation of
elites were expelled to make room for the new since the departure of the Japanese in
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

1945 and then the Nationalists in 1949. But in the early days of the PRC , even as redis-
tribution of prime real estate to party elites took place, the central government large-
ly left the properties of the remaining enterprises alone, especially those belonging
to local industrialists, in order to harness their productivity in the centrally planned
economy.105
Private properties were still bought and sold in the early 1950s to the ranks of pri-
vate owners who decided to stay on in the city rather than fleeing to Hong Kong or
Taiwan. The buying of houses in the early 1950s signaled that there was, similar to in
the early 1990s, the need to increase cash flow for the local government via the selling
of abandoned or confiscated real estate assets. Privately owned property constituted

107
 66 % of residences in Shanghai at the time, made up of both owner-occupied residences
as well as privately owned rental units, which constituted the majority of private hous-
ing. These were largely managed by the dozen or so private management companies.
Many of the villas that were fortunate to have fallen into the hands of state insti-
tutions had some chance of being returned intact in the 1990s. Today’s headquarter
building for the Shanghai Automobile Group (SAG ) [上汽集团], for example, was a house
once occupied by the Italian consulate. It had been the seat of the Shanghai Tractor
Factory [拖拉机厂], before it was consolidated into the larger SAG . Another villa near-
by, once occupied by the Shanghai Computer Research Institute [计算机研究所] on Hu-
nan Lu, also has been returned to its owner, who in turn sold it to a private equity firm.
Under socialist central planning, the city as a place for production replaced the
city as a place for consumption. Urban planning itself was largely an instrument of
political ideology that the central government directed, over the entire nation, rather
than rational development based on resources and anticipated potentials.106 Like oth-
er Chinese cities, housing built in the 1950s responded to the socialist tenets of equal-
ity, amenity, and proximity to work. Social provision by danweis spatially linked work
to residence. Shanghai, however, due to its legacy of bourgeoisie occupancy and re-
direction of its surplus for national redistribution, had fewer danwei-based housing
than other cities in China, where central government money was channeled to build
new housing.107 As the central government channeled Shanghai’s industrialization
output to invest in the growth of inland cities, Shanghai itself almost froze in physical
development even while its population swelled.108 Shanghai built only 22.8 million
square meters of housing from 1950–1980, for example, accounting for less than 0.5 %
GDP, even though half of the national GDP was generated by Shanghai.109 Concession
era zoning that prohibited industrial functions in residential areas was thrown to the
winds in the nation’s rush to industrialize. Factories were inserted into residential li-
long neighborhoods as units of production.
The encouragement of a high fertility rate in the initial decade of the PRC , with
the motto of “more people, more strength” and issuance of “Glorious Mother [光荣妈
妈]” commendations for women who had more than four children, compounded urban
congestion.110 The first Five Year Plan (1951–56) also added to population growth with
promotion of in-migration to drive the industrialization of Shanghai.111
With demographic increase and the lack of investment in infrastructure and hous-
ing construction, lilong housing, as a type designed for single-family use, became even
more subdivided. In the meantime, all other available spaces, from gatehouses, boil-
er rooms, and garages, became allocated or overtaken as residences to accommodate
overflows in population. Additions and insertions that had been a means of space ac-
quisition since the pre-1949 era continued at this time to house, in any form, to accom-
modate the growing urban population.
Shanghai largely relied on the existing urban fabric to accommodate the redistri-
bution of labor and the increasing influx of workers. Nevertheless, empty plots in city
center neighborhoods also became infilled with a number of six-story slab buildings.
They were built for party cadres and high-level administrators. Often designed with
templates from Soviet-trained engineers, these concrete walkup structures were gen-
erous in plan, fitted with quality installations. They are also visibly different from the
apartment buildings built before 1949.

108
1949 1965 1949 1965
Flight of wealth and elites from Coastal cities subsidize development New order established with With demographic growth and little
concessions to safer havens as result of inland cities as industrial hubs. repossession of a number of housing construction, housing
of Communist liberation of China. buildings by the state and first became further subdivided. Chaos
redistribution as well as re-selling. ensuing during the Cultural
Revolution compounds the
花园洋房 confusion.
garden house

Ownership Residential

Taipei
Hong Kong
inland industrial urban centers 新式里弄 SOE posession
new-style lilong

1949 1965
Population: 5,000,000 Population: 10,000,000
GDPP: 43 RMB GDPP: ---
Shanghai comes under Communist Even though half of national GDP is Rental
rule as the financial and economic generated by Shanghai, little of it Multifamily
generator of China. returns to the city to invest in its
infrastrucutre or housing. Shanghai
built only 22.8mio square meters of
housing from 1950-1980, accounting
for less than 0.5%GDP.
Rental Single
Family

Ownership

公寓
apartment building

residential
atelier
commercial
25 km utility

Fig. 24 Diagram showing the disinvestment in Shanghai after 1949 and the resulting overcrowding in the existing
built fabric

Under the directive of ‘public-private collectivization [公私合营],’ landlords of larger

quantities of property briefly saw an increase in revenues due to policies of 1954. It was
not until a central government directive for the state to directly manage rental hous-
ing, that the majority of rental housing came under the jurisdiction of the state real
estate bureaus. By 1958, the tenant whose family occupied one of the multiple floors
of the residential building and subleased other rooms and floors to other families and
tenants came to share the residence on equal terms with the other tenants in a con-
tract to the state. The system of subleases and intermediate landlords was eliminated.
Rent was maintained through central planning at, on average, 1 % of cash income, re-
inforcing the nature of welfare provision of housing and the infeasibility for mainte-
nance and upgrade. It was also during this time that many former landlords clamored
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

for their rental properties to be nationalized and actively applied for state management
of their properties.
The fragmentation of the ownership tenure structure was largely in place by the
1960s, as the different forms of ownership and rental were further divided by the lay-
ering of policy changes. (Fig. 24) In the same lilong, one house may be occupied by a
family who owns the house. Another may house a family who paid the initial ding fei
deposit to live in a house, and who subleased to another family with whom they are
on friendly relations. Another may have been formerly managed by a private man-
agement company that has since nationalized, and as consequence the former second
landlord has moved to a smaller unit to accommodate more unknown families.

109
 The political campaign of “Sending Down to the Countryside [下放]” started in 1955.
It was one of the central government’s means of alleviating urban congestion by forci-
bly expelling urbanites from cities. The mass expulsion of urban youths to the country-
side for rural education and integration through the “up the mountain and down to the
countryside [上山下乡]” movement also resulted in the departure of 1.29 million some
students from Shanghai between 1968 and 1977.112 During the ten years of the Cultural
Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, only 1,500,000 square meters of living space were built
in Shanghai.113 Without infrastructural development, urban congestion remained unre-
solved. Squatting of all forms compounded the housing problems even more. Enforced
social mixing reached its climax by the Cultural Revolution, as the re-shuffling of house-
holds enabled by social disorder magnified the housing predicament. Cultural Revolu-
tion, begun as a purging of political enemies within the highest levels of the central gov-
ernment, turned into a decade-long calamity that turned Chinese society upside-down.
As families of the right “stripe”—those with proletarian family backgrounds—dis-
placed original occupants, in oftentimes violent manners, ownership claims, which
would rise in dispute later, came into form. Unwelcomed relatives as well as party-affil-
iated strangers sought out better housing in the chaos and partitioned subdivided units.
A house in one of the prominent garden-style lilong compounds, Shangfang Gar-
dens [上方花园], attests to how the protracted agony of the period still continues unre-
solved.114 The patriarch of the household was a Burmese overseas-Chinese returnee of
Hokkien descent who returned to Shanghai in the 1940s and was an engineering direc-
tor at a local research institute. At the time of the Cultural Revolution, the lilong house
belonged to his wife’s father, who had left Mainland China before 1949 for Taiwan. The
family also shared the lilong house with the family of the wife’s sister. On the ground
floor an old lady rented two rooms, the dining room and the library. The family lived
on the second floor in four rooms ranging from 8 to 15 square meters.
During the Cultural Revolution, the old lady on the ground floor left and the rooms
were empty for several months. In an attempt to make a grab for the house, the wife’s
sister declared a “distinction of boundaries [划清界限]” against her sister, which was a
typical means of class warfare. The main family was banished from their master bed-
room to a small north-facing room. At the same time, more families moved into the
three-story house. A co-worker from the engineer’s danwei, who was of the proletariat
class, moved to a room above the garage, with his wife and two children. On the third
floor, where there were also two bedrooms, a “family of a martyr [烈士家庭]”—one of
the daughters had died during the Korean War—settled. On the first floor, three gen-
erations of a drama actor’s family, a total of six people, moved into the living room,
where they used a curtain to partition the space into two parts. Another two families
of four moved into the other rooms, the former dining room and study where the old
lady had lived. On the second floor, where the wife’s sister had taken over one of the
two larger rooms, two families of four and two others moved into the smaller rooms.
A total of 22 people moved into a house belonging to an extended family of six people
who had rented the ground floor out to one additional tenant.
It was not until the patriarch cleared his name in 1966 through the redressal of
mishandled cases [平反] that his danwei reassigned housing to those who had moved
into the house. But given that the leadership of each danwei was different, the redres-
sal could have happened very differently. In addition to suffering the ‘search someone’s

110
 home and confiscate all property [抄家],’ many families were driven out of their own
homes.115 On the other hand, some of the residents who moved into the modern era
housing were also not used to the facilities. They often brought old habits that in turn
further denigrated the already overloaded buildings.116
At the end of the 1970s, the return of nearly half of the youths sent to the country-
side exacerbated the already overcrowded housing conditions of urban centers like
Shanghai. Many returned to Shanghai but were not able to get their household regis-
tration, or ‘hukou [户口],’ back.117 Because housing allowance was dependent on the
number of hukou registered under one residence, the overcrowding worsened. In 1979
Shanghai’s per capita 3.6 square meters of living space could only quantitatively rep-
resent the appallingly degraded conditions of housing in a city that had gone through
three decades of internal upheaval.
Even with the movement of the population from the city center to new housing
in the periphery following economic liberalization, city center areas remained dense.
According to a 2007 survey of one of Shanghai’s historic areas, 20 old Western-style
houses totaling 10,331 square meter in area were occupied by 239 families, with an
average of five people per family; this equates to 1,195 people with an average dwelling
space of 8.6 square meters of living space per person, including shared kitchens and
bathrooms.118 These conditions could still be observed today in a house that has ten
electricity meters and mailboxes. They attest to the larger socio-economic shifts that
compelled typological reuse: rooftop terraces and ample stairway landings became
kitchens. Places where water piping could be directed became basins and washtubs.
Living rooms, dining rooms, receptions, balconies, and roof terraces all inevitably
became multifunctional rooms that accommodated sleeping, working, eating and
more. Partitions and doors became important insertions to safeguard the minimal
privacy needs that could be tolerated in the years when privacy was a privilege. Pad-
locks, however dwarfed given the extensive security apparatuses available today
within gated towers, were the small symbols of ownership in an era in which own-
ership was castigated. Additions on top of the attic, infilling balconies and enclosing
porches, and constructions in the yard and on top of the garages where they were
available became the means through which one house became an extended inter-
face to multiple occupants. A villa, imagined to have housed a family surrounded
by service personnel attending to different functions varying from cooking to gar-
dening, is today often unrecognizable in the clutter of accumulated possessions and
internal partitions that reconfigured the different occupants who have settled in the
house.
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

Preservation of Ambiguous Property Rights

Starting in 1976, the year that officially saw the end of the Cultural Revolution, a policy
meant to rectify the wrongs of the previous decade with the “implementation of policy
[落实政策]” began and continued into the early 1980s. Slowly, the families who moved
into other people’s homes were moved out, as the urgency of rehousing the tenants in
Shanghai compelled the increasingly fiscally autonomous local government to begin
to invest in new housing structures.

111
 Many of the families who suffered the most, born of the wrong class and with the
wrong connections, often with links to family overseas, would be the first wave to
leave when China reopened to the world in the 1980s. Their departure marked a conti-
nuity from the exodus of 1949 to a new albeit smaller one in the 1980s. The gap left by
emigration, especially in the upper-middle-class areas, spatially accommodated the
in-flow of new settlers.119
When land and housing marketization took place in the 1990s, large swaths of old
urban fabric were obliterated in Chinese cities. The demolition and construction process
eliminated the complex and fragmented ownership embedded in historic structures.
Housing marketization restructured housing production and provision. It also estab-
lished clearer rights for property ownership of commodity housing. Purchasers of com-
modity housing that was constructed after economic liberalization obtained green-cov-
ered certificates of ownership, specific to Shanghai by color, with which they could sell
their residential units on the real estate market. The procedures for purchase came with
financing mechanisms that included bank loans for housing mortgage and the Housing
Provident Fund. Financial means rather than work-unit affiliation, household registra-
tion, and other planned economy hierarchies determined housing access.120
As new units were increasingly being built and sold on the market as commodity
housing with ownership titles, marketization also necessitated a system of exchange
for the old houses, which included the residential types built before 1949: mostly lilong
houses, some garden houses, and apartment buildings. In the mid-1990s, marketiza-
tion of existing housing finalized the dissolution of planned economy obligation by
the state to residents in the form of housing. Between October of 1993 and the end of
2004, the local state sold 1,630,000 units of what had been publicly owned housing in
Shanghai. The marketization converted 80 % of the city’s existing housing stock, which
had been a planned economy public good, to a commodity for market exchange under
transition economy.121
A system of marketization with a selling price that took into account the seniority,
rank and working age of the housing occupant allowed a number of units from the
old house stock to attain ownership title starting in the mid-1990s.122 These cases took
place in apartment units and lilong houses that had not been subdivided or were con-
sidered “intact [成套].”123 The spatial configuration of the residential units, which had
been important in determining the fate of both the spaces themselves as well as that
of its occupants during the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, were again crucial
factors in the throes of the housing marketization. Units with bathrooms and kitchens
located in sharable locations would be subdivided, and squatters would be stuffed into
these sharable units. Units that had bathrooms and kitchens in awkward or non-shar-
able places—bathrooms located inside bedrooms—saved families from having to be
forced to share their homes with squatters.124 These units, in which bathrooms and
kitchens that could not be shared due to unit type, remained occupied by one fami-
ly; they would again form the basis for housing ownership. In 1999, intact units of old
houses were sold to private owners. The lilong residences or garden-style houses that
had been spared subdivision and retained their ownership title retained from pre-1949,
rare cases, were also sold on the market.125
The sale of publicly owned housing drove up residential real estate prices exponen-
tially by the early 2000s. The residents who were transferred the ownership of their

112
Fig. 25 Photo documentation of the public space of a house that had informally constructed kitchens
installed and multiple electric lines that indicate how many families had occupied the house, which
originally had been designed for a single family, 2012

residences through marketization benefited from their old residences, which could be
cashed in to upgrade to newer units with better amenities. This in turn drove the pro-
duction of residential real estate and facilitated a maturing commodity market.126 The
enormous wealth transfer to local residents through housing sales also transferred the
planned economy social hierarchies, which had been manifested in housing allocation,
into the commodity housing market.
With housing marketization, the state bestowed ‘ownership right [产权]’ on the old
houses that were considered intact, and on commodity housing, which, by virtue of be-
ing new, was a tradable good. For many old houses, however, property ownership re-
mained ambiguous and their usage became fragmented amongst numerous residents.
Much of the residential housing stock remained entangled in complex ownership con-
testation, with several families living in a single lilong house or multiple occupants
in a large apartment unit. Kitchen additions were almost consistently inserted in the
rooftop terrace by the families living on the top floors of lilong houses, who have also
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

enclosed the top floors as a single independent unit in function. Cooking facilities
and washbasins were also installed in other available public spaces, including cor-
ridors, stairwells, and terraces, so that families could minimize the sharing of spac-
es that would potentially cause additional conflicts. (Fig. 25) Additions on the ground
floor also privatized parts of the house that could be sealed off. But, by virtue of being
originally designed for a single family with a single publicly shared kitchen and roof-
top terrace, the lilong house could not be traded in its parts with separated ‘ownership
rights’ because these public facilities were considered shared according to the archi-
tecture type.127 Furthermore, even though the different families had lived in the same
building for a long time and had privatized spaces for their own use, the definition of

113
 Fig. 26 Ownership certificate for real estate, left; and the certificate for the usage of publicly managed
housing, right

the original type as one for a single family rendered the spaces by legal definition sub-
divided, and, hence, not intact.
The building type that had been so resilient in the face of numerous socio-econom-
ic transitions is entrenched in the bureaucratic inflexibility by the definition of pri-
vate ownership and shared amenities. The possibility of disputing claims for shared
space and also the fear of the return of a previous owner, displaced pre-1949, to claim
the property with his original title deed prompted the district bureaus responsible for
housing management to retain large parts of the residential fabric of the city center.
The district real estate bureau manages a majority of old houses built before 1949 in the
area around Plot 15. Thus, in addition to the marketization of the residential units in old
houses that remained intact, another ownership type emerged. A unique instrument
of transition economy, that of the ‘usage right [使用权],’ designated a form of proper-
ty right for residences, largely old houses, which were not intact, and facilitated their
exchange on the real estate market.
In 1999, the same year that intact old houses started to sell to private owners, a pol-
icy that established the system of exchange of divided units of publicly owned old
houses in the real estate market also came into being.128 The usage right simulated the
terms of buying, selling, and exchanging residential units in old houses that were not
“intact” on the newly established real estate market starting in the mid-1990s without
the state giving up the ownership of these units. With usage right properties, owner-
ship belongs to the state, either in the form of the danwei or that of the district.129 The
usage right owner nominally pays the local real estate bureau or the danwei rents.130
Because ownership right does not belong to the usage right owner, such owners have
only the right to use the residential spaces and to “transfer [转让]” their usage right on
the real estate market.
The white cover for usage right certificates distinguishes it from the green cover of
the ‘ownership right’ certificates. (Fig. 26) Usage right are ‘transferred,’ not “bought or
sold [买卖],’ as would be for housing with ownership right. The contract drawn up for
the transfer of usage rights, called the “white covered contract [白皮合同],” is subject
to the approval of the respective district-level bureau of oversight that agrees to the
“transfer” of usage rights for the given unit.131 The procedures by the existing usage right
owner must be fully executed in order for a transfer to proceed. Additionally, approval
from neighboring inhabitants who also technically “share” the same old house that

114
is not intact is required for the transfer to be permitted.132 The process of transfer re-
quires up to three months, much longer than for the purchase of ownership housing.
More crucially, the transfer of usage rights for property in Shanghai can only occur be-
tween those who have the Shanghai hukou.133 This is a significant difference from the
purchase of commodity housing. Financial resource is not enough to secure a housing
unit if it is a usage right housing. The transfer of the hukou of the incoming resident
must also precede the transfer of usage right. Financially, the payment for the trans-
fer of usage right cannot be funded by housing mortgages from the bank, nor by the
Housing Provident Fund, which only support the purchase of commodity housing. The
payment for the transfer of usage right is required to be a one-time lump sum. Follow-
ing the transfer of usage right, a nominal leasing fee continues to be paid by the new
owner of the usage right for the housing unit to the state real estate bureau or the dan-
wei who owns the unit. These measures and constraints are meant to preserve a cer-
tain degree of housing provision, but the existence of this part market, part planned
economy system of usage rights is very much a product of the economic transition,
when the state wants to marketize its public housing but does not want to give up its
ownership.
Usage right thus became the property right unique to the transition economy. It
maintained the state’s ownership of the majority of old houses, while accommodating
the market mechanisms for residents on the ground. It is an urban loophole formed by
ambiguity and exceptions in the historic and central areas of the city, where urban
renewal has not taken place. Even though usage right limits transfer only to those with
Shanghai hukou, it does not bar these privileged locals from letting their compactly
sized units at prices that are growing exponentially with market demand for centrally
located residences in historic neighborhoods.
The price differential between what the original tenant would nominally pay for
publicly managed usage right housing and the price of its subleased, often renovated,
version, is large. For an enclosed unit in the top two floors of a new-style lilong house in
the compound Dasheng Hutong [大胜胡同], a ten-minute walk from Plot 15, the month-
ly rental is around 100 R MB .134 When a similar unit, around 80 square meters, was ren-
ovated, with a new kitchen installed on the enclosed rooftop terrace in the same lilong
compound, monthly rent could be as high as 10,000 R MB in 2012. The residents who
paid to rent such a unit preferred the charm of the old house and the ambiance of the
lilong neighborhood. With the bronze door handles, molding, and old steel windows,
all from the 1930s, the house in Dasheng Hutong reminded one young overseas Chi-
nese white-collar transplant who settled in Shanghai of the historic houses of the Bay
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

area where she had previously lived.135 It is precisely this kind of character that made
the lilong housing more attractive than the standard new apartments, even though it
required more effort to find. Units in the middle of the houses, not entirely assured of
privacy because of the neighbors who have to pass through the corridor, could be rent-
ed out as offices to writers, events companies, and other freelancers, who mind less the
interruptions and shared facilities.
At the same time, due to a limited supply of ownership titled units on the market,
increasingly high demand for the old houses has driven their prices even higher. Even
usage right ownership, for units that are smaller, more fragmented and at lower price
than ownership right units, have grown in price due to the demand for centrally locat-

115
 Pathway
Overcrowded housing
New Economy
New construction

Fig. 27 Mapping documentation of the mix of overcrowded housing located next to new economies that have
converted old houses and led to new constructions, 2012

ed real estate.136 Patient consolidation of usage rights to convert to ownership rights

does takes place, sometimes over durations as long as a decade because of the dozen
occupants in a house that has the potential for upgrade.
Interestingly it is these vast holdings by the state in the city center that also serve
as the last bulwark against a growing social differentiation wrought by marketiza-
tion and ensuing gentrification.137 (Fig. 27) The cultural diversity activates the neigh-
borhood even as it riles some stalwarts of heritage protection. To conserve the historic
buildings with fragmented ownership is extremely difficult, as the residents may not

116
 Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

have capacity nor be willing to be stakeholders in the heritage efforts enlisted by the
state. The efforts that exist are organically taken on by the small entrepreneurs and in-
dividual owners who have renovated their dwellings to varying degrees.
Incremental upgrade in the bottom-up form may appear uneven as adjacent build-
ings or units reveal entirely differing outcomes. Yet the seemingly incorrigible, slow
alternative to the expedited en-bloc redevelopments of the most dilapidated shanty-
towns in the first days of urban redevelopment allows for a learning process that is
perhaps a gentler version of renewal.

117
Demographic Shift
and Commercial Spatial Demand
Despite the run-down conditions of many of the buildings, the modern urban struc-
tures of the western end of the former Concessions in particular, with open street
networks lined by the platanus trees, semi-permeable block hierarchy convenient for
strolls, and a central location in the metropolis, are increasingly attractive to many
transnational and Chinese knowledge workers who arrived in Shanghai. By the mid-
2000s, the commodity housing developments, prolific since the mid-1990s, were no
longer the only options for high-end living. As conversions to lilong housing became
increasingly viable in the mid-2000s, investors and realtors quickly pedaled off the
limited supply of historic old houses to meet a growing demand.
The housing marketization of the 1990s that had pushed ahead the construction of
much needed residential structures, quickly expanding the urban area into the former
periphery, also accelerated the outflow of residents from city center areas. The local
residents, whose original neighborhoods underwent demolition and redevelopments,
eagerly moved into bigger, newer commodity housing outside of the old city center,
which provided better amenities and more privacy. The former urban periphery, where
many of the local residents moved to, was also quickly becoming part of the growing
city.138 At the same time, emigration from more affluent city center neighborhoods to
North America or Europe, facilitated by pre-1949 international linkages that had been
dormant and further motivated by post-1949 persecutions in these older neighbor-
hoods, also further left many of the central areas empty and aging.
While locals have associated the historic city center with decades of privacy depriva­
tion, complex social hierarchies, and a deficient physical environment that represented a
fundamental regression since the modern era, newcomers saw the charm of history, the
convenience of amenities, and a kind of authenticity of local immersion that affirmed a
preferred metropolitan habitus.139 Living in the historic city center became increasing-
ly attractive to the growing number of in-comers, including the first waves of overseas
Chinese and expats140 who came to do business in the newly opened country. These
in-comers also included a growing number of non-Shanghainese Chinese white-collars
workers and entrepreneurs who flocked to Shanghai to live and work. By the mid-2000s,
a growing number of Europeans and Americans also hopped on the bandwagon of mov-
ing to Shanghai, as an increasing number of multinationals also settled in the city and
opportunities opened to younger, more mobile internationals. With the changing de-
mographics, residential neighborhoods like those around Anfu and Wuyuan Lu rapidly
adapted to cater to the changing consumer demands of the new residents.
As the strictures of planned economy were eroded by the re-entry of market econ-
omy, the transformation in the city center was the most visible in the return of com-
merce. Converted terraces of lilong houses, street-front ground-floor spaces of apart-
ment buildings, and insertions into and constructions from garden walls became small
restaurants, hardware stores, hair salons, and convenience stores as economic liber-
alization accelerated. (Fig. 28) Economic liberalization needed space to accommodate
the changing and growing consumer demand. Some of these spaces remained, oper-

118
 ated by local, small entrepreneurs initially
forced into surviving the SOE reforms of
the late 1990s through commercial enter-
prise.141 They served the local community
by providing amenities and convenienc-
es. Other spaces evolved into cafés, bou-
tiques, design ateliers, and event spaces,
catering to the growing demand by con-
sumers with global tastes. Many of these
spaces were run by a younger generation
Fig. 28 Conversion of an entranceway into a small store, 2011 of creative entrepreneurs, a constellation
of locals, returnees as well as expats, link-
ing the international value chain to locally situated spaces and producers.
Already in the 1980s a number of early Sino-philes settled in Shanghai, often be-
coming fluent in the language and immersed in the local culture.142 In September 1983,
the State Council’s issuance of Provisional Regulations Re the Importation of Foreign Tal-
ent for Work143 allowed, as the Annals of the Shanghai Municipal Government described,
the city to enter a new period of labor transfer.144 Before 1982, Shanghai had engaged
1,353 experts from abroad since the beginning of economic liberalization.145 From 1983
until 1998, the city engaged more than 73,000 experts from abroad, increasing the tal-
ent flow by more than tenfold.146 In 1994, the Shanghai municipal government issued
the Interim Procedures of Shanghai Municipality on the Intake of Experts From Abroad that
streamlined the bureaucratic processes for the engagement of foreign labor, especially
in areas considered for expertise.147 Two years later the State Council would issue the
Provisions on the Employment of Foreigners in China,148 which would affect nationwide
employment of workers from abroad.
In the early 2000s, the number of expats living in Shanghai was reported to be
nearing 100,000, with most working for the 20,000-some foreign and joint-ventured
companies.149 Between 1996 and 2009, employment pass issuance increased by 13-fold
and the estimated expat population grew even more.150 Following the early wave
of largely high-level management and experts arriving in China, accompanying the
opening of local branches by multinationals, the dotcom bubble’s bursting in the late
1990s made Shanghai also attractive to younger, more independent creatives. The ear-
lier “old foreigner [老外]” executives were transplanted with special employment pack-
ages and housing allowances, and many with families lived in suburban enclaves like
Jinqiao that were detached from local interaction.151 In contrast, the internationals in
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

the mid-2000s were over 60 % under 40 years old.152 Many of these younger and more
mobile workers found it more convenient to evade the cumbersome bureaucratic for-
malities of being an expat by enjoying the low living cost of the increasingly cosmo-
politan city. The “gold rush”153 of the influx of expats in the mid-2000s triggered fur-
ther socio-spatial transformations in the city center.
In 2008, the formation of the Municipal Administration for Labor Resources and
Social Security Bureau [人力资源和社会保障局], with the special unit of Administration
of Foreign Experts Affairs [外国专家局], showed the important role of expat labor in the
city. By the late 2000s, a number of hubs that were the preferred gathering places for
expats became increasingly visible and targeted for investment and speculation.

119
 The Summit
Chevalier
Place

Kingsville

Yipingyuan

U LU
ANF Anfu
Anfu 308
195–201
Lolo
Spicy
Love
Atelier Moment

WU
LUM
UQI
WU
K

LU
AN

Avocado
GL
U

LU
WUY
UA N L Lady

Yongfu 47

WEST FUXING LU

Ambassy
Court

U
IL
HA
AI
HU

Ferguson
Lane

Parks Road Closed Public Buildings

Green that is accessible Lanes that are accessible Public Buildings
Green that is inaccessible Lanes that are inaccesible Commercial
Public spaces

Fig. 29 Mapping documentation of the commercialization along the street-front ground floor spaces, 2012

With the increasing number of in-comers living in the residential towers of Kings-
ville, Chevalier Place, and The Summit at the corner of Anfu and Wulumuqi Lu, it was
clear that a niche market for commercial amenities was ripe for tapping into. (Fig. 29)
Small commerce opened and evolved to supply the consumption demands of the new
residents. With two cafes, two wine stores, two salons, a bank, an import foods shop,
a children’s boutique, and an exhibition space, the 11 units of ground floor commercial
space at the Chevalier Place, completed in 2002, seemed to set the tone for Anfu Lu. These
amenities, supplemental beyond the requisite grocer, tailor, and hardware store that
could be found on Wulumuqi Lu, showed the location’s accessibility and profitability.

120
 privately owned housing
housing with units that are privately owned
institutional plots

Fig. 30 Mapping of ownership distribution in the area, 2012

Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

In the late 1990s, SOE s also underwent a fundamental restructuring. Large pro-
duction sites moved from the city center to the periphery, or fell into disuse during
the marketization process of the late 1990s. Small industrial hubs tucked between the
residential fabric of the city center ceased their production functions. The central gov-
ernment imposed restrictions on the land-use changes and the full marketization of
‘administratively-allocated land,’154 which state-owned enterprises and institutions
occupied. (Fig. 30) Nevertheless, institutional real estate, emptied of its original func-
tion, was compelled to commercialize and fulfill market demand. By the early 1990s,
housing towers were already built on institutional land. Of greater import was the

121
Fig. 31 Photo documentation of the developments along the north side of Anfu Lu, 2012

leasing out of institutional buildings for new commercial hubs. Reacting to the over-
commodification of state assets, legislation in the 2000s required administratively-
allocated land to be retained by allotted state enterprises, restricting their land sales.
Thus, unable to offload city center real estate as exchangeable assets, the only possi-
bility for redevelopment was through leasing to new tenants, often at below market
prices.155
One of the largest institutional landlords on Anfu Lu is the Shanghai Drama Arts
Center [上海话剧艺术中心]. In January 1995, with the opening of the 18-story high Dra-
ma Center Tower, it consolidated the Shanghai People’s Art Theater [上海人民艺术剧院],
founded in 1950 on the current site at Number 288, and the Shanghai Youth Drama
Group [上海青年话剧团], founded in 1957, occupying a site down the street on Anfu Lu
at Number 201.156 Two residential towers, called Yipingyuan [一品苑], translated to
“Superb Garden,” and completed in 1999, were well timed within the trajectory of in-
stitutional housing development. In 2007, the historic house that was occupied by the
Youth Drama Group was leased to the English as Second Language (ESL ) Education
Center [美语教育中心], which immersed primary and secondary school children in in-
tensive English programs so that they could apply to schools abroad in America and
England. The renovation and upgrade of the street-facing buildings fronting the his-
toric house, followed first by the opening of the café Amoka, the restaurant Mr. Willis,
and the bakery Baker and Spice, sealed the deal for Anfu Lu to become an important
hub for expat consumption.
The Wagas group, started by Danish entrepreneur John Christiensen in 1999,157 and
joined by the Australian-Chinese businesswoman Jackie Yun two years later,158 is one
of the early success stories of Western-style food and beverage empires that has made
it in Shanghai in the mid-2000s. Its first branch locations were in places already fre-
quented by the kind of clientele with the financial means and the international palate
to patronize a restaurant selling salads, smoothies, and wraps. The enterprise took off
in the mid-2000s as more expats moved to Shanghai in waves. By 2005, a total of five

122
stores made the chain a rare find in the market, as few casual Western dining places
existed in Shanghai at the time. At the time, the relational nature of discretionary de-
cision-making in getting business decisions approved by the district government, an
asset but also liability of the adaptive governance of China’s transition economy, was
noted by the entrepreneurs: “you might be waiting for something important to be ap-
proved but it is impossible to predict which way it will go, it all comes down to which
official you happen to get on the day.”159 Because of the specificities of relationship
networks embedded in the local context, the group’s familiarity with Shanghai was
not useful even when they tried to enter the market in other Chinese cities in the late
2000s.160 In 2010, the selection of a location on Anfu Lu to open the latest venture of a
bakery called Sugar and Spice showed the importance of the street in the market de-
velopment in Shanghai. Just as the bread, first made soft and sweet to adapt to the
Chinese market, has since been returned to its robust, original form, so the shift of
location from more mainstream places like malls and food streets has also become
more specifically targeted.161 Anfu Lu’s increasing traffic and its positioning as a hub
was confirmed with the opening of another Wagas venture in the same year: Mr. Wil-
lis, with the namesake of former chief chef Craig Willis.
Curation by the small-scale developers with the acumen for locational potentials
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

became pivotal to developmental trends of neighborhoods like those around Anfu Lu.
(Fig. 31) Design, gastronomical, and fitness ventures opened by localized cosmopolitans,
a mix of expat and overseas Chinese entrepreneurs, found their way to these sites.
Their timing was crucial: with little in the way of competition, as well as the compara-
tively low costs of starting a business, including cheap rents and flexible tenancy con-
tracts, many met with success. The combination of well-selected sites and growing
demand, by both expats and the changing tastes of the local middle class, made these
‘anchor tenants’ the catalysts for commercializing trendy streets.
Similarly, further west on the other end of Anfu Lu at the corner of Wukang Lu,
adjacent to the Drama Arts Center, renovation of former institutional buildings be-

123
 longing to the Yongle Group, a subsidiary of the Shanghai Film Group, has also turned
the complex into a site of high-end commerce, triggering a flurry of small boutiques,
salons, and other food and beverage joints to open around it. In the early 1990s, the
Yongle Court [永乐宫] was one of the first new cinemas built and was known as one of
the few places where one could go to escape the heat of the summer in its air-condi-
tioned theater. After the upgrade of Wukang Lu as the exemplary ‘Cultural Street’ in
time for the opening of the World Expo in 2010,162 the converted former cinema was
transformed into the Anfu Court complex, with an imported food supermarket, bak-
ery, yoga studio, spa, and serviced co-working spaces, all catering to a growing local-
ized cosmopolitan clientele.
The term ‘cosmopolitan,’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary is someone
who “belongs to all parts of the world,” “having characteristics which arise from, or are
suited to a range over many different countries.”163 Ulf Hannerz, cultural anthropolo-
gist of globalization, has posited that increasing interconnection of the world is reorga-
nizing cultural diversity, and notes specifically that cosmopolitanism is an “intellectual
and aesthetic openness toward divergent cultural experiences, and an ability to make
one’s way into other cultures.”164 It is not only the physical circumstances of being in
another’s culture but the ability to adapt to and master other cultures in addition to
one’s own. As Hannerz proclaimed, “exiles can be cosmopolitans, but most are not.”165
Shanghai’s beginnings as a Concession city cultivated a bevy of locals from the
region whose openness and adoption of foreign, largely Western tastes, mannerisms,
and lifestyles were first the envy and later the scourge for the city. Whether they had
hailed from Ningbo or Yangzhou, their mastery of the ‘modern’—the term ‘modern’,
according to a 1920 letter to the French Concession Municipal Council of Shanghai from
the archive, synonymous with ‘European’166—and their ability to adapt the ‘modern’
in the local Chinese context would become the outlook and skill of many who came to
call the then early 20th century special economic zone home. Inherent to the cosmo-
politan is the receptivity to that which is not of one’s self, the comprehension of that
which is unfamiliar and foreign. The Chinese elites who arrived in Shanghai, question-
ing traditions’ obstruction to progress and articulating a Chinese modernity modeled
on the Western nation-state were such cosmopolitans. Additionally, the merchants of
differing Chinese ethnicities who flocked to the Westernized entrepôt for commercial
opportunities were also the cosmopolitans.
Just as Shanghai’s beginnings as a modern era metropolis in the 19th century were
shaped by foreign direct investments (FDI )—both in the capital and human resourc-
es that also became stakeholders for the development of the nascent city—so was
the re-opening of the city in the 1990s initially shaped by the influx of FDI that took
on local frameworks and brought in international expertise. Investments, especially
from the diaspora of Taiwan-, Macao- and Hong-Kong-based overseas Chinese, many
of whose families left China in 1949, not only brought the capital but also, more im-
portantly, the know-how to ease economic transition in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The Chinese exodus picked up again in the early 1980s, especially from the former Con-
cession cities like Shanghai where many families had overseas connections from be-
fore 1949. When China opened in the 1990s, the initial wave of haigui [海归], or those
‘returning from across the sea,’ also came back.167 The haigui’s second generation in
returning also contributed to the human capital for rapid economic development.

124
Fig. 32 The shop of the ‘avocado lady’ on Wulumuqi Lu, 2013

Against this backdrop, the contemporary constellation of small international design

entrepreneurs and local stall owners constitute the localized cosmopolitans who are rap-
idly changing the city center neighborhoods. It was these commercially savvy localized
cosmopolitans who quickly recognized and followed the shifting demand in key areas
like those around Anfu and Wuyuan Lu. New boutiques for fashion, furnishings and ac-
cessories continue to open on the ground floors of more residential buildings.
Even the commercial thoroughfare of Wulumuqi Lu, which has historically been
a busy north-south connector lined by low-end stores selling everything from gro-
ceries to home repair services, underwent bottom-up adaptation to the changing de-
mand. One of the most patronized grocery stores is that belonging to a local entrepre-
neur known endearingly as the “avocado lady” by many expats. (Fig. 32) Avocado is a
fruit that few locals traditionally eat, and was absent from the traditional Chinese wet
market up until the mid-2000s. Yet it is a fruit that many international residents, par-
ticularly globally inclined yuppies, are fond of eating.168 In the early 2000s, avocados
could only be found in the few high-end supermarkets specializing in imported foods.
For consumers of the avocado, who were foreigners and those multicultural locals who
had lived abroad, the fruit was a rarity in mid-2000s Shanghai, like good coffee. When
more expats started to live in the neighborhood around Anfu and Wuyuan Lu, a lady
from the hinterlands of Shanghai picked up enough English to understand the desire
for this fruit, which in Chinese is called the “buttery fruit.” As the first local grocer to
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

stock the precious fruit, this pioneer entrepreneur gained immediate fame and popu-
larity amongst her patrons, who bestowed on her the name of “the avocado lady.” Her
pioneering act highlighted the business savvy of localized cosmopolitan entrepreneurs,
who had the acumen to identify untapped market niches and changing demands in the
rapidly transforming transition economy. Since her first success, many other grocery
kiosks also began to stock what were once rare Western goods that have since become
increasingly normalized in neighborhoods around Wulumuqi Lu. The avocado itself
can be found in other kiosks, and locals also consume the fruit. Patrons still flock to
the avocado lady’s store because she has since learned to stock everything from sau-
erkraut to chorizo alongside local seasonal specialties at accessible prices.

125
 The creative reuse of former industrial buildings took place in many post-indus-
trial cities in the West. But against the institutional constraints and tenure rights in
the dual land market of China’s transition economy, they also created opportunities
for small and creative entrepreneurs who catered to the mobilities and migrations re-
populating of valuable city-center real estate. These localized cosmopolitans, local and
global creative entrepreneurs, played pioneering roles in the bottom-up development
of many parts of the city center. At the same time, the legacy of ambiguous ownership
in fragmented residential buildings resulted in the local state’s retention of a majori-
ty of properties in historic neighborhoods. This has ensured a slow process of consoli-
dation and privatization and the persistence of high-density, subsidized living amidst
rising prices and up-scaled services.169
Sociologist Neil Smith, in his postulations for gentrification in Western cities, sug-
gests that the initiative of the large-scale developments catalyze small stakehold-
ers.170 In Shanghai’s city center, the commodity housing constructions that rapidly
changed the social composition of the neighborhood, and the leasing out of proper-
ties by state-owned institutions shaping the demands of the service and commer-
cial sectors were the pivotal developments that triggered the small entrepreneurs to
continue incremental upgrades in the neighborhood. What is different from the com-
mercial progression of gentrification in the West, however, is the high degree with
which the state facilitates or inhibits developments. A lack of clear zoning guide-
lines and procedural clarity for function changes meant that market transformations
responding to changing consumption create bottom-up urban loopholes for the rede-
velopments of existing street-front ground floor spaces. At the same time, beholden
to the local institutional framework of the transition economy and adaptive gover-
nance, the uncertainty and temporality of urban loopholes also bodes their imminent
closures.

Incremental Conversions
and Small Creative Entrepreneurs
Since the early 2010s, street-front ground-floor space conversions expanded from Anfu
Lu, where commodity housing development and institutional real estates’ reuse have
triggered bottom-up upgrades, also to Wuyuan Lu. Walking through the neighboring
lanes that traverse the interior of large blocks bound by the main arterials—characteris-
tic of urban morphology of the western end of the former French Concession—ground-
floor conversions into architecture, furniture design, graphic design, and advertising
studios are visible from the renovated facades and signage. Lilong houses that only
a decade ago were home to multiple families have transformed into studios where
young designers, photographers, and architects share work, event, and exhibition
spaces. Ground floors of garden-style lilong houses also showcase goods sourced from
the likes of Berlin and Paris alongside locally-crafted products. Street-facing gardens
host photo shoots, film screenings, and salons. Garden vestibules have also become
charming sun-roofed cafés, and front parlors are now shop windows, offering glimps-
es of the creative enterprises within.

126

1978
Following the death of Mao, Deng
Xiaoping took over as national leader and
created the first SEZs in proximity to
market economy of British Hong Kong.
The first wave of emigration also began.
atelier
2005 1978 2005 commercial
utility
1992 accelerated Shanghai’s economic Overcrowding, shared infrastructure, and With demographic growth and little
liberalization, with FDI supporting growth. the lack of housing maintenance in housing construction, housing became
A maturing of the socialist market existing buildings would be the further subdivided. Chaos ensuing
system and urban develompent prepares motivation for upcoming housing during the Cultural Revolution
for the city’s showcasing at the World marketization. compounds the confusion.
Expo.
花园洋房 Rental Multifamily
garden house

Residential
Ownership Rental
Shanghai Multifunctional

Taipei
Shenzhen Hong Kong
Ownership
SEZs sources of investment capital 新式里弄 Commercial
(Special Economic Zones)

Multifunctional
1978 2005
Population: 10,000,000 Population: 18,000,000
GDPP: 2,000 RMB (4,300,000 floating)
SOE
Shanghai built only 22.8mio GDPP: 67,492 RMB
square meters of hosuing from
1950-1980, accounting for less
Rental Multifamily
than 0.5%GDP.

Rental Commercial
Function Change

Ownership
Ownership

公寓
apartment building

Ownership Commercial
25 km

Fig. 33 Diagram showing Shanghai’s physical growth since economic liberalization began and the demographic, programmatic,
and ownership changes to former housing

The initial startups are usually informal, drawn by the cheap rent of old houses and
the convenience of location. Part of the residential fabric, many are not yet commer-
cially registered. But some have expanded from their ground-floor spaces into upper
levels and adjacent new structures. Others have shifted from hidden spaces catering
to the creatives and become more commercial.
Wuyuan Lu was once the location of the neighborhood open-air wet market that
has since been dismantled after the street market sanitation of the 2000s. Like for
other trendy streets of Jinxian Lu [进贤路], Xinle Lu [新乐路], Fumin Lu [富民路], and
Julu Lu [巨鹿路], which have been rapidly upgraded by small entrepreneurs, real es-
tate agents and small boutique owners have shifted their gaze toward the under-rec-
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

ognized former market street.

Along with minor commerce, small agile firms producing knowledge-based de-
sign services and products prefer to grow in these city center locations. In the pro-
cess, they are transforming existing structures via innovative reuse and program-
ming. It was not only in the historic modern era old houses that adaptive reuse took
place. (Fig. 33) Post-war slab buildings and lilong factories also became host to conver-
sions and upgrades. Architectural diversity of the neighborhood is nurturing the cre-
ative sectors. Upgrades and consolidations converted Anfu and then Wuyuan Lu such
that they are now part of the Shanghai’s streets known for their boutiques, cafés, and
trendy ambiance.

127
 In 2011, on the ground floor of a house with a large garden on Wuyuan Lu, the ate-
lier and showroom of the Xinlelu platform for young local and international designers
took over the space from their former partners Lolo Love, an events space and shop
that specialized in imported European vintage fashion, accessories, and furnishings.
Unlike most commercial spaces facing the street, the showroom was entered via a
small lane leading from Wuyuan Lu through its spacious garden, presenting the prox-
imate, accessible, but sequestered ambiance of the place. Although inward-facing, the
garden allowed the small creative entrepreneurs to host movie screenings by local
film-makers, organize exhibition openings by local and international artists, and con-
vene community clothing drives with young hipsters of the city. Among the co-owners
is a Chinese-American designer from California whose store, William the Beekeeper,
was the first vintage clothing shop in Shanghai; the other was a Shanghainese designer
who did a stint in the UK and lived and had a showroom in another of the trendy bot-
tom-up developments of the Jing’an Villas [静安别墅].171 As with many of the ground-
floor commercial conversions, the house was originally one residence that has since
been subdivided for many families.
The fragmented ownership of the house itself was inviting small investors who
speculated on the future of the neighborhood to start buying up the usage rights from
elderly residents living upstairs. These small investors would pay the elderly residents
a lump sum for their usage rights with the prospect of converting the consolidated
usage rights into ownership rights in two to three years.172 The elderly residents, of-
ten with children abroad who therefore would not contest the ownership relinquish-
ment, benefit from the immediate cash flow. At the same time the small investors,
often locals themselves, also did not force the elderly residents to relocate, so as to
facilitate the eventual process of ownership right consolidation without conflict. In-
terestingly, in July 2014, the municipal government issued a new policy to formalize
this system of rental for elderly care.173 It is precisely the fragmentation of owner-
ship and the informality of the commercial spaces that have kept the rents low and
made it affordable and created the opportune urban loopholes to nurture the creatives.
But as many small entrepreneurs expressed during the rapid transformations of 2011
and 2012, their certainty in the uncertainty of the street’s longer-term future has also
meant that a readiness to shift to the next location is ever present. Their premonition
would be confirmed in 2016 when authorities shut down a number of small enterpris-
es on Wuyuan Lu.
One bunker, at the corner of Wuyuan and Yongfu Lu, has long by transition econ-
omy standards become a live music venue that hosts some of the best underground
music in Shanghai. The building above the venue has also been converted into restau-
rants and bars, which are part of Shanghai’s nightlife scene. Another underground
bunker tucked deep in a lane on Wuyuan Lu was recently turned into a wine cellar
specializing in imported Portuguese wine. It has since its inception in 2012 also ex-
panded into a street-front restaurant serving Western fare. Around these new spac-
es, lilong houses are becoming intimate settings for young galleries, private kitchens,
and event spaces. The urban fabric exemplary of a Chinese modernity that is hybrid
and cosmopolitan—art-deco new-style lilong houses, garden-style houses, and apart-
ment-style towers reminiscent of nineteenth century Paris or London, with 1960s slab
housing, 1990s towers, and other buildings between set along boulevards lined with

128
Figs. 34 , 35 A popular small restaurant on Wuyuan Lu in 2011, left; and the same street-facing location following the
restaurant’s closure in 2016, right

the iconic platanus trees—seems to be nurturing microcosms of globalized entrepre-

neurial experimentation and innovation.
A diversity of overseas Chinese returnees, expats, and the new Chinese middle
class, the localized cosmopolitans, has rapidly changed spatial demand and produced
spaces of consumption and leisure, as well as production and residence, in the city cen-
ter neighborhoods like the one around Plot 15. At the same time, the older generation
of locals staying behind in the city center find themselves hosting grandchildren sent
back from the suburbs to attend the more prestigious schools which still remain in the
center. Some of the locals have become the enterprising landlords, with the privilege
of their local hukou, capitalizing on the prime real estate locations of their old homes;
others of the younger generation with transnational connections and know-how have
opened up the cafés, trattorias, and boutiques that oblige the globalized palate of the
latest batch of new locals.174
It is thus surprising that the bottom-up urban loophole facilitating the adaptive
reuse of old houses in the historic residential neighborhood and creating a locale not
unlike the creative hubs of other global cities would be suddenly shut down in sum-
mer 2016.175 (Figs. 34, 35) Like that of the swift removal of the remaining nail-house
residents from Plot 15, the rash closure of small boutiques, the construction of walls
to block street-facing cafés, and even the eviction of a popular small restaurant were
executed in the name of heritage conservation. The same stroke would sweep away
another street, Yongkang Lu, whose development under the auspices of the same dis-
trict government as elaborated in Chapter 5, reveals the precarious nature of urban
loopholes formed under the transition economy’s adaptive governance and institutional
amphibiousness.
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

Changing Habitat
This chapter sets the background for the ‘inhabitation’ part of the concept of ‘preser-
vation via inhabitation,’ which frames this and the following chapter through the
case study of the residential neighborhood’s transformation around Plot 15. Amidst
the prosperity of the neighborhood, some of the less-resourceful remaining residents
still subsist on the meager retirement allowances that reflect the planned economy
of the previous era. Despite their desire to move to newer, bigger homes that housing

129
Fig. 36 Conversion of the ground floor space and terrace on Anfu Lu, 2013

marketization has brought to the majority of residents in the inner city, the low rents
have confined these remaining residents to the neighborhood.
Well before the central government’s endorsed acceleration of Shanghai’s marketi-
zation, the local governments, especially in areas with overseas connections, began
the process of foreign capital attraction through housing construction. The high-end
commodity housing built to bring in overseas-Chinese investment and expat residents,
together with the exodus of original residents to the expanding periphery and also
abroad, manifested the fundamental social restructuring that accompanied the first
decades of accelerated economic liberalization. With the changing demographic, a
commercialization of the street front spaces also took place, catering to the new de-
mands on streets like Anfu and Wuyuan Lu. At the same time the locational periphery
of the neighborhood, at the edge of the city in the 1980s, would rapidly, with the expan-
sion of the city in the 1990s, become centrally located, making the spaces on Anfu and
Wuyuan Lu unique in the city and attracting a broad spectrum of clientele throughout
the metropolitan area. Despite the prevalence of marketization, residents in the mid-
dle of the blocks remain unable to benefit from what they imagined would come with
marketization. The dual housing market that remained, notably in city center areas

130
 with large numbers of old houses, has since been set in place by the conservation poli-
cies of the mid-2000s and harbors a seemingly irresolute conundrum for the residents
as well as for the local state.
Yet at the same time, the halt in sweeping en-bloc developments that have been so
prevalent in other central districts offered a potential to rethink the process for devel-
opment. With the new decade of CCP leadership calling for the increased provision of
social housing in its effort to stabilize the growing economic disparity between its cit-
izens, a spatial rethinking at the neighborhood scale, especially where the dual mar-
ket in the transition economy is palpably manifested, is necessary. After a few rounds
of changing leadership within the District government and bids by small developers
for the redevelopment of Wulumuqi Lu, long-rumored plans for the upgrade of the last
stretch of chaotic yet vibrant local commerce was confirmed through the grapevine.
What with the impending development of Plot 15 between Wuyuan and Anfu Lu, it
remains to be seen what the future of the neighborhood looks like.
The resultant social diversity that is a product of bottom-up transformation, rather
than of deliberate top-down planning, asks what lessons the neighborhood brings to
other areas that are planned as socially homogeneous and functionally singular. The
small-scale conversions have been able to tap into both the urban loopholes formed
by the dual housing market from the first phase of accelerated economic liberalization
and those formed from the heritage conservation of the second and more mature era
of economic transition, incrementally upgrading the neighborhood. (Fig. 36) The dy-
namic equilibrium that seemed to have survived in the tenuous relationships between
planned and market also awaits the development decision for Plot 15. When the alli-
ance of the local state and privileged elites is ready, it will be disclosed.

1 In this and the following chapters, the Chinese term ‘lu
[路]’ for ‘road,’ or ‘street’ is used. The street Wuyuan Lu,
for example, could be written as Wuyuan Road or Wuyu-
an Street. Huaihai Lu could be written as Huaihai Boule-
vard or Huaihai Avenue, because it is a wider thoroughfare.
But because in the Chinese language there is not the same
kind of distinction used for the different types of streets,
3 The name ‘platanus’ is used by the author for the trees
that were planted in the former French Concessions. In
English, they are also known as plane trees, of the family
Platanaceae. In Chinese, the trees are popularly known as
wutong [梧桐]. According to Chinese translations the tree
wutong is actually the phoenix tree in English, which is of
a different species. 4 Tingting Zhu 褚婷婷, “沪上怀旧
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood

the author has chosen to use the phonetic transcription.
Similarly, Chinese characters are also included for ease of
ensuing research. 2 Following China’s 1842 defeat in the
First Opium War, coastal ports were conceded to the vic-
tors as ‘treaty ports.’ The ‘treaty ports,’ including Shanghai,
compelled China to open trade with foreign powers. Be-
cause the areas were conceded to foreign powers extra-
territorially and the Chinese gave up sovereignty, the term
‘Concessions’ is used to denote them. The two main areas
of Concessions were the International Concession and the
French Concession. The French Concession was devel-
oped later than the International Concession and was to
its west, with French-mandated modern era planning,
which will be elaborated in this and the next chapters.
[Shanghai Nostalgia],” 人民日报 People’s Daily, August 4 ,
2004 , Overseas Edition edition, sec. 5 世界華人周刊 Over-
seas Chinese Weekly, http://www.people.com.cn/GB /pa-
per39/12617/1133776.html. 5 In Shanghai, the district
governments, rather than the municipality, was the level
of the local state authorizing and profiting from land leas-
es. The municipality, however, issued the final approv-
als. 6 Lailai He 贺来来, “民心工程变身土地储备 沪麦其里拆
迁之惑 [Project to Gain People’s Hearts Becomes Land
Bank, Confusion of Shanghai’s Magie Lane Demolition and
Displacement],” 21世纪经济报道 [21st Century Economic
Report], October 27, 2004 , http://home.163 .com/04 /
1027/ 16 / 13NA S 89 L 0010174 S.html. 7 上海市人民政府
Shanghai Municipal Government, “关于鼓励动迁居民回搬

131
推进新一轮旧区改造的试行办法 [Regarding Encouraging
Displaced Residents to Move Back, Pushing Forward New
Round of Pilot for Urban Upgrade],” 沪建城（2001）第
0068号 § (2001), http://www.shucm.sh.cn/gb/jsjt2009/
node1290/node1294 /node1376 /userobject7ai417.html.
8 Tianshu Hu 胡天舒, “和黄创上海房产天价 ‘汇贤居’6500美
元/m2 [Hutchinson Whampoa Breaks Record for Shang-
hai Real estate ‘The Summit’ at 6500 USD per Square Me-
ter],” 国际金融报 International Finance Daily, January 15,
2003 , http://finance.sina.com.cn/x/20030115 /075230
2582.shtml. 9 It is an urban myth in Hong Kong that of
every 10 dollars spent by Hong Kong’ers, 1 of those dol-
lars goes to Li Ka-Shing. He and his conglomerates own
telecoms, utilities, supermarkets, drugstores, in addition
to real estate development and shipping. The urban leg-
end is thus telling of the extent of the handful of Hong
Kong tycoon’s economic clout in everyday lives under the
laissez-faire political economy of Hong Kong. 10 The
name lilong confusingly refers both to the urban morphol-
ogy of the lane house compound as well as to the build-
ings inside them. The lilong, as architecture type and as
urban morphology, will be elaborated later in the chap-
ter. 11 Hongqing Duan 段宏庆, “上海纵火逼迁案黑幕：开发
商为牟利烧死两老人 [Case of Fire Used to Force Eviction in
Shanghai: Developer Seek Profit and Kill Two Elderly Peo-
ple],” 财经 [Finance and Economics], September 22 ,
2005, http://news.163.com/05/0922 /16 /1U93 Q7B8000
1124 S.html. 12 In the development of the lilong com-
pound of Jianyeli [建业里], a French researcher document-
ed the various methods, including coercion and violence,
used to force out residents who were unwilling to leave
their homes. See Valérie Laurans, “Shanghai: Modern Con-
veniences as an Argument for Displacing Residents,”
China Perspectives, no. 58 (April 1, 2005), http://chinap-
erspectives.revues.org/459. 13 The name ‘nail house res-
idents’ itself refers to both the nail-like profiles of the
last-building-standing on excavated development sites as
well as the metaphoric quality of the nail, the effort and
difficulty needed for a nail’s removal from a surface in
which it’s been attached. 14 “刁民， 好官， 政绩和和谐
[Difficult Masses, Good Bureaucrats, Political Performance
and Harmonious Society],” June 8 , 2010, http://www.cao-
gen.com/blog/infor_detail/20855.html. 15 Zhong Chen
陈中, “强拆阴影再现麦琪里？ [Shadows of Forcible Dis-
placement Reappearing at Magie Lane?],” 南方周末 South­
ern Weekend, April 1, 2011, http://www.infzm.com/con-
tent/57121. 16 Yuan Gao 高原, “拆迁新政并未终结暴力拆
迁 [New Policies for Demolition and Displacement Haven’t
Stopped Violence],” 法治周末 Legal Weekly, April 6, 2011,
http://www.legaldaily.com.cn/zmbm/content/ 2011 -
04 /06/content_2572737.htm?node=7570. 17 Interviews
2013. 18 Rob Schmitz, “The Anatomy of a Shanghai Land
Grab: Residents Kidnapped, Their Homes Destroyed,”
Marketplace.org, October 16, 2013 , http://www.market-
place.org/topics/world/chinas-hangover/anatomy-shang-
hai-land-grab-residents-kidnapped-their-homes-destroyed.
19 The World Expo took place in Shanghai in the summer
of 2010. The Shanghai municipal government used the
opportunity to upgrade and showcase the city as a role
model for other Chinese cities, as most of the visitors were
from the vast inland provinces of China, who saw Shang-
132
hai as exemplary of China’s economic development and
global integration. As will be examined and elaborated in
the next chapter, heritage recognition and conservation
became one way that Shanghai became the role model
for other Chinese cities. The years following the Expo was
also a time of optimism and euphoria. 20 As noted in the
introduction, the term ‘spatial production’ is used by the
author to denote the processes and mechanisms that
form the physical, often built, environment. It references
Henri Lefebvre’s concept of ‘production of social space,’
but emphasizes also the importance of the physicality of
space. 21 Under party-state rule, historic background
leading to the conditions inherited from historic legacies
are largely not discussed. When they are, their relation-
ship to contemporary development are also bypassed.
Because of this deliberate oversight, the author feels
compelled to offer a thorough account of the historic lead
up to the contemporary conditions, and to contextualize
historic legacy’s contribution to the contemporary com-
plexities for planning. To local residents, the account may
seem self-evident. But the mere documentation of the
relationship between historic legacy and contemporary
developments seems especially relevant, given the rapid
erasure of recent past under the pressures of both devel-
opment and the developmental state. 22 The author
uses the term ‘localized cosmopolitans’ to refer to the
stakeholders in the urban development process in Shang-
hai, who have an international background while at the
same time have access to local decision-makers and
knowledge of the local processes and mechanisms. The
localized cosmopolitans are adept at detecting and mak-
ing use of the urban loopholes created by the transition
economy. The localized cosmopolitan also suggests a lin-
eage with the modern era Shanghainese sensibility of be-
ing open and global in outlook. 23 The term ‘architecture
type’ is a discipline-specific term that architects use to
denote the combination of form and use of a building.
Buildings since historic types have taken on forms that
accommodate their use or uses. For example, the bath,
the market, the temple had specific forms that accommo-
dated their uses in Roman cities, and conversely the
recognizability of these architecture forms also reveals
their use. The architecture type of the bath, or the temple,
thus denote both their form and their function. Also of
note, the terms ‘function’ and ‘program’ are also disci-
pline-specific terms that architects, including the author,
use for ‘use’ or ‘uses’ for spaces, and are used inter-
changeably with the term ‘use.’ 24 An ‘urban centrality’
is where a high concentration of human interaction and
resource interchange takes place in a city. It is a concept
that emerged from the re-conceptualization of Walter
Christaller’s 1933 theory of ‘central places [zentralen Orte],’
which was a seminal work on economic relationships in
space, in the contemporary context of a ‘networked soci-
ety.’ See Walter Christaller, Die Zentralen Orte in Süd-
deutschland: Eine Ökonomisch-Geographische Untersu-
chung Über Die Gesetzmässigkeit Der Verbreitung Und
Entwicklung Der Siedlungen Mit Städtischen Funktionen
(Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1933); Edwin von Böventer, “Walter
Christaller’s Central Places and Peripheral Areas: The Cen-
tral Place Theory in Retrospect,” Journal of Regional
Science 9, no. 1 (April 1, 1969): 117–24 , doi:10.1111/j.1467-
9787.1969.tb01447.x. In urban theory, it is posited that
poly-centric metropolises or agglomerations with differ-
ent complementary functions facilitate creativity and
knowledge-based activities. See Michael D. Irwin and Hol-
ly L. Hughes, “Centrality and the Structure of Urban Inter-
action: Measures, Concepts, and Applications,” Social
Forces 71, no. 1 (September 1, 1992): 17 – 51, doi:10.2307/
2579964; David F. Batten, “Network Cities: Creative Urban
Agglomerations for the 21st Century,” Urban Studies 32,
no. 2 (March 1, 1995): 313 – 27, doi:10.1080/0042098955
0013103. 25 The ‘setback’ is an architecture and urban
design term to depict the distance that a building is set
back from the road and from other buildings. Higher build-
ings usually have a bigger setback than smaller and short-
er buildings. Roads built after the automobile became
popularly used also have larger setbacks for buildings.
26 Deng Xiaoping famously gave a speech on housing
reform in April 1980. James Lee, “From Welfare Housing
to Home Ownership: The Dilemma of China’s Housing Re-
form,” Housing Studies 15, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 61 – 76,
doi:10.1080/02673030082478 . 27 Anthony Gar-On Yeh
and Fulong Wu, “The Transformation of the Urban Plan-
ning System in China from a Centrally-Planned to Transi-
tional Economy,” Progress in Planning 51, no. 3 (April
1999): 167 – 252 , doi:10.1016/S0305 -9006(98)00029 -4 .
28 Xiangming Chen and Xiaoyuan Gao, “Urban Econom-
ic Reform and Public-Housing Investment in China,” Urban
Affairs Review 29, no. 1 (September 1, 1993): 117–45 ,
doi:10.1177/004208169302900105 . 29 Approximately
two to three million people fled China in 1949 to Taiwan
and Hong Kong. See Ronald Skeldon, “The Last Half Cen-
tury of Chinese Overseas (1945–1994): Comparative Per-
spectives,” International Migration Review 29, no. 2 (July
1, 1995): 576 – 79, doi:10.2307/2546795. 30 国务院 State
Council, 关于用侨汇购买和建设住宅的暂行办法的通知 [Pro-
visional Regulations Regarding Using Overseas Chinese
Remittance to Purchase and Construct Housing], vol. 国发
(1980) 61号, 1980, http://www.chinaacc.com/new/63/73/
129/2006/4 /yi6825027313146 31 The term ‘old houses
[老房子],’ is specifically used in Shanghai to denote build-
ings built before 1949. This term, highlighted throughout
the chapter in italics, will be expanded on later in the
chapter in relation to the residual ownerships and in the
next chapter in the state’s construction of a heritage con-
servation project. The knowledge of this early selling of
old houses comes from interviews conducted by the author
in 2011 and 2012. 32 The Shanghai Communiqué is also
known as “The Joint Communiqué of the United States of
America and the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C. ),” is-
sued on 27 February 1972 . The document normalized
U.S. -China relations. The document was important for the
U.S. shift from a tentative two-China policy to a one-Chi-
na policy. The U.S. two-China policy had recognized both
the until then U.S. -backed government of the Republic of
China (R.O.C. ) based in Taiwan and the until then unrec-
ognized-by-the-U.S. People’s Republic of China (P.R.C. ). It
is the first official gesture of what would be a significant
geopolitical shift, following the October 25, 1971 official
replacement of the R.O.C. by the P.R.C. in the UN Securi-
ty Council. 33 Nixon would later call the visit to China in
1972 “the week that changed the world.” 34 Following
the October 20, 1971 visit by Henry Kissinger to China, the
U.S. lifted the 22-year-old ban on travel to China in No-
vember 1971. Overseas Chinese living in the U.S. would
return for the first time since travel bans to China were
implemented. 35 Relatives of prominent returnees were
forcibly moved into accommodations that were more spa-
cious and private to give the visitors the impression of
China’s progress. For the early advent of the image proj-
ect see also the recount of Perry Link’s stay in China in
1973, in Perry Link, “My Disillusionment: China, 1973,” NYR-
blog, June 22, 2011, http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyr-
blog/ 2011 /jun/ 22 /my-disillusionment-peoples-repub-
lic-1973/. 36 It is clear from the research and reportage
of the 1960 s and 1970 s that little was known about what
was actually happening inside China. See, for example,
Stephen Fitzgerald, “Overseas Chinese Affairs and the Cul-
tural Revolution,” The China Quarterly, no. 40 (October 1,
1969): 103 – 26. The class-based persecutions in particular
targeted relatives of overseas Chinese, who were often of
the bourgeoisie and land-owning class. 37 To contextu-
alize, in the same year, the southern town of Shekou,
which is now part of Shenzhen, was already established
as Industrial Zone as approved by the central government.
This followed Deng’s visit to Japan and Singapore, where
he saw the necessity to develop industry on par with what
he saw in these two developed Asian economies, and also
to attract foreign capital to initiate their development.
38 The 1983 国务院关于加强利用外资工作的指示 [Directive
by the State Council on Strengthening the Work to take
advantage of Foreign Capital] also granted special privi-
leges to overseas Chinese investment. See “关于贯彻《中
共中央、国务院关于加强利用外资工作的指示》的通知 [Di-
rective by the State Council on Strengthening the Work
to Take Advantage of Foreign Capital],” 32 § (1983), http://
china.findlaw.cn/fagui/p_1/227171.html. http://china.find-
law.cn/fagui/p_1/227171.html. 39 上海市人民政府 Shang-
hai Municipal Government, “上海市外商投资房产企业商品
住宅出售管理办法 [Administrative Measures of Shanghai
Municipality Governing the Sale of Commercial Housing
by Foreign Investment Real State Enterprises]” (1988),
http://www.lawinfochina.com/display.aspx?lib=law&
id=754 . 40 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Govern-
ment, “上海市土地使用权有偿转让办法 [Measures of Shang­
hai Municipality on the Compensatory Transfer of Land
Use Rights],” 沪府发[1987 ]42号 § (1987 ), http://www.law-
infochina.com/display.aspx?lib=law&id= 726 & CG id=.
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood
41 “Shanghai Hongqiao Economic and Technological De-
velopment Zone,” accessed May 10, 2014 , http://www.
shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node 27118 /node 2787 3 /
node27997/n31510 /n31511 /u22 ai73220 .html. 42 The
1978 Third Plenary of the Eleventh Central Committee of
the CPC [十一届三中全会], announced the new system of
governing through what was referred to as “two levels of
management, one and half levels of government [一级半
政府, 两级管理]” that devolved fiscal autonomy to the local
state. 43 For example, Shanghai’s Number Two Dairy
Factory [上海乳品二厂] which is also called colloquially the
“milk dairy [牛奶棚],” remained in its place until 1993. The
production of milk and other dairy products continued
well into the 1990 s. Following its closure in 1993, the site
133
 was converted into the Shanghai Library, which opened com.cn/2009/10/01/70297.html. 52 A detailed break-
in 1996. See also http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6281c- down of the increase in the proportion of extra-budgetary
1d70100ogxy.html 44 Annals of Shanghai Office 上海市地 funds, and the overall increase in total funds from 1949
方志办公室, “第二章高标准商品住宅建设 第一节侨汇商品住 until 1991 for China’s SOE s, together with the fiscal auton-
宅 [Chapter 2 High Standard Commodity Housing Devel- omy that came with the 1980 s reforms, which allowed
opment, Section 1 Commodity Housing for Overseas Chi- the SOE s to control of higher percentage of their own
nese Remittance],” in 上海住宅建设志 [Survey of Shanghai surpluses, explains the background of the asset dissipa-
Residential Development], vol. 4 Commodity Housing De- tion that is exemplified by SOE housing provision, via con-
velopment [第四篇商品住宅建设], 6 vols. (Shanghai 上海: struction or purchase and redistribution, under the early
上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Scienc- phases of China’s transition economy. See Jieming Zhu,
es Press, 1998), http://shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node2245/ “The Changing Mode of Housing Provision in Transitional
node75091/node75098 /node75150/node75154 /userob- China,” Urban Affairs Review 35, no. 4 (March 1, 2000):
ject1ai90911.html. 45 徐汇区档案局 Xuhui District Ministry 510, doi:10.1177/10780870022184507. 53 Ibid., 505 .
of Archiving, “第一节 商品房经营 Section 1 Commodity 54 Ibid., 513. 55 Fulong Wu, “Changes in the Structure
Housing Exchange,” 徐汇区档案局(馆)档案信息网, accessed of Public Housing Provision in Urban China,” Urban Stud-
June 15, 2014 , http://daj.xh.sh.cn:8082 /xhdainfoplat/plat- ies 33 , no. 9 (November 1, 1996): 1601 – 27, doi:10.10
formData/infoplat/pub/xhda_152 /docs/200510/d_21829. 80/0042098966529. 56 国务院 住房制度改革领导小组
html. 46 Interviews, 2014 . 47 跨世纪的上海建筑 [New State Council Leadership Group on Housing Institution Re-
and Trans-Century Architecture in Shanghai], vol. 1 form. 1991. 关于全面推进城镇住房制度改革的意见 [Advice
(Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji University Press, Regarding Comprehensively Advancing Reform for Urban
1995), 137. It is also notable that the Chinese characters Housing Institutions]. http://www.law110.com/law/guo
in the book are in the complex form of written Chinese wuyuan/2082 .htm. 57 D. J. Dwyer, “Urban Housing and
that is used only in Taiwan and Hong Kong, rather than Planning in China,” Transactions of the Institute of British
the simplified form of written Chinese that is used in main- Geographers, New Series, 11, no. 4 (January 1, 1986):
land China. Proposals for a simplified form of written Chi- 479 – 89, doi:10.2307/621942; Yok-shiu F. Lee, “The Urban
nese have been submitted since the 1900 s by Chinese Housing Problem in China,” The China Quarterly, no. 115
intellectuals who are proponents of modernization, who (September 1, 1988): 387 – 407. 58 Aimin Chen, “China’s
viewed the complexity of the written language as an ob- Urban Housing Reform: Price-Rent Ratio and Market
stacle to universal literacy in the country. But it was not Equilibrium,” Urban Studies 33 , no. 7 (August 1, 1996):
until the 1960 s that simplification of the written form of 1077 – 92 , doi:10.1080/00420989650011519. 59 Zhu,
the language was implemented in the education system “The Changing Mode of Housing Provision in Transition
of the PRC . 48 The description of the Huiyi Gardens [汇 China.” 60 See Chen, “China’s Urban Housing Reform.
益花园] read: ”东块别墅的造型具有西欧现代派气息，外墙由 61 http://www.sy-group.com. 62 上海市人民政府 Shang-
直线和圆弧吻接组成，白色的外墙面，黑色的台阶踏步，铝合 hai Municipal Government, “关于加快本市中心城区危棚简
金门窗，灰色的堑假石装饰柱。南块富有法国风情，白色墙 屋改造若干意见 [Some Views Regarding Accelerating of
面，绛红色小挂瓦屋顶，花岗石门窗装饰线、台阶和勒脚，黑 City Center Slum Upgrade],” 沪府发 (1996)18号 § (1996),
色铝合金门窗和玻璃幕墙。北块是英国古典式建筑，黄色喷砂 http://wenku.baidu.com/view/953 cc76 d7e21af45 b307
墙面，绛红色的呈十字形哥德式大屋盖， 花岗石台阶和勒脚。 a884 .html. 63 Interviews with a former SOE leader in
[The eastern villas are shaped in the style of western Eu- 2012 showed how state institutions became the earliest
ropean modernism, with the formation of exterior walls developers in the transition period. 64 Ibid. 65 Min
by straight lines and arcs, white walls, black steps, alumi- Zhou and John R. Logan, “Market Transition and the Com-
num windows, grey stone columns. The southern section modification of Housing in Urban China,” International
is rich in the French style, white walls, deep red overhang- Journal of Urban and Regional Research 20, no. 3 (Sep-
ing roof, granite fenestration lines, steps, black aluminum tember 1, 1996): 400 – 421, doi:10.1111/j.1468 -2427.1996.
windows. The northern section is classic English architec- tb00325.x. 66 Ya Ping Wang and Alan Murie, “Social and
ture, yellow sand-blasted walls, deep red gothic styled Spatial Implications of Housing Reform in China,” Interna-
overhanging roof, granite steps and plinth].” See Annals tional Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24 , no. 2
of Shanghai Office 上海市地方志办公室, “第二章高标准商 (June 1, 2000): 397 – 417, doi:10.1111/1468 -2427.00254;
品住宅建设 第 一节侨汇商品住宅 [Chapter 2 High Standard Si-ming Li and Zheng Yi, “The Road to Homeownership
Commodity Housing Development, Section 1 Commodity Under Market Transition Beijing, 1980–2001,” Urban
Housing for Overseas Chinese Remittance].” 49 Ibid. Affairs Review 42, no. 3 (January 1, 2007 ): 342 – 68, doi:10.
50 Interestingly, the appropriation of Western-style res- 1177/1078087406292523 . 67 上海市人民政府 Shanghai
idences would continue into the implementations for the Municipal Government, “关于出售公有住房的暂行办法
“One City, Nine Towns” vision, where the new towns were [Provisional Measures Regarding the Sale of Publicly
themed with English, German, Italian, etc. styles. See Har- Owned Housing],” 沪府发[1994]19号 § (1994), http://
ry den Hartog, ed., Shanghai New Towns: Searching for www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node 2314 /node3124 /
Community and Identity in a Sprawling Metropolis node3177/node3180/userobject6 ai619.html; 上海市人民
(Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010). 51 “巅峰时刻回望当年 政府 Shanghai Municipal Government, “关于出售公有住房
外销房 [Looking Back during Today’s Peak Period On 的实施细则 [Detailed Regulations Regarding the Sale of
‘waixiao’ commodity Housing for Foreigners],” 新浪地产网 Publicly Owned Housing],” Pub. L. No. 沪房改办发[1994]第
Sina Real Estate, October 1, 2009, http://news.dichan.sina. 34号 (1994), http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node­

134
2314 /node3124 /node3177/node3180/userobject6 ai619.
html. 68 “上海内外销房并轨谁受益 [Who Benefits When
Shanghai Consolidates Housing Market for Foreigners and
Nationals],” August 3, 2001, http://house.enorth.com.cn/
system/2001/08 /03 /000107562 .shtml; Li and Yi, “The
Road to Homeownership Under Market Transition Beijing,
1980–2001.” 69 In an interview, one of the architecture
offices in Hong Kong that worked on the earliest parcel in
Lujiazui, the special economic district set up in Pudong,
told of progressing to projects in the city center,
2012 . 70 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Govern-
ment, 关于加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造若干意见 [Some
Views Regarding Accelerating of City Center Slum Up-
grade]. 71 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Govern-
ment, “关于加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造实施办法 [Re-
garding Accelerating of City Center Slum Upgrade
Implementation],” 沪府发〔1998〕33号 § (1998), http://
www.shucm.sh.cn/gb/jsjt 2009 /node 1290 /node 1470 /
node1472 /userobject7ai705.html. 72 国务院 State Coun-
cil, “关于进一步深化城镇住房制度改革加快住房建设的通知
[Notice Regarding the Deepening of the Urban Housing
System Reform and the Acceleration of Residential
Construction],” 国发〔1998〕23号 § (1998), http://www.
chinabaike.com/law/zy/xz/gwy/ 1333347.html. 73 The
1994 document by the State Council, The Decision regard-
ing the Deepening Urban Housing Reform [关于深化城镇
住房制度改革的决定], announced the fundamental chang-
es to the housing investment, management, and distribu-
tion systems, and the establishment of public and private
housing savings systems, housing insurance, finance and
loans, and a market for housing management. Significant-
ly, the document formalized the considerations for a dual
housing provision system, where social housing supply
and commodity housing supply coexist to mitigate the
housing access for the different social groups. The central
directive included a provision of 20 % social housing, rent-
al and owned, by private developers required in private
development. See Ya Ping Wang and Alan Murie, “The
Process of Commercialisation of Urban Housing in China,”
Urban Studies 33, no. 6 (June 1, 1996): 971–89, doi:10.10
80/00420989650011690. 74 Yi Huang 黄怡, “大都市核
心区的社会空间隔离—以上海市静安区南京西路街道为例 [So-
cio-spatial segregation in Metropolitan Nuclei Areas: a
case study of Nanjing Xilu Street, Shanghai],” 城市规划学
刊 [Urban Planning Forum], no. 03 (2006): 76 – 84 .
75 Ibid. 76 A scan of residences built in Hong Kong in
the 1990 s and 2000 s would reveal numerous affinities
between the developments in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
77 Weicheng Guo 郭伟成, “上海前景更美好 [Shanghai’s Fu-
ture More Beautiful],” 人民日报 People’s Daily, August 13,
2001, sec. 3 华东新闻, http://www.people.com.cn/GB /pa-
per40/3985/473959.html. 78 易居：南京万科, “上海典型
会所运营商考察报告 [Report of Study of the Business Op-
erations in the Typical Clubhouses in Shanghai],” April 25,
2008 , http://doc.mbalib.com/view/b6 a2270 ff8 a3 c96 ce-
8 cf813 ad488 edf5.html. 79 “赌王何鸿燊创办的私人会所—
鸿艺会入驻融创玖玺台 [Casino King Stanley Ho Found
Private Club House—Ambassy Club],” April 3 , 2013 ,
http://news.cq.soufun.com/2013 -04 -03 /9837300.htm.
80 Yong Wan 万勇, “上海旧区改造的历史演进, 主要探索和
发展导向 [Historical Evolution, Main Study and Orientation
of Planning on the Redevelopment of Urban Old Areas in
Shanghai］,” 城市发展研究 [Urban Studies], no. 11 (2009):
97 – 101 + 52; Si-ming Li and Yu-ling Song, “Redevelopment,
Displacement, Housing Conditions, and Residential Satis-
faction: A Study of Shanghai,” Environment and Planning
A 41, no. 5 (2009): 1090–1108, doi:10.1068/a4168. 81 See
the next chapter for the detailed description of this
plan. 82 The term ‘urban village’ is used in contemporary
studies of China’s urban developments to denote the ar-
eas of rapid densification and development as result of
urban encroachment on rural land. The change in land
type from rural to urban, which are distinct under Chinese
regulations, has made these locations lucrative for devel-
opment. In the term’s usage here, the physical character-
istic of urban development surrounding what were rural,
and pre-industrial spaces, is similar. Similarly, urban
growth, both in the early 20 th century and since the
1990 s in Shanghai, has created the spatial adjacency of
developing and developed built environments. 83 Meng
Hu 胡锰, “‘上海居，不大易’：和黄地产为何受挫 [Living in
Shanghai, Not so easy” Why Is Hutchinson Whampoa
Humbled],” 21世纪经济报道 [21st Century Economic Re-
port], November 23 , 2002 , http://it.sohu.com/75 /63 /
article204526375 .shtml. 84 Ibid. 85 A number of re-
searchers have studied the lilong, its etymological origins,
architecture type and urban form. The author is indebted
to them. See, for example, Lynn T. White III , “Low Power:
Small Enterprises in Shanghai, 1949–67,” The China Quar-
terly, no. 73 (March 1, 1978): 45 – 76; Hua Shen 沈华, 上海
里弄民居 [Shanghai Lilong Residences] (Beijing 北京: 中
国建筑工业出版社 China Architecture Industry Press, 1993);
Hanchao Lu, “Away from Nanking Road: Small Stores and
Neighborhood Life in Modern Shanghai,” The Journal of
Asian Studies 54 , no. 1 (February 1, 1995): 93 – 123 ,
doi:10.2307/2058952; Samuel Y. Liang, “Where the Court-
yard Meets the Street: Spatial Culture of the Li Neighbor-
hoods, Shanghai, 1870 – 1900,” Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians 67, no. 4 (December 1, 2008):
482 – 503; Gregory Byrne Bracken, The Shanghai Alleyway
House, Routledge Contemporary China Series 95 (New
York: Routledge, 2013); Renee Chow, “In a Field of Party
Walls: Drawing Shanghai’s Lilong,” Journal of the Society
of Architectural Historians 73, no. 1 (March 2014): 16 – 27,
doi:10.1525 /jsah.2014 .73 .1.16. 86 Xiangming Chen, ed.,
Shanghai Rising: State Power and Local Transformations
in a Global Megacity, Globalization and Community 15
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood
87 Shen 沈华, 上海里弄民居 [Shanghai Lilong Residences].
88 The terms ‘laoshi lilong [老式里弄],’ or ‘old-style lilong,’
‘xinshi lilong [新式里弄],’ or ‘new-style lilong,’ ‘huayuanshi
lilong [花园式里弄],’ or “garden-style lilong,’ and ‘gongy-
ushi lilong [公寓式里弄],’ or ‘apartment-style lilong,’ are
used to specify the architecture type as well as the lilong
compound itself. 89 The hutongs of Beijing for example,
are also a vernacular type that aggregate at the urban
scale. 90 Yanning 李燕宁 Li and Yongyi Lv 卢永毅, “晚期
石库门里弄—步高里 [Late Shikumen Lilong—Bugaoli],”
上海城市规划 [Shanghai Urban Planning Review], no. 03
(2005): 35 – 39. 91 The term ‘old houses,’ as mentioned
in an earlier note, is significant in denoting buildings built
before 1949 in Shanghai. Many of the old houses have a
135
 peculiar and exceptional ownership status because of the
planned era legacies that have left them with ambiguous
and fragmented ownership and their typological defini-
tion under transition economy. 92 The Bund is a promi-
nent area along the river in Shanghai where civic and
commercial buildings built in the modern era largely in
the Western style made it symbolic of Shanghai’s
Concession status. The Bund’s changing status in the
Shanghai imaginary will be further elaborated in the next
chapater. 93 See, for example, Jie Li, Shanghai Homes:
Palimpsests of Private Life, Global Chinese Culture (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2015). 94 Though its
documentation and description were so much about ev-
eryday life that any older Shanghainese who lived before
the 1980 s would find its contents common knowledge,
few Chinese language pieces could match the clarity and
poignancy of Lynn White’s piece that describes the life
and commerce inside the Shanghai lilong. See White III ,
“Low Power.” 95 See for example, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shang-
hai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in
China, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University
Press, 1999). 96 During the Sino-Japanese War, Shang-
hai became an enclave because of its unique jurisdictional
status. From 1945’s 3.37 million the city grew to 5.45 mil-
lion by 1948 , driving housing scarcity and overcrowding.
See Wenda Lu 陆文达, 上海房地产志 ［Survey of Shanghai
Real Estate], 上海市专志系列丛刊 (Shanghai 上海: 上海社
会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Press, 1999). 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid. 99 In 1949 per capita
dwelling size was only 3.9 square meters. Ibid. 100 Due
to population growth, informal self-built housing would
be distributed throughout the city and dominated the
residential type. 101 Weiqun Zhang 张伟群, 上海弄堂元气
根据壹仟零壹件档册与文书复现的四明别墅历史 [Shanghai
Longtang Vitality, According to One Thousand and One
Archival Documents on History Siming Villas] (Shanghai
上海: 上海人民出版社 Shanghai People’s Press, 2007 ).
102 Lu, “Away from Nanking Road.” 103 Junli Zheng 郑
君里, 乌鸦与麻雀 [Crows and Sparrows] (Kunlun, 1949).
104 Skeldon, “The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas
(1945–1994).” 105 Toby Ho, “Managing Risk: The Sup-
pression of Private Entrepreneurs in China in the 1950 s,”
Risk Management 2, no. 2 (April 1, 2000): 29 – 38 , doi:10.
1057/palgrave.rm.8240047; Dorothy J. Solinger, “Socialist
Goals and Capitalist Tendencies in Chinese Commerce,
1949 – 1952 ,” Modern China 6 , no. 2 (April 1, 1980):
197 – 224 . 106 Laurence J. C. Ma, “The Chinese Approach
to City Planning: Policy, Administration, and Action,”
Asian Survey 19, no. 9 (September 1, 1979): 838 – 55 ,
doi:10.2307/2643807. 107 It is well known in Shanghai
that the locals often grumble of contributing and defer-
ring to the central bureaucracy but getting little in return
in the support of infrastructure, especially before econom-
ic liberalization began. 108 Zhou and Logan, “Market
Transition and the Commodification of Housing in Urban
China.” 109 Detailed accounts of the selection of locales
for industrial investment by the CCP shifted capital away
from the cities that were the most prosperous prior to
1949. Central planning also redirected resources that had
more to do with against political ideology against cities
that were shaped by capital under the previous regime.
136
See Jieming Zhu, The Transition of China’s Urban Devel-
opment: From Plan-Controlled to Market-Led (Westport,
Conn: Praeger, 1999). 110 Yilin Nie and Robert J. Wyman,
“The One-Child Policy in Shanghai: Acceptance and Inter-
nalization,” Population and Development Review 31, no. 2
(June 1, 2005): 313 – 36 . 111 Shixun Gui and Xian Liu,
“Urban Migration in Shanghai, 1950 – 88: Trends and Char-
acteristics,” Population and Development Review 18, no. 3
(September 1, 1992): 533 – 48 , doi:10.2307/1973657.
112 From 1967 to 1978 , over 17 million urban “educated
youths [知青],” who are largely graduates from junior and
senior high school, were sent to live and work in the rural
areas. This consists of one third of urban youths who were
of eligible age and many stayed there for more than a
decade. See R. J. R. Kirkby, Urbanisation in China: Town
and Country in a Developing Economy, 1949–2000 AD
(London: Croom Helm, 1985); Xueguang Zhou and Liren
Hou, “Children of the Cultural Revolution: The State and
the Life Course in the People’s Republic of China,” Amer-
ican Sociological Review 64 , no. 1 (February 1, 1999):
12 – 36, doi:10.2307/2657275. 113 Lu 陆文达, 上海房地产
志 [Survey of Shanghai Real Estate]. 114 Interviews,
2013. 115 Those who were “swept out [扫地出门]” were
left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and had
to search for short-term accommodation. Often the new
abodes would be tiny leftover spaces without facilities.
The next chapter will elaborate on one such case. 116 In-
terview, 2013. The habits also included the use of coal
burning stoves or squatting toilets. One of the tenants
who moved into the Shangfang Garden house, for exam-
ple, wondered at the use of toothpaste when they saw it
being used for the first time by their unwilling hosts, with
whom they had to share the bathroom facilities. 117 ‘Huk-
ou’ is a system of household registration in China which
has historic origins. Its restrictions on labor movements
under planned economy have loosened under economic
transition’s reforms, due to the need of labor for econom-
ic development in urban regions. But the social inequali-
ties created by the system call into question possibilities
of further reform. See, for example, Hein Mallee, “China’s
Household Registration System under Reform,” Develop-
ment and Change 26, no. 1 (January 1, 1995): 1 – 29, doi:10.
1111/j.1467-7660.1995.tb00541.x; Kam Wing Chan and
Will Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System?,”
China Quarterly, no. 195 (2008): 582 – 606, doi:0.1017/
S0305741008000787. 118 “上海老洋房历经风雨身价不减
租售其实不容易 [Value of Shanghai’s Old Western-Style
Houses Does Not Diminish despite Going through Thick
and Thin, as a Matter of Fact Renting and Selling Are
Not Easy],” 中国新闻网, April 13, 2007, http://www.atrain.
c n / n e w s / 2 0 0 7 - 0 4 - 1 3 / S h a n g H a i L a oX i a n g Fa n g L i
JingFengYuJuanJiaBuJian-JuShouJiShiBuRongYi-ttjq
03775.html. 119 Interviews, 2011, 2012. 120 Eventhough
political ideology alone no longer governs resource access,
numerous studies have correlated privileges inherited
from planned economy era hierarchies to both eco­
nomic capacity as well as continued resource access.
See, for example, Deborah Davis, “‘Skidding’: Down-
ward Mobility among Children of the Maoist Middle
Class,” Modern China 18 , no. 4 (October 1, 1992): 410 – 37.
121 Initial offerings for the sale of publicly owned hous-
ing stipulated that residents must wait 5 years after pur-
chase to sell the units on the secondary housing market.
But to stimulate cash flows for both the primary and sec-
ondary housing markets, pilots in the Changning, Pudong
and Qingpu districts, all more peripheral districts, allowed
the resale of privatized former public housing in August
of 1996. Purchase of new housing units also absolved the
seller of fees associated with the sales. The policies were
implemented in city center districts in the following years.
See Guanfu 殷关福 Yan and Yongyue Zhang 张永岳, 上海
房地产业发展史记 [Shanghai Real Estate Development
History] (Shanghai 上海: 上海人民出版社 Shanghai Peo-
ple’s Press, 2007 ). 122 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Munic-
ipal Government, 关于出售公有住房的暂行办法 ［Provi-
sional measures regarding the sale of publicly owned
housing]. The document is issued by the Shanghai Gov-
ernment in accordance to the State Council’s issuance of
the Decision regarding the Deepening of Urban Housing
Reform, issued the same year. 123 Ibid. Units for sale are
the publicly owned housing that “form a complete set [成
套]. The four kinds of publicly owned housing barred from
sales are: 1] those included in urban renewal areas, 2]
those with ambiguous ownership rights, 3] those with
historic value for preservation, and 4) other deemed not
salable by the government. In 1994 the per square meter
price was 902 RMB , with unit location [地段], orientation
[朝向]—south-facing apartments are preferred in Shang-
hai, story height [层次], and other factors taken into pric-
ing consideration. 124 Interviews, 2011, 2012. Some fam-
ilies even sought out such units in the 1970 s to protect
themselves from further denigration through imposed
communal living. 125 Interviews, 2011, 2012 . A small
number of lilong houses remained intact and recovered
following the Cultural Revolution. But circumstances large-
ly dictated the tenure, in no specific pattern, when eco-
nomic liberalization arrived in the 1990 s. The status of
occupants as well as spatial configuration affect the di-
versity of housing tenure. 126 Interview 2012. A Hong
Kong architect who had worked in Shanghai in the first
decade of accelerated economic liberalization, on the
kinds of projects bringing the expert know-how to expe-
dite the city’s re-globalization—including the earliest
parcel to be developed in Lujiazui in 1991, the City Hotel
and the Joffre Gardens near Xiangyang Lu in the mid-
1990 s—deemed the effects of marketization, especially
that of public housing sales, as impressive in their effec-
tiveness and foresight. Compared to the rapid develop-
ment of Hong Kong, not only are the housing units pro-
vided in Shanghai sizable, but the marketization of public
housing also gave Shanghai citizens the financial basis
from which to economically transition. 127 “Non-sellable
public housing refers to housing that belongs to the state
that cannot be sold to the residents who are renting from
them since housing reform policies, they consist mainly
of old-style lilong, new styled lilong, workers housing,
where the kitchen and WC are shared and each unit can-
not be regarded as whole. They also consist of some
apartments and garden houses that have what seem to
be whole units [不可售公房是指根据本市现行房改政策还不
能出售给承租居民的公有住房，它主要包括旧式里弄、新式里
弄、职工住房等厨房、卫生合用的不成套房屋，也包括部分公
寓、花园住宅等成套房屋].“ See “不可售公房 [Non-Sellable
Public Housing],” 互动百科, accessed July 29, 2014, http://
www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8 %8 D%E5%8 F%AF %E5%9
4%AE %E5 %85 %AC %E6 %88 %BF . 128 上海市人民政府
Shanghai Municipal Government, “上海市公有住房差价交换
试行办法 [Pilot Measures for the Exchange of Shanghai
Public Housing with Pricing Difference],” Pub. L. No. 沪府
发 [1999] 4号 (1999), http://www.lawtime.cn/info/fangdi-
chan/gongfangmaimai/2008101338359.html. 129 “使用
权房转让有别产权房 [Transfer of Use Right Housing Differs
from Ownership Right Housing],” Cnforex 环球外汇, March
21, 2011, http://www.cnforex.com/comment/html/2011/3
/21/11d2144 d235f39630 e1c45ff677c9 cc0.html. 130 ‘Us-
age rights’ apply, technically, to public housing that was
built by danweis or the state for its citizens under planned
economy. In Shanghai, where very little investment in
housing was made, ‘usage rights’ also came to cover ‘old
houses’ that are either allocated to danweis and state in-
stitutions since the 1950 s or those directly managed by
the district real estate bureaus. 131 The “Contract for the
Transfer of Public Housing in Shanghai [上海市公有住房转
让合同]” has to be drawn up to for the usage right of the
unit to be purchased by the buyer. This is different from
the “Contract for the Sales of Real Estate in Shanghai
[上海市房地产买卖合同],” which is drawn up for the trans-
fer of ownership rights for housing. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid.
134 Interviews, 2013. 135 Interviews, 2013. 136 Guilan
Chen 陈桂兰, “沪上使用权房成新热点 不到20 平‘老房子’10 个
月涨15万 [Shanghai’s Usage Right Housing Becoming New
Hot Spot, ‘old Houses’ not Even 20 Square Meters Grows
150000CNY in 10 Months],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, Decem-
ber 20, 2012, http://sh.eastday.com/m/20121220/u1a70
75428 .html. 137 The concept of ‘gentrification’ will be
further elaborated on in the second section of the book.
But it is a phenomenon intimately connected with the ur-
ban transformations and commercial upgrades that rapid
economic liberalization and development have wrought.
138 Studies show the shifts in demography that accom-
panied economic liberalization and urban spatial restruc-
turing. See, for example, Li and Song, “Redevelopment,
Displacement, Housing Conditions, and Residential Satis-
faction.” 139 The term ‘habitus’ here refers to the social-
ized norms that structure human interaction and social
hierarchy. See Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social
Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul, 1986). 140 The term ‘expat’ is a
shortened version for ‘expatriates,’ which denotes some-
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood
one who lives outside of their country of origin. The term
is used largely for a middle to upper social class and does
not denote, for example, ‘migrant workers,’ who are low-
class workers often laboring in a wealthier foreign country
in order to earn remittances to send back to their poorer
home country. The ‘expat’ has been used pejoratively for
upper-middle class foreigners, who come from developed
economy countries to developing economy countries. A
presumed cultural homogeneity of the ‘expat’ suggests
also cultural superiority and condescension, and suggests
knowledge transfer both for employment but also for life-
style from the more economically developed culture to
the developing one. On the other hand, younger, more
independent and more multicultural mobile workers avoid
137
being defined by the term. See, for example, C. M. Patha,
Roaming: Living and Working Abroad in the 21st Centu-
ry (Either/Or Press, 2016). 141 Deborah S. Davis, “Self-
Employment in Shanghai: A Research Note,” The China
Quarterly, no. 157 (March 1, 1999): 22 – 43. 142 Zhili 张智
丽 Zhang and Sili Zhou 周思立, “这些老外在上海干什么
[What are these expats doing in Shanghai?],” 新上海人
New Shanghainese, February 22, 2002, http://old.jfdaily.
com/epublish/gb/paper110/3 /class011000003 /hwz542
982.htm. 143 国务院 State Council, “关于引进国外人才工
作的暂行规定 [Provisional Regulations Re the Importation
of Foreign Talent for Work],” Pub. L. No. 国发〔1983〕152
号 (1983), http://www.xmrs.gov.cn:81/dyna/ds.jsp?Id=2573.
144 Kaiya 李开亚 Li, “第九章人事管理, 第五节 引进与交流
[Chapter 9 Human Resources Section 5 Import and Ex-
change],” in 上海人民政府志 [Annals of the Shanghai Mu-
nicipal Government], vol. 1, 第一篇政权、政务 [Authority
and Administration], 6 vols. (Shanghai 上海: Li, Kaiya 李开
亚. 2004 . 上海人民政府志 [Annals of Shanghai Municipal
Government]. 上海市专志系列丛刊. Shanghai 上海: 上海社
会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Press., 2004), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node
2245 /node72907/node72912 /node72932 /node72952 /
userobject1ai85686.html. 145 Ibid. 146 Ibid. 147 上海
市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Government, “上海市引进
国外专家暂行办法 [Interim Procedures of Shanghai Munic-
ipality on the Intake of Experts From Abroad],” Pub. L. No.
沪府发 [1994] 43号 (1994), http://www.lawinfochina.com/
display.aspx?lib=law&id=964 &CG id=. 148 劳动部 Depart-
ment of Labor et al., “外国人在中国就业管理规定 [Pro­
visions on the Employment of Foreigners in China],”
Pub. L. No. 劳动部、公安部、外交部、外经贸部以劳部发
[1996]29号公布 (1996), http://www.people.com.cn/zixun/
flfgk/item/dwjjf/falv/2 /2-1-51.html. 149 “老外在沪抢‘饭碗’
[Expats in Shanghai to Compete For ‘rice Bowl’],” 新上海人
New Shanghainese, February 22, 2002, http://old.jfdaily.
com/epublish/gb/paper110/3 /class011000003 /hwz542
980.htm. 150 Wenmin 戴闻名 Dai and Dan Qiu 邱丹, “究
竟有多少老外在上海淘金 [How Many Expats Are in Shang-
hai Digging for Gold],” 瞭望东方周刊 Oriental Outlook
Weekly, June 4 , 2009, http://epaper.yangtse.com/yzwb/
2009 -06/04 /content_12742999.htm. 151 Studies of lei-
sure hubs and mating rituals, namely that of Western men
picking up Asian women, have been a visible part of the
discourse of contemporary expats in developing countries
like China. See, for example, James Farrer, “‘New Shang-
hailanders’ or ‘New Shanghainese’: Western Expatri-
ates—Narratives of Emplacement in Shanghai,” Journal of
Ethnic and Migration Studies 36, no. 8 (2010): 1211 – 28 ,
doi:10.1080/13691831003687675; James Farrer, “For-
eigner Street: Urban Citizenship in Multicultural Shanghai,”
in Multicultural Challenges and Redefining Identity in
East Asia, ed. Nam-Kook Kim (Ashgate, 2014), 17 – 43 ,
https://www.academia.edu/3646925 /Foreigner_Street_
Urban_Citizenship_in_Multicultural_Shanghai. 152 “The
Gold Rush Is on in Shanghai—MarketWatch,” CBS Market-
watch.com, December 28, 2003, http://www.marketwatch.
com/story/the-gold-rush-is-on-in-shanghai. 153 Ibid.
154 The implications of ‘administratively-allocated land’
have been elaborated in the introduction chapter. The
co-existence of administratively-allocated land, which re-
138
mained under economic transition, with that of commer-
cial leased land would create the dual land mar-
ket. 155 The spatial impacts of this dual land market will
be further elaborated in Chapter 6. 156 上海市商用地图
册 [Shanghai Commercial Atlas] (Shanghai 上海: 上海
翻译出版公司 Shanghai Translation Publishers, 1989).
157 Matthew Fulco, “Danish Businesses Thriving in China,”
China Daily, November 1, 2011, http://www.chinadaily.
com.cn/regional/ 2011 - 11 / 01 /content_ 14017692 .htm.
158 “Cafe Queen,” Shanghai Family, April 1, 2013, http://
www.shfamily.com/articles/ 2013 / 04 / 01 /cafe-queen/.
159 Yun also mentioned in the interview, that “It literally
is one law in one district, something different in another.
You have to know people in government bureaus or you
will not get anywhere.” See Ardyn Bernoth, “Orient Ex-
press,” July 19, 2005 , http://www.smh.com.au/news/
good-living/orient-express/2005 /07/18 /1121538913891.
html. 160 “Why It’s So Difficult for Successful Shanghai
F & B Businesses to Move to Beijing,” City Weekend,
March 9, 2012, http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/
blog/why-its-so-difficult-for-successful-shanghai-fb-busi-
nesses-to-move-to-beijing/. 161 “Location has been very
important to us,” Jackie Yun said. “In Shanghai, location
has been very much the key.” See “Wagas: It’s All in the
Name,” Australia China Connections, June 2012, http://
www.chinaconnections.com.au/en/magazine/back-is-
sues/107-may-june-2012 /1444 -wagas-its-all-in-the-name.
162 See the following chapter on the development of
Wukang Lu as a ‘Cultural Street.’ 163 “Cosmopolitan, Adj.
and N.,” OED Online (Oxford University Press), accessed
May 28 , 2015, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/42259.
164 Ulf Hannerz, “Two Faces of Cosmopolitanism: Culture
and Politics,” Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 107, no. 3 (2005):
200. 165 Ulf Hannerz, “Cosmopolitans and Locals in
World Culture,” Theory, Culture, Society 7, no. 237 (1990):
243 . 166 Letter from the Shanghai Municipal Archives.
167 The term ‘haigui [海归],’ meaning ‘returning from
across the sea,’ is homonymous with the term ‘haigui
[海龟],’ which means ‘sea turtles.’ So, sometimes these
overseas returnees are also referred to as ‘sea turtles.’ The
impact of haigui’s impact on China’s development is still
understudied. See for example, Yedan Huang 黃曄丹, “Re-
turn Migration: A Case Study Of ‘sea Turtles’ in Shanghai”
(Master’s Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam,
Hong Kong), 2008), http://hub.hku.hk/handle/10722 /
52665; Cheng Li, “Shaping China’s Foreign Policy: The Par-
adoxical Role of Foreign-Educated Returnees,” Asia Policy
10, no. 1 (2010): 65 – 85 , doi:10.1353 /asp.2010.0038 ;
“Plight of the Sea Turtles,” The Economist, July 6, 2013 ,
http://www.economist.com/node/ 21580470 /print.
168 ‘Yuppies’ is a popularly used term to denote the
largely upper middle class residents of large metropolitan
areas in the West who have been characterized with a
lifestyle that is also sometimes pejoratively associated
with gentrification. See, for example, Neil Smith, “Of Yup-
pies and Housing: Gentrification, Social Restructuring, and
the Urban Dream,” Environment and Planning D: Society
and Space 5, no. 2 (1987 ): 151 – 172, doi:10.1068 /d050151;
Matthew W. Rofe, “‘I Want to Be Global’: Theorising the
Gentrifying Class as an Emergent Elite Global Community,”
Urban Studies 40, no. 12 (November 1, 2003): 2511 – 26,
doi:10.1080/0042098032000136183 . In the context of
the foreign population of Shanghai, they represent the
younger, more mobile workers who are employed in the
service sectors and knowledge industries, who could be
contrasted to the more traditional ‘expats’ working for
corporate multinationals. The definition is of course fuzzy
and imprecise. The term connotes more a lifestyle affilia-
tion that places like Shanghai and other large metropo-
lises in developing countries can afford. 169 See Ying
Zhou, “上海中心城区: 在全球愿景和本土构架之间 [Between
global aspirations and local frameworks: city center
Shanghai],” Urban China 城市中国 56 (2013): 68 – 73 .
170 Neil Smith noted in his 1979 article on the processes
of gentrification that “the fragmented structure of prop-
erty ownership has made the occupier developer, who is
generally an inefficient operator in the construction indus-
try, into an appropriate vehicle for recycling revalued
neighborhoods.” See Neil Smith, “Toward a Theory of Gen-
trification A Back to the City Movement by Capital, Not
People,” Journal of the American Planning Association
45, no. 4 (1979): 546, doi:10.1080/01944367908977002.
171 The author’s interviews with the designer-entrepre-
neurs in 2011 and 2012 also led her to the research of the
Jing’an Villas transformations and ensuing shutdown,
elaborated in Chapter 4 . 172 A successful example of the
consolidation of ‘usage rights’ into ‘ownership right’ will
be elaborated on in the following chapter. 173 Juntian
Zheng 郑钧天 and Zhendong Wu 吴振东, “上海超九成老人
不愿以房养老 房子给儿女才安心 [Over Nine out of Ten El-
derly Not Willing to Use Reverse Mortage for Elderly Care,
Passing on Home to Children Eases Mind],” July 2, 2014 ,
http://finance.sina.com.cn/china/dfjj/ 20140702 / 1643
19587531.shtml. 174 The term ‘new Shangainese [新上
海人]’ was coined by Shanghai’s party secretary to promote
in-migration in the early 2000 s to meet the demands of
the metropolis’ rapid economic development. See, for ex-
ample, Xiaoxin Lu 卢晓欣, “‘新上海人’ 需要正名吗? [Does
‘the New Shanghainese’ need Official Endorsement?],”
上海壹周 Shanghai Weekly, January 26, 2010, http://sh.
eastday.com/qtmt/20100126 /u1a687190.html. 175 For
news of the “adjustments” that were to be implemented
for what has been named as Cultural Heritage Streets,
which will be elaborated on in the next chapter, see Xiao-
jun Chen 晨小君, “五原路扰民老洋楼餐馆关门了 [Wuyuan
Lu’s Restaurant in Old Western House That Disturbs the
Residents Is Closed],” 新闻晨报 Shanghai Morning Post,
May 21, 2016, http://www.shxwcb.com/107141.html; Minyi
Jin 金旻矣, “徐汇区区长鲍炳章: 永康路酒吧街将调整业态
[Xuhui District Mayor Bao: Yongkang Lu Bar Street Will Be
Programmatically Adjusted],” 新民晚报 New Citizen Eve-
ning News, July 11, 2016, http://sh.eastday.com/m/2016
0711/u1ai9519022.html; Wenjie Xiao 肖文杰 et al., “最上海”
的街区面临整改，发生了什么？[The Most Shanghainese
Neighborhood Is Facing Adjustment, What Happened?],”
第一财经周刊 CBN Weekly, August 13, 2016, http://www.
wxrw123.com/cf/20160813/2293010_2.html.
Chapter 2 The Residential Neighborhood
139
Chapter 3
The Cultural Street

From First Recognitions of Architectural Heritage to Implementation

Setting the Context for Heritage Policy Implementation
The Old House and the Club House—Changing Market Supply and Demand
Localized Cosmopolitans and the Developing of Le Passage Fuxing
and Ferguson Lane
Conserving Heritage: Lane 1754 (Aka 1768) and Lane 117
The ‘Western’ District and Learning from the ‘Beautification Plan’
The World Primary School and Small Entrepreneurs
Approximating Globalization and the State’s Appropriation
Fig. 1 A popular spot for photographers on Wukang Lu under the platanus trees and in front of a renovated modern era
garden house, 2012
In the summer of 2007, four municipal ministries descended on the kilometer-long
Wukang Lu [武康路] in Shanghai. In preparation for the World Expo’s opening in 2010,
the street was unofficially dubbed a new “Cultural Street [文化街].” 1 The number of
researchers who arrived on the scene seemed to confirm the street’s growing impor-
tance.2 The municipal Ministry for Culture organized door-to-door visits, documenting
the oral history of a distinct Shanghai intellectual heritage embedded in the neighbor-
hood since the 1930s. The Ministry of Tourism attached heritage placards to buildings,
detailing the architectural features of Shanghai’s prestigious historic past. The Minis-
try of Infrastructure repaved the street with picturesque patterned stones and added
more platanus trees.3 The Ministry of Housing and Real Estate upgraded the fences and
walls that line the street with Art Deco motifs and added painted-to-match boxes to
hide the electric conduits and AC units.
Buildings from the 1980s were retrofitted to blend in with the 1930s ambiance of
their surroundings. A cinema building, which the officials deemed aesthetically inap-
propriate due to too much tinted glass, turned into a brick-covered commercial hub,
with patisseries, an international grocer, yoga studios, and a rooftop café. Another
upgrading project transformed a ceramic tile-covered former danwei building from
the 1980s into an office building with a white stucco facade and black metal railings
to recall the detailing of modern era buildings.4 The ground floor renovations creat-
ed an ice cream store, a café, and a burger joint: all opening onto the street, which in-
stantly became an Instagram sensation. The renovation itself was done with a design
confidence that would have been timid and hurried only a decade before. Conversions
of former garden houses into ‘club houses [会馆],’ a reference to modern era establish-
ments originally catering to people of elite backgrounds, also sped up since the her-
itage designation. Eclectic furniture, paintings, and collectibles from the 1930s were
sold to line renovated historic houses. Shops also opened, marketing these antiques,
some old and many newly produced.
It was not only commercial upgrades that accompanied the heritage recognition.
A memorial hall for the history of the World Primary School [世界小学]—reincarnated
from its Communist-era name of Huaihai Lu N.2 School [淮海路第二小学] in 2008—was
installed in 2011 to honor its alumni. The memorial to the coterie of cultural and busi-
ness luminaries who graduated from the school, many of whom had emigrated in the
1950s, could be visited by their grandchildren returning from overseas, many of whom
were also arriving to invest in the rapidly liberalizing China.5 On the site of the origi-
nal World Primary School, the tourism ministry inserted the Wukang Lu Tourism In-
formation Center [武康路旅游咨询中心] and the Xuhui District Old Houses Art Center
[徐汇老房子艺术中心], finished in time to welcome the expected throng of tourists visit­
ing Shanghai for the Expo.6 Further down the street, the famous modern era Chinese
writer Ba Jin [巴金]’s former home opened as a museum in 2011, 7 adding to the clique
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

of exclusive residences on display in the vicinity. (Fig. 1)

On a given weekend, local photography clubs could be found on Wukang Lu, its
members capturing the ambiance of the platanus-lined street and the patina of the
plaqued heritage buildings. Mandarin and English language tour groups stroll along,
with guides pointing out the historic figures who once lived on the street. (Figs. 2, 3)
Compared to the heavy-handed upgrade of the Duolun Lu Cultural Street [多伦路
文化街], an earlier Cultural Street established in the early 2000s, the conservation of

145
Figs. 2, 3 Visitors posing for photographs in front of one of the restored houses on Wukang Lu, left, 2013; and tour group
gathered in front of a historic house on Wukang Lu, right, 2013

Wukang Lu bore a much lighter and subtler touch. It is the sense of authenticity that
has also drawn the visitors and tourists to Wukang Lu.8
Whereas the previous chapter clarified the complexities of the ‘inhabitation’ part
of the concept of ‘preservation via inhabitation,’ this chapter dissects, in the same his-
toric neighborhood, the motivations for ‘preservation’ and the rise of the subsequent
heritage projects. Together, the two chapters unpack the two sides of ‘preservation via
inhabitation.’
Through the lens of heritage projects, this chapter also reveals the changing rela-
tionship between power and money under transition economy. In the shift from the
market economy of pre-1949 to the planned economy of 1949–1980s, the ideological
shift from market to planned economics also translated to a power shift from elites
with capital to elites affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the shift
from the planned economy of 1949–1980s to the state-controlled market economy in
the 1990s, even though ideologically continuous—the CCP remains the source of priv-
ilege and the state steers the market—new elites with capital, through access to pow-
er, join the old CCP elites. This revival of capital, with access to power, is manifested in
the spatial productions described in this chapter. The heritage projects, deploying an
ideology of identity and cultural preservation, not only shape niche markets for devel-
opment. The heritage projects also form urban loopholes of alibis, giving the local state
privileged access to real estate in the name of public good. The opportunities of the ur-
ban loopholes, however, also benefit the endogenous, or bottom-up, processes by entre-
preneurs. The dynamic mechanisms have preserved a social diversity, albeit a shifting
one, under rapid economic transition.
Structured as a series of case examples, which unfold over time from the early 1980s,
the following chapter traces the development of heritage as a concept and heritage as
pragmatic implementation in relation to the commercialization of the city center’s his-
toric architecture to meet a growing demand for heritage as commodity. Using the ap-
proximately one square kilometer area around Wukang Lu as a neighborhood-scaled

146
frame, the multiple cases of the chapter interrelate the complexity of agents and pro-
cesses that have participated in the heritage preservation projects of the last two de-
cades, culminating in the Cultural Street of Wukang Lu. In the changing equilibrium of
the different agents—academics, planners, entrepreneurs, the state as arbiter of policy,
and the state as privileged occupant—and their interests, the ‘preservation’ side of the
concept, ‘preservation with inhabitation,’ (the overarching theme of this and the pre-
ceding chapter) has sustained the area’s socio-economic diversity.
The first two sections of the chapter, “From First Recognitions of Architectural Her-
itage to Implementation” and “Setting the Context for Heritage Policy Implementation,”
follow how the concepts of heritage recognition initially developed. The conceptual
foundations for today’s conservation policies, 9 which culminate in the Cultural Street
designation highlighting the state’s treatment of modern era heritage, only began tak-
ing form in the first decade after the Cultural Revolution in the early 1980s.10 Initial
policies to safeguard modern era architecture and urban form could only be included
under the rubric of CCP commemorations. Beginning in the late 1980s, a shift in the
conceptualization of historic architecture emancipated academics from the prohibi-
tive political ideologies that had reached their zenith during the Cultural Revolution
with the fervor of destruction. Only then, a fundamental research of modern era ar-
chitecture and urbanism as the physical manifestations of China’s modernity began.
At the same time, economic liberalization and the opening of the country also brought
a revival of public interest in the recent past. Books by local authors in the 1990s, re-
counting everyday lives in Shanghai from before 1949, fanned the growing popular
interest in how the vestiges of city’s capitalist heyday remain embedded in daily life,
despite decades of socialist suppression.11 Films by directors like Chen Kaige and Ang
Lee, who were growing in international renown from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s,
fed the nostalgia for China’s modern era urban life. The growing acceptance of mod-
ern era heritage as important compelled conservation implementation, especially in
the face of accelerating economic liberalization and development imperatives. Modern
era relics, as well as the cultural habits they embodied, increasingly seemed to war-
rant conservation. Reacting to the massive demolition of Shanghai’s inner city fabric
at the same time, scholars and planners lobbied for protecting the embedded cultur-
al value of historic neighborhoods, citing Western cities as models to emulate in the
conservation of these areas.
In the midst of rapid urban renewal, a precipitous grasping of cultural capital’s cur-
rency also took place. As projects like Xintiandi [新天地] and Tianzifang [田子坊] began
to gain recognition for their adaptive reuse of historic architecture,12 the commercial
success, especially of Xintiandi, buoyed the heritage movement. Scholars and design-
ers argued in the early 2000s that the protection of historic buildings not only safe-
guarded the loss of local identity in the face of rapid transformations, but also had the
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

added benefit of attracting transnational talents, the human side of foreign direct in-
vestment. The imageability of conservation projects convinced the local governments
of the broader financial returns reaped by such projects.
The third and fourth sections unpack the endogenous, or bottom-up, processes of
commercialization—initiated by the small entrepreneurs in the neighborhood around
Wukang Lu—that took place around the same time as the Xintiandi and Tianzifang
projects. The third section, “The Old House, and the Club house—Changing Market

147
Fig. 4 Newly constructed ‘club house’ in Lane 1754 off Wukang Lu, 2012

Supply and Demand,” sets the scene for how changing consumer demand reshaped the
real estate market for ‘old houses [老房子]’ in the mid-2000s.13 The influx of overseas
Chinese and expats who preferred the atmosphere of the historic neighborhood and
its central location triggered a value chain of small entrepreneurs in the 2000s. As al-
ready described also in the previous chapter, the localized cosmopolitan entrepreneurs,
with the optimal mix of local and expat know-how, but otherwise inefficient operators
for large-scale developments, were the agile and flexible agents in the commercializa-
tion of the area. They capitalized on the growing heritage value of the buildings and
tapped into their upgrade potentials. (Fig. 4) The section “Localized Cosmopolitans and
the Developing of Le Passage Fuxing and Ferguson Lane” elaborates on how the lo-
calized cosmopolitans, expat and overseas Chinese entrepreneurs, took on opportuni-
ties offered by the existing urban loopholes, ranging from undervalued institutionally
owned heritage architecture to historic buildings with fragmented ownerships. De-
spite setting out with little ideological grounding and being largely market-motivated,
the bottom-up processes helped resolve the challenges of city center legacy conditions
and conserve otherwise decaying historic buildings.
Whereas bottom-up processes incrementally upgraded the neighborhood’s built
environment, top-down developments, premised on heritage conservation, have, in
effect, catalyzed and expedited commercialization. The fifth section “Conserving Heri-
tage: Lane 1754 (aka 1768) and Lane 117” offers two cases of top-down heritage conserva-
tion projects, which partially answer the question of whose heritage is conserved and
for whose benefits are the conservation efforts. The earlier case, the former Lane 1754,
was rebuilt in the early 2000 as a conservation pilot project atop demolished historic
homes. The compound houses some of the most important overseas Chinese returnee
investors as well as some prominent members of China’s leadership. In Lane 117, a

148
rewriting of history since 1949 reinforces the amnesia deemed necessary for contem-
porary progress. Heritage conservation became the urban loophole that enabled, in the
first case, land acquisition and residents’ relocation, resulting in the physical erasure
of a historic compound, and in the second, the virtual erasure of the compound’s his-
tory. Both cases are entwined with the role of the state not only as arbiter of policy but
also as privileged occupant.
As a non-Shanghainese real estate agent promoting Wukang Lu enthused, “this
was where the foreigners, the wealthy merchants and intellectuals once lived,” ascrib-
ing the street’s contemporary real estate value to the popular understanding of history
today.14 Even though the prestigious cultural history of the street seems to have gar-
nered its recognition and protection, what has preserved the street over the decades
are the number of important party leaders who lived and live in the vicinity. Since the
founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), high-ranking CCP elites lived next
to the notable intellectuals in the neighborhood. One of Mao’s ex-wives, whose name
the young real estate agent had difficulty recalling, lived in the house whose large
black gates hardly opened.15 Since economic liberalization, Wukang Lu is again where
the new elites of today live, preferring the neighborhood’s modern era buildings and
pedestrian-friendly streetscape. With soaring real estate prices, the state still retains
half the street. It is, as the types of occupants in Lanes 1754 and 117 attest, the alliance
between power and money converging on the heritage value of the neighborhood that
sustains the mutual long-term benefits of both.
The sixth section, “The “Western’ District and Learning from the ‘Beautification
Plan’,” returns to the conservation plan’s development in the late 2000s, showing the
increasingly fluid role academia as bureaucracy played in conservation implementa-
tion. The academics-cum-bureaucrats pushed heritage conservation to extend beyond
the building to the scale of the neighborhood in the mid-2000s. The municipality desig-
nated approximately one-third of pre-1980s Shanghai, around 27 square kilometers, for
conservation.16 Shanghai’s new motto, “building new is development, conserving and
upgrading the old is also development [开发新建是发展，保护改造也是发展],” asserted
the city’s rediscovered worldly sophistication in its recognition of cultural heritage.17
It was a marked departure from the heralding of “changes every year, transformations
every three years [一年一个样，三年大变样],” imparted by Deng’s Southern Tour, only a
decade earlier. The 1990s slogan had encouraged the fundamental urban restructuring
in the first decade of accelerated economic liberalization, devoted to economic prog-
ress through sheer destruction and reconstruction. In contrast, the city’s 2000s slogan
proclaimed the shift from hardnosed economic growth to an increasing emphasis on
harnessing the city’s unique cultural appeal, part of a strategic turn to the value-add-
ed knowledge-based sectors. The opening of the World Expo in 2010 further compelled
Shanghai to showcase itself as China’s trailblazer for heritage conservation. Shanghai’s
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

27 square kilometers of conserved city center area, compared to Beijing’s 13 square

kilometers and Tianjin’s 9.5 square kilometers,18 demonstrated the city’s “historical
approach to urban regeneration”19 to the world.
Areas especially in the former French Concession’s ‘Western District [西区]’ that
were largely spared developmental destruction, partly because the modernity of their
architecture could still accommodate contemporary functions, and largely because
of their occupation by old and new elites, became especially prized for their cultur-

149
 al value. It was on Wukang Lu that municipal-level planning policies for conserva-
tion were piloted, colliding with the entrepreneurial developments already underway.
Academics, earlier critics of rash demolition and advocats for heritage conservation,
would over time become increasingly enfolded into the bureaucratic structures of im-
plementation. Their conceptual basis for heritage conservation, based on the historic
research of urban planning administration, justified the demographic upgrade that
conservation implementation inherently promotes. Policies drawn up create condi-
tions for urban loopholes of exceptions, in favor of top-down interventions, should the
need arise.
The aftermath of the implementation of the Cultural Street is shown in the sev-
enth section, “The World Primary School and the Small Entrepreneurs.” Since becom-
ing a designated heritage area, the neighborhood around Wukang Lu has accelerated
its commercialization. The coincidence of programmatic upgrade, specifically a com-
mercialization catering to elite and transnational consumers, with the growing au-
thority of the state in the conservation project, seems at once to be deliberate and
choreographed. The local state has been increasingly interested in participating in the
heritage reproduction-cum-commercialization industry by appropriating the instru-
ments originally deployed by small entrepreneurs. Yet rifts between interest groups
highlight the ad hoc nature of the changing urban spatial production, and the possibil-
ities for countering the threat of homogenization under state hegemony.

From First Recognitions of

Architectural Heritage to Implementation
Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, the notion of heritage was antithetical to the
Chinese political ideology, culminating in the Cultural Revolution’s fervor for the abo-
lition of all reminders of the old, traditional, and capitalist ways. The consequences of
this were particularly felt in Shanghai. For a city that had distilled imported ideas and
forms from the West, reminders of Shanghai’s Concession era past, which dominated
both the skyline and everyday life, were demonstrably detested after China’s ‘Liber-
ation [解放]’ in 1949 by the CCP.20 Western-style buildings, stylistically ranging from
neoclassical to Tudor, represented the lingering habits of a city that rose to prominence
as a global special economic zone of its time, its commercial growth having fed on the
frailties of a declining China.21 The buildings along the Bund [外滩], in particular, the
riverfront financial district that had been the Asian base for numerous multinational
banks, trading houses, insurance companies, and press clubs, were especially consid-
ered the scourge of China’s foreign domination. (Fig. 5) It did not help that the location-
al proximity to the wharf carried memories of the opium trade, which first propelled
the city to flourish while its products were attributed to the fall of the weakening na-
tion. After 1949, the central government funneled revenues to Beijing, redistributing
the bulk of Shanghai’s earnings for inland development, while deliberately neglecting
infrastructural investment and housing construction in Shanghai.22
After the foreign owners and tenants of the Bund were purged from the country in
1949, plans for the demolition of the buildings were tabled by the early 1950s. Had it

150
Fig. 5 Elevation of the Bund

not been for the lack of capital to finance new construction, the representative archi-
tecture of the Bund would have been destroyed in its entirety. It was only because of
post-war shortages in resources and space, which made new construction unfeasible,
that the Bund buildings remained. The reuse of the old buildings was unavoidable, if
ideologically defective. The municipal bureaucracy, state institutions, and state-owned
enterprises divvied up some of the buildings. The former HSBC building, for example,
became home to the Shanghai municipal government and the CCP committee. Com-
mercial use, for which the buildings were designed, dwindled under the implementa-
tion of the centrally planned economy. Buildings originally built for non-residential
purposes also were used to house the overcrowded urban population.
While commercial buildings were filled with residents in Shanghai’s modern era
business district, government institutions took over and transformed selected resi-
dential buildings in the western end of the former Concessions to serve as their office
spaces. The takeovers were interspersed between largely residential neighborhoods,
often in buildings abandoned by former residents in the mass exodus before 1949. The
turmoil of the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, rendered further chaos to these
and surrounding residential buildings, degrading much of the already overcrowded
and over-strained existing structures.23 It was only at the end of the 1970s, with the
death of China’s political leader Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution,
that a resumption of construction brought relief to Shanghai families who had the
privilege of moving to what little new housing was being erected.
Until the 1970s, little if any public acknowledgment of the Concession-era archi-
tecture and urban fabric was made, and if there were private sentiments valuing the
large number of modern era buildings, none were or could be publicly expressed. For
one, in the decades of political purges and exiles, no one had the time to think about
architecture and its representations. When normality resumed, no one dared yet to
mention artifacts that remained from Shanghai’s tainted past. A tourist map from the
early 1980s highlighted places like the traditional Yu Garden at the center of the Chi-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

nese walled city, the zoo, and the parks, but no mention of the Bund or the residential
architecture of the former Concessions was made.24 Only slowly would the cultural
relevance of Shanghai’s historic legacy, represented by its modern era building stock,
return to the forefront.
In 1982, the Chinese government’s chief administrative body State Council [国务院]
listed the first 24 cities in China to be considered Renowned National Historic Cultural Cit-
ies [国家历史文化名城].25 The motivation behind the creation of this list came from the im-

151
 mense destruction to irreplaceable historic artifacts that took place during the Cultural
Revolution, which ravaged the country between 1967 and 1976. Most of the first batch of
cities to be chosen have been important in China’s long pre-modern histories. Shanghai,
which became important only since the mid-1800s, was not included in this list. When,
in 1984, the municipal Department for Culture [文化部] together with the Department
of Urban and Rural Development and Environment Protection [城乡建设环境保护部]
applied to the State Council for Shanghai to be included in the second batch of cities
to be chosen, the applicants argued that the city bore great meaning for the proletari-
an revolution. Not only was the CCP founded in Shanghai, both the second and fourth
CCP summits were held in the city. Shanghai also gave rise to other revolutionary
events such as the Small Swords Society Uprisings [小刀会起义] of 1853 and the May
Fourth Movement [五四运动] of 1919, all of which were crucial precursors to the great
proletariat revolution that brought ‘Liberation’ to the nation.26 Even though Shanghai
was historically insignificant before the mid-1800s, Shanghai’s claim for its modern
era contributions to the nation’s grand narrative succeeded. In 1986, the State Council
approved the listing of the municipality of Shanghai as one of the Renowned National
Historic Cultural Cities, including it in the roster of the 38 new cities approved for the
second batch.27
The year before, in 1985, when a new thoroughfare along the Bund was under con-
struction, the effort made to preserve a former guild hall built by Fuzhou merchants,
physically shifting the Sanshan Guild Hall [三山会馆] 30 meters to make space for the
new road, was remarkable for its time.28 The building was the location of one of the
first proletarian uprisings against capitalist oppressors. Its bloody putdown represent-
ed the proletarian values’ struggle against imperial oppression.29 Because the 1909
constructed traditional house held a sacred place in the history of CCP, it was induct-
ed as one of Shanghai’s municipal-level ’protected cultural relics [文物保护单位]’ in May
1959 for being a monument from China’s revolutionary history.30 In 1989, it became
listed as a site of revolutionary significance. It was clear that, not too distant from
the Cultural Revolution and still nascent in the transition to market economics, the
ideological basis for sites chosen as worthy of protection remained strongly linked to
politics. Sites of political significance remained protected, even in the face of infra-
structure construction that would form the basis of economic development.
In October 1986, a conference on the research of Chinese modern era architectur-
al history was held in Beijing, initiating an annual meeting of architectural historians
from all over the country.31 A report written the year before by academics to the lead-
ership at Qinghua University [清华大学], the nation’s premiere academic institution,
known also as the training ground for party leadership, had implored that, “for the
development of Chinese modern architecture today, for Chinese architecture’s future
[为了中国现代建筑今天的发展，为了中国建筑的未来]” further research must be done to
“correctly know and value the history of Chinese modern era architecture [正确认识和评
价中国近代建筑的历史].”32 With these proclamations, a resurgence of intellectual atten-
tion to the recent historic legacies of the built environment was gaining momentum.
Beyond academia, a revived interest in the legacy of pre-1949 Chinese history was
also starting to take shape. In the mid-1980s, media from Hong Kong, which was a Brit-
ish colony, had an important impact on turning the popular gaze back onto pre-Liber-
ation history, particularly in places like Shanghai that represented the heyday of the

152
Figs. 6, 7 TV show Shanghai Tan [上海滩], left; and the historic image of Bund, right

modern era. The effect of mass media also needs to be contextualized in the socio-eco-
nomic transformations taking place at the beginning of economic liberalization in
mainland China: the first television sets were imported in the early 1980s. For the un-
til-then insulated Chinese audience, the then still single channel television program-
ming opened up to a new way to look at the world.33 Those who first had access to this
new medium, who were often coastal urbanites with overseas Chinese relatives who
could use their foreign currency to buy amenities—televisions, washing machines, re-
frigerators, and the like—were presented television dramas and historic soap operas
that showed a decadent and entertaining side to the past that had been censured since
the inception of the nation.34
In 1983, the first imported television serial to China, Huo Yuanjia [霍元甲], produced
in Hong Kong and centering on the story of the patriotic martial arts hero from the
turn of the 20th century, screened and became wildly popular. Two years later, anoth-
er period drama Shanghai Tan [上海滩], starring the Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat, took
place in the action-filled and decadent gangster world of pre-1949 Shanghai. (Figs. 6, 7)
Even though the setting was unrecognizable to those from the city itself, and the story
line had less to do with the specificities of Shanghai than the diaspora’s projections of
the city’s past, the serial nevertheless caused a stir. In contrast to the CCP depictions
of the pre-1949 capitalist metropolis that needed sanitizing, these dramatized narra-
tives of ‘old Shanghai [老上海]’—a term often used synonymously for pre-1949s Shang-
hai—carried a different moral, showing the city again as a space of consumption and
source of local identity.35
Whether influenced by the return of pop culture or not, on 10 November 1988,
nevertheless, the Department of National Development [国家建设部] and the Minis-
try of National Cultural Relics [国家文物局] jointly issued a document the Notice re-
garding Key Investigations into Protecting Excellent Modern Era Building [关于重点调查保护
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

优秀近代建筑物的通知] that crucially defined buildings built between 1840 and 1949 as
heritage.36 Under this national directive, cities all over the country began to look into
their modern era buildings to recommend them to be listed as national-level cultural
relics [文物].37
Shanghai would lead in the research. In December of the same year, the prominent
architecture and literary historian Chen Congzhou [陈从周] published the book Histo-
ry Of Shanghai Modern Era Architecture Manuscript [上海近代建筑史稿].38 The project of

153
 researching Shanghai’s modern era architecture had begun three decades earlier, in
1958, at the request of the central government’s Construction Ministry [建筑工程部]
and the Institute for Architecture Research [建筑科学研究院]. The original purpose for
the research was to contribute to a comprehensive compendium of Chinese architec-
tural history consisting of three parts, including pre-modern history [古代史], modern
era history [近代史], and the outcomes of the decade since the founding of the PRC
[建筑十年成就]. The compendium would have been completed, had it not been disrupt-
ed by the Cultural Revolution.39 Organized by architectural type and largely a cata-
logue of modern era buildings, Chen’s book was the first documentation of built works
from Shanghai. The book was clearly the product of much effort over numerous years,
in its gathering of historical photos and building plans, some of which had already
been demolished by the time the book was published. The importance of such a project
seems self-evident today. But at the time of its publication, the author only made a brief
comment about the reason for the research and the book’s relevance in the book’s pref-
ace, by giving an anecdote about the 1985 visit of the world-famous Chinese-American
architect I. M. Pei [贝聿铭].40 Chen recalled Pei’s arrival, with four French cameramen
in tow, in the city where he grew up, visiting many places that had already changed or
disappeared since his time.41 On finding out that Chen was putting together this book
on Shanghai’s modern era architecture, Pei applauded the endeavor as “infilling a big
void in the history of Chinese architecture [为中国建筑史不上了大空白].”42 The exchange,
as Chen recounted, “motivated us to have the courage to bring this volume to the read-
ers [促使我们有了勇气将它与读者见面].”43
It is imaginable and understandable that older scholars such as Chen, emerging out
of the academic purging of the decades before, would have been very careful in their
pronouncements of the relevance of their works. Especially given the pejorative rep-
resentation of Shanghai’s modern era and Western-influenced architectural repertoire
in the ideological narration of China’s modern history, the subtlety and indirectness of
the preface, together with the absence of a broader contextualization of the typologies
as emerging out of Shanghai’s industrialization, was astute. Content-wise though, the
building types used to organize the book: public, industrial, and residential architec-
ture, and their subcategories—public architecture, administrative offices, banks, de-
partment stores, hotels, churches, schools, museums, hospitals, sports buildings, and
transportation and communications buildings—showcase modernity’s architectur-
al manifestations. On the one hand, the editors had to be careful to be not too candid
about presenting the modern, and thus Western-influenced, architecture. On the other
hand, the very organization of building types for the book reflected a functional orga-
nization that came from the history of modern architecture.
Compared to the modest subtlety of the renowned Chinese senior scholar’s care-
fully written preface, an article written by a young PhD student by the name of Wu
Jiang [伍江] articulated more clearly and ambitiously the study of Shanghai’s modern
era architecture’s contemporary significance and relevance. The article, entitled “Look-
ing at Shanghai Bund’s Architecture through Context and Identity [从关联性与可识别性
看上海外滩建筑],” written under the supervision of the architecture historian Luo
Xiaowei [罗小未], also from Tongji University [同济大学], declared the importance of
the study of Shanghai’s modern era architecture: “studying the architecture of the
Bund, regardless if it is for research of China’s modern history, for the excavation and

154
protection of Shanghai’s modern era architectural heritage, or for the formulation of
Shanghai’s urban development strategies, holds a certain significance.”44 A summary
of his master’s thesis, the article intimated a growing framework for the research of
historic buildings, the assessment of their contemporary values and their potentials
for future urban developments. The clarity of the relationship between the past and the
future could not be missed, even if the consequential link was yet to be clearly estab-
lished. It would be a decade later that Wu’s work as a bureaucrat, administrator, and
academic would put the nascent conceptual framework for the historic study of mod-
ern era architecture into practice.
After a vacuum of nearly three decades, the revival of research and documenta-
tion of the city’s modern era architecture was also complemented by increasing cul-
tural and academic exchange, especially with scholars from Japan starting in the early
1980s, and then with those from Western Europe and North America. In the 1980s, Jap-
anese scholars, such as Shin Muramatsu [村松伸] from Tokyo University, introduced,
for the first time to China, the outside world’s interest in China’s modern era archi-
tecture. His dissertation, originally entitled History of Chinese Modern Era Architecture
[中国近代建筑史], brought him as visiting scholar to Qinghua University for more than
two years between 1981 and 1983.45 His and other Japanese scholars’ participation in
the ongoing discourse on the growing importance of research on modern era architec-
ture in China also brought first-hand experience about how to conceptualize the in-
fluence of Western architecture and hybrid architecture in the national discourses of
East Asian identity.46
From 1987 to 1988, Jeffrey W. Cody from Cornell University came to Shanghai
for his fieldwork research on the architecture of American architect Henry K. Mur-
phy, who worked extensively in Shanghai between 1914 and 1935.47 Ensuing scholars
from the West—often the small number of foreigners fluent in Mandarin at the time—
researched foreign architects’ influence on the building of Shanghai in the early
1900s.48 The exchanges, especially with scholars addressing similar ideological issues
including whether the ‘modern’ is necessarily ‘Western’ in the cities of East Asia and
the effects of hybridization of Western and East Asian elements in architecture and
culture,49 introduced conceptual frameworks and a cultural sensibility to the eager
local scholars of an opening China. The small academic network also provided import-
ant feedback to the work of the Shanghai researchers, especially in the context of the
economic liberalization that was reviving the interest in old commercial as well cul-
tural linkages.50
At the architectural scale, a proposal for a first selection list of ‘Excellent Mod-
ern Era Architecture [优秀近代建筑]’ requiring protection and conservation was made
in 1988. The selection list was influenced by the combination of the central govern-
ment-issued Notice Regarding Key Investigations into Protecting Excellent Modern Era
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Building for modern era architecture research in 1988, the growing number of academ-
ic publications concerning modern era architecture, and an expert panel convened
at the beginning of 1989, including the well-respected Western-trained architect Ben
Chen [陈植] and Professor Luo of Tongji.51
At the urban scale, the Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau, together with the
Urban Planning Department at Tongji University and the Cultural Relics Department
at the Shanghai Museum, initiated the Conservation Plan for Shanghai Historic Cultural

155
Fig. 8 The Conservation Plan for Shanghai Historic Cultural Renowned City [上海市历史文化名城保护规划], 1991

156
Renowned City [上海市历史文化名城保护规划] in 1991. The drawings of the Conservation
Plan set forth eleven areas deemed important for further conservation efforts. These
were submitted to the municipal government in the beginning of 1992. (Fig. 8) The ar-
eas around the Bund and the old Chinese city were further given to Tongji University
to be developed into detailed control plans.
In December 1991, the Shanghai municipal government issued the Measures for the
Conservation and Management of Shanghai’s Excellent Modern Era Architecture [上海市
优秀近代建筑保护管理办法], China’s first decree by a local government on the conser-
vation of modern era architecture.52 Defining what qualified as ‘Excellent Modern Era
Architecture’ included the basic criteria of the building’s architectural historical value,
its artistic value, or its scientific and technical value. The capacity for reflecting Shang-
hai’s character was also important for the valuation.53 The Measures of Conservation
and Management also defined the shared responsibility of the planning, the real estate
and the cultural management agencies of the municipality to implement conservation.
The Cultural Management Bureau would be responsible for the two classes of archi-
tecture: the national-level Cultural Relics [国家重点文物], and the municipal-level Cul-
tural Relics [市级文物]. The Real Estate Bureau would be responsible for the third class
of architecture considered “Conserved Architecture [保护建筑].” The Planning Bureau
would be responsible for the planning of the conservation.54 In addition to restricting
physical changes to façades as well as the interior of the buildings, the regulation also
stipulated that changes in building function must undergo approval by the respective
responsible bureau.55 In 1991, 61 units were named Excellent Modern Era Architec-
ture. On 1 January 1992, the Measures were implemented. In 1999, 176 more units were
named as Excellent Modern Era Architecture, and 162 in 2000.
Despite the growing number of buildings undergoing gazetting, rapid economic
development was propelling urban restructuring. Shanghai’s designation as the ‘Drag-
on’s Head’ in 1992 was followed by the accelerated development of Pudong’s Lujiazui
[陆家嘴] Financial District. As the push came to complete the first subway line, reloca-
tion of existing residents took place on a massive scale in Pudong to clear land for de-
velopment.56 At the time Wu Jiang, under Luo Xiaowei, was continuing his research of
Shanghai’s modern era architecture for his dissertation. Local residents contacted the
lecturers at Tongji and told them of the impending demolition of a large multi-court-
yard house that was known as the former Chen Residence [陈宅], named after its for-
mer owner, a merchant by the name of Chen Guichun [陈桂春]. With red and grey brick
construction, the compound was finished in the late 1910s, and by the 1990s, it had, like
many old buildings in Shanghai, gone through the tribulations of Japanese occupation,
the Chinese Civil War as well as the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.57 More than
a dozen families subdivided the bays of the house with three courtyards, which was
originally built for one multi-generation family. The hybridity of the architectural ele-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

ments, a mix of Western and local motifs in the residence, nevertheless, had impressed
the scholars who were studying the building as part of their fieldwork on modern era
architectural heritage.58 The building, despite its unique representation of Shanghai’s
cultural fusion, was not on the gazetted list.
Located in the middle of Lujiazui’s financial district, the area around the Chen Res-
idence was planned for development, and demolition was already underway when the
academics arrived on the scene in response to the residents’ call for help.59 Authorities

157
 in the early 1990s were eager to jump on the bandwagon of economic development,
pronounced at last for the long economically suppressed Shanghai. The old residenc-
es, falling apart, represented precisely the kind of backwardness that came with the
imposed poverty of an isolated economy. Few had an inkling of the kind of cultural
and ideological value that would, only half a decade later, come to be attached to his-
toric buildings. Even fewer in the position of authority could halt the advancement of
developmental progress, which was represented by the impending new construction.
With little to resort to except personal connections, the academics at the univer-
sity contacted friends in the media in the effort to stop the Chen Residence’s demoli-
tion. One of the senior academics in the group, known for his studies of vernacular ar-
chitecture, Lu Bingjie [路秉杰], voiced his concerns about the destruction to the local
newspapers. But it was coverage on the evening program News Perspective [新闻透视],
a popular and influential television show that combined culturally oriented newscast
with local commentary, which left an impression.60 The show put on view Wu and col-
leagues confronting an advancing bulldozer, dramatically halting its onslaught in the
midst of crumbling rubble from the one-third of the compound around one courtyard
already demolished.61 The activism of the academics in reaching the public through
the media worked. The destruction of the former Chen Residence stopped. The remain-
ing bays of the courtyard house were saved.
In 1994, the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower, regarded today as the icon for Shang-
hai, was completed. It is situated a block northwest from the remaining parts of the
former Chen residence. The Residence, also poetically named the “Little House of Ying-
chuan [颖川小筑],” after the origin of one of the largest of the Chen clans, was also ren-
ovated, at the cost of more than one million R MB .62 Three years later, in 1997, the Little
House of Yingchuan officially re-opened as the Lujiazui Development Exhibition Hall
[陆家嘴开发陈列室]. In 2010, the structure became the memorial to the modern era art-
ist Wu Changshuo [吳昌碩].
The one-story house nestled amidst the growing stock of commercial high-rises is
today displayed as an exemplary of the hybrid-style vernacular architecture of the re-
gion around Shanghai.63 Through the dramatic event of saving the historic building, the
academics stood out as members of intelligentsia resisting the economic imperatives
for development. As poster children for the conservation cause, the success of their an-
tics not only became the stuff of urban legends, but also showed a way that pragmatic
alternatives, rather than protest alone, affected success. The boycotting of the demoli-
tion site in Lujiazui and the public outcry it generated brought the Administration for
Cultural Relics to the academics. The Administration asked the scholars for propos-
als for conservation.64 From two scenarios offered by the academics, one of which re-
quired the integration of the historic building in the ensuing building development, the
Pudong district authorities made the decision to convert the historic buildings into a
memorial,65 marking a significant turning point for the confrontation between devel-
opment and conservation. The plot occupied by the Chen Residence would also, by 1998,
be designated as a green space according to the masterplan for the Lujiazui Financial
District.66
The saving of the Chen Residence is often referenced as the pioneer moment in the
tussle to affect change in both the understanding of architectural heritage and the im-
plementation of conservation in Shanghai.67 It was the first move towards reconciling

158
what Alois Riegl, the art and architecture historian who first dissected the modern “cult
of the monument,” set out as the contradictory values of “use value [Gebrauchswert]”
and “historical value [historisches Wert] in heritage conservation.”68 The recouping of
the Chen Residence’s ‘historical value’ through its reuse as a public building generated
the building’s contemporary ‘use value,’ and made possible its survival under devel-
opmentalist pressures.
In 1997, Wu Jiang’s dissertation, entitled A History of Shanghai’s Century of Architec-
ture 1840–1949 [上海百年建筑史 1840–1949], would be published as a book. Chen Cong-
zhou’s earlier History of Shanghai Modern Era Architecture Manuscript catalogued Shang-
hai’s buildings. In contrast, Wu’s book, in “trying to enter from political, economic,
social and cultural aspects of the city [试图从政治，经济，社会，文化等方面入手],”69 lo-
cated the architecture and urban development in the context of the larger develop-
ment of Shanghai’s urban culture. With economic and demographic statistics, as well
as historical narratives integrated to form a more holistic image of Shanghai’s spatial
formation, it was not a neutral study of styles and materials, as previous volumes had
largely and timidly been. The book posited that cultural exchanges and socio-econom-
ic flows also informed the resultant spatial products. Through analysis of the city’s spa-
tial formation, the book also analyzed and clarified China’s modernization process and
cultural evolution.70 The role of design and space thus were thrust into the limelight
in order to better understand the historic and contemporary developments of the city,
and, on a larger scale, of the country at large.
In 1997, the Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau would also, after six years of de-
velopment, publish the Conservation Plan for Renowned Historic Cultural City Shanghai
[上海市历史文化名城保护规划]. Even though the small contingent of academics man-
aged to save the remnants of one small residential compound in Pudong, and helped
draw up plans for Shanghai’s modern era architectural heritage, larger swaths of city
center districts continued undergoing rapid demolition and redevelopment. Fueled by
fiscal decentralization and the marketization of land and housing, and to expedite the
clearance of what was determined in 1992 to be the 365 hectares of inadequate housing,
the “365 Plan,” as the project was colloquially known,71 would execute demolition, re-
location and construction on an unprecedented scale, and with unprecedented speed.
The same municipality overseeing the rolling out of the 1997 Conservation Plan
was simultaneously incentivizing demolition and redevelopment projects en masse.
The devolution of authority to the district governments had forced them to grapple
with their new fiscal autonomy. Land leases for large-scale real estate development,
as means to secure fiscal autonomy, encouraged the demolition and redevelopment
projects that were antithetical to the heritage conservation efforts. Already, when the
Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau was drawing up the 1991 Conservation Measures,
the State Council issued a Document 78,72 which according to one scathing critique,
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

“inaugurated China’s era of demolition and relocation [自此开创了中国的拆迁时代].”73

Land leases signed in the mid-1990s, when prices were deemed low, were further en-
couraged with policy incentives for the district governments.74 The seeming incon-
gruence of policies issued simultaneously showed the inadvertent inconsistencies and
internal contradictions resulting from rapid transition. Only the 1997 Asian Finan-
cial Crisis slowed the until-then growing foreign investment, halting the cash inflow
that had largely come from diaspora business networks, which invested in real estate

159
 developments. The economic slowdown only allowed the larger developers, who had
already procured themselves land leases, to bide their time until the market picked
up again.
Nevertheless, protecting modern era architecture was also taking on increasingly
developmentalist approaches. Saving the former Chen Residence in order to reuse it as
an exhibition space served as a lesson. Ensuing projects tried to test how historic archi-
tecture could also take on contemporary uses, reconciling the Rieglian ‘use value’ and
‘historic value,’ and making their preservation economically feasible. In 1998, under the
auspices of the then deputy secretary of the Shanghai CCP, Duolun Lu in the Hongkou
District, with its more than two dozen homes that once belonged to renowned Shang-
hailanders between the 1930s and 1940s, was established as the first pilot for a ‘Street of
Cultural Prominents [文化名人街].’75 As the surrounding areas were being swiftly razed,
Duolun Lu’s upgrade only further disassociated the street from the kind of authenticity
that the restoration project was trying to evoke. The Shanghai municipal party secre-
tary intended for the ‘Street of Cultural Prominents’ to enhance urban tourism.76 The
resurfacing of the pedestrian street with cobblestone and the installation of bronze
sculptures of famous former residents dressed in 1930s robes transformed the residen-
tial neighborhood into a leisure destination. The commercialization of the ground floor
spaces catered to impending tourists, selling knickknacks and souvenirs. The inser-
tion of calligraphy shops, antique stores and a cinema specializing in modern era films,
starkly contrasted to and alienated the residents who remained in the overcrowded his-
toric lilong housing that served as the backdrop to this Cultural Street.
A study of the area by a Tongji University team under Luo made recommendations
for the area’s conservation, and proposed a zone of intensified new developments that
integrated with the neighborhood’s historic character.77 During the study, issues arose
regarding how to define buildings as worthy of conservation.78 The discrepancy be-
tween new built volumes that the academics proposed and what the District officials
saw as needed, together with the difficulty of relocating residents, resulted in a new
detailed plan that largely overrode the more incremental and smaller-scaled develop-
ments proposed by the academic team.79 (Figs. 9, 10)
As an article from 2011 continued to lament, limited funding could only be spent on
a street-front upgrade and could not intervene in the multi-tenanted lilong structures
that were also part of the heritage ensemble, causing the high-end cultural heritage to
be mixed with slum dwellings.80 Despite additional investments by a private devel-
oper a few years later, the legacy conditions where slum dwellings existed precisely
inside the cultural objects to be protected persisted in hindering the planned success
of the enterprise.81
The committee commissioned to research the upgrade of Duolun Lu also included
Zheng Shiling [郑时龄], the architectural historian, and then Vice President of Tongji
University. One year after the implementation of Duolun Lu Cultural Street, he published
the 400-some page tome, Shanghai Modern Era Architecture Style [上海近代建筑风格],
in 1999.82 The book further reinforced the growing prominence of modern era historic
architecture, as well as the nascent understanding of heritage’s value to tourism. With
a foreword by Luo and a chapter written by Wu Jiang, the book was an expansive vol-
ume with plans and photos of Shanghai’s modern era architecture contextualized in
the historic development of the city.

160
Figs. 9, 10 Proposed concept plan by the Tongji researchers for Duolun Lu, left; and concept plan by the District
authorities, right

In March 1999, the research branch of the Shanghai Municipal Planning Institute
completed the document The Basic Research on the Relationship of Conservation and De-
velopment in Shanghai Historic Cultural Prominent City [上海市历史文化名城保护与发展关
系基础研究].83 This document set forth the conflicts between developmental impulse
and that for conservation planning, and outlined the institutional means for imple-
menting conservation measures.
At the end of 1999, the municipality approved the The Shanghai City Center Historic
Style and Features Conservation Plan (for Historic Architecture and Neighborhoods) [上海市
中心区历史风貌保护规划（历史建筑与街区）], drawn up by the Shanghai Municipal Plan-
ning Bureau. The plan determined 234 sub-neighborhoods, 440 historic architectural
ensembles and some 10 million square meters of protected architecture. It was the first
time that the word, pronounced fengmao [风貌], was presented. Fengmao is a difficult
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

to translate word that is a shortened form of the two words ‘fengge [风格],’ or ‘fengcai
[风采],’ meaning ‘style,’ and ‘mianmao [面貌],’ or ‘rongmao [容貌],’ meaning ‘feature.’84
Literally translated, ‘fengmao’ means ‘stylistic form.’85 It is a word used in historic lit-
erature from the earlier dynasties describing the essence or vibe given off by the ap-
pearance of a person. More recently, it is used also to describe the ambiance given off
by the built environment. The physicality of a building, in its materiality and massing,
lends itself to the kind of character of a space. Together with the word ‘history [历史],’

161
 ‘historic fengmao [历史风貌],’ would become the object of pursuit for conservation pro-
ponents.86 More than anything, it is the appearance that is prioritized in the quest for
this historical fengmao.
With the ensuing developments, the importance of emphasizing the outward ap-
pearance of the historic fengmao, rather than the often messy and difficult interior
contents would prevail. Especially in the impending conflict between development—
urban restructuring was fundamental to successful economic liberalization—and con-
servation, between new and old, the economic viability and profitability of heritage
conservation would be relegated to that of the fengmao. Not only would fengmao be
essential to the contemporary reconstruction and re-narration of the selected ideals of
history, but its conservation would create urban loopholes of exceptions, feeding well
into niche new development projects.

Setting the Context for

Heritage Policy Implementation
When the “365 Plan” was completed in 2000, vast swaths of Shanghai’s urban center,
totaling 365 hectares, were cleared. Twenty-seven million square meters of old hous-
ing—graded two or below for being substandard according to the “365 Plan”—was de-
molished and 640,000 households were relocated.87 One billion square meters of new
housing was constructed. As the clearance of old urban fabric accelerated, heritage
advocates also became more vocal. The very notion of heritage as important to Shang-
hai’s cultural identity was also gaining traction through the popular media.
In 1998, a book Shanghai Memorabilia, which would be literally translated into
“Shanghai’s Wind, Flowers, Snow, and Moon [上海的风花雪月],” by the author Chen
Danyan [陈丹燕], came out.88 The collection of essays reimagined the lives of Shang-
hai’s famous cultural personalities from the modern era, and intertwined their stories
with the author’s personal memories of the places they frequented, set to the ambiance
of the decaying modern era architecture. Through the lens of the city’s re-opening in
the 1990s, they reflected on Shanghai’s modern era heyday.89 Two years later another
book by Chen, Shanghai Beauty [上海的红颜遗事], also came out.90 The book was set in
the few blocks within walking radius of Wukang Lu and was centered on the disin-
tegration of life during the Cultural Revolution for its title character, an unfortunate
progeny of the pre-1949 elite. Although largely fictional, Chen described a pre-1949 life
of freedom and glamour that contrasted to a punishingly ascetic one from the late
1960s, magnifying the story’s tragic ending. In both books, transformations of the city
and its spaces were as much part of the narrative as the socio-economic changes that
took place.
Set against the urban demolitions that were rapidly erasing the places in the city,
Chen’s writings in the ensuing years would come to mark her as a “pursuer of Shang-
hai’s memories [上海记忆的追寻者],”91 leading a trend of nostalgia literature that began
to pour out of Shanghai in the early 2000s. Writers like Wang Anyi [王安忆] and Cheng
Naishan [程乃姗], who conjured up stories set in the historic city center neighborhoods,
became extremely popular.92 The role of the built environment, in the intricacies of

162
Fig. 11 Iconic shot of the commercial success of Xintiandi as development, 2013

the spaces and the finesse of details, not only served as the backdrop to reminisces of
a bygone past, but also reminded their contemporary audience of the possibilities of
a renaissance.
A growing popular awareness of the rapidly disappearing historic built fabric’s
cultural value and the appreciation for its modern era identity coincided with the
realization of a project called Xintiandi [新天地] that opened in 2001. Its name literal-
ly translated to ‘New Heaven and Earth,’ Xintiandi is a redevelopment of a shikumen
lilong housing area into a high-end commercial and entertainment hub.93 It is part of
the larger Taipingqiao [太平桥] Area development that the Hong Kong development
company Shui On [瑞安] undertook. Its financial and popular success made it a prom-
inent precedent for ensuing developments that reused historical residential buildings
for commercial programming.94 Xintiandi’s development model not only ensured the
physical survival of historic architecture that was otherwise outdated in its contem-
porary use. The project also repackaged just the kinds of ambiances, which authors
like Chen, Wang, and their fellow “pursuers of Shanghai’s memories” touted in their
outpours on Shanghai’s cosmopolitan past. The Xintiandi project refurbished precise-
ly the vernacular buildings, whose red and grey brick patina set the tone for Shang-
hai’s “Wind, Flower, Snow, and Moon,” and which would yield their still under-evalu-
ated commercial value.
The international know-how that the Xintiandi developer engaged, in the selec-
tion of designers and tenants, and the capital investment made, both to design and
curation, made the Xintiandi development fundamentally different from that of the
resource-poor and curation-inexperienced project of the Duolun Lu project. In Xintian-
di, fashion stores like Shanghai Tang peddled revivalist looks that not only drew on
the fashion of old Shanghai, but amplified its evocation of an exotic Orient.95 Shang-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

hai Tang has the same name as the 1980s Hong Kong T V serial, which was set in
1920s Shanghai and disseminated in the diaspora Chinese communities of Southeast
Asia, showcasing the decadence of Shanghai’s historic modern era. The first Starbucks
and Paulaner Brewhouses also clustered into Xintiandi’s grey brick shikumen houses,
which had been gutted of their interiors and their facades reconstructed. (Fig. 11) Spa-
tial provision met the growing demands of an increasingly internationalizing Shang-
hai. Transnational workers and increasingly affluent locals, who demanded spaces of

163
 consumption that did not exist before, saw, in the charm of the newly conserved his-
toric architecture, a kind of redemption for economic transition and modernization’s
rapid destruction of large parts of the city. As sociologist Ren Xuefei wrote in her anal-
ysis of Xintiandi: “when cities become more homogeneous with global flows, local
cultural differences become rare commodities sought after by mobile global consum-
erist elites.”96
Before the Xintiandi project by the then little-known Hong Kong developer Shui
On, most local investors chose to capitalize in new districts, where enviably large tabu-
la rasa sites were slated for exponential growth. With the slowdown of internation-
al investment in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Shui On’s development strategy for
its large area of leased land shifted from developing high-end housing to develop-
ing a first-phase showcase project. Redeveloping historic buildings with commercial
programs became this showcase project.97 The vision of the American architect en-
gaged, Ben Wood, who had worked on the Faneuil Hall project in Boston, was attribut-
ed to the innovation of rethinking existing development modes and capitalizing on
the yet untapped commercial potential of shikumen houses.98 But it was the enterpris-
ing foresight of the developer Shui On, and the openness of the Luwan [卢湾] district
government that leased the land for development, which came together to realize the
conversion project. Xintiandi brought the limelight back to the former Concession ter-
ritories in Shanghai’s city center, and drew attention to the run-down, over-crowded,
and to-be-demolished historic urban fabric. The Xintiandi success in Shanghai soon
spurred on a Xintiandi trend in cities in the nation. City governments in China con-
tinue to request the conversion of historic buildings into elite commercial districts in
the Xintiandi mode.
A 2001 article by Wu Jiang, by then deputy dean at the school of architecture at
Tongji University for three years, commended the development of Xintiandi as an ex-
ample for modernization without the loss of historic context and identity.99 Linking
the use of historic architecture in Xintiandi to the acclaim garnered for the saving
of the Chen Residence, the injection of new functions into old architecture as a new
mode of development for old neighborhoods was praised as a successful realization
of reuse of historic buildings.100 Luo Xiaowei’s book, Shanghai Xintiandi: a Study of the
Architectural History, Socio-cultural History and Development Mode of an Urban Upgrade
[上海新天地 旧区改造的建筑历史、人文历史与开发模式的研究 ], published in 2002 would
hail the Xintiandi development as the model for heritage conservation.101 As the au-
thoritative voice of Luo concluded, “from the perspective of conserving fengmao, Xin-
tiandi is successful [从风貌保护来说，新天地广场是成功的].”102 Fengmao, exemplified by
the Xintiandi conservation, was confirmed by an expert to be the exterior form. Feng-
mao thus also became a concept that could be used to displace the original occupants
in order to save valued architectural form.
The expert lauding of Xintiandi solidified the academic stance that successful con-
servation projects had to be economically viable as well as aesthetically appropriate.
The conservation of physical structures, even if at the cost of socio-economic content,
was the priority in the era of rapid demolition. A prominent proponent of conservation
and also professor at Tongji University, Ruan Yisan [阮仪三], reinforced this framework
for heritage conservation.103 He emphasized heritage conservation’s significance to
the Shanghai’s rising international status, and made explicit that the investment cap-

164
Figs. 12, 13, 14 Plaques for heritage recognition, as given by the municipality, left; the District’s cultural bureau, center and right

ital, which the conserved area could generate, was an embedded resource in the con-
text of rapid economic development.104
In the Xintiandi development, it is notable that Tongji University’s Design Insti-
tute was a key partner. Through the process from design to construction the partic-
ipants from the university-affiliated practice would gain a lot of the know-how for
the execution of conservation from the foreign partners involved.105 The exchange,
between academia and practice, between concept and implementation, would con-
tinue to evolve.
A book by Beijing journalist Wang Jun [王军], Beijing Record, which has the title of
“City Record [城记]” in Chinese, further intoned a necessary intervention in the built en-
vironment for economic development of the early 2000s in China.106 The New York Re-
view of Books critic, Ian Johnson, compared Beijing Record’s depiction of the violence
caused by the destruction and renewal of the Chinese cities since 1949, to America
urbanist Jane Jacobs’ seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities,107 in
critiquing the prevalent mode of development. Beijing Record was extremely popular
with Chinese urbanites who were, at the moment of publication, encountering the very
demolition-and-reconstruction projects described by the book, expedited by economic
liberalization. The book’s extensive interviews with experts, who offered commentary
on and evidence of the demolition processes, interspersed within a collation of his-
toric documents from the archives, formed an accessible narrative of the historic and
contemporary conflicts for “Preservation versus Demolition,” the English title of the
first chapter.108 The political symbolism of its spatial production through destruction,
at unprecedented scales and speeds, hit a timely nerve in the public consciousness.
The quick-learning authorities seemed to readily grasp the book’s arguments. In
October 2002, the central government issued a law protecting ‘Untouchable Cultural
Relics [不可移动文物].’109 Of these, 635 were from Shanghai. (Figs. 12, 13, 14) In Febru-
ary 2003, Professor Wu became the deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Urban
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Planning Bureau. It would be under Wu, whose earlier research surveyed and recorded
much of the city’s modern era architecture, that the Shanghai municipal government
approved the Regulations of the Shanghai Municipality on the Conservation of the Districts
with Historical Cultural Fengmao and Excellent Historical Architecture [上海市历史文化风
貌区和优秀历史建筑保护条例] and implemented it beginning of 2003.110
Before the 2003 Regulations, preservation of what was deemed to be valuable and
important historic architecture and spaces lacked legal basis.111 The 2003 Regulations,

165
 crucially, established the legal framework for defining ‘Excellent Historic Architecture
[优秀历史建筑],’ and also, beyond the architecture scale, that of the ‘Historic Cultural
Fengmao Districts [历史文化风貌区].’ Since the saving of the Chen Residence, this was
seen by the conservation proponents as a milestone for heritage development, not only
for Shanghai, but also setting the example for the country.
The seriousness for conservation implementation was confirmed through the lev-
el of authorities involved: the municipal government established the Committee for
Conservation [上海市保护委员会], which is chaired by a deputy mayor and co-managed
by the Ministry of Land Resource [市规土局], the Housing Ministry [市房管局] and the
Committee for Cultural Management [市文管委] to oversee the execution of the con-
servation plans.112
Prior to the 2003 Regulations district-level planning bureau approval sufficed in
decisions regarding land leases, often leading to demolitions and reconstructions. In
1994, for example, a building in the Historic Architecture register was demolished. Un-
der the 2003 Regulations, demolition was forbidden in the Historic and Cultural Feng-
mao Districts. Every new construction is required to pass through the municipal Urban
Planning Bureau and undergo review by a panel of experts.
For the conservation of Excellent Historic Architecture, the 2003 Regulations as-
signed the duty of maintenance to the district department under which the buildings
were managed, while tenants and owners were also held accountable for abiding by
the decrees of conservation.113 The required authorities must approve all function as
well as interior changes. According to the 2003 Regulations, buildings categorized as
Excellent Historic Architecture were part of a municipal dossier, set up to archive their
use and upkeep.114
Notably, the term ‘Excellent Modern Era Architecture [优秀近代建筑]’ also changed
to ‘Excellent Historic Architecture [优秀历史建筑]’ in the 2003 Regulations. The change
in terminology seemed to put an end to doubts whether ‘modern era architecture,’
which constitutes most of Shanghai’s historic architecture, should be included as Chi-
na’s ‘historic architecture.’ The change in terminology, in effect, wrote into law that
modern era buildings are part of China’s repertoire of historic architecture, which
needed to be valued and conserved. Almost as if to emphasize the city’s modern era
contribution to the triumph of the CCP, Shanghai municipality produced a book called
Red Traces, a Hundred Historic Sites in Shanghai [红色印痕 上海遗址百处] in 2004,115 high-
lighting many ‘untouchable cultural relics,’ and Excellent Historic Architecture.
The preservation of selected buildings as monuments has been recognized since
the 1988 Notice Regarding Key Investigations into Protecting Excellent Modern Era Build-
ing. Prior to this, neighborhood scale conservation had been tabled already in 1979,
when the Municipal Urban Planning Bureau suggested the area around Sinan Lu
[思南路], where a congregation of ‘China’s modern era revolutionary legacies [中国近
代历史革命史迹]’ made their preservation conceivable, for tourism development.116 In
1983, the Cultural Management Bureau had suggested two areas in the old Chinese city
for protection and tourist development. The Urban Planning Bureau had also proposed
outlines for conservation areas in 1984. But it was not until the 2003 Regulations that
heritage conservation also targeted the neighborhood, as an urban ensemble of archi-
tecture, streets, and public spaces, and at a scale larger than individual monuments,
outlined by the ‘Historic Cultural Fengmao Districts.’

166
 In September 2003, the Shanghai municipal government approved of the docu-
ment Statutory Scope for Shanghai City Center Historic Cultural Fengmao District [上海市
中心城历史文化风貌区范围法定本文] after multiple adjustments to the areas included
for conservation, which engaged more than 300 experts. In November, the municipal
government approved and confirmed the 12 Historical Cultural Fengmao Districts [历史
文化风貌区], which totaled 27 square kilometers and made up approximately one-third
of Shanghai’s urban area from before 1949. (Fig. 15) Because many of the Historic Cul-
tural Fengmao Districts cross the administrative boundaries of Shanghai’s districts, in
themselves powerful entities under the umbrella of the municipality,117 responsibili-
ties for the designated districts under conservation were put under the jurisdiction of
Municipal Urban Planning Bureau, with the approval of the municipal ministries for
real estate and culture.
The Hengshan Lu Fuxing Lu Historic Cultural Fengmao District [衡山路-复兴路历史
文化风貌区], the largest of the 12 designated districts, became the pilot site, where a His-
torical Cultural Fengmao District Control Plan for Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu was prepared for

Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Fig. 15 Plan of the Districts with Historical and Cultural Fengmao, 2003

167
 Fig. 16 Plan of the Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu Historical and Cultural Fengmao District

implementing its conservation. (Fig. 16) Characterized by lower density, greenery and
elegant streetscape lined by platanus trees, the district in which Wukang Lu is located
hosts a high number of important government institutions as well as modern era res-
idential buildings. The authors of the Historical Cultural Fengmao District Control Plan
for Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu declared the pilot plan to be at the intermediate scale, in be-
tween the large-scale land use plans that are prevalent for Chinese cities and the small-
scale detailed guidelines for architecture construction.118 The Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu
Control Plan integrated elements of a detailed control plan, where land use, building
density, traffic networks, greenery, and urban infrastructures follow guidelines. Ad-
ditionally, the Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu Control Plan paid attention to the conservation
types, architecture, public spaces, greens, and other non-material components, as well
as morphologies of conservation, block sizes, plot scale, and network structures.119
Buildings in the district were catalogued according to a scale of conservation val-
ues ranging from those regarded as “protected architecture [保护建筑]” to those “rec-
ommended for demolition [应当拆除建筑].” 120 In the classification of conservation
value for buildings, those that were built after 1949 were categorized as “other archi-
tecture [其他建筑],” in an admission of the inability to regulate contemporary buildings
that have already been erected. These were often taller buildings that do not necessar-
ily fit in well to a neighborhood of modern era architectural scale, had the plan been
implemented earlier. But because many buildings were constructed only recently, and
therefore not derelict enough to warrant demolition, this “other architecture” remains.
The Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu Control Plan also implemented density limitations imple-
mented to protect the fengmao of the historic districts. As a result, large-scale develop-

168
ments, as in many other neighborhoods of Shanghai, are limited. Despite not being able
to demolish and redevelop, reprogramming of the existing structures, according to the
Plan’s authors, could “stimulate the vitality of the historic neighborhood, through the
discovery and redevelopment of the area’s programming [通过对这一地区功能对挖掘与
再开发，重新激发起历史地区的活力].”121 More importantly, programmatic changes would
lead to the “valorization of the cultural value [提升文化价值]” that also could raise the
“economic and social benefits [经济与社会效益].”122 Specifically, the authors regarded the
valorization of cultural value and the “cultural quality [文化品质]” as also able to improve
and expand the commerce and services, as well as tourism and leisure programs.123
In accordance to the Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu Control Plan, experts from the munic-
ipality, including those from the bureaus for planning and cultural management, had
final say on planning permissions for development. As is customary for policy imple-
mentation, consultations of local stakeholders were absent.124 Not only are most ex-
perts, including the Plan’s authors, not from the neighborhoods in which implemen-
tations take place, but an increasing number of them do not originate from Shanghai.
The projected “cultural qualities” that the Plan’s authors mapped onto the selected his-
toric cultural neighborhoods, the reference to which their conservation plan targets,
remains ambiguous.
At the same time, the reality of institutional frameworks, as well as the endoge-
nous and bottom-up processes on the ground, also remain difficult to integrate into the
conservation plan. Background research done on the social structure and development
modes of the Fuxing-Hengshan area was thorough.125 The research clearly revealed
a demographic hollowing out of the city center residential neighborhoods.126 While
original residents have left, lower-class residents and migrant workers have moved
in.127 The researchers articulated a clear desire to protect the existing social diversi-
ty.128 Yet proposals in regards to functional changes in the Plan remained vague. The
crucial influence that property ownership and residential tenures have on the neigh-
borhood’s transformation was largely overlooked. Somehow, the ambition set out by
the planning guides fell short in the final stretch.
Starting in 2003, Tongji opened the specialization for “preservation of historic ar-
chitecture,” and research into the city’s modern era architecture and urban design
flourished. Many of the dissertations on modern era architecture and urban develop-
ments, emerging in the mid-2000s, were the first to use first-hand archival materials
to analyze Concession-era planning structures. Tongji’s dual role as Shanghai’s au-
thoritative research institution for the city’s urbanism and as the main consultant for
the city’s planning policies gave its researchers privileged access to archival materials
and contemporary planning documents. Their findings not only grew to support the
policy developments in the municipality, with many researchers going on to become
important figures in the municipal- or district-level planning. Shanghai being the na-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

tion’s pioneer for urban development, the city’s policies also served as templates of em-
ulation for other cities in the country.
On the impending piloting of the conservation plan, scheduled in 2004 to be finished
by 30 June 2005, Wu had publicly encouraged local and overseas investors to partici-
pate in the business opportunity of historic architecture conservation.129 Several other
insiders, working between academia and implementation, shared the insight that the
best time to invest in the historic buildings had arrived: “once the implementation of the

169
 conservation plan is announced, the value of garden-style old house inside the Historic
Cultural Fengmao Districts will grow exponentially [规划一旦公布，历史文化风貌保护区内
花园老房的价值将水涨船高].”130 Whether deliberate or not, the statements reveal the ac-
ademics-cum-bureaucrats’ consciousness of an inevitable convergence of the Rieglian
‘use value’ with ‘historic value’ in the conservation project. The urban loophole of excep-
tion for Shanghai’s old houses became a byproduct of top-down fengmao conservation.

The Old House and the Club House—

Changing Market Supply and Demand
In the mid-2000s, with the vocal support of Shanghai’s municipal party secretary, the
slogan for Shanghai shifted from one that emphasized development, in which dem-
olition was inevitable, to one about the newly founded regard for heritage: “Building
new is development, preserving and renovating is also development.”131 One of the
representative building types targeted for conservation was that of the ‘Western-style
garden house [花园洋房].’ Sometimes used interchangeably with ‘garden residence [花
园住宅],’ it is a detached single-house accompanied by its green space surrounding the
building. In 2002, a book called Old Shanghai’s Western-style Garden Houses [老上海花
园洋房] was published, authored by a former employee of the Shanghai Housing Bu-
reau, Xue Shunsheng [薛顺生] and Shanghai Xiandai Architecture Design Group’s di-
rector of archives, Lou Chenghao [娄承浩].132 The book described the ‘Western-style
garden house’ as the “epitome of its times [时代的缩影]“ and a “record of history [历史
的年鉴].”133 Despite the contemporary re-appearance of similar architecture types, the
term refers only to those houses that were built during the Concession era. Largely dis-
tributed in the western end of the former Concessions, many of the garden houses were
built in the 1930s and 1940s, a product of both demographic-driven demand of the war
years,134 and of the repercussions from the crises of the global economic system. In-
terestingly, Xue and Lou noted in the introduction to their book, the Great Depression
of the late 1920s induced a redirection of building supply to Shanghai that, together
with the cheap labor on the ground, catalyzed the production of the Western-style gar-
den houses. In the mid-1940s, inflation induced a second wave of construction activity
that expanded the number of Western-style garden houses.
The recognition of the value of the so-called ‘old houses [老房子]’—used to denote
dwellings from before 1949—was gaining traction by the early 2000s, not only in aca-
demic circles.135 Real estate investors and private entrepreneurs were also increasing-
ly discovering the value of these remaining old houses. In an article entitled “The New
Values of Western-style Garden Houses [花园洋房的新价值],” the newspaper People’s Dai-
ly [人民日报], Overseas Edition, showcased the growing real estate value of such prop-
erties, especially to the segment of diaspora Chinese with both resources and also
sentimental ties to old Shanghai.136 Early in the 1980s a limited number of houses had
already been pawned off to some of the overseas Chinese returnees. An entire house,
albeit quite rundown and requiring much upgrading, merely cost a few tens of thou-
sands of US dollars.137 In the mid-1990s, housing marketization policies first opened
the market for city center residences.138 Notable, however, was the clause limiting the

170
RMB/sqm
8000

6000

4000

2000

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2005 2005

Figs. 17, 18 Growing price of real estate in Shanghai, left; and image of one of the old houses near Huashan Lu, right

units that were “of historic value for preservation [具有历史保护价值],” which were not
permitted to be sold.139
It was only in 1998 when Shanghai opened the real estate market to the city cen-
ter’s historic housing.140 For many who had been watching the evolving market, in-
cluding international real estate professionals such as the global property manage-
ment conglomerates Jones Lasalle and DTZ , the opportunity seemed to have arrived
for these limited-edition historic old houses. Despite the small number of available
units for sale—around less than fifty according to later reports141—the more than six
thousand old houses that could one day be on the market suggested great potential, es-
pecially given the unit cost at the time. The price defined by the marketization policy
of 1994 was 902 R MB (equivalent to 120 USD ) per square meter.142 (Figs. 17, 18)
In the late 1990s, the available supply of old houses still exceeded demand. Even if
the properties were cleared of the complex ownership entanglements, most locals saw
the dilapidation of the buildings as a nuisance. The buyers who did purchase the old
houses as residences were largely overseas Chinese returnees, many returning to their
family homes, or settling for longer-term business opportunity in the rapidly opening
China. The Overseas Edition of People’s Daily article reflected: “with long tilting roofs,
delicate attics, and well-weathered black steel railings, the revival of the historic build-
ings tucked amidst the modern and bustling Shanghai, no doubt allows the people to
find a kind of historical and cultural feeling in the increasingly globalized city [尖翘的
屋顶，小巧的阁楼，饱经风雨的黑色铁栅栏，这些隐匿于现代化繁华大上海的复古建筑，无疑
使人们能从这个越来越国际化的城市中寻找出一种历史感和文化感]”143 Against the back-
drop of rapid urban transformation, the old houses evoked the city’s rapidly disappear-
ing past and served as the remaining vessels of a historically derived cultural identity.
In this role, they also linked the overseas Chinese returnee, whose memories of Shang-
hai were from before Liberation, to its rapidly changing future.
The old houses not only made the overseas Chinese returnees feel at home again.
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

They also generated good returns for the investor who rented units out, especially to
the increasing number of foreign expats also arriving in Shanghai who preferred the
authenticity of living in the city’s historic quartiers. For units under 100 square meters,
rentals could already go for around 1,000 USD in 2004, and entire intact houses would
rent for 5,000 to 10,000 USD per month.144 But compared to the 8 % returns earned
through rental, the returns for resale, at 15 %, was higher. Many investors bought to
sell within a short timeframe for a high turnover.

171
 Whether buying to turn over at a higher price or renting out for profit, more than
60 % of the buyers were investors, of which locals made up only 40 %, the others equal-
ly divided between overseas Chinese and foreign individuals and companies. Of those
who purchased the houses for living in, they were also divided between the expats
who have settled in China and locals, including both Shanghainese and other Chinese
entrepreneurs.145 Some of the occupier owners also turned the premises into commer-
cial uses that could capitalize on the ambiance of the place. Entrepreneurs also start-
ed to invest in properties that seemed worthy of time-investment and upgrading for
future expansions and developments.
Small real estate companies, not working at the demolition and reconstruction
scale, but working with housing exchange, came to streets like Wukang Lu to ‘sweep
the street [扫街],’ looking for old houses deemed salvageable for conversions and resale.
The limited market supply, together with the irreproducible uniqueness of the historic
housing stock, made the old houses precious “real estate ‘antiques’ [房地产’古董’].”146 By
2003, the per square meter price for old houses on the market was 38,000 R MB (equiva-
lent to 4,500 USD ).147 As one article recommended, “after buying an old Western-style
house, upgrade and renovate it, and then buy some furniture from the Ming and Qing
dynasties [一些人买入老洋房后，将其修缮加固，再买一些明清时期的家具].”148 With aver-
age returns of 15 % in the early 2000s, the flipping of property to resell at higher value
dominated the market.149 An old house, which was sold in 2002 for 3.7 million R MB ,
would, after upgrades and renovations, be sold again for more than double its previous
price at 7.5 million R MB in a year.150 In 2004 another exchange would push its price
to 10 million R MB .151
Accompanying the inclusion of 398 old houses in the register as Excellent Historic
Architecture in late February 2005, the Municipal Bureau for Housing and Land Re-
source Management [上海市房屋土地资源管理局] announced the curbing of ownership
right exchange on the market for these “Western-style buildings,” especially in the
newly announced Historical Cultural Fengmao Districts. In May 2006, in order to cool
the foaming real estate market, the central government issued the Six Policies [国六条],
the colloquial name for the Opinions on Adjusting House Supply Structure and Stabilizing
House Price [关于调整住房供应结构稳定住房价格意见],152 which increased transaction
taxes for the sale of housing. Because of the high price of investment and the small
change, percentage-wise, in taxation, the policy had little actual impact on the rising
demand and rising price of the old houses.153
In 2005, one of the top seventy most affluent Chinese entrepreneurs included a
young developer in his mid-thirties,154 who dramatically compared his rise to that
of Hong Kong real estate tycoon Li Ka-shing [李嘉诚].155 After studying economics at
Shanghai’s Fudan University, Chen Zaochun [陈早春] started his first job at a Hong
Kong real estate office based in Shanghai that catered to foreign professionals in the
mid-1990s. After a few years, he opened his own agency mediating real estate invest-
ments.156 Rather than working in real estate development at a large scale, he focused
on old Western-style houses, sensing a market niche. His most prestigious acquisition
was in 2001, when he signed an eight-year lease with the Xuhui District’s housing and
real estate bureau on a garden house plot at the end of Wukang Lu, and spent more than
10 million R MB (equivalent to about 1.1 million USD ) to build four new villas next to
an original one on the 1,000 square meter site.157 Renting mostly to expat profession-

172
als who chose the historic neighborhood for
60,000 R MB per year, the returns were good.158
In addition to leasing or purchasing old houses
and upgrading their facilities into luxury rent-
als, he also mediated the sales of garden houses.
The commission for each sale far exceeded the
rental profits of the small business.159
The timing was good for such business op-
portunities, especially given the local condi-
tions that were only starting to formulate the
market economy games rules for urban spatial
production. For entrepreneurs who had the Fig. 19 Yongfoo Elite, 2016
early edge to sense the occasion and access the
local property supply, the urban loopholes offered by economic transition—with gaps
formed by the yet undetermined market prices, ambiguity in property rights, and insti-
tutional ownership—could not have been more lucrative. That these yet undetermined
and changing conditions were also able to cater to the changing market demand would
be opportunities to be seized on by the shrewd entrepreneurs.
On a quiet street adjacent to Yongfu Lu [永福路], around the corner from Wukang
Lu, a Shanghainese man by the name of Wang Xingzheng [汪兴政] leased and start-
ed renovations to a house with a large garden in 2001.160 Two and half years later he
opened a restaurant and lounge on the property, calling it Yongfoo Elite [雍福会].161
The house, like many of its neighbors in the western-end of the former French con-
cession, had retained its garden interspersed by old trees.162 Initially an exclusive,
membership-only club, Wang wanted the place to “revive the luxurious, romantic,
mysterious, legendary Oriental atmosphere that had once disappeared from Shanghai
[复活在上海曾遗失的奢侈的、浪漫的、神秘的、传说中的东方情调].”163
Yongfoo Elite was only a stone’s throw away from another exclusive club house
developed by the Macanese casino tycoon Stanley Ho in 2002. Built as part of the high-
rise residential compound Ambassy Courts,164 the Ambassy Club implanted amidst
old garden houses that have become embassies since the PRC , conjuring up the distinc-
tion of being in a quartier of global connections. The evocation of the heyday of Shang-
hai cosmopolitanism and commerce, shunned by decades of austerity under planned
economy, took form in new developments such as this one.165 Claiming to be the first
private ‘club house’ in China post-reform, the Ambassy Club hosted the then wealth-
iest woman in Asia as well as Vincent Lo, the head of Shui On and the developer of
Xintiandi, in its enclave of facilities shielded from the plebeian surroundings.
Yongfoo Elite, in contrast to the polished modern amenities of the Ambassy Club
that could be found in contemporary developments, offered a distinctive setting in its
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

historic building. As Wang—styled to have descended from one of the many pre-1949
Shanghai bourgeois families—insinuated, cash alone could not procure the kind of
taste for which old Shanghai was known. The old house, its garden, along with the col-
lection of antique pieces he assembled, and the neighborhood in which it was situated,
were crucial to his recapturing of a historic ambiance that set Yongfoo Elite apart from
other developments. (Fig. 19) The rapidly changing market was, at the same time, also
increasingly demanding this limited supply.

173
 Built in 1948, the house where Yongfoo Elite was, was reported to be the former
home to the family of a well-known French-educated Chinese endocrinologist.166
During the Cultural Revolution, the house, like many neighboring structures under-
went reshuffling. A walled compound at Yongfu Lu Number 244 was for a time the
headquarters to a secret service unit, a unit that reported directly to the leaders of
the Shanghai Commune, which became the Revolutionary Committee in the Shang-
hai municipality during the Cultural Revolution.167 When China opened to the world
in the 1970s following Nixon’s visit, Sino-British relations also thawed. Diplomatic re-
lations between China and the UK elevated from that of chargé d’affaires to the am-
bassadorial level. The house was leased to the British, with Number 244 becoming the
Consulate. After the Portman-designed Shanghai Center on West Nanjing Lu [南京西路]
eventually opened in 1990, 168 the Consulate moved there in 1996. With the move
the residence also vacated, leaving the Yongfu Lu house and its premises empty. The
house’s location as well as its spacious lawn had already caught Wang Xinzheng’s
eye. In 2001, Wang was able to sign a ten-year lease on the property with the Xingguo
Hotel—known for being the Shanghai accommodation of the highest central govern-
ment officials—which was in charge of the property.169
In the 1980s, when planned economy still dominated everyday life, Wang was one
of the few who dared to become a private entrepreneur. He started out by sourcing
and producing clothes for the opening consumer market in the 1980s, and eventually
became the designer and owner of one of the few locally-produced fashion brands to
supply the newly opened department stores on Huaihai Lu [淮海路] in the 1990s. De-
spite the years of drabness and suppression under planned economy’s grey and black
fashion homogeneity, it was clear then that the Shanghainese never completely forgot
their historic embrasure of capitalism and their flair for style. To the rest of China, the
city remained the defender of what little style was allowed under central planning.170
Wang’s family, who he claimed were silk traders, represented the kind of Shanghainese
petite bourgeoisie whom the rest of China at once detested and envied. At a time when
imports from Hong Kong and knockoffs from the Pearl River Delta flooded the market,
in the 1980s, the higher-end products sold by Wang found a niche. In 1996, sensing
the decline of the pioneer advantages with the maturing of the local apparels market
and the growing competition from increasingly sophisticated and competitive value
chains, Wang closed his fashion enterprise and ventured into the food and beverage
business with the opening of small restaurants specializing in classic Shanghai fare.
The growing local middle class found his restaurants appealing. Again, his business
instinct of being early in market produced success.
All the while city hopping from New York, London, and Paris, Wang became a col-
lector of antiques, amassing a menagerie of eclectic items.171 In the mid-1990s, Wang
began to call himself an interior designer, styling eye-catching backdrops out of fur-
niture pieces he was starting to collect in his shop windows. The property on Yongfu
Lu, a business opportunity that arose in 2001, thus became the perfect vessel for his
growing collection of antique pieces, including Ming dynasty chairs, a Qing dynasty
corridor from Zhejiang, a piece of a wall and door from Shanxi, and some 1950s Gucci
leather sofas. After spending three years on the renovation and upgrade of the Yongfu
Lu house, costing several million R MB , the house opened as a private club catering to
selective members. Antique furniture pieces were carefully strewn about the garden

174
Figs. 20, 21 Dining room in Yongfoo Elite, left; and an eclectic collection of antique
elements set in the garden, right, 2016

with its old magnolia tree and fishpond. (Figs. 20, 21, 22, 23) Together with the view
from the open veranda of the house, the experience created was that of the lavish co-
lonial-era residences from the stories of Chen Danyan. One local report gushed about
the ambiance of the place: “what Shanghai of those years was actually like, we have
no way of recovering, but at least we can experience it, in the master’s exquisite de-
sign [当年的上海到底什么样，我们无法追回，但是至少能够体会，主人这份设计的精巧].”172
Yongfoo Elite became known as the spot to be, especially for the international celebri-
ties and politicians who came to visit Shanghai.
For the first batch of Westerners who came to China expecting to encounter a
unique and authentic atmosphere, what most locals tried to offer was the opposite.
In the first decade of development, the new, the modern, and the technological were
what the locals aspired to, not the existing, the old, the small, and the backwards. Port-
man’s Shanghai Center, and later Lujiazui’s SOM -designed Jinmao Tower, surround-
ed by wide boulevards, fast cars, and with shiny escalators and elevators, rather than
the fragile garden houses surrounded by narrow streets, were what the locals, includ-
ing the district and municipal leaders, thought would impress the outside world. Chi-
na wanted so badly to catch up. In fact, what the small entrepreneurs like Wang knew
was that the visitors who came delighted in exactly the kind of rare commodity that
he was packaging and selling, the rare commodity of history, cultural uniqueness, and
identity. Moreover, prices at venues like Yongfoo Elite were still a drop in the bucket to
foreign guests, but considered extravagant for the average local.173 In 2004, the aver-
age annual income of a local employee was still 22,164 R MB (approximately 2,682 USD ),
while that of the average expat was 380,000 R MB (approximately 46,000 USD ).174 The
former first lady of France Madame Chirac’s choice of the Yongfoo Elite as her venue,
as well as numerous Hong Kong celebrities’ appearances confirmed his hunch for the
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

demand. As a businessman from Wall Street remarked when visiting Yongfoo Elite,
“this is what I imagined I would find in Shanghai!”175
Even before there was any coverage in the local media, the Wallpaper Design
Awards named Yongfoo Elite number two in the best club section of 2004, introducing
the place with an establishing shot of sorts: “Since we are all going to be spending a lot
more time in Shanghai over the next few years—who isn’t currently setting up a man-
ufacturing business, magazine, retail outlet or TV channel there at the moment?”176

175
Figs. 22, 23 Garden of Yongfoo Elite, left; and veranda, right, 2016

The piece went on to point out the two most important features of the area in which
Yongfoo Elite is set: “amid some of the finest properties in Shanghai’s former French
Concession and the homes of retired Communist officials,” concluding, “this is a corner
of Shanghai that exudes class rather than cliché.”177 Not flinching at its juxtaposition
of capitalism and command economy, the passing observation hit the nail on the head.
Especially in light of the political campaigns ten years later to clamp down on high-
level corruption, the cozy spatial adjacencies of market and planned economy elites,
exemplified by Yongfoo Elite’s audience, was a fundamental driver to development.178
Yongfu Lu Number 200 did not get on the roster for Excellent Historic Architecture
in any of its four selections. Whether the authorities considered the conversion already
far too altered for the house’s inclusion, or whether because the original house was re-
ally never important enough to warrant inclusion, Wang nevertheless considers his
efforts on Yongfoo Elite a self-fulfilling conservation effort, giving back to the Shang-
hai that is globalizing.
Yongfoo Elite certainly did not cater only to the growing expat market, even though
its success came from its early attraction of prominent visitors, catalyzing a growing
demand. In anticipation of a market niche in high-end local cuisine, Yongfoo Elite
brought in a head chef who had trained with famous masters and specialized in clas-
sic Shanghainese cuisine. The kind of vernacular cuisine served seemed to be extrav-
agant in the mid-2000s, given that similar dishes could easily be found in neighboring
restaurants at that time. With the city changing rapidly, however accompanied by the
influx of non-Shanghainese population eroding the local palate, Yongfoo Elite also ap-
pealed to a burgeoning domestic demand for immaterial heritage.179
Along with its space and its cuisine, Yongfoo Elite’s personnel were also part of
the “Republican-era style trend [民国风]” that swept through China of the late 2000s.
In the 1990s, China’s coastal nouveau riche was known and derided for bad taste, hav-
ing preferred an overabundance of Baroque bling-bling to show off their newly accu-
mulated wealth. In the late 2000s, they increasingly asked architects for the ‘Repub-
lican-era style’—the modern era is also known as the Republican era—to prove their
evolving taste.180 Along the value chain, eclectic furniture, paintings and collectibles
from the Republican era were also produced to fill renovated old houses. China’s local
television stations, rather than importing from Hong Kong as was done earlier, fed this

176
 Republican-era style trend and paraded the modern era glamour of Shanghai as the for-
mer “Paris of the East” in their TV serials. Spy dramas, wartime romances and patri-
otic resistances, mostly all mixed together, were set against the reimagined old Shang-
hai, produced by the stations of all the nation’s provinces. The Shanghainese-speaking
manager of Yongfoo Elite, who wore a mandarin-buttoned Chinese robe that could
have come from Shanghai Tang, and who could have easily emerged from the televi-
sion dramas, personified the growing trend of popular nostalgia.
As historian of Shanghai Xu Jilin [许纪霖] summarized in 2003, “A wind of nostalgia,
for the 1920s and 1930s, has been blowing in Shanghai over the last few years [上海这几年
一直在刮’怀旧风’.. 所谓’怀旧’, 怀的就是二三十年代所代表的那个传统].”181 For Xu, “The nos-
talgia implies a certain critique and reflections on the new traditions that emerged un-
der planned economy after 1949 [之所以怀旧，隐含着对1949年后计划经济传统批判和反思
的意味].”182 The nostalgia is not a mere sentimental harking to the past. The nostalgia
is also reviving the pre-Liberation capitalist past for the contemporary development.
In the mid-2000s, savvy entrepreneurs capitalized on the reviving demand for
Shanghai’s old houses and ‘club houses [会馆],’ such as that of Yongfoo Elite. They chose
locations in Shanghai’s Fengmao Districts that supplied the historic and cultural am-
biance for the desired spaces for elite occupation and gathering. The commodity of old
houses fed a growing consumer demand, by new elites, for the dwindling supply of
old Shanghai in the context of the rapidly developing and re-globalizing city. The pop-
ularity and profitability of the limited supply of old houses also reveal an inadvertent
return to the pre-Liberation consumption patterns. What made these spatial produc-
tions based on nostalgia possible, however, were the institutionally embedded owner-
ships of many of the historic garden houses. The ten-year lease that was signed with the
Xingguo Hotel group, under whose jurisdiction the Yongfoo Elite building was, meant
that the transaction not only warranted high-level connections. It also meant that the
lease terms were favorable enough, because of stability of the institutional backing, to
allow investment and renovations to take place.183 It is through the urban loophole re-
sulting from transition economy’s gaps and ambiguities that entrepreneurs, with not
only business acumen but also guanxi connections, could realize bottom-up conserva-
tion of an old house like Yongfoo Elite. Conservation of historical and cultural heritage,
under transition economy, thus, partly hinged on vestige and institutional ownership
of the historic properties.

Localized Cosmopolitans and the Developing

of Le Passage Fuxing and Ferguson Lane
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

If Wang and Yongfoo Elite forged the way for a re-positioning of the neighborhood that
capitalized on its historic assets for contemporary market demands, then the estab-
lishment of the multi-building compounds of Le Passage Fuxing and Ferguson Lane
continued this trend of small-scaled conversions by innovative localized cosmopolitan
entrepreneurs.184 The time and investment efforts of such small entrepreneurs to up-
grade have helped realize the upgrade of the neighborhood around Wukang Lu that
planning policies could only decree. It is the clustering of the endogenous processes,

177
 rather than a clear top-down vision, that has positioned the neighborhood as a unique
centrality in Shanghai.
Le Passage Fuxing is a three-building complex located on the western end of Fux-
ing Lu [复兴路], which also intersects both Yongfu Lu and Wukang Lu a few blocks
away. The developer for Le Passage Fuxing is a French entrepreneur who had partly
grown up in Tahiti, and lived in Japan for more than a decade before he came on a one-
year stint to Beijing.185 On the invitation of the Chinese government, he came to the
western end of the former French concessions in Shanghai. Staying at the Xingguo Ho-
tel at first, he was introduced to the neighborhood around Wukang Lu.186 An adventur-
er-entrepreneur with the globalized taste to match Shanghai’s growing aspirations, he
immediately saw potential in the historic buildings, the modern street networks and
the urban neighborhood, which at the time of his arrival in the early 1990s, was much
overlooked in the then rush for basic development. Moving to Shanghai following in-
tensive Mandarin classes in Beijing for a year, he lived in the local neighborhoods and
embedded himself in the local procedures that were rapidly changing.187 This patient
acquisition and understanding of the logic of local habits, combined with global tastes
that were just starting to return to Shanghai, was crucial to the realization of his first
developments in Shanghai.
It was not until the 2000s, when old houses could be marketized, that the develop-
er began to negotiate for and acquire the residential units in Fuxing Lu buildings. The
process of negotiation and acquisition would culminate, nine years later, in the con-
solidated ownership rights for the three-building complex in 2011 and the commercial
development visible today, Le Passage Fuxing.
When the initial purchase of the Fuxing Lu units began, the developer lived on site
on the second floor of one of the three houses. (Fig. 24) What he encountered was the
representative narrative for most housing in the city at the time. A silk and tea mer-
chant originally built the three houses in the 1930s, with one house intended for his
family and the two others for rental. By the 1980s, each floor of the three-story houses,
each a little more than 60 square meters in area, was subdivided by families of three
generations.188 With twelve families sharing three bathrooms and kitchens, the condi-
tion was not as extreme as the many other ‘72 residents [72家房客]” situations in Shang-
hai. Most of the other houses lacked infrastructure and were in far worse condition.
As elaborated in the previous chapter, by virtue of being originally designed for a
single family, the ownership of an old house could not be traded in its parts, which ac-
cording to its building type were not divisible.189 In the 2000s, the units in houses such
as those found on Fuxing Lu could only obtain tradable ‘usage right [使用权].’ ‘Usage
right’ is different from the ‘ownership right [拥有权],’ which comes with newly built
commodity housing and with “intact” old houses, including apartments, houses or li-
long houses that have not been subdivided.190 Usage right, a form of property ownership
unique to transition economy China, however, still permits the marketization—the
selling, buying, and exchange on the housing market—of residential units, limited to
those with the local hukou, or household registration.191
The limited supply of ownership right units, coupled with the recognition of cultur-
al heritage since the mid-2000s, translated into a growing high demand for old houses
in the city center, rendering their ownership lucrative.192 For an old house that was not
“intact” and thus lacking “ownership right,” once the usage rights of all residential units

178
Fig. 24 Facade of Le Passage Fuxing, 2012

had been slowly bought up, the possibility of converting the subdivided usage rights into
a consolidated ownership right was possible. This occurred despite the municipal-level
conservation policies issued in the mid-2000s that limited the conversion of usage right
to ownership right in order to curb the high speculative real estate turnovers that were
deemed damaging to historic buildings.193 The actual conversion of ownership from us-
age right to ownership right remained possible and varied in procedure depending on the
local jurisdiction.194 It was clear that the gap between prescribed procedures and actual
practice remained contingent on the bureaucratic personnel and the kind of guanxi, or
relationship, network cultivated to smooth over impediments. The discretionary deci-
sion making that is prevalent under transition economy’s adaptive governance and am-
phibious institutions create the urban loopholes that have facilitated much of the endog-
enous processes in Shanghai’s city center transformations. As the French entrepreneur
foresaw in the early 2000s, the time taken to negotiate with the individual families of
a subdivided house in order to finally consolidate the usage rights to ownership rights
would turn out to be the eight-year span for the project. At the same time, incremental
development of the initial units which first became commercial successfully raised the
needed capital for the compensation of the relocated residents.
The developer’s approach to compensating the residents also distinguished the
Fuxing project. In addition to market rate compensation for usage rights, which afford-
ed the residents new commodity housing flats not too far from the center, the devel-
oper also bought relocation units for residents, who preferred housing in lieu of cash.
These relocation units were in the well-reputed lilong compounds such as Shanghai
Xincun [上海新村] and Zhongnan Xincun [中南新村] nearby. These units, like other res-
idences in the area, were slowly emptying out as locals moved from old housing in the
central areas to newly built commodity housing in the periphery. The developer’s fa-
miliarity with the locations, where he had stayed when he first arrived in Shanghai,
also made access to their purchases easier. The proximity of the replacement units also
facilitated the convincing of older residents in the Fuxing units to move. The offered
replacement units were comparable if not more adequate than the ones in the Fuxing
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

building. Knowing that the extra expense and effort would be worth the rising real es-
tate price, especially for the neighborhood in which the Fuxing building was located,
the developer’s negotiation and compensation carefully accounted for each of the res-
ident’s needs. This was only possible at the small scale of the development.
This slower but more individualized compensation procedure for the development
of the Fuxing project differed fundamentally from the often coercive and top-down
tactics in fast-paced and large-scale demolition and redevelopment projects that were

179
 Fig. 25 Top-floor office at Le Passage Fuxing, an entrepreneur who also has a space in Jing’an Villas, 2012

prevalent at the time. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, in the relocation of residents
from plots under redevelopment, cash payment or the exchange of newly built com-
modity housing a bit further out of the city center sufficed as compensation for their
old residences. The residents often welcomed demolition and new compensation hous-
ing, since the new units would provide more space, better amenities and privacy. With
the steep rise of real estate prices in the mid-2000s and the fast expansion of Shang-
hai’s metropolitan area, the compensation units are much farther away from the city
center and also more expensive. Also, in response to the increased number of families
who would register additional hukou in units that will undergo demolition to try to get
more compensation, new municipal policy changed so that compensation is no lon-
ger based on the number of dwellers but on the floor area of the existing unit. This has
rendered the negotiation process for relocation increasingly difficult. The high com-
pensation cost and difficulty of relocating residents, especially for large-scale schemes
in the city center, asks for alternatives in scale and timing to be examined. Housing
plays a role in filial relations and familial entanglements, something already embed-
ded in the fragmentation of housing occupation in the pre-reform era.195 These issues
also question the prevalent mechanisms for relocation compensation that is much too
standardized for the nuances of residential restructuring.

180
 In the mid-2000s, few places in Shanghai accommodated changing consumer de-
mand accompanying the city’s re-globalization. The French developer had initially ren-
ovated the second floor of the Fuxing project as an expanded residential unit. When
the then startup yoga studio Y+, one of the first yoga studios in Shanghai, stumbled
on the building undergoing renovation, Y+ decided to occupy the second floor as the
development’s first tenants. Y+’s occupancy would change the complex’s development
direction from residential to commercial.196 The floor-through yoga spaces designed
by Neri and Hu Architects, known today as the pioneers of adaptive reuse in Shang-
hai, initiated continued curation for commercial programs. The shops and cafés, which
followed subtly, contrasted to the big box glitz of places like Plaza 66, the large-scale
retail paradise that opened in 2001 on West Nanjing Lu, 197 or even Xintiandi. The se-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

lective curation brought in creative studios to the fourth-floor addition, designed as a

loft-living space and with an adjacent rooftop terrace for events and openings. (Fig. 25)
The lack of coordination of the numerous district bureaus, from hygiene and hous-
ing to the local street office,198 gave rise to the legal grey zone for the conversion of res-
identially zoned buildings to commercial.199 The grey zone of tacit acquiescence by the
local state is an opportunity, which the small entrepreneurs exploit. At the same time,
the local bureaucracy also sees the opportunity to benefit from these developments,

181
Figs. 26, 27 Logo of Le Passage Fuxing, left; and location in context, right

which emerge from the legal ambiguity. Self-organized negotiation of potential con-
flicts between neighbors, such as in the relocation process or renovation process, also
absolved the local state from the responsibility of arbitration.200 Exploitation of the ur-
ban loophole created by the fragmented residential ownership and legal oversight not
only resolved otherwise touchy and challenging interactions, but also inadvertently
conserved and upgraded the old houses that would have otherwise continued to decay.
For the neighborhood that is becoming visibly the preferred area for many new
elites, including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan since the late 1990s, and also Eu-
ropeans and North Americans since the mid-2000s, the revival of the old houses man-
ifested the linkage to Shanghai’s pre-war cosmopolitan legacy. Le Passage Fuxing, as
the complex came to be called, alludes to the developer’s French origin as well as the
colonial vestiges of the neighborhood, with the French platanus trees, cadastral struc-
ture and building ordinance that determined the material, scale and style of the build-
ings. In the complex, a passage indeed divides the original houses and leads from Fux-
ing Lu to the back of the buildings, which had been the location of one of the numerous
canals that had existed in Shanghai prior to its 19th century urbanization. Even the de-
velopment’s Chinese name West Fuxing Li [复兴西里], took on history, using the charac-
ter ‘li [里],’ from lilong, indicating a linkage to the vernacular. (Figs. 26, 27)
One of the ground floor spaces at Le Passage Fuxing is run by a New-York-born
Flemish art gallerist. Her family had settled in Shanghai in 1908 and then relocated to
Bangkok in 1949.201 The gallerist’s return to Shanghai with her family in the mid-2000s,
and the relocation of her gallery to Le Passage Fuxing in the former French Conces-
sion—from its initial location in the creative cluster called 1933202—confirms the nos-
talgia that the neighborhood brings. Her return, as a cosmopolitan whose family had
lived in Shanghai’s heyday, also encapsulates the flows of Shanghai’s re-globalization.
This sense of return characterizes the project that would follow on the heels of Le
Passage Fuxing’s development. On seeing the emerging success of the Fuxing project
in the mid-2000s, a Hong Kong investor who had leased a neighborhood factory build-
ing on Wukang Lu at a low price, but did not know what to do with it in the five years
since its acquisition, approached the Le Passage developer.203 Formerly housing a local
neighborhood work unit [生产组], the reforms of the late 1990s had rendered the real
estate asset consolidated by the Housing Management Bureau.204

182
Figs. 28 , 29 A photo of the former factory building of Ferguson Lane before renovation, left, which hangs in its
lobby; and its current facade, right

The Hong Kong investor had intimate ties with Shanghai. She is part of a prominent
entrepreneurial family who left Shanghai in 1949 for Hong Kong. Her father, the family
patron, like many prominent entrepreneurs from Shanghai, originated from Ningbo.
Since economic liberalization, the family’s donation of a library to Shanghai’s Jiaotong
University and the establishment of an international school were amongst the phil-
anthropic enterprises realizing the family patron’s love of his hometown. The investor
acquired a number of old houses in the neighborhood around Wukang Lu, and several
became well-known food and beverage hubs. Despite restrictions on the acquisition
and reuse of historic buildings, capital and guanxi connections nurtured with the local
street office have made the developments possible.205
Initiated with the experienced help of the Le Passage developer, the cluster of build-
ings acquired by the Hong Kong developer, including the former industrial production
site and the garden house in front, (Fig. 28) became a small compound of commer-
cial buildings, called Ferguson Lane in English and Wukang Ting [武康庭] in Chinese,
meaning “courtyard of Wukang.” Ferguson Lane was the original name of Wukang Lu
during the Concession era. Despite being inside of the area of French Concession’s ex-
pansion in 1914, the road had originally been built by a British gentleman by the name
of Ferguson. The road was an important link between Xujiahui [徐家汇] to the south-
east and the International Settlement to the north.206 The striking Art Deco branding
for Ferguson Lane, which was also used to highlight the Le Passage project, and the
English name itself seemed to evoke the modern era of cosmopolitan Shanghai.
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

The earliest tenants were the French restaurant Franck’s, a small florist shop, an
art gallery and the first branch of the café Coffee Tree. Spaces on the second and third
floor of the former factory building were rented to international offices. In 2013, the
Danish architecture firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen moved into a space formerly occu-
pied by an investment firm. (Fig. 29) The tenants were attracted by the low rental costs
that the investor initially maintained in order to draw the right crowd.207 Regardless
of whether the project was a deliberate case of a vanity project for the returnee Hong

183
Figs. 30, 31 Ferguson Lane in context and the new tower of Ferguson Lane, 2012

Kong developer’s image-building, or whether there was indeed a longer-term vision to

activate the neighborhood through the initial period of subsidization, the below-mar-
ket rents helped incubate the selective atmosphere of the development’s commercial
composition in the five years since the development’s opening in 2007.
Indeed, since 2012, the compound has grown. (Fig. 30) An adjacent tower, which
was built as a guesthouse of the District’s real state bureau in the mid-1990s, under-
went renovation and became part of the expanded Ferguson Lane compound. The in-
clusion of the building in the Ferguson Lane development indicates the developer’s
access to institutional ownership in the dual land market. (Fig. 31) The renovation not
only upgraded the interiors but also returned the building to a fengmao more suited
to the historical neighborhood that has since been dubbed Shanghai’s Cultural Street.
The renovation imparted on the 1980s construction a flavor of history, with a pitched
roof and red brick-trimmed façade. On the other hand, the two garden-style old hous-
es facing Wukang Lu, on whose grounds the former neighborhood production unit sat,
remained until 2014 still partially occupied by residents. Multiple tenants have been
slowly bought out to consolidate the ownership.208
Small design boutiques such as Dutch Items Shanghai, run by a Dutch-raised Asian
entrepreneur, would grow with the expanding market in the neighborhood for the
low-key but globally oriented consumption spaces. The newly opened ground floor
restaurant Pistachio is also a venture by overseas Chinese affiliates, like many of the
new economies in the area. These localized cosmopolitans, with access to the local cul-
ture and understanding of the institutions through their diasporic origins or their re-
turnee positions, facilitate the introduction of products and services from internation-
al know-how and adapting them in situ. Amongst the owners of food and beverage
chains like Wagas and Element Fresh that are known to produce fusion foods as con-
textualization of global values, there is a notable number of Hong Kong, Taiwanese,
Singaporean, and returnee Chinese entrepreneurs.
In terms of scale and pace, the localized cosmopolitan entrepreneurs incremental-
ly implemented small-scaled upgrades to old houses to accommodate market demand.
Through their international know-how they were also able to respond with program-

184
 matic curation that accommodated Shanghai’s rapid re-globalization. At the same time,
their grasp of local procedures and access to local networks facilitated property pro-
curement and spatial production within institutional structures. Seizing on oppor-
tunities offered by urban loopholes of fragmented ownership rights and institutional
ownership in the dual land market, both Le Passage Fuxing and Ferguson Lane, like
Yongfoo Elite, in the form of their development as well as the curation of the function-
al changes, matched a growing consumer demand to the existing spatial supply. The
inadvertent product of heritage conservation, through reuse and creative incubation,
offered a new mode of development for former administratively-allocated real estate
sites, and also gave old houses with complex and fragmented tenure the opportunity
to upgrade in the Fengmao District.

Conserving Heritage:
Lane 1754 (Aka 1768) and Lane 117
Bottom-up processes tapped into undersupplied market demands and exploited the
urban loopholes of gaps and absences in the transition economy, resulting in upgraded
historic buildings. In contrast, top-down projects that set out to conserve cultural her-
itage also catalyzed and expedited commercialization. As this section will show, top-
down developments deploy heritage conservation itself as the alibi by which urban
loopholes of exceptions could be discretionarily created.
Directly across from the entrance to Ferguson Lane is a small residential compound
without any signage. Known as Joffre Mansions [霞飞别墅], the compound along
Wukang Lu is visibly new and gated. Guarded by a changing sentinel of gatekeepers,
passers-bys could peek through the filigree fencing and bushes, to see a well-main-
tained but not extraordinary-looking low-rise row house compound.
In September 1999, following the issuance of Notice Regarding the Recommenda-
tions for the Implementation of the Historic architecture and Neighborhood Conservation
and Upgrade Pilot Projects [关于本市历史建筑与街区保护改造试点的实施意见的通知], the
Shanghai municipal government approved Xuhui and Changning Districts’ proposal
for four residential areas to become conservation pilot projects in the city center.209
The Sinan Lu Garden Garden Residences District [思南路花园住宅区], which had been ta-
bled in 1979 as a conservation target because of its prominent revolutionary era build-
ings, was one of these areas. This is where the conservation development, Sinan Man-
sions [思南公馆], is located today, as a product of the pilot project.210 The other three
pilots sites included Lane 1754 [1754 弄] of Huaihai Lu, the Taiyuan Residential Area
[太原小区], both in Xuhui District, and a residential lane in Changning District.211 The
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

houses in Lane 1754, which connected Huaihai Lu and Wukang Lu, thus became part
of a first test area for heritage conservation.
Built in 1919, Lane 1754 was made up of two-story attached new-style lilong houses,212
which ranged from two to six per row. The site covered approximately 12,000 square
meters and the built area totaled approximately 6,300 square meters. The low built
density was characteristic of the neighborhood in the Western District of the former
French Concession. Built originally for the employees of one of the British trading

185
Figs. 32, 33 The houses of Lane 1754 before upgrade, left; the guarded entry of the new Lane 1768 facing Ferguson
Lane, 2012, right

houses, the houses were also later home to many Shanghainese families left behind
by the exodus of 1949, who survived the ensuing era thanks to remittances from fam-
ily members abroad.213 Because of their red-tiled roofing and stuccoed façade cov-
ered partially by ivy, as well as the simplicity of their geometric massing, the houses
were also called the “Spanish-style old houses [西班牙式老房子]”. (Fig. 32) In 1994, the
compound was listed in the second roster of municipal-decreed Excellent Modern Era
Architecture.
In 1999, 142 families lived in the 28 houses of the original plan, along with seven
danweis in additional structures that were added after 1949. Because of the compara-
tively small number of families that had to be relocated—en-bloc relocation of all occu-
pants was presumed the only option for upgrade—and the compound’s location, Lane
1754 was selected as one of the pilot projects for conservation.
Negotiations for moving the residents began in 2000. Offers of resettlement and
compensation were resolved, and some residents moved to new commodity hous-
ing, while others were given compensation housing in the same neighborhood.214
The developer was a joint-venture between the District development company Xuhui
Real Estate Group [徐房集团] and a company called West Samoa Southern Investment
[西萨摩亚南国投资有限公司] that formed the Shanghai Yuanhui Real Estate Company
[上海元汇房地产有限公司].
At the same time, the municipal planning bureau convened a panel of experts who
made suggestions for the pilot conservation project. Their recommendations includ-
ed keeping intact the stucco façade, a distinct characteristic of the historic buildings,
during repair of the walls; preserving the original spatial configuration, allowing only
limited changes to interior partitions; not allowing the addition of basements for park-
ing spaces directly under the historic structures but proposing to meet contemporary
residential demands for parking on parts of the site; and emphasizing the protection
of the existing greenery on site.215
Despite this list of recommendations by the panel of experts, which included pro-
fessors from Tongji University who had initially recommended Lane 1754 to be includ-
ed in the Excellent Architecture roster, the developer leveled the compound without
demolition permission from the municipality. Construction work began in January
2002 on what was touted in the local daily as “Shanghai’s first high-end conserved
historic architectural fengmao residential area [上海第一个高品位的历史建筑风貌保护

186
住宅区].”216 (Fig. 33) The fact that the development would remain residential contrast-
ed it with the other prominent project of its time, Xintiandi, which turned former resi-
dences into boutiques, restaurants, and cafés. Nevertheless, the residents of Lane 1754
were resigned to the knowledge that they would have no access to the new houses in
their old lane, and these houses would be sold through limited channels to overseas
capital.217
News coverage of Lane 1754 justified its development imperative and reported
that, despite the ambiance of the historic buildings, the aging structures required ma-
jor repairs, and dilapidation and leakage necessitated the demographic overhaul. The
news coverage also outlined that residential overcrowding made living in Lane 1754
inconvenient. Scholars expressed misgivings about the salvageability of the origi-
nal buildings.218 Representatives from the municipal administrations responsible for
the oversight of conservation pilot projects, however, defended reconstruction as the
only method of saving Lane 1754’s historic buildings.219 After all, the defenders of the
development emphasized, the street-facing facades as well as those facing the main
lane of the compound were reconstructed according to the original structures’ fea-
tures, in accordance to conservation requirements. Moreover, they added, original
built density and open spaces were maintained; the trees on site were also painstak-
ingly preserved and designs were made around them, just as experts’ recommenda-
tions suggested.220
The defenders of the development also underlined that the changes made helped
the buildings fit the contemporary market. Each house was widened from 9 to 12 me-
ters to provide more living area, and the total number of units was reduced.221 The
original new-style lilong houses, which in some instances had included as many as six
joined units per row, were restructured to each comprise a maximum of three adjoin-
ing units.
If anything, the new buildings seem closer to the garden-style house type than the
lilong type.222 Compared to the more prevalent lilong type, the garden-style house was
in higher demand because of its limited supply. The garden-style house type also com-
manded a higher unit price on the commodity housing market. The largest change to
the original buildings was the addition of basements to each house. The project thus
transformed the old houses to better suit contemporary demands. The change to build-
ing type and the installation of the basement for car parking showed that the project
was clearly a planned venture to appeal to an affluent and overseas market, attracting
buyers to live in Shanghai’s city center. The project was more like the other qiaohui and
waixiao residential compounds developed in the area—residences sold for overseas
currency223 —than the few projects implemented to conserve heritage architecture.
Newspapers, mouthpieces of the government, heaped praise on the District for
its boldness and innovation in preparation for the impending WTO meeting in 2001.
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

News coverage also applauded the state’s strategy of “guided by the market, funded
by the enterprise, and supported by the government [市场导向，企业运作，政府扶植]”
as innovative.224
Lane 1754’s demolition did not only enable a more market-aligned product. As inter-
views with the Xuhui Real Estate Group revealed, the original “architectural quality”
of the old houses was not very high anyway.225 In its view, the development, therefore,
only upgraded the old houses’ value. Despite what the Group saw as low-quality old

187
 houses, the developers nevertheless still
applied for municipal-supported special
permission to develop the prime location
on the grounds of heritage conservation.
That the District-aligned developer applied
for building permission on the premise
of conserving heritage while executing
demolition and redevelopment confirmed
the scathing critique leveled by scholars,
who called the project “hanging sheep’s
head, but selling dog’s meat [挂羊头，卖
Fig. 34 The heritage plaque, still intact at the entrance of the 狗肉],”226 an idiom for the false advertis-
renumbered Lane 1768 ing of a product. The permission for evict-
ing residents, acquired on account of the
heritage initiative, facilitated the high-end development. If anything, limited supply of
low-rise luxury commodity housing in the Western District has made the per-square-
meter price of the Joffre Mansions, as the Lane 1754 development was renamed, among
the highest in the neighborhood.227
In 2003, Joffre Mansions opened with an official ribbon cutting ceremony. Lane
1754 was erased from Shanghai’s streetscape. The lane was renumbered as Huaihai Lu
Lane 1768. (Fig. 34) The former shortcut between the residential street of Wukang Lu
and the main thoroughfare Huaihai Lu has now been closed to through-traffic. Only
the eliteness of Joffre Mansions’ local and expat residents makes Lane 1754’s demoli-
tion and reconstruction, in the era of growing heritage appreciation, comprehensible.
The compound is rumored to house a former premier as well as other high-ranking cad-
res and politically connected entrepreneurs.228 Facing the Ferguson Lane compound,
parts of the Hong Kong developer’s family also live in the Joffre Mansions. Eleven units
of the compound are not for sale. The well-guarded gate, next to the visible entrance
to the underground parking, reminds passers-by that the elite occupants of the com-
pound require a closed neighborhood. The exclusivity of Joffre Mansions seems to be
in keeping with the historic fengmao of the area. The reconstruction of the old garden-
style house fits in, in a very timely manner, with the new trend of collecting real es-
tate antiques.
Even though the area was demolished and rebuilt with a different architecture
type, it is still dotted in the 2004 conservation plan as part of the core conservation
area.229 In the plan that grades the architecture by type of conservation, the newly de-
veloped buildings are listed as “other,” a designation assigned to buildings built after
1949. Lane 1754 was not the only one to be first listed as Excellent Historic Architecture
and then demolished. Scholars counted four other listed sites that were demolished in
the economic development-driven late 1990s and early 2000s.230
Even though the original buildings of Lane 1754 were demolished and new ones re-
placed them, the myth of the lane continued to be perpetuated. The overseas-Chinese
newspaper Sing Tao Daily [新島日報], while lamenting the loss of historic buildings in
rapidly changing Chinese cities, also continued to direct visitors to Lane 1754, high-
lighting that it had been the home of the rich and famous of old Shanghai.231 One article
emphasized history, and yet overlooked the erasure of the original buildings. The year

188
 after the completion of Joffre Mansions, a book called Dreaming Back on Shanghai’s Old
Western-style Houses [回梦上海老洋房] was published. Part of a “series for finding roots
[寻根系列],” the book devotes a section to the romance of the American writer and cor-
respondent for the New Yorker magazine, Emily Hahn, and Chinese poet and publisher
Sinmay Zau [邵洵美] in one of Lane 1754’s old houses.232 Even though the actual Lane
1754 disappeared, legends of the old Shanghai it embodied lived on.
Vignettes about the historic personas who occupied 76 historic buildings make up
the book Dreaming Back on Shanghai’s Old Western-style Houses. The author Song Lux-
ia [宋路霞] was the former editor of a university newspaper. From a Red background,
Song was a prolific author of modern era heritage, with 21 books listed under her name
in the catalogue of the Shanghai Library and published between 1999 and 2014. Song’s
books focus on the family histories of prominent people set in modern era buildings. In
addition to Lane 1754, two of the houses selected were also on Wukang Lu, in Lane 117.
(Fig. 35) According to Song, the houses of Lane 117 originally belonged to banker Zhou
Zuomin [周作民], and since Liberation belonged to the municipal government and CCP
leadership.233
When the former owners of one of the houses in Lane 117 were asked about the his-
tory of their home on Wukang Lu, it became clear that the plaques on the street today
are not to be trusted entirely. The house in the back, Number 1 in Lane 117, was indeed
built in 1944 and designed by the architect Robert Fan, in accordance with the plaque.
It is important that Fan, a Western-trained Chinese architect, is featured because his
name lends the buildings a sense of hybridity.234 What is not mentioned is that Fan
was commissioned by He Guoyun, who made his fortune during the Japanese occu-
pation.235 Not as famous as the Zhou Zuomin whom Song wrote about, He was able to
obtain the property at Lane 117 when the Vichy government, expelled from the French
Concession in 1943, handed over its land to the China Industrial Bank for management
under the Japanese-controlled collaborationist government. In Lane 117 He began to
build house Number 1. When the Japanese were ousted from China at the close of
World War II , He was exiled because of his collaborationist affiliations. His house was
then occupied by police commissioner Li
Jilan for a time. It was only after Li was
transferred to Guangzhou, in 1951, that
He requested the return of his property at
Lane 117. He sold his house Number 1 for
140,000 R MB to Chen Yuanqin, the own-
er of the China Knit and Textiles Factory
[中国毛绒纺织厂], which was founded by
Chen’s father in 1936. After Communists
took over China in 1949, Chen’s brothers
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

emigrated to Hong Kong, like many oth-

Fig. 35 Municipal heritage plaques for Lane 117 on Wukang
Lu, with minimal description of the architecture, shown at
the Wukang Lu Tourism Information Center and Xuhui District
Old Houses Art Center, 2012
ers from similar social backgrounds. Chen
remained in the PRC , however. The house
Number 1 was purchased under the name
of Chen’s wife in December 1953, and the
family moved in.236 The other house in the
front facing Wukang Lu, Number 2, was

189
 built at the same time as Number 1, commissioned by the owner of the Butterf­ly brand
sewing machine factory. It was then sold to one of the three prominent papermaking
tycoons of the time, by the last name of Liu.237
When CCP took over China and founded the PRC in 1949, many entrepreneurs and
industrialists fled with their capital and factories to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and abroad.
The CCP dubbed the local industrialists who remained and continued to contribute to
the private sector as ‘national capitalists [民族资本家],’ because they produced patri-
otically for the new nation in the 1950s. For many of the local industrialists, including
Chen, the CCP indeed brought order to replace the corruption and disarray that Na-
tionalist rulers had left behind. The CCP also initially regarded the local industrialists’
contributions as important for the building of the new nation’s self-sufficiency.238 The
enterprises of the local industrialists like Chen and Liu were absorbed into the eco-
nomic system of the CCP.
The euphoria of the first decade of nation founding wore away as progressive na-
tionalization of private property and enterprises turned the tide against the local in-
dustrialists.239 The increasingly centralized planned economy, based on the Soviet
model, forced many of the residents in the neighborhood around Wukang Lu—many
whose enterprises could no longer survive central planning’s determination of value
chains or were nationalized—to rely increasingly on their savings and remittances to
survive.240 The remittances came from Hong Kong or from further abroad via Hong
Kong. Some of the industrialists, whom the state engaged, inevitably spoke out against
the hand that was feeding them.
During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), purges and ‘search and confiscation
[抄家]’ became daily events, especially in neighborhoods like that around Wukang Lu,
which had been a bastion of bourgeois habits and capitalist sympathies. Even though
frugality as style dominated, visible in the drab grey and navy outfits that became uni-
versal, the two daughters of the Liu family in house Number 2 still dressed fashionably,
their narrow-legged pants and perms disclosing their bourgeois habits. These cultural
indiscretions met with harsh consequences at the height of the Cultural Revolution.241
The sisters’ hairstyles, clothing, and accoutrements were rendered counterrevolution-
ary. As a consequence, they were physically attacked. Shoes from the household were
carted out and set afire in a pyre in the middle of Wukang Lu. The sisters were forci-
bly subjected to the haircut known as the ‘yin-yang,’ with one side of the head shaved
and the other not. They, like other ‘counter-revolutionaries,’ were paraded on the street
as harbingers of privilege. As ‘enemies of the proletariat class,’ they were publicly de-
nounced. For days on end, the sisters were tortured to remain awake, enduring the
dousing of water whenever they inevitably drifted off to sleep.242
Between 23 August and 8 September 1967, in Shanghai alone, 84,222 families were
stripped of all their valuables by the rampages of ‘search and confiscation.’ The fam-
ilies of house Numbers 1 and 2 in Lane 117 were kicked out of their spacious homes.
Forced to move to tiny, often amenity-less quarters nearby, they were considered lucky
to have been spared their lives.243 The eight-story Normandie Apartments down the
street became known at the time as the “diving board” for the number of suicides that
took place from its heights. The families of the leaders of the Shanghai municipality
replaced the residents at Lane 117. The tide of Cultural Revolution even turned against
the Shanghai government. After the January Revolution of 1967, the municipal leaders

190
Fig. 36 The District-awarded heritage plaques that describe Lane 117 ‘s former residents, 2011

had also been booted from their homes, which were situated near the Shanghai CCP
headquarters on Kangping Lu, a few blocks south of Wukang Lu.244
After the Cultural Revolution, the government attempted to redress the loss of
property and valuables to the numerous unjustly dispossessed families. Even though
‘the implementation of policy [落实政策]’ started in the 1970s to restore losses incurred
during the upheavals, the Chen family was forced to sell its house Number 1 at Lane 117
for 110,000 R MB (equivalent to 50,000 USD at the time) to the government in 1981.245
For the future of his adult children, who needed the state’s approval to leave the coun-
try, the patron of the family did not wish to incur possible further obstacles and agreed
to the terms of the sale.246 In return, the family members were settled in three apart-
ment units, which were no longer located in the neighborhood. In the 1980s, members
of the Chen family would emigrate abroad.247 The Liu family managed to hold onto its
house Number 2 at Lane 117. The family also sold it for one million USD , after accelerat-
ed liberalization began in the 1990s. The two houses became the property of the state.
In 1999, the municipality conferred the title Excellent Historic Architecture on the
two buildings of Lane 117, as indicated by the two plaques on the wall. The two plaques
conferred by the Xuhui District government in 2011 for the Xuhui District Registered
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Untouchable Cultural Relic [徐汇区登记不可移动文物] repeated the description written

by Song. The plaques indicate that the residences belonged to Shanghai’s high-lev-
el leaders, including the “former mayor of Shanghai,” the “former vice chair of the
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress,” and the “former Secretary of
East China Bureau of the CCP Central Committee.”248 No mention is made of its more
ordinary but no less important real former residents. (Fig. 36) It is noticeably not the
first time that a doubtful text of history was disseminated.249 According to municipal

191
Fig. 37 Context of Lane 117, next to the Shanghai Nuclear Power Office, 2013

archives for housing and real estate, house Number 1 in Lane 117 was acquired by the
government on 24 October 1966.
Its neighbors perhaps give away the status of importance of Lane 117. The white
tiled tower directly to the north of Lane 117 was built in the mid-1980s, housing the
Shanghai Nuclear Power Office. (Fig. 37) The approval for the plot at the corner of Hu-
nan Lu and Wukang Lu plot is said to be the last personally signed by Premiere Zhou
Enlai in the 1970s.250 The forerunner of the Shanghai Nuclear Power Office was found-
ed in 1970 to develop nuclear facilities in a Project 728. The Office, in the CCP hierarchy,
is equivalent to a municipal-level bureau. To the south of the site is another compound
enclosed by large black gates. It has belonged to an elite division of the People’s Lib-
eration Army (PLA ) since the 1950s. During Lane 117’s renovations, it was visible that

192
the wall between the plots was opened to upgrade the grounds. As nightly rumbles of
construction trucks opened the rarely parted front gates of the neighboring plot, ru-
mors in the neighborhood swirled that the two renovated buildings would turn into a
club house for the central government CCP elites.251 (Fig. 38) Even if officially uncon-
firmed, the slow vacating of the PLA from the neighboring premises behind the black
metal gates seemed to corroborate neighborhood suspicions. The adjacencies of the
two plots could only hint at the high-leveled directives that would determine the fu-
ture of the compounds.
In 2012 the two buildings in Lane 117 underwent conservation. Windows were re-
turned to their historic proportions and the grounds were repaved. Compared to the
opening of author Ba Jin [巴金]’s former residence a few doors down on Wukang Lu,
supported by the Shanghai Writers’ Association, it was clear that the renovated hous-
es of Lane 117 were of a differing stature.
Lane 1754 and Lane 117 demonstrate two episodes in the development of heritage
conservation in Shanghai. Lane 1754 showed the use of conservation for real estate de-
velopment in the early 2000s. The project not only made conservation an urban loop-
hole of exception, destroying the original houses and swiftly expelling the residents.
Lane 1754, which became Joffre Mansions, was blatantly redesigned in the form of
historic garden-style houses to reclaim its heritage value. Lane 117, on the other hand,
showed a conservation project for cultural heritage in the late 2000s. Behind the façade
is also an account of erasure. As an erasure of the actual events and experiences that
took place in the buildings and in the neighborhood, it is reflective of the overarching
amnesia deemed necessary for economic development to continue. Lane 117, though
subtler in the deployment of conservation as an urban loophole, exemplifies the state
as privileged agent in its authority over history, both in the control of its artifacts and
in the re-narration of its own role in relation to culture. (Fig. 40)
For a country whose citizens have little input in top-down decisions that have im-
pact on their everyday lives, curiosity for and speculations about the leadership re-
veal more about the citizens’ suspicions toward the prevalent system than its possible
transgressions. Urban rumors that are unable to be confirmed hover over the owner-
ship of properties around Wukang Lu. The Hunan Villa [湖南别墅], at the intersection
of Hunan Lu and Wukang Lu and diagonally across from the Nuclear Office, was once
the residence of Mao’s second wife. Its ownership clearly with the state, it has been
said to have been passed on to Jiang Zemin, the former party secretary of Shanghai
and General Party Secretary of the CCP from 1989 to 2002. His rise to power as a result
of the 1989 Tian’anmen Incident and the ensuing ascendance of the Shanghai Gang
in the central government expedited the decision to make Shanghai the pilot site for
accelerated economic liberalization. It is said that on his return to Shanghai in the
1990s, with his son installed in the Hunan Villa, he wanted to turn the area around
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

it into tennis courts.252 The city was in the throes of massive demolition and recon-
struction as part of the urban restructuring required by marketization and globaliza-
tion. Only with the counterweight of other powerful residents in the area, alleged-
ly, were the plans thwarted. In the context of the larger political shift that has been
in play since 2013, ownership of the garden houses of the area seems to have changed
accordingly. Another former party secretary of Shanghai is now said to be using the
Hunan Villa.253

193
 Fig. 38 Renovation of Lane 117 Number 1 and 2, 2013

Conservation policies reacted directly to the swaths of urban fabric ruthlessly de-
stroyed and redeveloped in the 1990s. But since the feat of their implementation con-
servation has been able to merely polish the patina of history. True to fengmao, in its
emphasis on “features and styles,” conservation projects hover superficially over the
façade of old houses to showcase history and culture. Heritage conservation is absolved
of the responsibility to address the ambiguities and complexities left by circumstanc-
es of history. Memories such as those endured on Wukang Lu are at the same time
scrubbed from history. Since the mid-2000s, the street has been increasingly dressed
up as the crucible of old Shanghai’s cultured history. (Fig. 39)

194
 1

Harmonizing the contemporary

1

1
混1
混2 1 混5

building
混1

混6

混1

1
1
1 2

2
1

2 1
2

1
2
1
棚

1 1
1 2
2

1
棚
1

混5

混2

混5

2
3

棚
台

混5

1
棚 1 混1

混3

1
1

台
台

Commercialization
1
1

Rebuilding a historic facade

New construction

1
Heritage conservation
1

Heritage renovation
1
1

1 1
棚

1
2

台
1
New heritage construction
1

混5 1

台
1
Heritage reconstruction
1

1
1

台
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

台
棚

混2 台

混3

1
棚

26

混5
台

Wukang Wukang
Lu Fengmao
Lu Fengmao
台

Street Conservation
Street Conservation
Zone Zone
2
1
1
混6

1 Conserved
Conserved
Buildings
Buildings
混5

Protected
Protected
Buildings
Buildings
1

1
1
1
3 2
1 1
2
2

Fig. 39 Different modes of heritage projects along Wukang Lu, 2013

195
Fig. 40 Visitors reading the plaque for Lane 117, 2011
The ‘Western’ District and Learning from the
‘Beautification Plan’
In 2007, the film Lust, Caution [色戒], by the acclaimed Taiwanese director Ang Lee,
made Wukang Lu famous. Following the film’s denouement, the protagonist asks to
be taken to the street called Ferguson Lane.254 The location was changed in the film
from Yuyuan Lu [愚园路], the setting in the original book by the modern era writer Ei-
leen Chang, because of Wukang Lu’s growing contemporary renown. The establish-
ment of “144 conservation streets” two years before, 64 of which would be graded as
Grade 1 Protected Fengmao Streets, or ‘Streets never to be widened [永不拓宽地道路],’
highlighted Wukang Lu as one of the most valuable Fengmao Streets. Wukang Lu’s up-
grades, starting in the summer 2007, also confirmed the importance of the street to the
upcoming 2010 World Expo held in Shanghai.
The heritage implementers commended the development of Shanghai’s conserva-
tion approach as being from ‘point [点]’ to ‘plane [面]’ to the ‘line [线].’ Heritage conser-
vation of the ‘point’ referred to the architecture-focused gazetting of Excellent Historic
Buildings that began in the early 1990s. Heritage conservation of the ‘plane’ denoted
the district-scaled conservation plan approved in the mid-2000s, following the 2003
implementation of the Regulations on the Conservation of the Districts with Historical
Cultural Fengmao and Excellent Historical Buildings. The broadening of the conserva-
tion scope reflected a scalar shift from the object-based approach of selecting buildings
as cultural relics to an emphasis on spatial qualities, for which the urban neighborhood
was also deemed important to heritage conservation. The progression from the ‘point’
to the ’plane’ further culminated in the heritage conservation of the ’line,’ which were
the selected Fengmao Streets. The streetscapes embodied by the ’lines’ were, in the
words of one heritage proponent, the “model representation of the Shanghai culture
[海派文化的典型代表],” because the ’lines’ “recorded the splendor and elegance of the
city’s past [记载了城市曾经的辉煌与优雅].”255
Popular media endorsed the academic shift from the historic monument to the
authentic experience. The authentic experience of walking through a city’s historic
neighborhoods was the selling point not only for heritage conservation advocates but
also for tourism development. The convergence of popular interest in the touristic ex-
perience of the authentic and heritage practice of conserving the authentic thus need-
ed to find a new testing ground. The development of one of the Fengmao Streets as the
’line’ became this realization of authentic experience. With 14 Excellent Historic Archi-
tecture sites, 37 conserved architecture [保留建筑] and 30 former residence of famous
people [名人故居] along its 1,183-meter length, the pilot project found a good ’line’ in
Wukang Lu.
Rapid urban restructuring, which accompanied economic liberalization starting
in the 1990s, led to the severe loss of city center neighborhoods’ authentic character.
Especially in neighborhoods that were spared demolition-and-reconstruction, conser-
vation experts saw neighborhood transformations—the exodus of local residents, the
influx of both high-income expats and low-income migrant workers, and the prolifer-
ation of small commerce—as threats to the city center neighborhoods’ historic feng-

198
mao.256 Popular media and experts, including academics and bureaucrats, started to
use the term of ‘original juice original flavor [原汁原味]’ to represent the authentic am-
biance and character they saw as in danger of eroding.257 The experts sought to stem
the loss ‘original juice original flavor’ through conservation. In contrast to the objec-
tive term ‘historic fengmao,’ the much more tactile metaphor of ‘original juice’ denoted
the vernacular and everyday urban contents—both the physical environment and its
occupants—that gave the neighborhoods their sought after ‘original flavor.’ By using
the term ‘original juice original flavor’ with the more high-minded term of ‘historic
fengmao,’ the conservation experts added socio-economics back into the physical shell
of modern era built environment, which heritage policy sought to conserve.
In an interview, the renowned writer of old Shanghai, Chen Danyan, affirmed the
importance of the ’line:’ “only conserving the houses is not enough; if the road is
destroyed, the historic ambiance will be on gone as well [光保护房子是不够的，如果街道
被破坏了，历史气氛就没了].”258 In 2008, Chen published a book called Roads that Will
Never be Widened [永不拓宽的街道], taking its title from the conservation policy’s des-
ignation for the ‘lines’ of the Fengmao Streets. The book focuses on 16 selected streets,
each dedicated a chapter. The last chapter, “Wukang Lu, Road that Will Never Be Wid-
ened [武康路 永不拓宽的街道],”259 features Wu Jiang’s role in Shanghai’s heritage cru-
sade. It starts with his participation in the saving of the former Chen Residence in the
early 1990s, and continues through the implementation of conservation policies for the
Historic Fengmao Districts in the late 2000s.
Chen and Wu’s friendship complemented each other’s work at a moment when the
search for a new narrative for the rapidly developing Shanghai was taking form. Both
are Shanghainese transplants who took root in the city, and both became active in the
city’s transformation, openly taking on the responsibility for influencing and rebuild-
ing the historical imaginary for the city.260 On a panel where Chen and Wu discussed
plans by the owner of one of the largest private developers in China known for its
large-scale projects, the pair commended each other’s heritage efforts.261 Both pledged
their expertise to help conserve their adopted city’s historic identity.262
Even though contemporary best practices from international examples were fore-
grounded in Wu’s book in 2007,263 historic documents from the city’s modern histo-
ry were especially important for the development of contemporary planning policies.
Historic research would describe to academics and policy makers how Shanghai was
planned during the modern era and how conservation districts were given their urban
form and historic fengmao. It would also clarify the conceptual frameworks and prag-
matic motivations that realized areas like the former French Concession’s Western Dis-
trict, which makes up a large part of the contemporary conservation area in Shanghai.
A number of dissertations that studied the Concession-era urban administration
in Shanghai came out in the mid-2000s, indirectly influencing contemporary policy
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

implementation. Many dissected the organization systems of urban management un-

der the International Settlement’s Municipal Council [工部局] and French Concession’s
Conseil d’Administration Municipale [公董局], translating and reorganizing materials
from the archives. A 2005 dissertation examined the urban planning administration
and infrastructural implementation of the International Settlement and its impact on
the development of urban form,264 while another one from 2006 related the urban
administration’s role in the International Settlement to its public spaces, contrasting

199
Fig. 41 Historic photo of Wukang Lu from 1910

both to that of the French Concession in concept and form.265 Others include an anal-
ysis of the building laws of the International Settlement266 and a study of the plan-
ning processes governing the Bund area, showing the process of planning implemen-
tation.267 It was not only scholars in architecture and urban planning who researched
historic planning. A law faculty’s study of Concession-era planning laws and their im-
plementations,268 a historian’s study of the development of the French Concession,269
and a study of memory and modernity in Shanghai and Berlin from a faculty of com-
parative literature,270 amongst more, scoured the municipal archives, which only re-
cently became accessible and organized. (Fig. 41) These studies created a basis from
which to understand the formation of the Concession-era city, and set the example for
collating, outlining and translating historic planning practices. They also informed the
ongoing planning processes under rapid development.
The relationship between historic knowledge and contemporary application would
oftentimes be direct. Practitioners gleaned from the historic policies and plans to ap-
ply to contemporary urban administration.271 A dissertation studying Sinan Lu’s his-
torical district 272 coincided with Sinan Lu’s selection as one of four heritage conserva-
tion pilot projects in 2001. The research served as the groundwork to the area’s upgrade
and redevelopment launched in 2011. Many academics who also had roles in govern-
ment bureaucracies supervised research and analyses that fed implementation.273 An
analysis of the historic development of the French Concessions in relation to the orig-
inal urban settlements and hydrology and a study of historic streetscapes and their
formation would inform contemporary upgrades on the same sites.274 Both authors
took part in the development of the Hengshan Lu Fuxing Lu Historical Cultural Feng-
mao District.
The outline of the Hengshan Lu Fuxing Lu Historical Cultural Fengmao District, the
largest of the Fengmao Districts and the first for which a detailed conservation plan

200
was drawn up, overlaps with the outlines of a 1938 plan. Called The Plan for the Reor-
ganization and Beautification of the French Concession [整顿及美化法租界计划], as direct-
ly translated from Chinese, it was a plan many contemporary researchers cited. Al-
though there was no citation for the original French name, it was publicly announced
in the Chinese language Annual Report of the French Concession Conseil d’Administration
Municipale [上海法租界公董局年报] in 1938.275 The plan followed the Conseil’s 1903 out-
line of what was described as an “area reserved for European constructions [quarti-
er réservé aux constructions européenes],” which set precise regulations for building
standards in the designated residential district located in the new territory acquired by
the French Concession after its westward expansion in 1914. Together with the 1928 de-
lineation of a zone for industrial use [分类营业章程], shown in a map of area reserved for
classified establishments [carte de la zone réservé aux établissements classés], the plans
outlined what the Chinese scholars would refer to as the “Western District.”276 (Fig. 42)
The series of regulations for the Western District explicitly formulated construction
guidelines for building permits, assigned functional zones, and dictated population
density, height regulations, building setbacks, road width, and streetscape views. Plans
for the hierarchy of road networks from 1914, planting of trees from 1932, noise control
and hawker location and permission from 1933, dictation of automobile parking, side-
walk cleaning, and advertising signage regulation, from 1938, would shape the district
known today for its platanus-lined boulevards and “Western-style houses [洋房].”277
The area is still much admired by the contemporary public and urban specialists alike
for its urban form, and is often referred to as a representative area of old Shanghai. Parts
of the 1934 Règlement de Construction [Regulation for Construction] are reflected in the
parameters of the detailed control plan after 2003’s conservation regulations.278
In the 1938 Plan for the Reorganization and Beautification of the French Concession,
several areas in the larger designated area under regulation were marked as exceptions
to the planning regulation: the hatched areas largely showed settlements that pre-ex-
isted the regulations.279 Because they had already been built, buildings in the hatched
areas did not follow the regulation standards and were areas of exception from the
regulation. In the 1939 update to the Plan for the Reorganization and Beautification of the
French Concession, the six areas of exception were reduced to two.280 (Fig. 43) These two
areas with lilong-style buildings were allowed to remain on the condition that there
were no dark grey-bricked facades visible from the street. At the time, grey-bricked
buildings were Chinese, and red-bricked ones were Western, which were preferred.
Even though these pre-existing buildings were exempted from the regulations, instal-
lation of heating and sanitation were still required.
When economic liberalization propelled large-scale redevelopment in the 1990s,
these two older areas around which the strictly regulated buildings would be built
were the first areas to be demolished. Despite having survived the strictness of the
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Concession-era planning regulations, these older areas expired under the pressures
of contemporary development.281 Even in the 2000s, when historic buildings gained
importance with heritage recognition, it was clear that the authorities regarded these
older areas as both physically and socially “inadequate”282 because they did not fit in
with the other Western-style old houses of the historic Western District. In the contem-
porary choice of sites to be demolished and reconstructed, the tone for a selective his-
toric conservation was already in place.

201
Fig. 42 Map of French Concession plan of 1938 , with Chinese labels for the different zones

One of the Tongji dissertations published contrasts the authorities’ top-down plan-
ning in the expansion of the French Concession to the much more laissez-faire mode
of development control in the International Settlement.283 The scholar regards the
planned open spaces of the Western District under French planning spacious and or-
ganized, in contrast to the disorder of the partially privatized public spaces of denser
lilong areas largely in the older parts of the French Concession and in the International
Settlement to the east. According to the research, because of the strict urban rules in
the Western District, with each private residence having its own greenery, the class of
residents who lived there also had less need for shared spaces, thus resulting in less
disorderly public spaces.284 The scholar reads the aesthetic and atmospheric street-
scapes that resulted as the urban quality of the Western District’s neighborhood.285
Not only did French Concession planning shape urban quality, the scholar also attri-
butes regulated architecture to the occupants’ social class: “European architecture’s
building cost exceeded that of Chinese buildings, the more spacious residential areas,
etc., determined the class of the residents [欧式建筑造价较中式建筑高，宽松的居住空间
等等决定了居民的阶层].”286 This valuation of physical form and its influence on social
selectivity, supported by historic research, was important conceptual grounding for
the contemporary heritage conservation project. To conservation experts, groomed
from academia, restoring the authenticity of the modern era neighborhood and its ur-
ban quality through social selectivity was the target of conservation.
In a book entitled Shanghai Wukang Lu [上海武康路], published in 2009, the authors
reiterate that the modern era residents’ “social status [身份]” was befitting of the West-
ern District’s urban “quality [品质].”287 One of the authors, Sha Yongjie [沙永杰], also a
professor at Tongji, was part of the central circle of heritage experts. He had contribut-
ed a section in Zheng Shiling’s 1999 book on Shanghai’s modern architecture, as well
as to Luo Xiaowei’s 2002 book on Xintiandi.288 Sha was also part of the development
of the 2003 Regulations on the Conservation of the Districts with Historical Cultural Feng-
mao and Excellent Historic Architecture under Wu Jiang. Most importantly, Sha served
as the lead in the renovation and upgrade project for the conservation of Wukang Lu

202
Fig. 43 Overlap of the French Concession plan of 1939 and the contemporary heritage conservation area, in red

itself. The book’s articulation of the relationship between urban qualities and their
appropriate residential social class was not only used to verify necessary physical en-
hancements of the conservation project. It also implied a parallel call for the upgrade
of contemporary occupants as recipients of the effort. Sha not so subtly hints that
Wukang Lu, a road highlighted as the exemplary realization of the beautified and high-
end Western District, deserved more elite occupants.289
The comment that “the French Concession’s Western District was the only instance
of a carefully designed residential district in Shanghai [法租界西区是上海唯一经过精心
设计的住宅区]” reinforces the authors’ high regard for the urban administration system
as well as policy implementations under the Conseil and its subordinate body of the
Service des Travaux Publics [Public Works Department/公共工程处].290 The authors at-
tribute the urban qualities of the Western District’s residential neighborhoods to their
proximity to commerce on the main axes, but also, within the neighborhoods, the in-
sulation from commercial intrusions. More importantly, the authors emphasize the
fact that “the residents’ ‘status’ and cultural backgrounds were largely similar in the
neighborhood [区域内居民的‘身份’和文化背景基本相似]” and this has made the urban
qualities exemplary. “These are, in today’s cities of the developed countries, still the
basic features for an excellent quartier [在今天的发达国家城市中，这些特点依然是优秀社
区的基本特征].”291 They view the historic relationship between the form of the modern
era buildings and the social status of their occupants as important to the contempo-
rary implementation of heritage conservation.
The aspirations for this excellent quartier were partially underway in implemen-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

tation. Teams working on upgrade plans for Wukang Lu began in 2007. Between 2007
and 2009, the upgrade project of Wukang Lu became Xuhui District’s pilot project at
the scale of the ‘line’ to welcome the 2010 World Expo.292 After a year of site documen-
tation by Sha’s team, including detailed cataloguing of street- and architecture-scale
elevations and coordination between the different municipal- and district-level depart-
ments for further renovation, the District authorized and implemented the Wukang Lu
Fengmao Street Conservation Plan [武康路风貌保护道路保护规划].293 In the Wukang Lu

203
Figs. 44 , 45 Regulations for house number 107 along Wukang Lu as part of the conservation plan, left; and the
reality of multiple families that live in the house in 2012, right

Fengmao Street Conservation Plan, each historic building was accompanied by a list
of control elements that would need to be engaged to upgrade the façade and there-
by improve the quality of the street.294 (Fig. 44) Largely focusing on the physical im-
provements that could be made to fengmao, the documentation could only allude to
the fragmented and ambiguous ownership of some of the historic residences listed as
conserved architecture, which remains an obstacle to the implementation of conser-
vation inside historic buildings. (Fig. 45)
A second phase of upgrades followed the Expo. Organized under the lead of the Of-
fice of the Committee for Xuhui District’s Historic Cultural Fengmao District and Con-
servation of Excellent Historic Architecture, Sha was appointed the masterplanner to
oversee the upgrade project for the conservation of Wukang Lu. The official term for
Wukang Lu’s upgrade is “conservational restoration [保护性整治],” which means “res-
toration and realignment [整治]” for “conservation [保护].”295 As part of the conserva-
tional restoration of Wukang Lu, small projects passed to colleagues as well as on to
Sha’s own office, with redesigns to street-facing interfaces such as the walls and the
entrances to the lanes and compounds. (Fig. 46)
The principle of “repair the old to be the original and preserve its authenticity [修旧
如故存其真]” to achieve the “restoration of the original historic fengmao [力求恢复原有
的历史风貌]” prevailed in the conservational restoration of Wukang Lu.296 Most of the
street-facing facades were redesigned with elements from historic documents.297 It
was clear that the desired fengmao of the street, which the authorities and the planners
deemed authentic to the ‘original flavor’ and which they saw as reviving the neigh-
borhood’s former “quality,”298 were particular ones from before 1949. Materials that
belonged to other eras, either before or after the desired ‘original,’ were replaced. A
glass-clad building at the corner of Anfu Lu [安福路], built in the 1990s, was immediate-
ly defined as an example of inappropriateness. (Fig. 47) The building would be re-clad
from the palette of “materials that must fit the historical material characteristics of the
neighborhood [材质上必须服从街区历史材质的特点].”299 (Fig. 48) Tiled facades, widely
used in the 1980s and 1990s, were replaced with red brick or white stucco. Lanes and
sidewalks were repaved with patterned stones, edged by pebbles reminiscent of the
vernacular style from the region. The characteristic walls that enclosed each plot were
upgraded with Art Deco motifs taken from historic references.300

204
 Challenges to conservation behind the
fengmao, from dilapidating interiors, an ag-
ing population, population decline, and own-
ership complexities to the entrenchment of
central government institutions, were daubed
over with a fresh layer of paint. In 2009, news
coverage proudly announced that a total of
26,242 square meters of fengmao in 11 longtangs,
21,968 square meters of façade, 1,400 meters
of walls, 69 entryways, and 8,240 square me-
ters of sidewalk paving were conservationally
Fig. 46 Designed and upgraded gateways on Wukang restored.301 Additionally, 14 street-front com-
Lu, 2011 mercial programs were also upgraded. The for-
mer elegance of Wukang Lu re-debuted.
The Wukang Lu conservational restoration was not only an exemplary success,
opened in time for the Expo’s influx of largely Chinese tourists who flocked to the
Fengmao Street. The processes of planning and concerted conservational restoration,
involving the various district and municipal departments, also set a precedent. Start-
ing in January 2008, the municipal Planning Administration organized the produc-
tion of the Historic Cultural Fengmao District and Excellent Historic Architecture Conser-
vation Plan [历史文化风貌区和优秀历史建筑保护地图]. The processes of documentation,
planning, and renovation of Wukang Lu were compiled as part of the Study of Methods
for the Compilation of Plans for Shanghai’s Fengmao Conservation Streets [上海市风貌保护
道路规划编织方法研究], to be used for all ensuing conservation projects.302 Between
2011 and 2013, a set of in-depth plans were drawn up for the fengmao streets of the
Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu Historic District, with Wu and Sha designated as the master
planners.303
To promote the conservation efforts, the second national Cultural Heritage Day
[文化遗产日], held over the first weekend of June in 2007, promoted the event “Getting
Closer to the Old Houses [走近老房子]”, 304 with series of open houses to the garden-style

Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Figs. 47, 48 A building from the 1990 s on the corner of Wukang and Anfu Lu, left; and the same buildings after its
upgrade, right, 2013

205
 old houses under the municipality or district’s institutional jurisdiction that were nor-
mally closed to the public. The popularity of the Heritage Day confirmed the success of
the public outreach. In August, a reproduction of the Old Commercial Atlas of Shanghai
[老上海百业指南] was also published,305 rapidly selling out. To the growing middle
class audience who increasingly had expendable resources as well as time to appreci-
ate history and heritage, the “historic approach” was gaining esteem.
As a “historical approach to urban regeneration,”306 the Shanghai Wukang Lu book
continues in the vein of the earlier book on Xintiandi by providing a historic context
and social analyses of the area as background for the contemporary implementations
for upgrade. Rather than an accolade bestowed after the development by a senior his-
torian, the Wukang Lu book constitutes at once historic research, documentation of
the policy implementation, and public outreach project. Curiously, Wukang Lu’s Lane
1754’s displacement and heritage reconstruction are not included. Cases such as the his-
tory of Lane 117 are also not mentioned. Even though in the preface to the book, Zheng
Shiling emphasizes that “people are the history [人就是历史],”307 the selected vignettes
of the street’s residents are those of renown.308 History and the ‘historic approach’ are
only timely instruments to justify and validate plans for the street’s upgrade.
The fluidity between research and practice continued, conferring on the schol-
ars-cum-designers a privileged input on the future of the street. Coming from earlier
positions of autonomy and resistance, the academics have grown increasingly com-
plicit in the planning bureaucracy. In order to restore the heritage area’s authenticity
and return the neighborhood to its ‘original juice original flavor,’ historic research is
used to substantiate the necessity for demographic upgrade as part of conservation
implementation. The conservation policies not only create exceptional opportunities
for urban loopholes, based on the premise of heritage conservation, but also facilitate
top-down processes for upgrade.
In October 2010, the municipal Housing Administration opened a Center for the
Conservation of Shanghai’s Historic Architecture [上海市历史建筑保护事务中心].309 On
11 June 2011, Wukang Lu was selected as a Renowned Chinese Historic and Cultural
Street [中国历史文化名街], with approval granted by the central government’s Admin-
istration for National Cultural Relics and Cultural Bureau [文化部], 18 months after the
publication of the Wukang Lu book. A few days later, on 23 June 2011, the municipal
administration for Cultural Relics and the Xuhui District government held the inaugu-
ration ceremony for Wukang Lu, the Cultural Street.

The World Primary School and

Small Entrepreneurs
In June 2010, Professor Sha shared with the pupils of World Primary School, located
on Wukang Lu, the importance of their neighborhood’s history.310 In his conclusion to
the Wukang Lu book, a photo of the red-scarfed [红领巾] Young Pioneers [少先队员],311
holding elevations of the former school at Number 393, showed the potential and hope
for the conservation project. The book concludes that awareness raised with the next
generation is the key to the future of the conservation of a city’s heritage.312

206
 In 1956, the primary school changed
its name to the less bourgeois name of
Huaihai Lu N. 2 Primary School when the
consolidation of all education facilities
under the state as part of the nationaliza-
tion that took place. With the rising tide
of heritage conservation in the mid-2000s,
the school reverted to calling itself by its
pre-Liberation name of the World Primary
School in 2008. A convenience store that
had been inserted into the sidewall facing
Wukang Lu in the 1990s313 also closed. In
Fig. 49 The World Primary School’s Memorial on Wukang Lu
across from Lane 117, 2012 its place a memorial hall introducing the
history of the World Primary School was
installed to highlight the cultural luminaries who were alumnae of the school, many
of whom had emigrated in the 1950s. (Fig. 49)
The World Primary School Memorial [世界小校史纪念馆] was given a name of
elegance meaning “building for the seeking of wisdom and virtuousness [思贤楼],”
from a classic Chinese proverb originating from the Three Kingdoms.314 Like the name
change for the school, the naming convention showed the post-liberalization mode of
harking to pre-Liberation Republican-era references.315 The donor whose name was
etched in front of the small building, Henry Leung [梁焯铿], comes from the Leungs
of the Leighton Textiles, one of the many family businesses that had made Shanghai
known before the war. It was his widow, who came from another one of the largest
Shanghai-based textile families, known today as Hong Kong Textiles, who donated the
memorial to their hometown of Shanghai.316 The connection of Shanghai to the Chi-
nese diaspora, especially to the Hong Kong industrialists, remained close, even after
the three decades of China’s closure to the outside.317
Addressing the inevitability of market economy’s pressure on the city center neigh-
borhood, in the context of the rapidly transitioning economy of Shanghai, the plan-
ners who conservationally restored Wukang Lu saw the only “bright spots [亮点]” in
this “memorial and exhibition type of cultural touristic projects [纪念或展示类的文化
旅游性项目]” and the “high-end fashionable spots [中高端时尚场所]” that supported
their upgrades to the neighborhood’s urban quality and social composition.318 The Wu-
kang Lu Tourism Information Center [武康路旅游咨询中心] and the Xuhui District Old
Houses Art Center [徐汇老房子艺术中心] also opened in the former auditorium space of
the original location of World Primary School.
In the few years following the Wukang Lu’s conservational restoration, the street
has seen both the large-scale commercial building of Ferguson Lane as well numerous
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

small-scaled commercial additions that have evolved to become part of the creative
economy.319 The overall trend remained as the planners had wished: Wukang Lu is
becoming a street that looks increasingly global, with a vibe and fengmao that rekin-
dles what popular media, bureaucrats, planners, and small entrepreneurs, harked as
its high-ended cosmopolitan past.
Conservationally restoring Wukang Lu’s urban quality also meant pushing out
businesses that planners and authorities deemed inappropriate for its fengmao. New

207
Figs. 50, 51 Facade of the Catie Lo store, left; and the Ipluso’s shop’s old location in front of the tiled building, constructed in
the 1990 s, right

commercial programs more appropriate to the street replaced repair shops and hard-
ware stores. The Wukang Lu Fengmao Street Conservation Plan’s detailed elevation draw-
ings were explicit: their curt comments called out the “prohibition of street-facing
storefronts [禁止出现沿街店面],”320 even where they already existed. Despite the plan-
ners’ disparagements towards small entrepreneurs on the street and their desire to
keep the street residential,321 the upgrade project that was implemented nevertheless
seemed to expedite, rather than hinder, Wukang Lu’s commercialization.
In the late 2000s, as the conservational restorations were underway, small enter-
prises also caught wind of Wukang Lu’s growing prestige. Ipluso, a cultural products
enterprise which began in 2004, opened a shop in a storefront space at Number 202, a
property which was part of the state enterprise Shanghai Flower and Trees Company
that had its offices in a white-tiled building behind. (Fig. 51) CNN touted that its large
shop window showcased glasses and stationery products as what one needed to “get
noticed.”322 The store also featured design in action, with local designers visibly click-
ing away on their silver iMacs behind the shop window. Across the street, another de-
signer entrepreneur, originally from Beijing and who had studied in the UK , opened a
fashion and accessories boutique called Catie Lo on the ground floor of an old apart-
ment building at Number 105. (Fig. 50) Strolling on Wukang Lu had given the design-
er entrepreneur the motivation to open up the store, which featured a mix of vintage
and contemporary items, inspired by the ambiance of the street.323 With a small open
space converted to a garden at its entrance, a street-facing façade also was painted
with a perspective of an interior hallway, framed by an antique car. The stores grasped
the heritage value that the Fengmao Street bestowed on their businesses, and whether
these boutiques’ openings abided by the Wukang Lu Fengmao Street Conservation Plan
did not seem so have much impact.
Although it would seem that any conservation plan would take into account the
contents of the urban fabric, the relationship of the Wukang Lu Fengmao Street Con-
servation Plan to program and ownership seemed tenuous at best. Academics in the
mid-2000s crafted the well-meaning analyses to support conservation. Nevertheless,
conservation implementations come off as naive in their engagement of changes on
the ground. In meetings with the district authorities, even some of the planning team
expressed frustration regarding the Wukang Lu Fengmao Street Conservation Plan’s abil-
ity to steer programmatic development inside the shells of conserved buildings.324

208
Figs. 52, 53 Converted facade of a tiled building on Wukang Lu, left; and the addition of a burger joint as part of its
development, right

This frustration revealed a fundamental discrepancy between the concepts for con-
servation policy as a set of urban rules, which maintained what the academics saw as
the heritage value of the historic urban structures, and their implementation under the
institutional frameworks of transition economy.325
Most of the changes to the façades as well as the interiors of the buildings in the
neighborhood proved the Conservation Plan to be either ineffective or deliberately
ignored. The commercialization of the ground floor units contradicted the stipulation
that no functional changes could happen to the buildings without municipal approv-
al. Similarly, interior changes that occupants made, would, according to the Conserva-
tion Plan, be informal. Given that most of the buildings are already in the grey zone
of programmatic reuse or physical transformations, the law, crucially, defines the de-
ployable parameters for pushing out residents and tenants, in the name of conserva-
tion. Although untested yet in this capacity, the possibility of legal penalty makes the
uncertainty that conversions and upgrades face the only sure thing. If nothing more,
the state implemented the Conservation Plan so that the authorities could use their pa-
rameters should the need arise.
In 2010, as tourists flocked to Wukang Lu, led on jaunts to rediscover the old houses
of the conservationally restored Cultural Street, more commercial spaces opened on
the street. At the northern end of Wukang Lu, at the intersection of Anfu Lu, the up-
grade of an “unharmonious” glass-clad building gave way to a commercial hub with a
Western supermarket, bakery, yoga studio, spa, work-share offices.326 At the southern
end of Wukang Lu, Ferguson Lane expanded into the adjacent tower building. Small
conversions of ground floor spaces continued, while older existing commerce were
replaced by newer businesses commanding higher rents. A Taiwanese restaurateur,
who had already opened a few other cafés nearby, opened Petite Jasmine in a small
space inset from the wall, at Number 214. Like Catie Lo, an accumulation of antique
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

accessories lent the place a Mediterranean ambiance that fit the Cultural Street. Wine
bars, specialist boutiques, and juice bars replaced repair shops, fruit stalls, and realtor
shops. Since 2013, the white-tiled building behind Ipluso was upgraded, with a more
Deco façade fronted by a burger joint and ice cream shop that is famous for its queues.
(Figs. 52, 53)
Conservation of the spatial legacies of Shanghai’s modernity was not overlooked
by the watching world, especially in light of the city’s role in China’s re-globalization.

209
 As the gateway to the vast market of the country in the 19th century, Shanghai’s mod-
ern era image was formed by its global commercial connections. When the long-closed
Communist nation accelerated its re-opening to the world in the 1990s, Shanghai again
became a hub of both financial as well as cultural interaction between China and the
world. Since the late 1990s, articles in Western media described the influx of creative
globe-trotters as attracted to the former Concessions in particular because their mod-
ern era buildings along platanus-lined streets serve as “a reminder of home.”327 It was
implied that a contemporary rekindling of Shanghai’s cosmopolitan past, manifested
by its built environment, could again make the city a node in the global flows of capital
and talent, affirming the narrative of legacy’s contribution to the city’s’ re-globalization.
While the district continued to welcome the visitors that conservational restoration
generated for the street,328 the protection of historic relics inside remained ambigu-
ous. At Wukang Lu’s south end stands the former Normandie Apartments, also known
as Wukang Apartments [武康大楼], considered the Flatiron of the former French Con-
cession because of its triangular plot facing an étoile intersection. Its ground floor had
one of the earliest cold storage facilities designed for the 1930s apartment tower, now
a gazetted Excellent Historic Architecture. The ground floor gallery had also famously
included a deli, salon, and dry cleaning, since before Liberation. Until the 1980s, the
salon at the base of the towers was well known for its steady flow of well-known cli-
entele, who endured the calamities under planned economy and visited their coiffeur.
Since the 2000s, bank ATM s, new shops, and beauty salons replaced some of the origi-
nal stores in the revived market economy. With the new functions, one resident, whose
father recalled the construction of the buildings during his university days, lament-
ed that the cold storage facility was removed. It was replaced with a spa that needed
the space.329
In contrast to the tacit interests of the planners for the conservational restoration,
the district government’s interest in heritage was direct. They sought to activate the
links between history and future investments, especially from the diaspora, and be-
tween heritage and the attraction of overseas resources to enhance the cultural capital
of the district. To the District authorities, the memorials, tourist centers featuring old
houses, and old houses of prominent people increased the renown of the street, which
in turn facilitated further access to resources. Heritage created the urban loophole of
exception that would give the state the privilege of intervention, in the name of cul-
tural conservation.

Approximating Globalization and

the State’s Appropriation
Re-narration of history is the habit of those in power. David Harvey, who famous-
ly coined ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics,’ 330 emphasizes that ‘heritage­
isation,’ the development of heritage as a process, is tied to “the production of
identity, power, and authority,” “a selective portrayal contingent on present-day re-
quirements.” 331 This is manifested in the development of the heritage project and its
prototype of Wukang Lu in Shanghai.

210
 In the West, the conceptualization of ‘heritage,’ with elaborations on the ‘monu-
ment,’ ‘preservation’ and ‘conservation,’ developed under modernity.332 This result-
ed from the pressures of economic transition during the Industrial Revolution, which
compelled a growing ‘nostalgia’ for the rapidly depleting past as a consequence of de-
velopment. The formation of the nation state under modernity, for which the relics of
the past became bearers of a collective cultural identity, also facilitated and were pro-
pelled by the concepts and processes for ‘heritage.’ China’s encounter with modernity
brought these notions of ‘heritage’ to the country in the early 1900s. But, it is in face
of China’s economic transition, which began in the 1980s and accelerated in the 1990s,
that ‘heritage,’ as concept and as process, developed. As Harvey emphasized, heritagei­
sation is symptomatic of the development of political economy in the West since in-
dustrialization. Heritageisation, evolving in a developmental autocracy, 333 such as that
of China’s transition economy, is also symptomatic of its institutional frameworks.
As this chapter has shown, economic development and urban restructuring induced
a popular ‘nostalgia’ for a disappearing past, as propagated by popular media. At the
same time, academics appropriated heritage concepts learned from developed econ-
omies of the West and adapted these ‘heritage’ practices to the rapidly transforming
city of Shanghai. This and the previous chapter have shown that the urban loopholes of
gaps and absences, emerging from economic transition, which bottom-up actors ex-
ploited, conserved historic buildings through their reuse. This chapter also has shown
the urban loopholes of exceptions and alibis, which top-down actors utilized to pursue
agendas for development and heritageisation, which go hand in hand.
The CCP and its institutions, from the central government to the municipality, has
since Liberation carved up the properties abandoned by capitalists and elites who
fled the country, and occupied the best real estate in the former French Concession’s
Western District when it took over Shanghai in 1949. A diversity of occupants—indus-
trialists, intellectuals, Party elites, and ordinary citizens—coexisted in the neighbor-
hood. Under planned economy, the lack of development exacerbated existing densi-
ty and magnified the spatial juxtaposition of socio-economic differences. With social
frictions exploding in the political pogroms of the Cultural Revolution that were as
much socially as politically motivated by the proximity of economic and cultural dif-
ferentials, waves of emigration of pre-Liberation elites from the area, first in 1949 and
then in the 1980s, inevitably served the purposes of the party-state in facilitating its
territorial expansion. When economic transition began in the 1980s, the priorities of
the CCP shifted to that of capital accumulation. With the development of real estate
as commodity and the marketization of housing, it was inevitable that economic ef-
ficiency and private ownership would infringe on state control unless the state also
participated as a privileged determinant of development. It was thus not only the en-
lightened concepts brought by the know-how exchanges of globalization that elevated
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

the neighborhood around Wukang Lu to heritage status. The political elites’ hold on the
most valuable real estate acquired since Liberation was also what saved an area like
the Western District from the demolitions that rapidly cleared large parts of Shanghai
in the early 1990s. The foresight of the Concession-era planners, in their creation of a
district that by virtue of its regulated urbanism first attracted the capitalist, then the
Communist, and today the socialist-market-economy elites, is not precluded from the
physical resilience of the neighborhood.

211
 What Shanghai’s heritageisation and
Wukang Lu’s conservational restoration
have also shown is the evolving dou-
ble role played by academics under eco-
nomic transition. The academics helped
reconceptualize Shanghai’s modern era
buildings and urban fabric as invaluable
heritage. The academics also became the
executors of state-directed conservation-
al restorations for the same valued heri-
tage. From their support of the Xintiandi
model, validating its legitimacy as a via-
ble historic conservation project, to their
engagement in the Wukang Lu conserva-
Fig. 54 A sign that says “Regulate the ‘Five Illegals,’ Restore
the Fengmao, Preserve the Nostalgia” on Wuyuan Lu, where tional restoration, the double role the ac-
shutdowns and upgrades were implemented in 2016 ademics have taken on has inhibited an
earlier criticality, swapping it for a prag-
matic complicity with the interests of the local government. The academics, many
becoming planning bureaucrats, promote the “selective borrowing from ‘advanced’
foreign organizational and regulatory practices,” which political theorists Sebastian
Heilmann and Elizabeth Perry point to as crucial to the state’s institutional plastici-
ty.334 The academics-bureaucrats extract theories from international best practices
and Concession-era planning procedures to justify and affirm the state’s claims to his-
toric territory.
Explaining the unique advantages of being in the Chinese context, lead academic,
pioneer conservationist, and planning bureaucrat Wu Jiang put forth that “because of
the limits from land rights, property rights and other private rights, many Western de-
veloped countries are limited in their capacity to realize many of their advanced plan-
ning concepts [由于地权，产权，和私权等各方面的限制，不少西方发达国家在规划理论上的
很多先进理念在他们的实际规划实施中受阻碍]; but because our land rights belong to the
state, it is more advantageous to our reprogramming of land resources [但由于我国地
权国有，更加有利于调整土地资源]” 335 He attributes the singular authority of the state
to the planner’s ability to realize the West’s most advanced planning concepts, such as
that for heritageisation, which faces critiques and obstacles in the West.
Working closely with the local state, the academics-bureaucrats have, since the
finish of the Cultural Street project and the ensuing commercialization of the street,
made recommendations for the local state to mimic the methods of the small entre-
preneurs. Much in the same way that the small entrepreneurs profited from market
demands, some of the academics-bureaucrats have recommended the reversion of the
ground-level commercial spaces to local state ownership.336 In the name of reclaim-
ing what is considered “eroded” assets to the local state and facilitating heritageisation,
this recommendation of an incremental and spatially dispersed development would
allow the privileged player in the market, the local state authorities, rather than the
independent players in the market, the small entrepreneurs, to profit from the city’s
real estate assets. Much as Lane 1754 and Lane 117 have been reclaimed by the state,
heritageisation and conservation have become the urban loophole of exceptions and

212
alibis to implement top-down upgrades. (Fig. 54) The closure of small enterprises on
Wuyuan Lu, noted in the previous chapter, and the shutdown of Jing’an Villas and
Yongkang Lu, elaborated in the following chapters, all claim heritage as justification.
Fengmao, as the unique characteristics to be conserved for Shanghai’s historic and
cultural identity, has evolved from a principled symbol of resistance against demoli-
tion-driven development to a branding marker for the limited supply and hence high-
ly demanded modern era buildings. A summary of the development of the Lane 1754
compound, that “fengmao can also command high prices [风貌也能卖高价],” 337 con-
firms this flimsy yet utilitarian alibi. The value of built heritage, manifested by feng-
mao, and the special authority that the state can claim for conserving history and
culture—in the name of public good—transfers to the state the market privileges so-
lidified by the conservation codes written into law that can be turned into invaluable
claims to territory. A New York Times article from 2010 is especially scathing in con-
necting Shanghai’s heritageisation to commercial returns: “in 2004, the Shanghai gov-
ernment created 12 preservation zones, giving historic neighborhoods at least some
protection. The government’s motive for such moves is often profit; it has recognized
that the city’s extraordinary mix of architecture contributes to its tourist appeal.” 338
Without contradicting voices, the planner’s belief of returning the former Western
District to its historic quality of being an upper-class residential area, coupled with the
faith in top-down planning as a necessity for Chinese urbanism, would have turned
the area into a sanitized if not historically embellished neighborhood erased of its
cumulated history. Luckily for the city, the appearance of rigid control conceals a per-
sistent and deliberate porosity of state control and a practiced adaptive governance.
Urban loopholes of absences and gaps persist, facilitating bottom-up engagement, coun-
tering top-down deployment of urban loopholes of exceptions, and buffering against

Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

Fig. 55 Renovations along Wukang Lu, 2016

213
 *
*
*

*
*

*
*
*

*
*
* *
*

* *

*
*

* *
*

* *

*
* *
* * *

*
*
*
* *
*
* *

Anfu 305
*
* * *

* *

* *

*
*

*
*

*
*
*

*
* *

*
* *
* *
* *
*
*

* *

* * *
* *
*
*
*
*
*
*

*
*

* *

*
*

*
*

*
*

* *

*
*
*

*
*
*
*

* *

*
*
*

*
*
* *

* *

*
*
*
*

*
*
* *

*
* * *
*

*
*
* *
*

*
*
*
*
*

Yongfu 47
*

*
* *
* *
*
*
* *
*
*

*
*
*
*

* *

*
* *
*

Cozy
*

*
* * *

*
*

*
*
*

* *

* *
*

* *

*
*
*

*
*

Le Passage
* *

*
*
*

*
* *
*

Fuxing Catie Lo
*
*
*

*
*
* *
*
*
*
* *

*
* *
*

* *
* *
*
*
* * *

Yongfoo
*

Rachel‘s Ipluso
*

* *
*
*
*
*
* * * *
* *
*
* *
* *

Elite
* *
*
*
* * * *
*

Ambassy
*
*
*
*
* *
*
*
*
* *
*
*
*
*

Club
* *

* *

* *
*
*
*
* *
* *
* *
*
*
* * * *
*
*

* *

*
* * * *
*

* *

Hunan
*

* *
*
*

*
* *
*
*
*

Mansion
* *
*
*
***
*

*
*

*
*
*
*

* *
*

*
* *
* *

Ba Jin House
*
*

*
*

*
* *

* *

Shanghai
* *
*

* * *
*

Lane 117
* *

World Primary
*
*

* *
*
*
*
*

Xincun
*
* *
*
* *
*
*

* *

*
*
*

* * *
*
*

*
*

*
*

*
*

*
*

*
*
*
*
*

* *

Zhongnan
*

*
*
*
*

*
*
*

Xincun
* *

* *

* *

Ferguson
*
*

* *
*
*
*
*

Lane
*

*
*

*
*

*
*

*
*
*
*
*

* *
* * *
*

*
*

*
* *

Lane 1754
*
* * *

*
*
*

* *
*
*
* *
*

* *
*

*
*
*

* *

*
*

*
*

*
*
***

Old Houses Centre

* *

*
*

**

* *
*

*
*

*
*
*

* *
*
* *

*
*
*

*
* *
*

*
*

*
*

* * *

Normandie
*

*
*

*
*
*
*

*
*

*
*

*
*
* *
* *
*
*
* *

* *
* *

Soong House
*
*

*
*

* * *

Fig. 56 Locations highlighted in this chapter in the neighborhood around Wukang Lu

implementable dogmatism. On Wukang Lu, because of the pragmatic interests of the

district government, prioritized by larger and more lucrative projects in the district’s
periphery, and the lack of a single authority to dominate the area that is divided be-
tween private, district, municipal, and central government jurisdictions, these endog-
enous processes have made possible a social diversity under transition. (Fig. 55)
Within this constellation dominated by state-directed image-production and
economic growth, the only opportunity for the entrepreneurs to work within insti-
tutional structures are the urban loopholes that the state’s lax control permitted. To
the local state especially, the tacit allowance of these conditions of exceptions be-
queaths on them the power to close the urban loopholes at will, all the while benefiting
from possible gains, financial or political, that the innovation reaps. Conversely, to the
non-state-affiliated private sector players, the necessity of being just one step ahead

214
 compels innovations in enterprise. Swift adjustments to demographic shifts and mar-
ket demands in turn also pushes the quickly shifting market trends. Singing the same
tunes, sometimes even more enthusiastically than the government slogans, clever pri-
vate entrepreneurs not only exploited the gaps and exceptions in the system but also
edified the authorities in sharing in the benefits of market growth.
‘Preservation with inhabitation,’ as the overarching theme of this and the previ-
ous chapter, asks these fundamental questions about preservation’s targets and their
relationship to the inhabitants who already occupy the same spaces. (Fig. 56) The
persistence of both urban loopholes for bottom-up and top-down use helps maintain a
precarious equilibrium under economic transition, allowing the agenda of top-down
preservation to coexist with bottom-up inhabitation.

1 In the summer of 2007 the author encountered the and liberalization. 6 “武康路旅游咨询中心、徐汇老房子艺
bevy of researchers and bureaucrats busy with the street’s 术中心 ［Wukang Road Tourism Information Center, Xuhui
upgrade. Although little about the Cultural Street was Old House Art Center],” 上海市徐汇区人民政府门户网站, ac-
publicized at the time, as is usual in the procedural orders cessed September 1, 2014, http://www.qjtrip.com/wukan-
of Chinese projects, the development of the street as wit- groad/XHWKI nformation.aspx. 7 Wei Yuan 袁玮, “巴金故
nessed by the author in her fieldwork in 2011 – 2014 has 居修缮竣工 ‘修旧如旧’展示生活写作环境 [Renovation of Ba
confirmed her hunches about the heritage project. 2 In- Jin’s Former Residence ‘Repair the Old to Be the Old’ dis-
terviews, 2007. 3 The name ‘platanus’ tree is of signifi- plays the Environment for His Life and Writing],” 新民晚报
cance as they are the trees planted in the former French New Citizen Evening News, October 19, 2011, http://
Concessions. In English, they are also known as plane www.chinanews.com/cul/ 2011 / 10 - 19 / 3400372 .shtml.
trees, of the family Platanaceae. In Chinese, the trees are 8 Authenticity, in the perception of it and its relationship
popularly known as wutong [梧桐]. 4 The use of the term to physical and material origins, is a contested concept
‘modern era’ is used throughout the text by the author to that scholars sometimes use to distinguish between
denote a period in China’s socio-political history that cor- Western and East Asian definitions. The scholars distin-
responded with industrialization, beginning around 1850 guish between the Western attachment to material con-
with the end of the Opium War and the opening of the tinuity, as exemplified by reverence of historic monuments
Chinese Treaty Ports, the most prominent of which was such as the Parthenon and the Pyramids, to the East Asian
Shanghai, reaching its industrial and economic apogee in privileging of the immaterial, as exemplified by disregard
the flourishing 1930 s. The term is also used to represent of physical continuity and emphasis on a spiritual one. See,
the stylistic manifestations for architecture and design of for example, Auguste Berque, “Transmitting the Past to
the period. Although the author is aware of the simplifi- the Future : An Ontological Consideration on Tradition and
cation that is embedded in the use of the term, it is Modernity,” in Historical Architecture Heritage Preser­
nevertheless one of the most accessible and easy to un- vation and Sustainable Development, International
derstand terms to describe the visual as well as socio-po- Symposium (Tianjin University, 2007 ). 9 Even though the
litical attributes of the time, prior to the end of World War terms ‘preservation’ and ‘conservation’ are used inter-
II and China’s nationhood following Liberation. 5 Zhen- changeably, the term ‘preservation’ embodies broader
gli Huang 黄震丽, “焯铿教育基金捐赠暨梁焯铿世界小学校史 aims for the ‘protection’ of an artifact or building from
馆揭牌仪式日前举行 [Henry Leung Education Foundation change. ‘Conservation,’ on the other hand, suggests the
Donates Henry Leung World Primary School Historic Me- process to ‘preserve,’ whether through reparation, resto-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

morial Hall, Plaque Unveiling Ceremony Being Held],” Sep- ration, rehabilitation, or management of actions leading
tember 29, 2010, http://www.xhedu.sh.cn/cms/data/ to ‘preservation’ of the artifact or building. The author
html/doc/2010 -09/29/236055 /index.html. The change uses the term ‘conservation’ to denote the means, includ-
back to the pre-Communist Republican era name for the ing management and policies, that have made ‘preserva-
school and the opening of the commemorative space tion’ as a concept possible. The historian of heritage man-
both are significant in the context of the larger change to agement Gregory Ashworth has put forth that there is a
the street and neighborhood in which the institution is paradigm shift from ‘preservation,’ to ‘conservation,’ to
situated. They are both part of the increasing valuation of ‘heritage.’ ‘Preservation,’ as “protection from change,”
modern era heritage that is crucial to the re-globalization namely at the scale of buildings, has shifted to ‘conserva-
and resource attraction to Shanghai’s economic growth tion,’ as a process that deals with “ensembles” of buildings

215
 in the city. Ashworth notes that “the critical difference be-
tween preservation and conservation, however, was not
so much in the actions themselves as in the methods, at-
titudes and goals of those who were performing them.”
Gregory Ashworth, “Preservation, Conservation and Heri-
tage: Approaches to the Past in the Present through the
Built Environment,” Asian Anthropology 10, no. 1 (January
1, 2011): 10, doi:10.1080/1683478X.2011.10552601. Ash-
worth puts the shift to ‘heritage’ in the context of broad-
er consumption demands as well as the forces of global-
ization. In the West, the conceptualization of ‘preservation’
is a consequence of modernity, both a result of the rapid
developments of Industrial Revolution that compelled a
public nostalgia for the then rapidly depleting past, in-
cluding its physical relics, and the conception of the na-
tion-state, for which the relics of the past became the
bearers of a collective cultural identity. See, for example,
Françoise Choay, The Invention of the Historic Monument
[L’Allégorie Du Patrimoine], trans. Lauren M. O’Connell
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). In the de-
veloping and transition economy of China, ‘preservation’
and ‘conservation’ are both translated as ‘baohu [保护].’
The rise of ‘preservation,’ as outlined in the chapter, cer-
tainly reacts to the rapid economic development and en-
suing physical transformations to the built environment
that have wiped out large swaths of older structures. Like
economic transition, the paradigm shift to ‘conservation’
and ‘heritage’ was also simultaneous in the developing
economy. At the same time, ‘preservation,’ at the end of
the 19 th century, had faced conflicts as to the means of
protecting the past. The historic clash between the French
architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and the English
art and architecture historian John Ruskin toward what
best ‘preserves’ the historic authenticity of cultural mon-
uments reveals fundamental differences in the under-
standing of the object of the act of ‘conservation.’ Ruskin
attacked Viollet-le-Duc’s alteration of ruins of historic
monuments in his restorations of them, whereas Viol-
let-le-Duc viewed his act to fulfill the monuments’
‘authenticity.’ See Nikolaus Pevsner, Ruskin and Viollet-
Le-Duc: Englishness and Frenchness in the Appreciation
of Gothic Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1969);
John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, ed. An-
drew Saint, National Trust Classics (London: Century,
1988); Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, The Foundations
of Architecture: Selections from the Dictionnaire Raison-
né, trans. Kenneth D. Whitehead, 1st ed (New York: G. Bra-
ziller, 1990). It could be said that the same kinds of posi-
tioning of ‘conservation’ and ‘heritage’ is yet to take place
in discourse, to which this chapter hopes to contribute.
10 The Cultural Revolution, or the Great Proletariat Cul-
tural Revolution, lasting from 1966 to 1976, was a political
movement wrought by high-level conflicts in the CCP ,
which resulted in economic devastation, social disintegra-
tion, and spiritual depletion. Its proximity in time means
that its legacies impact contemporary developments. The
massive physical destruction of the decade-long Cultural
Revolution erased unrecoverable quantities of historic ar-
tifacts. The repercussions of cultural destruction, however,
continue to be mummed, due to the sensitive nature of
responsibility-assignation. See Lucian W. Pye, “Reassess-
216
ing the Cultural Revolution,” The China Quarterly, no. 108
(December 1, 1986): 597– 612 . 11 Authors like Chen
Danyan and Wang Anyi of the 1990 s recounted with min-
ute detail and specificity the streets and spaces in which
their stories took place, bringing ever more awareness to
the physical environment of Shanghai’s modern era cul-
ture. 12 The projects Tianzifang and Xintiandi are two
development projects that began in the 1990 s that re-
used the form of Shanghai’s vernacular residential lilong
typology to accommodate non-residential functions. Be-
fore their commercial successes, urban development had
emphasized the demolition and reconstruction mode of
urban development. The two projects helped launch a
growing awareness of the value of heritage architecture
and became exemplary in China for protection of historic
buildings, even though neither is technically regarded as
preservation projects. The two projects and their process-
es of development will be detailed in the next sec-
tion. 13 As elaborated in the previous chapter, the term
‘old houses [老房子],’ is specific in denoting modern era
Western-style buildings built before 1949 in Shanghai’s
Concessions. The distinction between ‘historic architec-
ture [历史建筑]’ and the ‘old house’ is a fuzzy one. 14 In
August 2012, the author was accosted by the eager young
real estate agent on a walk along Wukang Lu and was
struck by his curious mix of enthusiasm with blatant mis-
information that seemed to represent the contemporary
conception of the street. The author also points out that
the young man was non-Shanghainese, because much of
what is represented as being Shanghainese has been
propagated by those largely unfamiliar with the city. This
account is of course an extreme example of the misap-
propriation of local identity, since almost half of Shang-
hai’s population is now from outside of the city. But it is
also a prelude to the policies defined by the many aca-
demics and policy makers, whose evocation of local his-
tory in their call for heritage preservation contrasts from
their detachedness from everyday life of the neighbor-
hoods. 15 The author, jokingly, asked the young real es-
tate agent the name of Mao’s ex-wife, and when he indi-
cated he did not know, purposely threw in the name Jiang
Qing, who was Mao’s wife held accountable for the Cul-
tural Revolution, to whom his response also indicated
clear confusion. He Zizheng was the former wife of Mao
who was one of the few women fighters on the Long
March and who later lived in the house with a large black
gate on Hunan Lu until her death. The incident remains
memorable to the author, for the use of history to peddle
the “cultural goods” of the street, while there remains a
blatant misrepresentation of that very history. 16 Jian
Zhou 周俭, Hui Xi 奚慧, and Fei Chen 陈飞, “上海历史文化
风貌区规划与建筑管理方法的探索 [The Probe into the Plan-
ning and Construction Management Method for Shanghai
Historical Cultural Features and Styles Areas],” 上海城市管
理职业技术学院学报 [Journal of Shanghai Polytechnical
College of Urban Management], no. 02 (2006): 39–42.
17 Shanghai’s mayor Han Zheng first uttered the slogan
and then different versions echoing the sentiment fol-
lowed. See Wei Zheng 郑蔚, “韩正要求牢固树立‘开发新建是
发展，保护改造也是发展’观念 全力保护上海历史文化风貌
[Han Zheng Requests Solidly establishing ‘Building New
Is Development, Preserving Renovating Is Also Develop-
ment’ Concept, Wholly Protecting Shanghai Historic Cul-
tural Style”,” 文汇报 Wenhui News, August 3, 2004, http://
news.sina.com.cn/c/2004 -08 -03 /07193276588 s.shtml.
18 Song Zhang 张松, “上海城市遗产的保护策略 [Conserva-
tion Strategy of Urban Heritage in Shanghai],” 城市规划
[City Planning Review], no. 2 (2006): 49–54 . 19 “A his-
torical approach to urban regeneration” was the English
subtitle to a 2009 on Wukang Lu book, which academics
who also were the masterplanners for the street’s up-
grade published. The linkage between history and urban
regeneration is probed in this chapter. Yongjie Sha 沙永
杰, Yan Ji 纪雁, and Zonghao Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌
保护道路的历史研究与保护规划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu,
Explorations in Historic Research and Conservation Plan-
ning for a Conserved Fengmao Street] (Shanghai 上海: 同
济大学出版社 Tongji University Press, 2009). 20 The ter-
minology of ‘Liberation [解放], denoting the time period
following 1949 ’s founding of the nation under the CCP , is
significant. It is used to denote a periodization of the his-
toric era, as in ‘before Liberation [解放前]’ and ‘after Lib-
eration [解放后]’—implying at the same time the emanci-
pation and freedom that is delivered to the oppressed
and shackled Chinese society prior to Liberation. The rhet-
oric is part of the narrative constructed on the progress
of history and the CCP ’s role in it for the Chinese peo-
ple. 21 Comparative literature professor Yomi Braester
recounts the central government’s image construction of
Shanghai as a decadent and depraved legacy of its Con-
cession-era commerce in the early 1960 s propaganda
campaigns. It is interesting that at the moment of the ar-
ticle’s publication, the representation of Shanghai as also
the birthplace of the CCP was being highlighted in the
growing international awareness of Xintiandi, a project
that will be elaborated further in this and the following
chapters. See Yomi Braester, “‘A Big Dying Vat’: The Vili-
fying of Shanghai during the Good Eighth Company Cam-
paign,” Modern China 31, no. 4 (October 1, 2005): 411–47.
22 It was well known to Shanghainese citizens that the
central government in Beijing usurped large portions of
Shanghai’s revenues and redistributed them in the devel-
opment of inland Chinese cities. That Shanghai had been
the most revenue generating city in China, with its open-
ness, modernity and commercial aptitude, did little to
ease the locals’ resentment of this redistribution. 23 See
the previous chapter for a detailed account of housing
fragmentation and overcrowding. 24 Urban historian
Christian Henriot examined historic documents up to the
1980 s to unpack the changing representation of the Bund
in both international as well as Chinese depictions. See
Christian Henriot, “The Shanghai Bund in Myth and Histo-
ry: An Essay through Textual and Visual Sources,” Journal
of Modern Chinese History 4 , no. 1 (2010): 1–27, doi:10.1
080/17535651003779400. 25 The author translated
many of the policies into English directly from Chinese to
show the sometimes awkward juxtaposition of terms that
constitute the basis from which heritage and conservation
policy arose. For the policy on the “Renowned National
Historic Cultural Cities [国家历史文化名城],” see 全国人大
常委会 People’s Congress Standing Committee, “中华人民
共和国文物保护法 [Law for the Protection of Cultural Arti-
facts People’s Republic of China],” Pub. L. No. 11 (1982),
http://www.law-lib.com/law/law_view.asp?id=95139. The
first batch of cities to be included in the protection list in-
cluded the cities of Beijing, Chengde, Datong, Nanjing,
Suzhou, Yangzhou, Shaoxing, Quanzhou, Jingdezheng,
Qufu, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Jiangling, Changsha, Guangzhou,
Guilin, Chengdu, Zunyi, Kunming, Dali, Lhasa, Xi’an and
Yan’an. All are sites of significant historic artifacts from
China’s dynastic empires. The motivation, although not
publicly stated for the listing, came from the immense
amount of irreplaceable destruction to historic artifacts
that took place during the Cultural Revolution. 26 Ping
Sun 孙平, ed., “第二章历史文化名城保护规划 [Chapter 2 His-
toric Cultural Prominent City Conservation Plan],” in 上海
城市规划志 [Annal of Shanghai Urban Planning], vol. 8 第
八篇城市绿化系统和历史文化名城保护规划 [Urban Green
System and Historic Cultural Prominent City Conservation
Plan], 12 vols. (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学院出版社
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1999), http://
shtong.gov.cn/node 2 /node 2245 /node 64620 /node
64632 /node64720/index.html. Both the Small Swords
Society Uprisings of 1853 and the May Fourth Movement
of 1919 are acknowledged by the CCP as precursors to
the great proletariat revolution that brought the party into
power in China. Their sitings in Shanghai thus gives the
city significance as supporter and host of the Communist
ideology, which is enhanced by the founding of the CCP
itself. 27 国务院 State Council, “国务院批转城乡建设环境保
护部、文化部关于请公布第二批国家历史文化名城名单报告的
通知 [State Council Approves and Transmits to the Depart-
ment of Urban and Rural Development and Environment
Protection and Department for Culture Regarding the An-
nouncement of the Second List of Renowned National
Historic Cultural Cities]” (1986), http://www.chinabaike.
com/law/zy/xz/gwy/1332417.html. 28 Yingsong Ling 凌
颖松, “上海近现代历史建筑保护的历程与思考 [Chronicle and
Thoughts on the conservation of Shanghai’s modern era
historic architecture” (硕士 Master’s Thesis, Tongji Univer-
sity [同济大学], 2007 ). 29 Qiguo Lu 陆其国, “老上海的三山
会馆 [Old Shanghai’s Sanshan Guild House],” Shanghai
Archives, December 10, 2012 , http://www.archives.sh.
cn/shjy/shzg/201212 /t20121210_37469.html. 30 In the
1930 s, a series of legal frameworks were established for
heritage conservation and management. They would
serve as foundations for the approach to heritage after
1949. See Zhu Qian, “Historic District Conservation in Chi-
na: Assessment and Prospects,” Traditional Dwellings and
Settlements Review 19, no. 1 (2007 ): 59–76 . 31 The
“Symposium on the research of Chinese modern era archi-
tectural history [中国近代建筑史研究讨论会]” was held un-
der the auspices of the Department of Architecture at
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street
Qinghua University and the Technology Bureau of the De-
velopment Ministry [建设部科技局]. It would be the first of
a series that would bring international scholars together
and would be productive for the knowledge exchange
necessary to the long-insulated Chinese academic com-
munity. See Fuhe Zhang 张复合, “中国近代建筑史研究之回
顾与展望 [Looking back and looking forward for the study
of Chinese modern era architectural history],” 南方建筑
Southern Architecture, no. 02 (1994): 3–12. 32 The be-
seeching for the return of research was in reaction to the
217
immense destruction to the cultural relics as well as to
the academic communities that occurred in the decades
before the beginnings of economic liberalization in the
1980 s. The fact that many scholars from abroad are inter-
ested in Chinese modern era architectural history was
used as an argument for the development of expertise in
the country itself. See Tan Wang 汪坦 and Fuhe Zhang 张
复合, “关于进行中国近代建筑史研究的报告 [Report Regard-
ing Conducting Research Chinese Modern Era Architectur-
al History]” (北京 Beijing: 清华大学 Qinghua University,
April 1, 1985). 33 Prior to the 1970 s, China, under embar-
go from the West and economically and insulated from
the world, had few amenities that were already prevalent
in other developing countries as well as the media forms
accessible in the West. Television sets as well as the value
chain that produced the programs shown would be first
introduced to China through places like Hong Kong, which
was a funnel for the know-how and resources of capital-
ism. 34 The author remembers distinctly the first televi-
sion sets in the neighborhood in Shanghai, in the early
1980 s. The single channel set was the center of family and
neighborly gatherings, especially during the nightly hour
of imported drama. The fact that there was only one chan-
nel magnified the effects of the media program even
more. 35 Lili Wang 王利丽 and Shuang Liu 刘爽, “电视剧
中的上海空间与文化意义—以表现三四十年代上海的电视剧为
例 ［Shanghai’s spatial and cultural significance in televi-
sion shows: examples of shows featuring 1930 s and
1940 s Shanghai],” 中国电视 [China Television], no. 08
(2012): 35–37. 36 Chengyuan Ma 马承源, “第三编管理, 第
二章文物保护, 第二节文物调查 [Volume 3 Administration
Chapter 2 Conservation of Cultural Relic Section 2 Re-
search of Cultural Relic],” in 上海文物博物馆志 [Annals of
the Shanghai Cultural Relic Museum] (Shanghai 上海: 上
海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Press, 1997 ), http://shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node2245 /
node4467/node20561/node20571/node63799/userob-
ject1ai16103.html. 37 Yanli Ding 丁艳丽, “优秀历史建筑挂
牌保护效果不一 责任分工需明确 [The Preservation Effects
from the Plaquing of Excellent Historical Architecture Dif-
fer, Assignment of Responsibilities Must Be Clear],” 中国
文化报 China Cultural Post, August 2, 2012, http://culture.
people.com.cn/n/2012 /0802 /c172318 -18658547.html.
38 Congzhou Chen 陈从周 and Ming Zhang 章明, 上海近
代建筑史稿 [History of Shanghai Modern Era Architecture
Manuscript] (Shanghai 上海: 三联书店上海分店 Sanlian
Press, 1988). 39 The preface of the volume describes the
volume’s origin taking place almost ten years after na-
tion-founding, and alludes to the social upheavals of the
Cultural Revolution that resulted in the almost three-de-
cade delay since the beginning of the project in 1958 to
its fortunate publication in 1987. 40 Usually in a book re-
sulting from a research project, the introduction clearly
states the relevance of the project and importance of the
contribution to the discipline. In this case, because of the
sensitivity of the time period, right after the Cultural Revo-
lution, such clarity could not be open. Therefore, only a cur-
sory mention through an anecdote could be made to show
the importance of the work itself. By allowing someone
else—the famous I. M. Pei in this case—do the talking, the
author carefully avoided the risk that comes with taking
218
responsibility for work that could provoke ideological and
therefore political stances. 41 Chen 陈从周 and Zhang
章明, 上海近代建筑史稿 [History of Shanghai Modern Era
Architecture Manuscript]. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 The orig-
inal Chinese text read: “研究外滩建筑，无论是对与中国近
代史的研究，对于上海近代建筑遗产的发掘与保护，还是对上
海城市发展战略对制定，都有一定意义. “ See Jiang Wu 伍江,
“从关联性与可识别性看上海外滩建筑 [Looking at Shanghai
Bund’s architecture through context and identity],” 华中
建筑 [Huazhong Architecture], no. 02 (1987 ): 64–67.
45 Shin Muramatsu 村松伸, “中国における建築生産システ
ムの変容と建築意匠の「伝統化」に関する研究-1840–1977年
[Study on the ‘tradition’ of transformation and architec-
tural design of the building production system in China:
1840–1977 ]” (工学博士 PhD Thesis, 东京大学 University of
Tokyo, 1988). 46 Zhang 张复合, “中国近代建筑史研究之回
顾与展望 [Looking back and looking forward for the study
of Chinese modern era architectural history].” 47 Jeffrey
William Cody, “Henry K. Murphy, an American Architect in
China, 1914–1935” (PhD Thesis, Cornell University, 1989).
48 See, for example, Torsten Warner, “Die Planung und
Entwicklung der deutschen Stadtgründung Qingdao
(Tsingtau) in China: der Umgang mit dem Fremden” (Doc-
toral Thesis, Technischen Universität Hamburg-Harburg,
1996). Warner’s dissertation also came out as a book. Tor-
sten Warner, Deutsche Architektur in China: Architekturt-
ransfer [German architecture in China: Architecture
Transfer] (Ernst & Sohn, 1994). 49 Many of the questions
grappled with still carry on today. If one looks at the con-
temporary discussions, in the 2010 s, on whether an Asian
contemporary art exists today, such as at the M+ museum
talks in Hong Kong or at the Gilman Barracks talk in Sin-
gapore, the issues of the possibility of maintaining an
Asian identity while importing and adapting foreign, large-
ly Western, concepts and practices still lingers incessant-
ly. At the time, in the 1980 s, the conceptualization of the
issues of whether modern architecture is Chinese when
it appears to have hybrid elements imported during an
era regarded as dominated by foreign powers, as referred
to even by Liang Sicheng’s history of Chinese architecture,
were still in formation. 50 In the postscript to his book
that came out from his dissertation, Wu would thank the
group of international scholars, including Shin Matsumura,
Jeffrey W. Cody, Torsten Warner and Natalie Delande, for
their support and research also of Shanghai’s modern era
architecture. 51 Ma 马承源, “第三编管理, 第二章文物保护,
第二节文物调查 [Volume 3 Administration Chapter 2 Con-
servation of Cultural Relic Section 2 Research of Cultural
Relic].” 52 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Govern-
ment, “上海市优秀近代建筑保护管理办法 [Measures for the
Conservation and Management of Shanghai’s Excellent
Modern Era Architecture],” 136710 § (1991), http://code.
fabao 365 .com/law_ 136710 .html. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid.
55 Ibid. 56 It was reported that 200,000 people were
displaced from Lujiazui area for the construction of the
new financial district. 57 Under Japanese occupation, the
house became used as a military headquarter and jail as
well. In 1958 , ownership transferred to the state. During
the Cultural Revolution, more than 80 families lived on
the premises of the compound. See “颖川小筑（又名：陈
桂春住宅) [The Little House of Yingchuan, Otherwise
 Known as the Chen Guichun Residence],” 上海市杨浦区图
书馆 [Shanghai Yangpu District Library], March 26, 2009,
http://www.yplib.org.cn/structure/jdsh/bnsz/dg_74944_1.
htm. 58 The team of surveyors, under the direction of
Professor Luo, surveyed and drew up the plan for the
Chen residence, as presented in a 1991 article that also
included a description of the Eastern and Western archi-
tectural elements coming together in the building, yield-
ing “形成了这样一种中西建筑融合对特殊效果， 这在当时市
一种很有代表意义的现象 [a unique effect of the blending of
Eastern and Western architecture, that was, for its time,
a phenomenon of representative significance].” See Jiang
Wu 伍江, “东西方建筑文化的交融—上海浦东地区部分近代建
筑调查 [Blend of Eastern and Western Architectural Cul-
ture: Investigations of Some Modern Era Architecture from
Shanghai’s Pudong Area],” 时代建筑 Time + Architecture,
no. 03 (1991): 26–30. 59 Jiang Wu 伍江, “‘立新’不必
‘破旧’—浦东一座老房子的保存 [Old Existing within the
New—Preservation of Chen’s House in Pudong New Area],”
时代建筑 Time + Architecture, no. 3 (2000): 36–37, doi:
10.3969/j.issn.1005 -684X.2000.03 .010. 60 “都市文脉守
护者—访阮仪三教授等 [Protector of Urban Context—Inter-
view with Professor Ruan Yisan and Others],” Tongji News,
September 2, 2003, http://news.tongji.edu.cn/classid-6 -
newsid-2749 -t-show.html. 61 Yujia Zhang 张予佳, “义气
千秋 [Honor through the Ages],” 青年报 Youth Daily, April
24 , 2010, http://news.163 .com/10/0424 /13 /651QNIQ0
00014AED .html. 62 Under Japanese occupation, the
house became used as a military headquarter and jail as
well. In 1958 , ownership transferred to the state. During
the Cultural Revolution, more than 80 families lived on
the premises of the compound. See “颖川小筑（又名：
陈桂春住宅) [The Little House of Yingchuan, Otherwise
Known as the Chen Guichun Residence].” 2009. 上海市杨
浦区图书馆 [Shanghai Yangpu District Library]. March 26.
http://www.yplib.org.cn/structure/jdsh/bnsz/dg_74944_1.
htm. 63 Linfang Meng 孟琳芳, “隐于高楼间的‘历史见证’
[‘Historic Evidence’ hidden between High-Rises],” 城市导
报 City News, June 26 , 2013 , http://history.eastday.
com/h/20130626/u1a7479732.html. 64 Ling 凌颖松, “上
海近现代历史建筑保护的历程与思考 [Chronicle and Thoughts
on the conservation of Shanghai’s modern era historic ar-
chitecture.” 65 Ibid. 66 At the time of demolition and
land clearance, the masterplan for the Lujiazui Financial
District was still evolving. Plans from 1993 show the area
designated for buildings for the financial sector. Only by
the 1997 plans did the plot become designated as a green
space. In the 2000 masterplan for Shanghai, the green
space is officially part of the masterplan. See maps from
Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute
上海市城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning and
Design Institute, ed., 循迹启新–上海城市规划演进 [Follow
the tracks and initiate the new: Evolution of Shanghai’s
Urban Planning] (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji
University Press, 2007 ). 67 “永不拓宽的街道 之起点 [The
Roads That Will Never Be Widened: Their Beginning],” HH .
Pih HH .Pih的日记, October 28 , 2008, http://www.douban.
com/note/20562333 /. 68 Alois Riegl, Moderne Denk-
malkultus: Sein Wesen und seine Entstehung
(W. Braumüller, 1903); Alois Riegl, “The Modern Cult of
Monuments: Its Essence and Its Developments [Der Mo­
derne Denkmalkultus, Sein Wesen, Seine Entstehung],
1903,” in Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Con-
servation of Cultural Heritage, ed. Nicholas Stanley Price,
Mansfield Kirby Talley, and Alessandra Melucco Vaccaro,
trans. Karin Bruckner and Karin Williams (Los Angeles:
Getty Publications, 1996), 69–83; Thordis Arrhenius, “The
Cult of Age in Mass-Society: Alois Riegl’s Theory of Con-
servation,” Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preserva-
tion, History, Theory, and Criticism 1, no. 1 (2004): 75–81.
69 Jiang Wu 伍江, 上海百年建筑史 1840–1949 [A History
of Shanghai’s Century of Architecture 1840–1949]
(Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji University Press,
1997 ). 70 Wu’s advisor and mentor Luo affirmed the
study’s importance again: “上海是一个极为独特的城市，在
中国近代化的过程中扮演了一个非常重要等角色。国内外许多
学者都把上海看作是研究近代中国都一把‘钥匙’ [Shanghai is
a very unique city, playing an extremely important role in
China’s modernization process. Many researchers both in
China and abroad regard Shanghai as the “key” to re-
searching modern era China].” See Xiaowei Luo 罗小未,
“Preface,” in 上海百年建筑史 1840–1949 [A history of
Shanghai’s hundred years of architecture 1840–1949],
by Jiang 伍江 Wu (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji
University Press, 1997 ), 1–2. 71 上海市人民政府 Shanghai
Municipal Government, “关于加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改
造若干意见 [Some Views Regarding Accelerating of City
Center Slum Upgrade],” 沪府发 (1996)18号 § (1996),
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/953 cc76 d7e21af45 b307a
884 .html. 72 国务院 State Council, “城市房屋拆迁管理条例
[Regulations for the Management of Urban Housing Dem-
olition and Relocation],” 国务院令第78号 § (1991), http://
www.jincao.com/fa/law19.04.htm. 73 Yuan Gao 高原, “拆
迁新政并未终结暴力拆迁 [New Policies for Demolition and
Displacement Haven’t Stopped Violence],” 法治周末 Legal
Weekly, April 6 , 2011, http://www.legaldaily.com.cn/
zmbm/content/2011 -04 /06 /content_2572737.htm?no
de=7570. 74 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Govern-
ment, 关于加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造若干意见 [Some
Views Regarding Accelerating of City Center Slum Up-
grade]. 75 The term ‘‘Cultural Prominents Street [文化名
人街]’ is a direct translation by the author of the Chinese
name. Even though a more appropriate term for the “min-
gren [名人]” would be “celebrity,” the author knows that
the connotation of the term ‘celebrity’ is too pop culture
for the highbrowed intentions of its Chinese equivalent.
Thus, the word ‘prominents’ is chosen to mean the prom-
inent people who once lived on the street, and for which
the street, Duolun Lu, is honored. 76 Shanghai’s munici-
pal party secretary Huang Ju [黃菊] issued the slogan,
“大力发展都市旅游 [powerfully develop urban tourism],” at
the beginning of 1997. 77 Xiaowei Luo 罗小未 et al., 上海
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street
老虹口北部昨天今天明天 : 保护、更新与发展规划研究 [The
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Shanghai Northern
Old Hongkou: Planning Study for Conservation, Renewal
and Development] (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tong-
ji University Press, 2003). 78 One controversy in the plan
concerned a building that had been the headquarters for
Japanese occupation during the war. Because of what has
been assessed as lack of aesthetic value, it has not been
gazetted as a monument worth protection. But the aca-
demic team put forth the Japanese occupied building be-
219
 cause of its historic significance, or in Riegl’s terms, its Ye 晔波, and Yi Zhang 张奕, “解读在调整中逐步规范的上海
‘historic value,’ despite representing what’s been regarded 旧区改造政策 [Reading Incrementally Standardizing Poli-
as China’s “national shame.” The academics regarded the cies to Adjust for Shanghai’s Urban Renewal],” 解放日报
building as important to protect because it represented Liberation Daily, July 19, 2003, http://law.eastday.com/
part of the multi-layered history of a city that should not epublish/gb/paper4 /10 /class000400001 /hwz631569.
be selectively erased. The building has survived because htm. 88 The Chinese title for the book translates literally
of the recommendation. See Feng Luan and Yiyun Wang, into “The wind, flowers, snow and moon of Shanghai,”
“Debates and Compromises: Conservation and Develop- connoting an ambiance of nostalgia and romance. Danyan
ment of the Northern Old Hongkou in Shanghai,” Planning Chen 陈丹燕, 上海的风花雪月 [Shanghai Memorabilia]
Theory and Practice 10, no. 2 (2009): 271–81, doi:10.1080/ (Beijing 北京: 作家出版社 Writer’s Press, 1998). 89 One
14649350902884854 . 79 上海市城市规划管理局 Shang- piece, for example, in reimagining the mood of the Peace
hai Municipal Planning Bureau, “虹口区多伦路保护与整治 Hotel and the international luminaries who would have
社区修建性详细规划 [Detailed Conservation and Commu- gathered in its lobby, muses on the jazz band that still
nity Rehabilitation Plan of Duolun Lu, Hongkou District],” played there in the 1990 s. 90 Danyan Chen 陈丹燕, 上海
沪规景2004（329）号 § (2004), http://218 .242.36.250/ 的红颜遗事 [Shanghai Beauty] (Beijing 北京: 作家出版社
News_Show.aspx?id=2939 &type=1. 80 “由于首期保护开 Writer’s Press, 2001). 91 “上海女作家：那些风花雪月的事
发投入资金有限，多伦路的保护和开发主要局限在沿街地带， [Women Writers of Shanghai: Those Episodes of Nostal-
致使优秀历史建筑与旧区棚户混为一体，高档经营与摊贩相互 gia],” 北京周报 Beijing Weekly, July 13, 2010, http://www.
混杂 [due to the limits to the financing of the first phase beijingreview.com.cn/Expo 2010 /txt/ 2010 - 07/ 13 /con-
of preservation and development, Duolun Lu’s preserva- tent_284614_5.htm. 92 See, for example, Lena Scheen,
tion and development is mainly limited to the area along Shanghai Literary Imaginings (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
the street, leading to the mix of Excellent Historic Archi- University Press, 2015), http://en.aup.nl/books/9789089
tecture with old area slums, the confusion of high-end 645876 -shanghai-literary-imaginings.html. 93 The shi-
commerce with low-end vendors.” See Yonglin Zhang 张 kumen lilong is an architecture type and urban form that
永林, “上海多伦路历史风貌区的分类保护和综合开发 [Shang- is specific to the modern era urban development of
hai Duolun Road Historic Cultural Features and Styles Dis- Shanghai. The shikumen lilong, which is also called old-
trict’s Conservation by Type and Integrated Develop- style lilong, differed from the new-style lilong in its lack
ment],” 中国文化报 China Cultural Post, February 23, 2011, of modern infrastructure and smaller scale, which made
http://www.chinanews.com/cul/ 2011 / 02 - 23 / 2863572 . its contemporary reuse more difficult without renovation.
shtml. 81 As the academics put aptly, after addressing The formation of the lilong and its contemporary adapta-
the problem of taking best practices from the West to tions are elaborated in the previous chapter. 94 See, for
apply in the post-socialist context of the Chinese city, example, the coverage in the New Yorker about Xintiandi.
where the legacies of the likes of the Cultural Revolution Paul Goldberger, “Shanghai Surprise. The Radical Quaint-
has left unprecedented chaos in the city, “同在现代化的理 ness of the Xintiandi District.,” The New Yorker, December
解上犯的毛病一样，在如何在保护中生财的问题上，我们再次 26, 2005, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005 /
陷入肤浅的表象里 [like the other problems of moderniza- 12 /26/shanghai-surprise. 95 Shanghai Tang was founded
tion, on the question of how to generate economic feasi- in 1994 by Hong Kong businessman David Tang. It focus-
bility within preservation, we are again fallen to superficial es on recreating fashion from the era of 1920 s and 1930 s
solutions].” See Dongli Li 李冬莉, “城市孤本 [City’s Unique in China, which is also the Republican era. For an analysis
Copy],” 新周刊 New Weekly, December 11, 2005, http:// of the revival of the Republican-era dress, see Matthew
news.qq.com/a/20051211/000649.htm. 82 Shiling Zheng Chew, “Contemporary Re-Emergence of the Qipao: Politi-
郑时龄, 上海近代建筑风格 [The evolution of Shanghai ar- cal Nationalism, Cultural Production and Popular Con-
chitecture in modern times] (Shanghai 上海: 上海教育出 sumption of a Traditional Chinese Dress,” The China Quar-
版社 Shanghai Education Press, 1999). 83 Shanquan He terly, no. 189 (March 1, 2007 ): 144–61. 96 Xuefei Ren,
何善权 et al., “上海历史文化名城保护与发展关系基础研究 “Forward to the Past: Historical Preservation in Globalizing
[The Basic Research on the Relationship of Conservation Shanghai,” in The Right to the City and the Politics of
and Development in Shanghai Historic Cultural Prominent Space (University of California, Berkeley, 2006), http://
City],” March 1999, http://www.pthink.com.cn/web/detail. escholarship.org/uc/item/84z0 j8 tv. 97 “先实施历史保护
asp?show=cgjl&ID =99. 84 The shortening of two longer 区建设，一方面是为了规避市场风险，另一方面是期望通过历
words into one is usual in Chinese. 85 The term ‘feng- 史保护区的建设提升太平桥地区的知名度 [Realizing the de-
mao’ is translated by the historian of Chinese architectur- velopments in the historic conservation area first, on the
al heritage development, Zhang Liang, as “physionomie one hand the commercial development lowered risk; on
stylistique” in French. He explains the use of the word as the other hand, the commercial development would help
emphasizing the form and ambiance of the architecture raise the image and status of the neighborhood” See
and form. See, Liang Zhang, La Naissance du Concept de Yongjie Sha 沙永杰, 中国城市的新天地:瑞安天地项目城市设
Patrimoine en Chine (Paris: Recherches éditions, 2003), 计理念研究 [Towards a new Chinese urbanity: Urban
158–62. 86 The author has chosen to translate the term Design Concept of Shui On Land Developments], 第1版
‘historic fengmao’ literally, despite its awkwardness in the (Beijing: 中国建筑工业出版社, 2010). 98 Julie V. Iovine,
English language, because of the importance of the “Our Man in Shanghai: Ben Wood Takes On History,” The
meaning of the terms in its curation of history, which will New York Times, August 13, 2006, sec. Arts / Art & Design,
be elaborated through the chapter. 87 Mu Duan 端木, Bo http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08 /13/arts/design/13 iovi.

220
 html. 99 Jiang Wu 伍江, “‘新天地’引起的联想─‘新天地’ Shanghai Municipality People’s Congress Standing Com-
专辑代序 [Association of ideas from the preface of ‘Xin- mittee, 上海市历史文化风貌区和优秀历史建筑保护条例 [Reg­
tiandi Square’],” 室内设计与装修 [Interior Design and Con- ulations of the Shanghai Municipality on the Conservation
struction], no. 11 (2001): 33–34 . 100 In the article, even of the Districts with Historical Cultural Fengmao and
though Wu opined that ’reuse [再利用]’ was not deemed Excellent Historical Architecture]. 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid.
fit for buildings defined as cultural relics, the practice was 115 Communist Party of Shanghai Party History Research
thought suitable for less prestigious architecture of a cer- Unit 中共上海市委党史研究室 and Modern Era Shanghai
tain age that should also not be demolished. Ibid. 101 Xi- Research Center 上海市现代上海研究中心, eds., 红色印痕 上
aowei Luo 罗小未 et al., 上海新天地 旧区改造的建筑历史、 海遗址百处 [Red traces-a hundred historic sites in Shang-
人文历史与开发模式的研究 [Shanghai Xintiandi: a Study of hai], 《走向2010 世博文化》丛书 (上海 Shanghai: 上海人民
the Architectural History, Socio-cultural History, and De- 出版社 Shanghai People’s Press, 2004). 116 Min Wei 魏
velopment Mode of an Urban Upgrade] (Nanjing 南京: 东 闽, “思南路47–48号街坊的整体性保护研究 在城市化进程中
南大学出版社 Southeast University Press, 2002). 102 Xi- 的历史中心区 [Research on the Integrated Conservation of
aowei 罗小未 Luo, “上海新天地广场—旧城改造的一种模式 the Sinan Road Plot 47–48 , Shanghai’s historical center
[Shanghai Xintiandi Plaza—a model for the revitalization under urbanization’s drive]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学
of the old city],” 时代建筑 Time + Architecture, no. 04 Tongji University, 2006). 117 The political pecking order
(2001): 24 – 29. 103 Ruan Yisan invoked an anecdote of of Shanghai’s administrative districts ranks high on the
the visit of a ninety-year old former Jewish refugee, who national hierarchy, making their leadership units power
was once delivered safe passage via Shanghai during the entities that compete with each other for resources and
Second World War to her former home in the Tilanqiao opportunities both from the municipality and from the
[提篮桥] neighborhood, to reinforce the importance of central government. 118 Wu and Wang, “探索与突破—
conservation of the heritage neighborhood. See, Jialiang 上海市衡山路— 复兴路历史文化风貌区保护规划综述 [Explo-
Mao 毛佳樑 et al., “重视城市设计,保护历史风貌 [City Design ration and Innovation—Shanghai Hengshan Road-Fuxing
to Retain Historical Faces],” 上海城市规划 [Shanghai Ur- Road Historic Cultural Styles District Protection Plan and
ban Planning Review], no. 02 (2006): 21–30. 104 Ibid. Summary].” 119 Ibid. 120 As listed on the legend of the
105 Discussion following the 2013 conference “Mobilities Control Plan for the Hengshan Lu-Fuxing Lu Historical and
of Design: Transnational Transfers in Asian Architecture Cultural Fengmao District, the categories of “conservation
and Urban Planning, 1960 -present” with the then part- requirements [保护要求]” include: “protected architecture
ner-in-charge of the Xintiandi project at Nikken Sekkei, [保护建筑],” “conserved historic architecture [保留历史建
who was crucial in bringing in Ben Wood into the project. 筑],”normal historic architecture [一般历史建筑],” “those
He described the learning curve of the Chinese institutes that should be demolished[应当拆除建筑],” and “other
was astonishing: “At the time the Tongji practitioners had architecture [其他建筑].” 121 Wu and Wang, “探索与突
to learn everything, from fire regulations to other technol- 破 — 上海市衡山路 — 复兴路历史文化风貌区保护规划综述
ogies. But now they are even innovating better technology. [Exploration and Innovation—Shanghai Hengshan Road-
They don’t need us [foreign experts] anymore.” 106 Jun Fuxing Road Historic Cultural Styles District Protection
Wang 王军, 城记 [Beijing Records] (Beijing 北京: 三联书店 Plan and Summary].” 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid. 124 The sheer
Sanlian, 2003). 107 Ian Johnson, “The High Price of the size of Chinese cities, not to mention the metropolis of
New Beijing,” The New York Review of Books, June 23, Shanghai, and the depth of administrative hierarchy as
2011 , http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011 / result of the scale, renders what consultative expertise
jun/23/high-price-new-beijing/. 108 Chapter one in the that does exist detached from the occupants on the
Chinese version of the book, published in 2003, is entitled ground. 125 Because the background research for the
“ancient capital seeks balance [古都求衡].” In the 2011 En- Conservation Plan was conducted by Tongji University
glish translation, the chapter took from the subtitle of with the backing of the Urban Planning Bureau, the re-
“context between demolition and preservation [拆与保 searchers were able to access demographic and econom-
的交锋]” and became “demolition versus preservation.” ic data. This would otherwise be very difficult in the Chi-
109 全国人大常委会 People’s Congress Standing Commit- nese institutional context. 126 Jiang Wu 伍江 and Lin
tee, 中华人民共和国文物保护法 [Law for the Protection of Wang 王林, 历史文化风貌区保护规划编制与管理：上海城市
Cultural Artifacts People’s Republic of China]. 110 上海市 保护的实践 [The establishment and management of the
人民代表大会常务委员会 Shanghai Municipality People’s Historic Cultural Features and Styles Districts Conserva-
Congress Standing Committee, “上海市历史文化风貌区和优 tion Plan: Cases from Shanghai’s Conservation] (Shang-
秀历史建筑保护条例 [Regulations of the Shanghai Munici- hai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji University Press, 2007 ),
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street

pality on the Conservation of the Districts with Historical 62–73. 127 Ibid., 66. 128 Ibid., 67. 129 Shu Wang 王舒
Cultural Fengmao and Excellent Historical Architecture]” and Fangyan Wang 王芳艳, “上海将试点成套改造历史建筑
(2002), http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node2314 / 520 亿老洋房提价 [Shanghai Will Pilot Renovation of
node3124 /node3177/node3181 /userobject6 ai1126 .html. Whole Units of Historic Architecture Old Western-Style
111 Jiang 伍江 Wu and Lin 王林 Wang, “探索与突破—上海 Houses Worth 52 Million RMB ],” 每日经济新闻 Daily Eco-
市衡山路—复兴路历史文化风貌区保护规划综述 [Exploration nomic News, November 7, 2004, http://bj.house.sina.com.
and Innovation—Shanghai Hengshan Road-Fuxing Road cn/2004 -11-07/52105.html. 130 Ibid. 131 Zheng 郑蔚, “
Historic Cultural Styles District Protection Plan and Sum- 韩正要求牢固树立‘开发新建是发展，保护改造也是发展’观念
mary],” 上海城市规划 [Shanghai Urban Planning Review], 全力保护上海历史文化风貌 [Han Zheng Requests Solidly
no. 06 (2004): 4–6. 112 上海市人民代表大会常务委员会 establishing ‘Building New Is Development, Preserving

221
 Renovating Is Also Development’ Concept, Wholly Pro-
tecting Shanghai Historic Cultural Style”. 132 Shunsheng
Xue 薛顺生 and Chenghao Lou 娄承浩, 老上海花园洋房 [Old
Shanghai’s Western-Style Garden Houses] (Shanghai
上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji University Press, 2002).
133 Ibid., 2. 134 The Concessions of Shanghai were ex-
traterritorial areas that were safe havens for both the lo-
cal and foreign populations, leading to tremendous pop-
ulation growth and building boom. 135 Interchangeable
terms, ”old Western-style house [老洋房]”, and sometimes
”Western-style house [洋房],” including new-style lilong
and apartment buildings, usually denotes buildings built
before 1949, hence the term “old [老].” 136 “花园洋房的
新价值 -探秘上海花园洋房（一 [New Values of the Garden
Houses, Part 1],” 人民日报 People’s Daily, August 23, 2003,
Overseas Edition, sec. 6 中国房产 Chinese Real Estate,
http://www.people.com.cn/GB /paper39/9985 /916449.
html. 137 A house in one of the lanes between Wukang
Lu and Huaihai Lu was on sale for overseas Chinese re-
turnees, and cost 30,000 RMB (equivalent to 15,000 USD
at the time) in 1981. But due to the recentness of the Cul-
tural Revolution, a fundamental distrust persisted and
many of the relatives of returnees advised against the
purchase of properties. Interviews, 2012–2013. 138 上海
市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Government, “关于出售公
有住房的暂行办法 ［Provisional Measures Regarding the
Sale of Publicly Owned Housing],” 沪府发[1994]19 号 §
(1994), http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node2314 /
node3124 /node3177/node3180/userobject6 ai619.html.
139 Ibid. 140 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Gov-
ernment, “上海市公有住房差价交换试行办法 [Pilot Mea-
sures for the Exchange of Shanghai Public Housing with
Pricing Difference],” Pub. L. No. 沪府发 [1999] 4号 (1999),
http://www.lawtime.cn/info/fangdichan/gongfangmai-
mai/2008101338359.html. 141 Hua Shi 施华, “手头没有千
万元千万别碰老洋房 ［Without millions of RMB don’t try
to touch the old Western-style houses],” 理财周刊 Money
Weekly, October 1, 2001, http://www.moneyweekly.com.
cn/FrontPage/MoneyWeekly/Detail.aspx? ATID = 9996 .
142 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Municipal Government,
关于出售公有住房的暂行办法 ［Provisional measures re-
garding the sale of publicly owned housing]. 143 “上海
喊停老洋房转让 30 年代‘上海滩’旧梦难寻 [Shanghai Calls
Stop to the Exchange of Old Western-Style Houses: Old
Dreams of 1930 s ‘Shanghai Tan’ Difficult],” 人民日报 Peo-
ple’s Daily, February 9, 2004 , 海外版 Overseas Edition,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/ 2004 - 02 /
09 /content_ 1304062 .htm. 144 “老洋房价格仍将缓升
[Prices of the Old Western-Style House Still Rising],” 理财
周刊 Money Weekly, 2003 , http://www.spph.com.cn/
qikan/bkview.asp?bkid= 78901&cid=185899. 145 Ibid.
146 Hua Teng 滕华, “老洋房投资攻略 [Investment Strategy
for Old Western-Style Houses],” 理财周刊 Money Weekly,
January 24, 2003, http://www.spph.com.cn/qikan/bkview.
asp?bkid=25426 &cid=43088 . 147 Ibid. 148 “老洋房价
格仍将缓升 [Prices of the Old Western-Style House Still
Rising].” 149 Jia Qin 秦佳, “市场出现供不应求迹象，明
年—本地人买卖‘老房子’多 [Next Year, Market Will Show
Supply Not Meeting Demand—More Locals Buy and Sell
‘old Houses’],” 新闻晨报 Morning News, December 16,
2004 , http://old.jfdaily.com/gb/node2 /node4085 /node
222
4141 /node42952 /userobject1ai733088 .html. 150 Ying-
hao Tang 唐颖豪, “老洋房身价倍增 租售行情连连走高 [Old
Western-Style Houses Multiply in Value, Rental and Sales
Quotations Repeatedly Rise],” 房地产时报 Real Estate
Times, 2004 , http://old.jfdaily.com/gb/node2 /node17/
node163 /node22490/node22493 /userobject1ai330335.
html. 151 Ibid. 152 国务院办公厅 State Council General
Office, “关于调整住房供应结构稳定住房价格意见 [Opinions
on Adjusting House Supply Structure and Stabilizing
House Price],” 国办发(2006)37号 § (2006), http://www.
gov.cn/ztzl/2006 -06 /30/content_323678 .htm. 153 Yi-
zheng Feng 馮亦珍, “上海：老洋房市場平穩回升 [Shanghai:
Market for Old Western-Style Houses Steadily Returns],”
新華網 Xinhua, July 10, 2006, http://big5.xinhuanet.com/
gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2006 -07/10/
content_4814752.htm. 154 Qing Zhan 詹青, “陈早春：从
出租‘李鸿章的房子’开始 ［Chen Zaochun: Starting from the
Leasing of Li’s House],” 羊城晚报 Guanzhou Evening News,
June 10, 2008 , http://www.ycwb.com/epaper/ycwb/
html/2008 -06/10/content_228861.htm. 155 “内地富豪陈
早春: 以前觉得李嘉诚也不过如此 [Inland Tycoon Chen Zao-
chun: Had Felt That Lee Kah-Hsing Also Not More than
This],” 外滩画报 Bund Pictorial, September 1, 2006, http://
news.qq.com/a/20060901/001612 .htm. 156 “花园洋房
的新价值 -探秘上海花园洋房（一 [New Values of the Gar-
den Houses, Part 1].” 157 Kai Ding 丁凯 and Peng Peng
彭朋, “废墟‘隔壁’的奢侈品—面向洋人的洋房市场 [The Luxury
Items next to the Ruins, Western-Style House Market
Oriented to the Westerners],” 经济观察报 Economic Ob-
server, February 22, 2005, http://sz.house.sina.com.cn/
sznews/2005 -02-22 /1047961.html. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid.
160 “上海时尚权力100人—第一会所主人汪兴政 [Shanghai
Fashion Powerful 100 —First Club House Owner Wang
Xingzheng],” 外滩画报 Bund Pictorial, September 27, 2005,
http://eladies.sina.com.cn/nx/2005 / 0927/ 1933195772 .
html. 161 That the English name for Yongfu Hui [雍福会]
is “Yongfoo Elite” rather than “Yongfu Elite” is interesting
also. Romanization of Chinese, which is not a phonetical-
ly based language, is conventionally either through the
pinyin system, which is the phonetically-based transliter-
ation system developed in the 1950 s and used in the PRC
since the 1980 s (also in Singapore), or the Wade-Gile sys-
tem, which is a system from the 19 th century that is also
still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In pinyin, the name
would have been spelled “Yongfu.” The use of “Yongfoo”
comes from neither system, but rather simulates the “foo”
of “egg foo young,” or “Ruby Foo’s,” both Western inven-
tions of Chinese dishes and names. 162 “不受拘束的丰富
美学—雍福会董事长汪兴政 [Not Confined by Rich Aesthet-
icism— Yongfu Elite Chair Wang Xingzheng],” 移居上海
Moving to Shanghai, May 18 , 2010, http://www.yiju.cc/dlg/
alshr/msj/2010/0518 /362.html. 163 “揭中外官贵私人会所
让人嫉妒恨 [Revealing Chinese and Foreign Private Luxury
Club Houses Arouse Jealousy and Resentment],” 新华网,
May 16, 2013, http://news.eastday.com/whyauto/2013 -05 -
16 /242450.html. 164 The previous chapter had elabo-
rated on the gated residential complex of Ambassy Courts,
which catered to elite expats. The complex was implanted
amidst old garden houses, which have become embas-
sies since the founding of the PRC , on Huaihai Lu, the for-
mer Avenue Joffre. 165 As with many early develop-
 ments, developers from Hong Kong and Macao brought
with them international standards but also their capitalist
know-how to build the tower residences for those expats
who first came to Shanghai in the late 1990 s and required
special housing separate from the local conditions con-
sciously recognized as being behind standards. 166 “雍
福会 旧上海豪门奢华地标 [Yongfoo Elite, Landmark for Old
Shanghai’s Aristocratic and Luxurious],” March 3, 2008 ,
http://luxury.qq.com/a/ 20 0 8 0303 / 0 0 0 013 _ 1 .htm.
167 The number of 244 on Yongfu Lu no longer exists. It
is however recorded that the former British Consul did
move into 244 . And according to the reports of Yongfoo
Elite, which is now numbered 200, it occupied the former
British Consul’s building. For the reportage on Number
244 during the Cultural Revolution, see “揭秘：张春桥的‘
文革’别动队 [Revealing the Secrets: Zhang Chunqiao’s
‘Revolution’ Task Force],” July 8 , 2008 , http://news.ifeng.
com/history/ 1 /midang/ 200807/ 0708_ 2664_ 640206 .
shtml. 168 The following chapter will elaborate on the
developments of West Nanjing Lu in the Jing’an District
and the John Portman designed Shanghai Center, where
it is located. 169 Xingguo Hotel was also an important
site for meetings during the Cultural Revolution. See also
“揭秘：张春桥的‘文革’别动队 [Revealing the Secrets: Zhang
Chunqiao’s ‘Revolution’ Task Force].” 170 The fact that
Shanghai had somehow retained its legacy of consumer
culture was proven by the flocking of “country bumpkins,”
as all non-Shanghainese were regarded by the Shang-
hainese, to the material capital of the country, Shanghai,
even under planned economy. It was known, even into
the 1990 s, that the visitors would buy goods to bring back
to their provinces. Even today, the economic discrepancy
and access to consumer goods between coastal cities and
inland cities, continues to result in inland Chinese visiting
cities like Shanghai to buy goods that are unavailable in
their hometowns. The author has witnessed colleagues
and friends who visited the Ikea in Shanghai to buy
furnishings for inland cities. 171 The eclecticism of West-
ern modern era furniture and accessories seems to revive
the hybridity of Shanghai’s cosmopolitan past. Small entre-
preneurs who brought back vintage chic both in furniture
and fashion in the 2000s, like Lolo Love located down the
street, continued the scavenging in Western capitals for
pieces of Shanghai’s past. 172 “雍福会 旧上海豪门奢华地
标 [Yongfoo Elite, Landmark for Old Shanghai’s Aristocrat-
ic and Luxurious].” 173 In 2004 , a glass of wine in Shang-
hai would have costed around 65 RMB (almost 8 USD ),
and a cappuccino 15 RMB (almost 2 USD ). But one has to
remember that an average meal would have costed
30 RMB , which means overall living expenses were low.
Even though to the local wage earner the 65 RMB would
have seemed extravagant, to the foreigner working in
Shanghai on a expat package, it would have been afford-
able, given that other costs were lower. Even though
Western-style drinks and food were still not as easy to
find as they are today, at the quality expected of interna-
tional metropolitan areas, to the average visitor from the
west, what could be found is also still relatively afford-
able. 174 Youmei Li 李友梅, 上海社会结构变迁十五年 [Fif-
teen Years of Shanghai Social Structure Transformation]
(Shanghai 上海: 上海大学出版社 Shanghai University Press,
2008). 175 “雍福会：贵得一蹋糊涂 《红楼梦》般精致的会
所 [Yongfoo Elite: A Club That Is Prohibitively Expensive
and Refined like in the ‘Dream of Red Chamber’],” 中国日
报 China Daily, July 6, 2009, http://www.chinadaily.com.
cn/china/2009 -07/06/content_8392759.htm. 176 “Wall-
paper* Design Awards 2004 , Best Club,” Wallpaper, De-
cember 9, 2004 , http://www.wallpaper.com/lifestyle/
best-club/926. 177 Ibid. 178 Yongfoo Elite was known
for the kind of banquets that the Chinese leadership since
2012 attacked in their anti-corruption campaign. The
physical proximity of elites, as manifested by the kinds of
developments described in the chapter is what has made
this collusion of power and wealth possible. 179 Yongfoo
Elite marketed its local cultural production, for example,
by touting that its dark soy sauce, which is a key ingredi-
ent to Shanghainese cuisine, is produced in-house. 180 In-
terview with architects who have increasingly encoun-
tered requests of this time, 2011. The changed preference
distinguishes the more sophisticated urban elites of the
new decade from the previous one, when preferences for
gilded cherubs prevailed. The changed preference also
distinguishes them from their provincial contemporaries
in less cosmopolitan parts of China. See also K. Sizheng
Fan, “Culture for Sale: Western Classical Architecture in
China’s Recent Building Boom,” Journal of Architectural
Education 63, no. 1 (October 1, 2009): 64–74 , doi:10.1111/
j.1531 -314 X.2009.01029.x; Zhang Qiang and Robert
Weatherley, “The Rise of ‘Republican Fever’ in the PRC
and the Implications for CCP Legitimacy,” China Informa-
tion 27, no. 3 (November 1, 2013): 277–300, doi:10.1177/
0920203X13500458 . 181 Jilin Xu 许纪霖, “上海文化的反
思 [Reflecting on Shanghai Culture],” 中国青年报 China
Youth Daily, November 12, 2003, http://zqb.cyol.com/con-
tent/2003 -11/12 /content_768042.htm. 182 Ibid. 183 To
understand the approximate price for the lease on a his-
toric old house like the one of Yongfoo Elite, a house that
had been the former residence of the Kuomingtang elite
Zhang Xueliang was rented for 20,000 RMB /sm/month
(equivalent to 4 ,000 USD /sm/month) on a ten-year lease
in the early 2000 s. The municipality renovated the house,
located on Gaolan Lu Number 1, in the early 1990 s, but
then was leased out by the District’s street office, which
is an administration unit at the local level. The house was
already listed by the municipal government in 1999 as an
Excellent Historic Architecture. Interview, 2012. 184 The
term ‘localized cosmopolitans’ refers to the actors who
have an international background while at the same time
have access and knowledge of the local processes
and mechanisms in Shanghai’s urban development
process. As elaborated in the previous chapter, the local-
ized cosmopolitans are adept at detecting and exploit-
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street
ing of the urban loopholes under transition econo-
my. 185 Interview, 2012. 186 Ibid. 187 Ibid. 188 Ibid.
189 See elaboration of housing marketization in the pre-
vious chapter. 190 The policy for the marketization of
public housing stipulated that only units that are “intact
[成套],” or not subdivided by different families, could
be sold on the real estate market with ‘ownership
right.’ 191 ‘Hukou’ is a system of household registra-
tion in China. See, for example, Hein Mallee, “China’s
Household Registration System under Reform,” Develop-
223
 ment and Change 26 , no. 1 (January 1, 1995): 1–29,
doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.1995.tb00541.x; Kam Wing Chan
and Will Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou Sys-
tem?,” China Quarterly, no. 195 (2008): 582–606, doi:
0.1017/S0305741008000787. 192 Teng 滕华, “老洋房投
资攻略 [Investment Strategy for Old Western-Style Hous-
es].” 193 Yun Xu 徐運 and Yizheng Feng 馮亦珍, “上海
第一個‘老洋房指數’史丹福指數日前問世 [Shanghai’s first
‘Old Western-Style House Index’, the Stanford Index],”
新華網 Xinhua, September 5, 2004, http://big5.xinhuanet.
com/gate/big 5 /news.xinhuanet.com/for-
tune/2004 -09/05/content_1946237.htm. 194 Interview,
2012. 195 The intricacies of interacting with residents to
secure their relocation also meant an inevitable involve-
ment in family relations that could often become compli-
cated and challenging. The negotiations, because they are
between private individuals, rather than between state-
backed displacement agents and residents, were com-
pelled to take on a much more camaraderie characteristic
that also shed a lot of light on the property and social
structures. Interview, 2012. 196 Ibid. 197 The following
chapter will elaborate on the commercial developments
of West Nanjing Lu. 198 The ‘street office [街道办]’ is a
local unit of administration that is below the district level
in cities like Shanghai. See Fulong Wu, “China’s Changing
Urban Governance in the Transition Towards a More Mar-
ket-Oriented Economy,” Urban Studies 39, no. 7 (June 1,
2002): 1083, doi:10.1080/00420980220135491. 199 In-
terview, 2012 . 200 Ibid. 201 Ibid. 202 The creative
cluster called 1933, which had been a former abattoir and
converted by the municipal economic council into an ex-
emplary reuse project for creative industries, is located in
a peripheral location in the Hongkou District. The contrast
of both the location as well as the building type for the
gallery’s location emphasized the ambiance of the old
Shanghai that Le Passage was successful in evoking. The
development of 1933 will be further elaborated on in
Chapter 6. 203 Interview, 2012. 204 Because the neigh-
borhood work unit was a planned economy production
site, it is situated on administratively-allocated land. Re-
development of administratively-allocated land is only
possible by upgrading. Thus, the land leased to the inves-
tor was awaiting a new function to fill the former produc-
tion site. 205 Interviews, 2012 , 2013 . 206 Sha 沙永
杰, Ji 纪雁, and Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌保护道路的历
史研究与保护规划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explorations
in Historic Research and Conservation Planning for a
Conserved Fengmao Street]. 207 Interviews, 2012, 2013.
208 Interview, 2012. 209 上海市人民政府 Shanghai Mu-
nicipal Government, “《关于本市历史建筑与街区保护改造
试点的实施意见》的通知 [Notice Regarding the Recom-
mendations for the Implementation of the Historic
Architecture and Neighborhood Conservation and Up-
grade Pilot Projects],” Pub. L. No. 沪建房 [1999] 0678号
(1999), http://www.mohurd.gov.cn/zcfg/dfwj/200611/t20
061101_154292 .html. 210 “上海思南公馆：百年洋房‘复活’
[Shanghai Sinan Mansions: Century-Old European Houses
‘Revived’],” 人民日报 People’s Daily, July 14 , 2011, http://
www.chinanews.com/cul/ 2011 / 07- 14 / 3182551 .shtml.
211 Even though the call was issued to the four city cen-
ter districts also of Jing’an, Xuhui’s win of two out of the
224
four pilot sites also show the target competition between
the districts in the positioning of their locational advan-
tages. 212 ‘New-style lilong [新式里弄]’ is used to de-
scribe both the lilong type and the lilong architecture
types that were built with modern infrastructure and were
designed to accommodate automobile traffic and parking.
For an elaboration of the urban form of the lilong,
and the lilong architecture type, see the previous
chapter. 213 Interviews, 2012 . 214 Interviews, 2012 .
215 Songmao Ge 葛頌茂, “上海近代歷史街區保護改造拉開
帷幕 [Lifting the Weighty Curtains on a Shanghai Modern
Era Historic Neighborhood Conservation and Upgrade],”
解放日报 Liberation Daily, January 10, 2002, http://qnlt.
eastday.com/epublish/big5 /paper148 /20020110/class
014800006/hwz576046.htm. 216 Hui Zhong 鐘暉, “淮
海中路‘西班牙式’老房將保護改造 [Huaihai Road ‘Spanish
Style’ Old Houses Will Be Protected and Renovated],” 新
聞晨報 Morning Post, January 9, 2002, http://chat.eastday.
com/epublish/big5 /paper148 /20020109/class014800
006 /hwz575439.htm. 217 Interviews, 2012 . 218 Ibid.
219 “Quote from Wang Anshi, Department of Renova-
tions, Shanghai Administration for Housing and Real Es-
tate Resources,” 房地大家谈－都市家园 ［Everyone Dis-
cusses Real Estate, Our Home Our City] (上海电视台
Shanghai Television Station, October 29, 2005). 220 Qing
Liu 柳青, “拆了重建?众说纷纭共话保护历史建筑模式 ［De-
molished and Rebuilt? Talking about the Model for
Protecting Historic Architecture],” 城市导报 City News,
January 16, 2003 , http://law.eastday.com/epublish/gb/
paper75 /20030116 /class007500009/hwz598431.htm.
221 Ibid. 222 Ibid. 223 These two types are elaborated
on in the previous chapter. 224 Ge 葛頌茂, “上海近代歷史
街區保護改造拉開帷幕 [Lifting the Weighty Curtains on a
Shanghai Modern Era Historic Neighborhood Conservation
and Upgrade].” 225 Ibid. 226 “北京 上海 城市文化这十年
[Beijing, Shanghai, Urban Culture in These Decades],” 文
汇读书周报 Wenhui Reading Weekly, February 3, 2006,
http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/feature/1118273 .htm.
227 See the previous chapter on the prices of the com-
modity housing developments in the neighborhood.
228 The residents of the compound are part of the
un-confirmable urban rumors that circulate in the neigh-
borhood. The grain of truth remains that the buildings of
the former lane are home to the power and wealth of the
city. Interviews, 2012. 229 The conservation type desig-
nation of the buildings and the conservation area desig-
nations are shown in the set of maps for the conservation
area. See Wu 伍江 and Wang 王林, 历史文化风貌区保护规
划编制与管理：上海城市保护的实践 [The establishment
and management of the Historic Cultural Features and
Styles Districts Conservation Plan: Cases from Shanghai’s
Conservation]. 230 Ling 凌颖松, “上海近现代历史建筑保护
的历程与思考 [Chronicle and Thoughts on the conserva-
tion of Shanghai’s modern era historic architecture.” 231
“上海弄堂-傳統小社區見證大時代 [Shanghai Longtang, Tra-
ditional Small Residential Neighborhoods Witness Big
Times],” 星島日報 Singtao Daily, July 4 , 2005, http://std.
stheadline.com/archive/fullstory.asp?andor=or&year1 =
2005 &month1=7&day1=4 &year2=2005 &month2=7&day
2=4 &category=all&id=20050704 m02&keyword1=&key-
word2=. 232 Luxia Song 宋路霞, 回梦上海老洋房 [Dream-
ing of Shanghai’s Old Western-style Houses], 回 梦百年
上海系列 (上海 Shanghai: 上海科学技术文献出版社 Shang-
hai Science and Technology Press, 2004). 233 Ibid. The
book in which Lanes 1754 and 117 were highlighted was
given a foreword by the prominent historian of Shanghai
and chair at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’s
Institute of History, Xiong Yuezhi [熊月之]. In the tradition
of history writing in China, repetition of aforementioned
histories is unquestioningly propagated. 234 It is notable
that the value of modern era architectural heritage in
Shanghai comes from the building’s hybridity. 235 Inter-
views 2012 , 2013 . 236 Ibid. 237 Ibid. 238 Dorothy J.
Solinger, “Socialist Goals and Capitalist Tendencies in Chi-
nese Commerce, 1949–1952 ,” Modern China 6 , no. 2
(April 1, 1980): 197–224 . 239 Public-private collectiviza-
tion [公私合营] would nationalize many remaining private
sector enterprises in the 1950 s. Toby Ho, “Managing Risk:
The Suppression of Private Entrepreneurs in China in the
1950 s,” Risk Management 2, no. 2 (April 1, 2000): 29–38 ,
doi:10.1057/palgrave.rm.8240047. 240 Interviews 2012,
2013 . 241 Ibid. 242 Ibid. 243 Ibid. 244 The January
Revolution installed Beijing-assigned leaders to Shanghai
and had pushed out the municipal leaders. While the mu-
nicipal leaders were detained separately, the Revolution
committee relocated their families to Lane 117 in 1967.
245 Interviews 2012 , 2013. 246 Ibid. 247 The patron
of the family who bought the house number 1 in 1952
turned 100 in California in 2013. With a daughter who is
a professor of physics at Cal-Tech and a son-in-law a pro-
fessor of mathematics at Columbia University, the legacy
of elites’ flight is clear in the outflow of human capital in
the 1980 s. The exodus of human capital before 1949 has
supported the boom of recipient cities like Hong Kong in
particular, in the clustering of industrial know-how as well
as assets. And since the 1980 s the outflow of population,
particularly from neighborhoods around Wukang Lu, has
facilitated the arrival of many new expat residents.
248 Text from the plaques issued by the District that
hang on the wall of the compound. 249 Fukang Chen
陈福康, “令人摇头的‘郑振铎寓所’介绍 ［A Doubtful Presen-
tation of the Residence of Zheng Zhenduo],” 博览群书
[Reading Extensively], November 7, 2008 , http://www.
gmw.cn/ 02 blqs/ 2008 - 11 / 07/content_ 89827 3 .htm.
250 Interviews, 2013 . 251 Ibid 252 Online comments,
2013. It is notable that commentaries often attribute the
building of Beijing’s National Center for Performing Arts,
designed by architect Paul Andreu, often cited as unsuit-
able for the capital city’s historic context as well as being
excessively expensive to build as well as to maintain, as
Jiang’s gift to his mistress, a singer from the Miao ethnic
minority group. The building began construction in 2001
and finished only in 2007. 253 Interviews, 2013. 254 Ang
李安 Lee, Lust, caution 色戒, videorecording (Universal,
2008). 255 Jian Guo 郭鉴, “上海历史风貌道路规划实践与
探索 [Planning practice and exploration of historic roads
in Shanghai],” 上海城市规划 [Shanghai Urban Planning
Review], no. 03 (2012): 43–48 . 256 Ibid. 257 Dailei
张代蕾 Zhang, “上海‘原汁原味’保护144条历史风貌道路 [Shang­
hai’s ‘Original Juice Original Flavor’ Conserving 144 Histor-
ic Fengmao Roads],” December 12 , 2007, http://news.
163.com/07/1212 /09/3VGIMQE7000120GU .html; Haifeng
Zhang 张海峰, “武康路‘活化’街区力求原汁原味 [Wukang Lu’s
Activation of Neighborhood Seeks Original Juice Original
Flavor],” 解放日报 Liberation Daily, June 8 , 2009, http://
news.163 .com/09/0608 /11/5B9JA26 D000120GR .html;
Jianqun Zhang 张建群 and Junlan Zhang 张骏斓, “思南路
等‘原汁原味’永不拓宽 [Sinan Lu and the ‘Original Juice
Original Flavor’ will Never Be Widened],” 新闻晚报 Evening
News, August 11, 2010, http://zt.jfdaily.com/newspaper/
xwwb/page_ 37/ 20 10 0 8 /t 20 10 0 8 12 _ 95 4 574 .html.
258 Ying Xu 徐颖, “上海题材 花开不败 [Shanghai as Sub-
ject, Blooming Flowers Not Withering],” 新闻晨报 Morning
News, August 17, 2008 , http://trs.jfdaily.com/xwcb/page_
8 /200808 /t20080817_347341.html. 259 Danyan Chen
陈丹燕, “武康路：永不拓宽的街道 [Wukang Lu: The Road
That Will Never Be Widened],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, June
13, 2008 , 笔会·夜光杯 edition, http://www.news365.com.
cn/wxpd/bhygb/mwlt/200806/t20080613_1909230.htm.
260 Ying Jin 金莹, “陈丹燕：作家要为城市心灵成长史负责
[Chen Danyan: A Writer Must Be Responsible for the City’s
Spiritual Growth],” 文学报 Literature News, August 26,
2008, http://book.sohu.com/20080826/n259207727.shtml.
261 Jianfeng Shi 石剑峰, “潘石屹要怎么改建复兴路？[How
Would Pan Shiyi Change Fuxing Lu?],” 东方早报 Oriental
Morning Post, March 11, 2011, http://www.dfdaily.com/
html/150/2011/3 /11 /578565 .shtml. 262 Ibid. 263 Wu
伍江 and Wang 王林, 历史文化风貌区保护规划编制与管理：
上海城市保护的实践 [The establishment and management
of the Historic Cultural Features and Styles Districts Con-
servation Plan: Cases from Shanghai’s Conservation].
264 Peng Zhang 张鹏, “都市形态的历史根基—上海公共租
界都市空间与市政建设变迁研究 [Historic origins of Urban
Form-Study of the development of the urban space and
city administration for construction in Shanghai’s Interna-
tional Concession]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji Uni-
versity, 2005). 265 Qian Sun 孙倩, “上海近代城市建设管理
制度及其对公共空间的影响 [Urban Construction Adminis-
tration System and its Impact on Public Space in Modern
Shanghai]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji University,
2006). 266 Fang Tang 唐方, “都市建筑控制 近代上海公共
租界建筑法规研究（1845–1943）[Development control of
Architecture in the City: Study of International Concession
Building Laws in Modern Shanghai (1845–1943)]” (博士
PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji University, 2006). 267 Fang
王方 Wang, “外滩原英领馆街区及其建筑的时空变迁研究
(1843–1937 ) [Study of the area around the former British
Embassy on the Bund and the evolution of the Architec-
ture (1843–1937 )]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji Uni-
versity, 2007 ). 268 Yuqiang Lian 练育强, “近代上海城市规
划法制研究 [Study of Urban Planning Law in Modern
Shanghai]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 华东政法大学 East China Uni-
versity of Politics and Law, 2009). 269 Zhengyu Mou 牟
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street
振宇, “近代上海法租界城市化空间过程研究（1849–1930）
[Study of the urbanization process’s spatial manifestation
in the modern era Shanghai’s French Concession
(1849–1930)]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 复旦大学 Fudan Univer-
sity, 2010). 270 Lü Pan 潘律, “In-Visible Palimpsest:
Memory, Space and Modernity in Berlin and Shanghai”
(PhD Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong
Kong), 2011), http://hub.hku.hk/handle/10722 /134808 .
271 Kai Yao 姚凯, 寻求变革之道—基于上海城市演进过程的
规划管理创新探索 [Searching for the Way for Transforma-
225
tion—Exploration of Urban Planning and Governance In-
novation in Shanghai’s Urban Evolution] (Shanghai 上海:
上海科学技术出版社 Shanghai Science and Technology
Press, 2005). 272 Wei 魏闽, “思南路47–48号街坊的整体
性保护研究 在城市化进程中的历史中心区 [Research on the
Integrated Conservation of the Sinan Road Plot 47–48 ,
Shanghai’s historical center under urbanization’s drive].”
273 Interviews, 2012, 2013. 274 Gang Liu 刘刚, “上海前
法新租界的城市形式 [Urban morphology of Shanghai’s for-
mer French Concession]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tong-
ji University, 2010); Bingchao Hou 侯斌超, “上海历史街
道风貌研究（1843–1945)—历史沿革、城市结构和制度内因
[Study of Shanghai Historic Street’s Fengmao (1843–1945)—
Historic Development, Urban Structure and Institutional
Basis]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji University, 2011).
275 All the researchers cited the documents from the
Chinese language Annual Reports of 29 December 1938
(U38 -4 -2847 ) and the addendum from 27 March 1939
(U38 -4 -2848). Mou and Wei called the document 法租界
市容管理图, which would literally translate to “French Con-
cession Administration Plan for Urban Appearances.” The
word 市容is another difficult to translate word that means
the appearance of the city. In some translations the map
is called a preservation map. The map appears reprinted
in the Shanghai Map Survey Annal, cited as from 1938 .
The legend is a Chinese version superimposed but no ci-
tation of the original source could be found. See Zhenglin
Chen 陈征琳, 上海测绘志 [Shanghai Map Survey Annal],
上海市专志系列丛刊 (上海 Shanghai: 上海社会科学院出版社
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1999). The
map has been cited in numerous books, including Luo’s
2002 book as well as in the other dissertations that as-
sociated with the 1938 plan, although no original name
for this plan could be confirmed. 276 The designation
would refer to the area of expansion of the French con-
cession after 1914 and would be more specifically used
for the area that was planned as a high-end residential
area as defined by the strict planning laws, which with
the exception of the patches denoted in the planning
maps, were Western-style buildings with modern ameni-
ties of water, electricity, heating. The overlap of this West-
ern District with the contemporary planning boundaries
of the conservation district Fuxing-Hengshan is significant
in the reinforcing of the area’s historic legacies as highly
valuable culturally. 277 Zu ’an Zheng 郑祖安, “近代上海‘花
园洋房区’的形成及其历史特色 [Formation of the the Mod-
ern Era Shanghai’s ‘Western-Style Garden Residences’
District and Its Historic Distinctiveness],” 社会科学 Social
Sciences, no. 10 (2004): 92–100. 278 The document
Projet Règlement de Construction from 9 October 1934
issued by the Service des Travaux Publics of the Admin-
istration Municipale was kindly shared with the author by
a friend and fellow researcher of Shanghai, the historian
and associate professor of architecture Dr. Cole Roskam,
whose dissertation provides an excellent grounding for
the modern era development of Shanghai. See William
Cole Roskam, “Civic Architecture in a Liminal City: Shang-
hai, 1842–1936” (Doctoral Thesis, Harvard University,
2010). 279 See the map that is associated with the 1938
issued Beautification Plan, although the author has yet to
find the plan’s title or actual association. 280 See the
226
map that is associated with the 1939 issued amendment
to the Plan, although, similarly, the author has yet to find
the plan’s title or actual association. 281 The site of the
high-rise luxury residential compound Ambassy Courts
built in 2000 corresponds with one of the two pre-French
Concession urban settlements. The other pre-Concession
settlement has become today’s The Summit and The Cen-
ter, which stand alongside the controversial plot along
Wuyuan and Wulumuqi Lu that has been cleared but re-
mains unbuilt. The previous chapter elaborated on the
two sites of exceptions in the neighborhood. 282 See
the previous chapter for the elaboration of “inadequate”
urban areas, which were urgently demolished in the
1990 s. 283 Sun 孙倩, “上海近代城市建设管理制度及其对公
共空间的影响 [Urban Construction Administration System
and its Impact on Public Space in Modern Shanghai].”
284 Ibid., 48 . 285 Ibid., 49. It is notable the repeated
mention of the differences from interruptions from “to-
day’s planning.” It is clear that the implementation of the
conservation plans led by Wu, Sun’s supervisor, empha-
sizing the spatial qualities of the streetscape, would be
foregrounded in the study. The dissertation would be pub-
lished as a book in 2009 as well. Qian Sun 孙倩, Jiang Wu
伍江, and Hesheng Zhao 赵和生, 上海近代城市公共管理制
度与空间建设 [Shanghai’s Modern Era Urban Construction
Administration System and Spatial Development], 第1版
(Nanjing 南京: 东南大学出版社 Southeast University Press,
2009). 286 Ibid., 45. Even though the comment is em-
bedded in the footnote, relating the significance of the
urban administration on urban form to social composition,
it reveals an understanding of the potentials for planning
processes for contemporary implementation. 287 Sha 沙
永杰, Ji 纪雁, and Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌保护道路的
历史研究与保护规划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explora-
tions in Historic Research and Conservation Planning for
a Conserved Fengmao Street]. 288 Zheng 郑时龄, 上海
近代建筑风格 [The evolution of Shanghai architecture in
modern times]; Luo 罗小未 et al., 上海新天地 旧区改造的建
筑历史、人文历史与开发模式的研究 [Shanghai Xintiandi: a
Study of the Architectural History, Socio-cultural History,
and Development Mode of an Urban Upgrade]. 289 In
Sha’s description of the Wukang Lu neighborhood, there
is a not so subtle disdain for the small-scale commerce
that has seeped into the high-end area, which as he ex-
pressed, had been full of high-level intellectuals. Even
though he does not originate from Shanghai, and is one
of the many non-local researchers and planners oversee-
ing the conceptualization of the area’s conservation proj-
ect, his intonation for the area to return the high-end
neighborhood to its original form, representative of many
other researchers and planners, bore a self-righteousness
that would have been expected of the very longtime local
residents, the very “high-level intellectuals,” who actually
were from the neighborhood. Interview, 2011. 290 Sha
沙永杰, Ji 纪雁, and Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌保护道路
的历史研究与保护规划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explo-
rations in Historic Research and Conservation Planning
for a Conserved Fengmao Street], 23 . 291 Ibid., 26 .
292 徐汇区人民政府 [Xuhui District Government], “徐汇区
历史文化风貌区和优秀历史建筑保护利用迎‘世博’三年行动计
划 ［On the Occasion of welcoming ‘World Expo’ the Three
Year Action Plan for Xuhui District’s Historic Cultural Feng-
mao District and Excellent Historic Architecture Conserva-
tion],” 徐府发〔2008〕6号 § (2008), http://xxgk.xuhui.gov.
cn/WebSite/HTML/xhxxml/zfwj_qzfwj/Info/Detail_1694.htm.
293 Yongjie Sha 沙永杰 and Jiang Wu 伍江, “上海市徐汇区
历史街道保护规划探索 [Exploratory plans for the conserva-
tion of historic streets in Shanghai’s Xuhui district],” 时代
建筑 Time+Architecture, no. 03 (2013): 34–39. 294 Al-
though the author was not able to procure the original
documents for the Wukang Lu Plan submitted and ap-
proved in 2008, the plans for the Hengshan Lu area which
were made in 2011, and for which the Wukang Lu Plan
set the precedence, showed in detail the categories of
importance to the planners and the range of information
included. The categories catalogued were: architecture
type [建筑类别], function [建筑功能], occupancy [使用模式],
main street-facing elevation(s) [主控立面], façade control
and commercial program control [立面构图／商业店面控
制], architecture material and color [建筑材质与色彩],
façade conservation key points [主控立面保护重点], façade
additions control (ie AC , planters, clothing hangers, sun
protection elements) [主控立面附加物控制], wall and entry
control [围墙和入口控制], and greening related to the
street [与街道相关的绿化]. 295 The term “restoration
[整治],”means “regulation” in the sense of “putting under
control,” or “restoration and alignment,” both implying ac-
tive intervention. The term “conservational restoration
[保护性整治]” is used by the planners and bureaucrats for
the Wukang Lu Restoration Project. Yi Zhang 张奕, “武康
路‘活化’街区力求原汁原味 [Wukang Lu “activates’ Power of
the Neighborhood Strives for Original Flavor],” 解放日报
Liberation Daily, June 8 , 2009, http://finance.sina.com.cn/
roll/20090608 /07152880817.shtml; Yongjie Sha 沙永杰, “
以武康路项目为例谈城市更新 [The Wukang Lu Project as
Case to Discuss Urban Renewal],” Urban China 城市中国,
September 24 , 2015 , http://chuansong.me/n/1737176 .
296 Weiping Ding 丁卫平, “Chapter 43 区县 [Districts]
Section 2 徐汇区 [Xuhui District],” in 上海年鉴2012 [Shang-
hai Almanac 2012], 2012, 450, http://www.shanghai.gov.
cn/shanghai/node2314 /node24651/n31071/n31119/u21
ai734123.html. 297 Four architecture firms commission­
ed by the Wukang Lu masterplanner made proposals for
the redesign of the entrances and periphery walls of many
of the plots on Wukang Lu and the renovations were im-
plemented. The designs were based on historic docu-
ments. Sha, Ji and Qian, 2009, p. 241. 298 Zhang 张奕, “
武康路‘活化’街区力求原汁原味 [Wukang Lu “activates’ Pow-
er of the Neighborhood Strives for Original Flavor].”
299 Sha 沙永杰, Ji 纪雁, and Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌
保护道路的历史研究与保护规划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu,
Explorations in Historic Research and Conservation Plan-
ning for a Conserved Fengmao Street], 140. 300 Wei
Yuan 袁玮 and Huasheng Zhao 赵华生, “徐汇历史风貌区围
墙改造尽显海派风韵 [Xuhui District Historic Cultural Feng-
mao District’s Wall Renovations, Fully Realizes Haipai
Style],” 新民晚报 New Citizen Evening News, June 2, 2009,
http://bbs.sjtu.edu.cn/bbscon,board,Shanghai,file,M.-
1244297702.A.html. 301 Liyuan Liu 刘力源, “‘升级’武康路
即将优雅登场 [‘Upgrade’ Wukang Road Will Elegantly De-
bute],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, June 16, 2009, http://www.
news365.com.cn/sh_2044 /xh/200906/t20090616_104
424 .html. 302 Sha 沙永杰 and Wu 伍江, “上海市徐汇区历
史街道保护规划探索 [Exploratory plans for the conserva-
tion of historic streets in Shanghai’s Xuhui district].”
303 Ibid. 304 徐汇区人民政府 [Xuhui District Govern-
ment], “关于第二个中国‘文化遗产日’组织开放徐汇区若干历
史建筑的通知 [Notice Regarding the Organization and
Opening Some of Xuhui District’s Historic Architecture on
Second ‘Cultural Relic Day’ in China],” 徐府发(2007 )11号 §
(2007 ), http://www.xuhui.gov.cn/H/xhxxml/zfwj_qzfwj/
Info/Detail_1747.htm. 305 老上海百业指南 : 道路机构厂商
住宅分布图 [Old Shanghai Commercial Atlas: Maps of
Roads, Institutions, Factories, Commerce, Residential Dis-
tribution] (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2008). 306 “A historical
approach to urban regeneration” was the English subtitle
to the Wukang Lu book, although the translation from
the Chinese subtitle 风貌保护道路点历史研究与保护规划探索
has a slightly different meaning, translated to “Explora-
tions in historic research and conservation planning for a
conserved fengmao street.” 307 Sha 沙永杰, Ji 纪雁, and
Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌保护道路的历史研究与保护规
划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explorations in Historic Re-
search and Conservation Planning for a Conserved Feng-
mao Street], i–ii. 308 Ibid., 105–6. Chinese contemporary
historians still are unable to open up the can of worms
wrought by the recent past since 1949. The events of the
Cultural Revolution remain sensitive and largely avoided.
The book’s inclusion of the Cultural Revolution remains
abstract but admirable in its mention of it. The key vi-
gnettes can only remain on the famous writer Ba Jin and
others like him. And references made to the memoirs of
a few of the CPC leaders who also suffered under the Cul-
tural Revolution attribute again Number 117 without men-
tion of the expelled families. 309 “上海市历史建筑保护事
务中心正式挂牌成立 [Shanghai Conservation of Historic Ar-
chitecture General Affairs Center Officially Founded and
Open for Business],” July 28 , 2010, http://www.aibaohu.
com/2010/07/20100730161130 -19624 .html. 310 Zhen-
gli Huang 黄震丽, “历史是延续的：小记同济大学副教授沙永
杰博士莅临世界小学作专题讲座 [History Is Continuous: A
Documentation of Tongji Assistant Professor Doctor Sha
Yongjie’s Honorable Presence at World Primary School for
Seminar on Special Topic],” Xuhui Education, June 21,
2010, http://www.xhedu.sh.cn/cms/data/html/doc/2010 -
06/21/229010/index.html. 311 Young Pioneers [少先队]
is the Communist organization for school-aged children.
It existed in the Soviet Union, the former Eastern-bloc
countries of Europe and other Communist-ruled countries.
It exists in the PRC , Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. In
the PRC , the Young Pioneers wear red scarves [红领巾],
which emblematic of a corner of the flag stained red by
Chapter 3 The Cultural Street
the blood of revolutionaries. 312 Sha 沙永杰, Ji 纪雁, and
Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌保护道路的历史研究与保护规
划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explorations in Historic Re-
search and Conservation Planning for a Conserved Feng-
mao Street], 147. 313 For a neighborhood area that was
on the far western end of the former French concession
at the beginning of the PRC , a semi-rural fringe that until
the 1980 s was quietly suburban despite dramatic demo-
graphic increases since the 1950 s, the convenience store,
and other small amenities that popped up around, from
227
bicycle repair shops to newspaper kiosks that also sold
phone cards and lotto tickets, were welcome amenities
for the nearby residents, who had longer than usual dis-
tances to go to fetch goods and services that would, in
other parts of Shanghai, be only a stone’s throw
away. 314 The original proverb “思贤若渴” means “the
desire for virtuousness like an unquenchable thirst.” Three
Kingdoms is a historic period in China from AD 220 to
280. 315 When one types in the name “思贤楼”into an
internet search engine, most of the results show in com-
plex Chinese characters indicating the frequency of their
use in Hong Kong or Taiwan, where complex characters
are used. 316 Huang 黄震丽, “焯铿教育基金捐赠暨梁焯铿
世界小学校史馆揭牌仪式日前举行 [Henry Leung Education
Foundation Donates Henry Leung World Primary School
Historic Memorial Hall, Plaque Unveiling Ceremony Being
Held].” 317 Carles Brasó Broggi, “Shanghai Spinners: Pi-
oneers of Hong Kong’s Industrialization, 1947–1955 —The
Industrial History of Hong Kong,” Industrial History of
Hong Kong Group Newsletter, November 9, 2013, http://
industrialhistoryhk.org/shanghai-spinners-pioneers-hong-
kongs-industrialization-1947-1955/. As noted by Paul Tsui
in his commentary to the economic historian Carles Brasó
Broggi’s article, “Shanghainese industrialists, taking ref-
uge from the political upheavals in the Mainland, turned
Hong Kong, a place lacking in all resources and conditions
in terms of space, water or raw materials, …, into an in-
dustrial city. The flood of hardworking refugees from the
Mainland provided the labor. … Until mid-1970 s, the Chi-
nese Manager of the HK Bank was always a Shanghainese,
indicating the important roles played by the industrialists
from Shanghai in the 1950 s and 1960 s. ‘Localisation’ of
both the public and private sectors of Hong Kong com-
menced in the 1970 s.” 318 Sha 沙永杰 and Wu 伍江, “上
海市徐汇区历史街道保护规划探索 [Exploratory plans for the
conservation of historic streets in Shanghai’s Xuhui Dis-
trict].” 319 Minhua Wang 汪敏华, “武康路，不经意和设计
撞怀 [Wukang Lu, Not Mindfully Colliding into Design],” 解
放日报 Liberation Daily, March 31, 2014 , sec. 新思 创意
New Concepts, Innovation. 320 Sha 沙永杰, Ji 纪雁, and
Qian 钱宗灏, 上海武康路 风貌保护道路的历史研究与保护规
划探索 [Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explorations in Historic
Research and Conservation Planning for a Conserved
Fengmao Street]. 321 Interviews, 2011, 2012 . 322 “Ip-
luso Shanghai | CNN Travel,” accessed December 8 , 2014 ,
http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/shop/ipluso- 638410 .
323 Interviews, 2012. 324 Interviews, 2012. 325 Meet-
ing minutes of district meeting, 2004 . 326 The develop-
ment is also elaborated in the previous chapter. A rela-
228
tively long-term lease taken on by a private developer,
with a state institutions as landlord, is a development
model for many of the planned economy legacy buildings.
The private developer’s investment into building renova-
tion and tenancy curation makes use of otherwise under-
valued and under-utilized buildings under the jurisdictions
of state institutions. 327 Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, “New
Style in Old Shanghai,” Financial Times, April 5, 2013 ,
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ 2 / 03 a 3 d 1 f 4 - 8 fe 2 - 11 e 2 -
ae9 e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3 G6FPIC qe. 328 “Cycle
to a Gilded Past in Wukang Road,” Xuhui News 徐汇报,
September 26 , 2011, http://www.xuhuibao.com/html/
2011 -09/26 /content_19_1 .htm. 329 Interview, 2012 .
330 David Harvey, “Chapter 5 Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese
Characteristics,’” in A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 120–51. 331 David
C. Harvey, “Heritage Pasts and Heritage Presents: Tempo-
rality, Meaning and the Scope of Heritage Studies,” Inter-
national Journal of Heritage Studies 7, no. 4 (January 1,
2001): 337, doi:10.1080/13581650120105534 . 332 For
elaboration, see, for example, Choay, The Invention of the
Historic Monument [L’Allégorie Du Patrimoine]; Ashworth,
“Preservation, Conservation and Heritage.” 333 The term
‘developmental autocracy’ denotes political economies
that are the opposite of ‘liberal democracies,’ which de-
note political economies, notably of the West, with market
economies, often developed, and democratic political sys-
tems. See Minxin Pei, China’s Trapped Transition: The
Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge, MA : Har-
vard University Press, 2006). 334 Sebastian Heilmann
and Elizabeth J. Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla
Policy Style and Adaptive Governance in China,” in Mao’s
Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive
Governance in China, ed. Sebastian Heilmann and Eliza-
beth J. Perry, Harvard Contemporary China Series 17
(Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2011), 3 .
335 Wu and Wang, “探索与突破—上海市衡山路—复兴路历
史文化风貌区保护规划综述 [Exploration and Innovation—
Shanghai Hengshan Road-Fuxing Road Historic Cultural
Styles District Protection Plan and Summary],” 6. 336 In-
terview, 2014 . 337 Yi Yi 一依, “留住经典风貌 [Preserving
Classic Features and Styles],” 申江服务导报 Shanghai
Times, June 16, 2003 , http://old.jfdaily.com/gb/node2 /
node17/node160/node13898 /node13901/userobject1ai1
93269.html. 338 Dan Levin, “In Shanghai, Preserving
Buildings Takes Work,” The New York Times, April 30,
2010, sec. Arts / Art & Design, http://www.nytimes.com/
2010/05/02 /arts/design/02 shanghai.html.
Chapter 4
The Midtown of China

The Paragon of Economic Liberalization: Jing’an District and the Development

of West Nanjing Lu
Evocation of Heritage—Redefining Jing’an Villas
Jing’an Villas’ Commercialization and Creative Enterprises
The Precedent of Tianzifang for Commercialization
The Public Relations Wars and the Differing Visions of Jing’an Villas’ Future
The Neighboring En-Bloc Development of Dazhongli
Zhang Gardens: Jing’an Develops Its Heritage Value
Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics
Fig. 1 Dismantling of informal additions in Jing’an Villas, 2013
In early September 2013, an electronic card entry system was installed at the entrance
of a lilong compound on West Nanjing Lu [南京西路], one of the busiest and most well-
known commercial thoroughfares in Shanghai. The entry system barred non-residents
from entering the largely residential neighborhood. The installation of the system did
not come without warning. District government officials had, for a few years, already
cautioned the growing number of small eateries and boutiques that had popped up in
the lilong houses that they would be shut down. A few months before the installation of
the entry system, a blue banner appeared. Its slogan, in white writing, warned: “Abide
by the law to strengthen the secure management of the quartier, abide by the law to
ban operations without permission and certificate [依法加强小区安全管理，依法取缔无
证无照经营].” The banner was hung prominently so passers-by could see it. The shut-
down became real when officials from the various District departments swarmed the
neighborhood that month, united in their efforts to dismantle the bottom-up market-
economy businesses that had crept into the residential neighborhood.
Blue-uniformed officials watched as their henchmen sledge-hammered the sig-
nage and additions installed by small entrepreneurs. (Fig. 1) Residents bemoaned as
especially harsh the shutdown of the neighborhood’s local convenience shop, which
offered some of the cheapest bottled beers in the District. The authorities confiscat-
ed all of its goods.1 Officials were required to do daily sweeps to dismantle reported-
ly more than 80 illegal commercial enterprises. Media coverage supporting the shut-
down also reported that residents lauded the cleanup efforts and condemned their
neighboring enterprises, “pointing their fingers and yelling at the store owners for
wrongdoing.” 2 Some store owners kept away to avoid direct run-ins with the officials
whose duty it was to force them to agree to leave. Posters were plastered on their doors
to publicly announce their evictions.3 Inevitably, comparisons were made between
these posters and the 1960s dazibao [大字报], the ‘big-lettered posters’ with slogans
from the Cultural Revolution that were used to denounce class enemies. While these
post-1960s bureaucratic postings by no means rivaled the fanatical extremism of the
1960s, one local who ran a popular wonton and noodle shop for two decades out of the
ground floor living room of a house at the end of one of the secondary lanes, compared
the whole debacle to that of a Nazi takeover.4 He exclaimed with an angry futility,
“… with surveillance cameras everywhere … there is nothing we can do against them,
but leave.” 5 Another resident, known as the ‘hawk man’ for his fondness of birds, had
a mental breakdown after the protracted bout of shutdowns.6
The shutdown of Jing’an Villas [静安别墅] was not an isolated incident resulting
from small-scale skirmishes on the ground. This becomes apparent when set within
the context of the development trajectory of its surrounding West Nanjing Lu corri-
dor. Several of the cases analyzed in this volume also have been shut down since the
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

time of their writing. The following chapter traces the development of the approxi-
mately one-square-kilometer area around Jing’an Villas between the 1980s and 2010s,
and shows how the different actors exploited urban loopholes resulting from the state’s
adaptive governance, 7 to pursue their interests, thus transforming the area. The Jing’an
Villas’ shutdown, in the context of the area’s rapid transformation, was an attempt at
resolving the diverging interests of the state and non-state sectors. This and the later
shutdowns reveal the discretionary and increasingly draconian measures of the local
developmental state.

237
Fig. 2 The main lane of Jing’an Villas looking towards Weihai Lu, 2012

The lilong compound of Jing’an Villas is a middle class residential neighborhood

with a central axis that connects the busy commercial thoroughfare of West Nanjing
Lu to the parallel Weihai Lu [威海路]. (Fig. 2) Like many city center residential areas, the
neighborhood underwent partial commercialization on its ground floor units from the
mid-2000s. What distinguishes the changes in Jing’an Villas from the usual process
visible throughout the city, where the local government gives tacit approval to local
residents to rent out ground floor spaces for commercial use, were the unusual types
of commercial functions and the heritage value of the historic buildings. A range of
transnational and local creative entrepreneurs established a cluster of creative func-
tions in the historic red-bricked houses. These functions included a café called Chab-
rol that hosted weekly film screenings, small boutiques, designer showrooms, exhibi-
tion-cum-atelier spaces, a library, and services like the spa that specialized in Israeli
olive soap.
The transformation of Jing’an Villas resisted what the international media read as
the hasty wholesale obliteration of local culture through massive demolition and re-
newal projects: projects that represented the mode of growth-driven development in
China in the decades since accelerated liberalization began.8 The likes of CNN and The
Guardian touted the transformations as a new form of heritage conservation.9 They
described how the small entrepreneurs had upgraded undervalued heritage buildings,
motivated by nostalgia for ‘old Shanghai.’10 Local media also heralded the develop-
ments as cultural and artistic, appropriate to the cosmopolitan ambiance of the histor-
ic neighborhood in which they were situated.11 Young, open, multicultural, and mod-
ern, the creative entrepreneurs of Jing’an Villas were characterized as being driven not
only by profit, but also by a renewed sense of local identity and urban quality. Com-
pared to Tianzifang [田子坊], a prominent and earlier bottom-up commercial reuse of
a lilong neighborhood that has been largely commercialized, popular commendations
for the slower and more refined transformation of Jing’an Villas applauded it as a bet-
ter model for a mixed-use development. The district government’s tolerance and even
tacit encouragement of the entrepreneurs’ execution of small-scale bottom-up adap-
tive reuse, for a few years, affirmed the local state’s shrewd adaptive governance at its
most pliant. Jing’an Villas’ transformation seemed to suggest that the state was shift-
ing from prioritizing economic growth by sheer quantity in the first decade of China’s
accelerated marketization to a growing emphasis on urban quality in the second.

238
 As strains arose between residents and the growing number of small shops, how-
ever, the district authorities repeatedly, but rather half-heartedly, implemented mea-
sures to stem the growth of commerce in the residential neighborhood. On the surface,
the conflicts appeared to be the typical kind of friction between the older and longtime
residents pitted against the younger and in-coming entrepreneurs. The conflicts seem
to suggest a classic narrative of gentrification,12 where increasing affluence, expedited
by marketization and globalization, pushed out the less privileged original occupants.
However, behind the spectacle of disputes and expulsions, there is a much more
complex network of interests. The Jing’an [静安] District government has had large-
scale development plans that remain ambiguous. These plans contrast with the more
apparent and immediate interests of both residents and small entrepreneurs. While
the District bided its time in the disclosure and implementation of these plans, the lack
of programmatic certainty formed an opportune urban loophole, which small entrepre-
neurs exploited.13 While the adaptive state enables the grey zone for the urban loophole,
it also controls its closure. With the eviction of the small entrepreneurs and the shut-
down of Jing’an Villas itself, the closing of the urban loophole also verified the reactive
state’s ultimate authority. While attention has been drawn to the visible skirmishes
between old and new neighbors, the pervasive tension lies between the non-state-
affiliated actors, who face an uncertain future, and the state, which holds all the cards.
Analysis of the development of the West Nanjing Lu area also exposes how the
district government and its agents have cultivated exclusive public-private partner-
ships with large investors. These public-private alliances for development preclude the
small-scale bottom-up developments, especially when the small-scale developments
contradict the District’s visions for profitability and imageability. In the realization of
its visions, the District also increasingly deploys its own urban loopholes of exceptions.
In Jing’an, these urban loopholes of exceptions, profiting from heritage conservation
and infrastructure upgrades, advance the District’s economic aspirations. In the pro-
cess, heritage conservation and infrastructure upgrades are used to justify both the
District’s agenda for neoliberalization and to sustain its dominance as a privileged
market participant. The state’s participation as a privileged market player is one of the
key Chinese characteristics of the neoliberalization that has been on-going since eco-
nomic transition began. Jing’an Villas’ shutdown, thus, is only a watershed moment
for the consolidation of the state’s authority in urban spatial production and econom-
ic development.
The chapter’s first section, “The Paragon of Economic Liberalization: Jing’an Dis-
trict and the Development of West Nanjing Lu,” sets the context for Jing’an District’s
rapid urban restructuring in the first two decades of economic liberalization and glob-
al integration. In the inter-district competition for economic growth, Jing’an’s ambi-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

tious repositioning of its West Nanjing Lu area has shaped it as a new CBD in the Puxi
[浦西]—the historic areas of Shanghai located to the ‘west of the Bund’ and west of the
Huangpu River. The specificities of each of Shanghai’s central districts within the me-
tropolis’ political hierarchy come to the fore in Jing’an’s urgency in seeking economic
growth. Compared to the more paced developments in the neighboring Xuhui [徐汇]
District, for example, in which the previous two chapters were set, Jing’an’s more hur-
ried, large-scale and aggressive urban developments are compelled by its small size
and legacy resources. Xuhui, as a well-endowed central district, whose sizable hinter-

239
 land includes several manufacturing zones, could afford large-scale conservation of
heritage neighborhoods in its central areas, while developing its periphery. Jing’an’s
scarcity of land resources, on the other hand, compelled its leaders to prioritize pro-
gram-specific and large-scale urban development in the center to maximize economic
growth. The District’s facilitation of private investment for urban restructuring began
early when China initiated land marketization. With the engagement of foreign invest-
ment for urban development since the 1980s, the development of the West Nanjing Lu
corridor as a high-end commercial hub, and the securing of a key subway station stop
on West Nanjing Lu, Jing’an was able to quickly out-compete its neighboring central
districts. Huangpu [黄浦] District, for example, despite its legacy advantages of being
the modern era CBD located along the Bund, was not able to resume its CBD role in
Shanghai’s Puxi.14 It is only the Huaihai Lu development in the central Luwan [卢湾]
District in the mid-1990s, with its mix of high-end office towers, commercial and res-
idential developments including the Xintiandi project, that was the main contender
against Jing’an’s West Nanjing Lu corridor development in Puxi.
Thus, unlike the Xuhui District, the economic imperatives of Jing’an’s district au-
thorities never really saw cultural heritage as more than an ornamental part of the Dis-
trict’s image-building capacity. The second section, “Evocation of Heritage—Redefin-
ing Jing’an Villas,” traces its ‘heritageisation’15 as a popularly endorsed image project.
The rapidness of developments in the District far outpaced the conservation projects,
so much so that the municipal conservation plan, as implemented in the mid-2000s,
easily looks like an afterthought to confirm what has survived development, rather
than a careful evaluation of historic architecture. It was only in the lead-up to the 2010
World Expo in Shanghai, when heritage as public relations instrument for tourism pro-
motion necessitated investment. This engagement of popular sentiments is notable in
the District’s savvy deployment of popular media, an underlying theme of this chap-
ter. The relationship between heritage and commercialization is a continued theme in
the historic city center areas. But unlike in the last chapter, which used heritage con-
servation as a framework to analyze the collusion of power and money in the urban
transformation processes, this chapter includes heritage conservation as one of many
instruments with which the local state and non-state-affiliated actors vie for an upper
hand in the urban spatial production process.
The third section, “Jing’an Villas’ Commercialization and Creative Enterprises,”
charts the course taken by a subset of small entrepreneurs who quickly seized the
opportunity to occupy the ground floor of Jing’an Villas in the mid-2000s. The urban
loophole, which emerged from the District’s planning indecision, and coincided with
2010 World Expo-expedited image upgrades, gave an opportunity to small commerce.
Whereas the large developers favored by, and affiliated with, the district governments,
largely overlook the diversification of consumer demands in their pursuit of economic
profitability, small entrepreneurs tap into emerging markets, exploiting the under-uti-
lized and unique spatial supply in places like Jing’an Villas. The outlook of the globally
connected creative entrepreneurs in Jing’an Villas contrasts also with the profit-driv-
en priorities of the big box retail spaces on West Nanjing Lu. The organically formed
creative cluster seemed to offer an alternative to the District’s single-minded and se-
lective commercialization that has guided the area’s homogenization, and to maintain
the neighborhood’s socio-economic diversity.

240
 Tianzifang, an earlier cluster of creative enterprises that reused historic build-
ings, is often cited as Jing’an Villas’ precedent. In the shutdown of Jing’an Villas, both
sides of the conflict used Tianzifang’s development to extol and condemn Jing’an Vil-
las’ small entrepreneurs and their adaptive reuse. The fourth section, “The Precedent
of Tianzifang for Commercialization,” moves away from Jing’an and unpacks Tian-
zifang’s development to clarify the agents, drivers and processes that unfolded in its
development. Heritage conservation, creative reuse, gentrification and the relation-
ship of top-down and bottom-up agents are addressed in this section. Tianzifang and
Xintiandi [新天地], both well known in Shanghai today, are cited as the two most im-
portant cases for the conservation of heritage architecture. As bottom-up and top-
down reuse developments respectively, they have become commercially successful
and conceptually influential.16 However, while there are a number of well-written and
detailed articles that describe the different actors involved and the processes of Xin-
tiandi’s development,17 Tianzifang’s development, surprisingly, lacks a clear chroni-
cle of its actors and processes.18 The inclusion of this interlude on Tianzifang’s devel-
opment process and its actors is therefore relevant to understanding its comparison to
Jing’an Villas, and the drivers and actors of its spatial production processes.
The section on Tianzifang challenges its popular presentation as a bottom-up de-
velopment. It was the neighborhood street office, engaging affiliated entrepreneurs,
which initiated the first developments that catalyzed the ensuing bottom-up develop-
ments. The small-scale public-private alliance’s reuse of abandoned production facil-
ities during SOE reforms of the 1990s, notably, would set the precedent for the using
of creative industries clustering as an urban loophole for the permissible commercial-
ization of administratively-allocated sites.19 Finally, although there existed a period
when community initiative formed a non-state organization for the administration of
the small enterprises in Tianzifang, the District’s appropriation of the group in the late
2000s reinforced again the state’s authority.
In both Tianzifang and Jing’an Villas, ambiguity and uncertainty, resulting from
adaptive governance, provided opportunity to risk-taking small entrepreneurs. In the
face of imminent change, impending demolition in the former, and impending com-
mercialization in the latter, the agile and mobile entrepreneurs ‘gambled,’ taking ad-
vantage of the interim and time-limited spatial opportunities. Had their neighbor-
hoods’ futures been more certain, incumbent residents would have taken ownership
of their spaces and impeded the changes to their homes. It is precisely in the context of
impending change that opportunistic entrepreneurs can reap commercial success by
exploiting the urban loophole. Despite the differing concerns of the different districts,
the trajectory of Tianzifang’s development gives important clues to the priorities and
key issues in the development of Jing’an Villas.
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

With the clamor of Jing’an Villas’ development increasingly resembling that of

Tianzifang, the fifth section, “Public Relations Wars and the Differing Visions of Jing’an
Villas’ Future,” looks specifically at the mediated rhetoric leading up to Jing’an Villas’
final shutdown. In the contest to win public opinion, both the local state authorities
and their allies, and the small entrepreneurs and their supporters, invoked heritage
conservation as the hallowed alibi to defend their diverging modes for conservation.
Active deployment of media instruments for public relations in the protracted Jing’an
Villas conflict shows the continued importance of public support for both the local

241
Fig. 3 Aerial photograph showing the high-rises along West Nanjing Lu, 2012

state and the entrepreneurs. The local state’s competition with the private sector to
win mass appeal also corroborates its growing entrepreneurial role as a player in the
market.20
The last two sections, “The Neighboring En-bloc Development of Dazhongli,” and
“Zhang Gardens: Jing’an Develops its Heritage Value,” zoom out to developments in the
adjacent blocks. (Fig. 3) It is in light of their developments that the shutdown of Jing’an
Villas fits the narrative of the development vision for the West Nanjing Lu corridor. The
two developments, Dazhongli [大中里] and Zhang Gardens [张家花园], show the chang-
ing approaches to heritage in the Jing’an District. Together with the growing value of
depleted historic buildings, the increasing scarcity of large-scale city center plots for
densification and redevelopment have also compelled a shift away from large en-bloc
developments. Projects that engage large-scale private capital, as is the case in the
Dazhongli development, are facing challenges posed by a combination of increasing
local state imposition and non-state-affiliated actors’ demands. For conserved areas
like Zhang Gardens, heritage requirements have also obliged new ways of reconciling
conservation with development pressures and harnessing the value of historic archi-
tecture. In both the Dazhongli and Zhang Gardens sites, vestiges of the planned econ-
omy and the dual land market also exacerbate challenges to planning.

242
The Paragon of Economic Liberalization:
Jing’an District and the Development of
West Nanjing Lu
When economic liberalization began under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, the Shanghai
government, emerging out of the post-Mao era with more autonomy, experimented
with early forms of marketization. The 1978 Third Plenary of the Eleventh Central Com-
mittee of the CPC [十一届三中全会] announced the new system of governing through
‘two levels of management, one and a half levels of government [一级半政府，两级管理],’
giving the local state more independence. The high status of Jing’an District in the po-
litical hierarchy, the District being one of the central districts directly under the con-
trol of the Shanghai Municipal Government, gave it autonomy and resources. Jing’an
District became one of the active sites of early transformations. Infrastructure up-
grades produced a number of pedestrian overpasses and underpasses to anticipate
traffic congestions that would accompany development.21 Tapping into legacy con-
nections to overseas investors, largely from the diaspora networks in Hong Kong, but
also Taiwan and Singapore, joint ventures for real estate development of housing for
expatriates, hotels, and commercial offices were put into place. Buildings were erect-
ed to accommodate functions that had been barred under planned economy but were
much in demand as China began its economic liberalization. In addition to hotels and
commercial office spaces, a ‘cooperative mode to develop residential architecture
[联建公助]’ increased much-needed housing production for local residents in the his-
toric districts. While districts like Xuhui, which encompassed the western end of the
former French Concession known as a low-density high-end residential area, concen-
trated on developing housing construction as a means of foreign currency attraction,
Jing’an District’s mix of commercial and industrial legacy prompted it to position itself
as a modernizing business-oriented hub in the city. In 1986, the Moganshan Meetings
authorized a ‘double track system [双轨制]’ that allowed partial market determination
of pricing to occur while price controls still continued under the planned economy. As
a result of market demand, 1.7 million square meters of new construction took place in
the Jing’an District in the 1980s alone.22
The necessity for the construction of spaces to accommodate businesses was ur-
gent. In 1988 in Hongqiao [虹桥], an Economic and Technological Development Zone
that was incorporated in 1983 by a directive from the central government’s State Coun-
cil, was set up as a new business district.23 The first transfer of land use rights to for-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

eign investors in joint ventures through termed leasing at Hongqiao also set the prece-
dent for urban real estate development.24 Even though the establishment of Hongqiao
was dictated from the highest level of China’s centralized state, its location in the
metropolitan area of Shanghai was peripheral. It was located close to the Hongqiao
Airport, which was rapidly growing following China’s opening. Jing’an, on the other
hand, was centrally located. As a municipal district, it also pursued economic growth
through joint-venture developments. In essence, Jing’an District’s pursuit of econom-
ic growth competed with that of the central government-approved Hongqiao Business

243
Fig. 4 Aerial photograph of the Jing’an District from the 1990 s, with the Shanghai Center and J. C. Mandarin to the
right of the iconic Shanghai Exhibition Center, 1995

District. (Fig. 4) In 1987, the 43-story Hilton Tower was completed in Jing’an, and two
years later, in 1989, the 30-story J. C. Mandarin was also finished.25
But it was with the 1990 opening of the ‘Shanghai Commerce City [上海商城],’ a di-
rect translation of its Chinese name, that Jing’an asserted its commercial centrality in
the rapidly transforming metropolitan area of Shanghai. With Grade-A office spaces, a
shopping center, a five-star Ritz Carlton hotel, a theater, and a conference center, the
complex showcased the necessary functions for accommodating the impending influx
of capital and resources for a China that was again starting to integrate into the global
market economy. The ‘Shanghai Center,’ as it would be called, significantly, dwarfed in
height, but not in girth, the 1950s-built Shanghai Exhibition Center across West Nan-
jing Lu. The Shanghai Exhibition Center, originally called the Sino-Soviet Friendship
Complex [中苏友好大厦], was a gift from the former USSR , and there were tacit orders
that it should not to be exceeded in height by any new buildings.26 If the Shanghai Ex-
hibition Center represented the old alliances and ideologies under a planned economy,
then the Shanghai Center represented the new aspirations under the transitioning
and liberalizing economy. Filled with stores peddling luxury international brands, a
supermarket for imported foods, and a hotel lobby for hosting the pioneer crop of in-
ternational businessmen stepping into a reopened China, the 185,000-square-meter
complex of three towers atop an eight-story podium was designed by the architecture
firm John Portman and Associates. (Fig. 5) The Atlanta-based architecture firm has
been known for its atrium-dominated commercial complexes; complexes famously
hailed by the cultural critic Fredric Jameson for epitomizing the ‘cultural logic of late

244
 capitalism’ in the developed economies of
the West.27 For a country that had been
isolated from the outside world for almost
four decades, the Portman-designed spac-
es heralded the acceleration of economic
liberalization.
The Tian’anmen Protests, leading to
the June 4th Incident in 1989, prompt-
ed the central government to adjust the
country’s pathway for economic reforms,
with tighter control by the central gov-
ernment and the temporary barring of
foreign investments. With their success-
Fig. 5 The Shanghai Center, 1995 ful quelling of protests and maintenance
of stability in Shanghai in 1989, the lead-
ership from the city, namely Jiang Zeming and Zhu Rongji, rose quickly and were pro-
moted to leading positions in the central government. The southern tour by Deng Xia-
oping in early 1992 culminated with the naming of Shanghai as the “Dragon’s Head.”28
This bestowment was significant in the context of the re-centralization of authority
following the 1989 protests: it propelled Shanghai to an important political and thus
also economic position in the national hierarchy. The declaration of the Special Eco-
nomic Zone in Pudong was not only a municipal development but also a strategic de-
cision on the national level, with the rapid implementation of the Lujiazui [陆家嘴]
Financial District in Pudong as the financial hub of China’s global integration.29 As
Pudong took over the nation’s lead role in testing out how to transition to a market
economy, Jing’an, as a municipal-level district, resumed the task of realizing Shang-
hai’s own economic ambitions. With a certain degree of financial autonomy remaining
since the fiscal decentralization of the 1980s, Jing’an District carried on with its radi-
cal urban renewal. Jing’an spearheaded the demolition of outdated and overcrowded
housing following the municipal ‘365 plan,’ led the dismantling and moving of indus-
tries to the periphery, and developed a new centrality for commerce along the West
Nanjing Lu corridor.
A masterplan drawn up by the municipal planning bureau in 1990, the West Nanjing
Lu Corridor Master Plan [南京西路沿线地区规划] proposed the relocation of 30,000 peo-
ple from the area to reduce the residential population from the then existing 98,000.30
In October 1992, at the International Conference on the Modernization of Jing’an’s
West Nanjing Lu [静安南京西路现代化国际研讨会], the CCP Shanghai Committee reaf-
firmed the decision to make West Nanjing Lu the ‘gravity center [重头]’ of its modern-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

ization project.31 In the context of the country’s rush for economic development and
global integration, the planning strategy pragmatically aimed to seed an area for the
attraction of foreign investment to develop commerce. An ensuing masterplan from
1993 by the municipal planning bureau showed the almost three-kilometer stretch of
West Nanjing Lu as a hub for commerce, shopping and entertainment, with half of the
area in-filled by newly built structures replacing the existing fabric.32 (Fig. 6) Togeth-
er with the commercial development, the plan again targeted a reduction of one-third
of the residential population for the year 2000.33 The first blueprints for turning this

245
Fig. 6 Plan for West Nanjing Lu, 1993

centrally located area in Shanghai from one of mixed-use residential neighborhoods

to one that is predominantly commercial, were in place.
The fervor of commercial development was already underway. In 1992 alone, the
District invested 126.7 million R MB to upgrade some ten enterprises, deemed key com-
mercial projects, along West Nanjing Lu, adding 10,280 square meters of built volume.
The total volume in that year alone was more than the total of the previous five years.34
In the following year, together with the large-scale urban renewal through demolition
and redevelopment, ten district-initiated key projects began, totaling 91 hectares in
plot area and with 406,300 square meters of built area. Total investments, from over-
seas as well as municipal-level and district-level developers, came to 4.7 billion R MB .35
In May 1995, the State Council approved plans for the construction of Shanghai’s
subway Line 2. The infrastructure corridor along the new metro line would become a
spine for real estate developments and the immediate vicinity of the metro stations
would become the sites of commercial densification. In line with the larger plan to alle-
viate residential congestion and upgrade the city center area through function change,
the subway station at West Nanjing Lu further expedited the area’s development. The
Jing’an District government proceeded to relocate 1,000 families and 16 businesses. At
the inauguration of the subway’s construction two years later in June 1997, the suc-
cess of the relocation process was announced.36 A parallel street south of West Nanjing
Lu that had been the site of a wet market and edged by commercial as well as small-
scale manufacturing spaces, Wujiang Lu [吴江路], was also part of the subway-cata-
lyzed modernization plan. Small manufacturing spaces that had been important in
the post-Liberation era, contributing to Shanghai’s crucial industrial role in the nation,
and again in the 1980s to the national strategic plan for developing domestic appliance
production, had, by the 1990s, lost their relevance in the face of market competition.
These manufacturing spaces were further dismantled in the ensuing state-owned en-
terprise (SOE ) reforms.37 Their centrally located sites became readily developed. Rede-
velopment to replace the fine-grained Wujiang Lu, elaborated in a 1998 masterplan for
the area, showed large new commercial complexes.38 Along with the already-realized
pedestrian bridges flying across heavily trafficked West Nanjing Lu, the renderings of
the shiny new buildings represented a glowing future city of speed and flows.

246
 In mid-1996, the glass and steel office-commercial tower complexes of Zhong­
chuang Building [中创大厦] and Jing’an New Times Building [静安新时代大厦], initiat-
ed by district-affiliated local developers three years prior, opened. These projects were
part of the mission to turn West Nanjing Lu into what the Jing’an District increasingly
promoted as its ‘double high standards [双高],’ of ‘high-end in taste and high standards
[高品位，高标准].’ In 2001, the Jing’an District issued the official document The Strategy
for Jing’an’s Double High Standards [静安区双高战略指标体系], after being tabled initially
at the Sixth Meeting of the Jing’an District CCP Committee [静安区委六届六次全会] in
1999.39 Following the success of the Shanghai Center as its central node, commercial
developments along West Nanjing Lu continued with land leases to large foreign inves-
tors. As an overview, compiled by the District Bureau for Land Resources, for all devel-
opments since 1992 showed, a total of 36 plots in the District were leased to overseas
developers, mostly along the West Nanjing Lu corridor, totaling 306,548 square meters
in plot area and with a planned built area of 1,849,043 square meters.40
Even as the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis impacted projects that were just start-
ing, projects already underway continued. In 1998, the commercial complex of the
Westgate Mall [梅龙镇广场], developed by Hong Kong’s Hutchinson Whampoa [和记
黄埔地产有限公司] in a joint venture with the local Westgate Corporation [梅龙镇集团],
opened its 37-story grade-A office tower atop a 10-story commercial podium.41 The
12,000-square-meter site was leased on a 50-year term, as was the established term
for commercial functions. Its first tenants in the office tower included Dow Jones and
the Spanish Consulate among others. The shopping mall was anchored by the depar-
ment store Isetan.42 The completion of Citic Square [中信泰富广场] followed in 2000. It
was developed in a joint investment by Swire Properties [太古集团], the Citic Group
[中信集团公司] and the Jing’an City Commercial and Trade Corporation [静安城商贸总
公司].43 Swire Properties is the Hong Kong-based real estate development arm of the
Swire Group, a diversified international conglomerate that had its beginnings in the
late 19th century China trade. The Hong Kong-registered Citic Group, founded in 1979,
is one of China’s first state-owned investment companies, and it had overseen much
of the initial Western investments into the country. The Jing’an City Commercial and
Trade Corporation is a Jing’an District government-formed corporation. At 48 stories
with a six-story shopping podium, the complex, totaling more than 101,000 square
meters in built area, gave space to even more specialty international fashion brands
as well as food and beverage (F & B ) outlets. The following year, Plaza 66 [恒隆广场],
developed by Hang Lung Properties of Hong Kong and designed by the American
corporate firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF ) Architects, opened. At 288 meters and
66 stories, the office tower was the tallest tower in Puxi when it was finished.44 Its
mall was most known for its high-end stores bringing global luxury brands like Lou-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

is Vuitton and Gucci for the first time to the Chinese public. The triumvirate of com-
mercial complexes of Mei-Tai-Heng [梅泰恒] would form the ’Golden Triangle [金三角]’
of Jing’an District. Their land leases generated the first flush of cash for the District.
When the buildings were completed, their multinational corporation tenants contin-
ued to contribute to a growing tax base for the Jing’an District government.
With fiscal decentralization, land leases became the primary source of revenue for
local governments that were often responsible for infrastructural investments and
had social welfare responsibilities. After the initial cash inflow from the leasing of the

247
 land, the density and function of the developments, if successful, would generate a
continuing and more sustainable source of income for the local government through
their tax contributions. In interviews with representatives from the Economic Coun-
cil of the Jing’an District, the early developments of Mei-Tai-Heng [梅泰恒] not only
marked West Nanjing Lu as a key commercial centrality within a rapidly transform-
ing Shanghai, but they were also crucial in generating continuous growth for the Dis-
trict. “With only one-third of the population of the privileged and high-end districts
like Xuhui, Jing’an nevertheless generates only a few hundred million dollars less,” of-
ficials proudly spouted off the numbers, including the highest per capita GDP in Shang-
hai’s districts.45 They attributed the economic prowess of the Jing’an District to the
acumen of its leaders. To attract foreign investments, the ensuing implementations
tapped into Shanghai’s historic legacies as an internationally networked metropolis.
And despite the paucity of developable land in the smallest district in the metropolitan
area, shrewd positioning of the commercial developments and Jing’an’s central loca-
tion helped ensure the District’s sustained economic growth.46
The development of office towers and mall complexes on West Nanjing Lu played a
crucial role in the Jing’an District’s economic growth. The office buildings of the Gold-
en Triangle were also fondly referred to as the ‘hundred-million dollar towers [亿元楼],’
in their ability to raise revenues for the otherwise land-scarce and thus resource-poor
District. By the late 2000s, the District already had more than 300 towers higher than
thirty stories. In 2008, the District reaped annual taxes of more than 15 billion R MB
(approximately 2.18 billion USD ), most of which came from the West Nanjing Lu cor-
ridor. The Kerry Center, further down West Nanjing Lu to the west of the Golden Tri-
angle, was the first complex to generate 100 million USD in tax revenue in 2001. It
would be upgraded and expanded again in 2011. In 2010 the completion of Wheelock
Square extended the Golden Triangle, making it part of the ‘Five Golden Stars [金五星]’
of Jing’an.
The early ambitions of Jing’an District, reflected in the prompt land leases to for-
eign investors for commercial development, also showed a keen awareness of commer-
cial and political competition at the metropolitan and national levels. While the then
newly vested and nationally designated zones in Lujiazui and Hongqiao proceeded
with central government-prioritized undertakings, Jing’an courted investors from the
Chinese diaspora and signed off on land leases for its own commercial developments.
Jing-an’s ambitions reflected the Shanghai municipality’s awareness and assertion of
its legacy-based advantages in competing against the new economic zones inserted
into its territory by the national hierarchy. As the strategically chosen locations of the
stations along the subway Line 2, connecting Hongqiao to Lujiazui, showed, the choice
of West Nanjing Lu did not just make it a key node along the new transit-oriented de-
velopment corridor. The consequent development around the catchment area of West
Nanjing Lu station also positioned the city center district of Jing’an as a centrality,47
competing with the outlying but nationally chosen development hubs of Lujiazui and
Hongqiao.48
In positioning itself as a centrality competitive with national level hubs, Jing’an’s
initiatives also put the District forward as the new commercial hub within the Shang-
hai metropolitan area itself. Inter-district competition in Shanghai has always been
intense, and the municipal government incites it to garner outcomes for its rising sta-

248
 tus at the national level. Shanghai’s vast
municipal administration is broken down
into semi-autonomous authorities rest-
ing in the urban districts. Even though
there has been a gradual consolidation of
smaller districts since 1949, the remain-
ing districts, especially those in the city
center, remain powerful institutions in
the vast Chinese administrative hierar-
chy.49 Shanghai’s urban districts are com-
parable to city level governments in other
provinces because of the city’s special sta-
tus. Shanghai, along with Beijing, Tianjin
and Chongqing, is administratively a ‘di-
Fig. 7 The concentration of commercial services in the inner
ring of Shanghai, with West Nanjing Lu indicated by the red rectly-controlled municipality [直辖市],’
line, 2009 the highest classification for cities in the
country. This high status in the adminis-
trative hierarchy imparts Jing’an with the coveted ability to play the role of a van-
guard to test out economic innovations. Neighboring inner-city districts like Xuhui
and Changning Districts acquired their hinterland in the mid-1980s, making it possible
for them to develop income-earning Special Economic Zones within their jurisdictions.
In order to compete with them, Jing’an was compelled to develop urban strategies for
extracting the most value out of its limited land resources.50 (Fig. 7)
By the early 2000s, a shift in Shanghai’s development strategy was also taking
shape. From the first decade of economic transition that relied on sheer economic
progress, there was now an increasing emphasis on the kind of prosperity to be de-
veloped. The term ‘transition [转型]’ is used in Chinese to imply structural changes
that are linked to the city’s post-industrialization and the development of a knowl-
edge-based service economy. In the enthusiasm for Shanghai’s ‘transition,’ it is not
surprising that the discourse around the tertiary economies would also be the first to
be tested out in Jing’an. In the northern part of the District, the removing of industries
from valuable city center locations opened up potential spaces for creative industry in-
cubators, while commodity high-rise housing developments replaced dilapidated old
housing neighborhoods.51 With the full-fledged reprogramming of the District’s north-
ern area underway, the post-socialist reinstitution of the city as the place for consump-
tion, rather than of production only, focused on the southern part of the Jing’an District,
elaborating its financial ambitions in the Nanjing Lu corridor. In early 2002, the Dis-
trict unveiled, through the newspaper Liberation Daily [解放日报 ]—well recognized as
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

the CCP mouthpiece—its Jing’an Nanjing Lu Development Plan [静安南京路发展规划 ].52

This mode of announcement would set a pattern for the District’s savvy publicity feeds
to its affiliated media preceding the official announcement of planning policies.
In late 2002, the completion of the Nanjing Lu Development Plan by the Jing’an
District’s Planning Bureau, in consultation with international experts including the
global property management conglomerate DTZ and corporate designer Gensler Ar-
chitects, showed the District’s plans to position the West Nanjing Lu corridor as the
Midtown—not only of Shanghai—but of China.53 (Fig. 8) From precedent studies of

249
 Asian Citic Square
Square

Westgate
Plaza

Plaza 66

Jing’an Villas Plot 111-09

“modern-era lilong redevelopment
area”

Zhang Gardens
“modern-era shikumen
lilong area”

Fig. 8 Developments along West Nanjing Lu, 2002

250
Four Seasons
Dazhongli
redevelopment

251
 commercial districts in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, supported by citations
of the theorists of globalization, Saskia Sassen and John Friedmann,54 the conceptu-
al elaborations of the District’s aspirations for a ‘Midtown of China [中国的中城]’ were
declared in its proposed vision. Interestingly, for New Yorkers and those familiar with
the origin of the reference, Midtown is a rather non-descript part of Manhattan that
physically manifests the city’s financial and business efficiency in its high-rises, some
of which of course include the iconic turn-of-the-century skyscrapers. Unlike the West
Village or Chelsea, New York neighborhoods that are colorful in character with their
charming brownstones or warehouse-turned-galleries, Midtown’s skyline is often the
representative image for the global city.
Competing with what would be the equivalent of New York’s Wall Street in Shang-
hai’s newly developed Lujiazui,55 prominent office locations in proximity to historic
residential quartiers became the new pitch for the Jing’an District. Because the at-
traction of international talent has been posited by economists as being fundamen-
tal to economic competitiveness and crucial to the transition from being predomi-
nantly manufacturing to knowledge-based service industries,56 the campaign for a
‘Global Jing’an [国际静安]’ became increasingly important. This campaign promot-
ed the creation of an enticing built urban environment that would attract transna-
tional elites, important to the cultivation of a growing services sector. The changing
rhetoric and the relentless search for best practices by the Jing’an District’s pragmat-
ic and facile bureaucrats were also accompanied by a strategy shift from urban re-
newal through wholesale demolition and reconstruction processes, to an emphasis
on the economic and cultural potential of the existing and historic urban fabric.57
The appeal of heritage neighborhoods to international talent, as posited by analysts
of globalization,58 was increasingly recognized in Shanghai. In 2002, nevertheless,
one of the largest land leases in the city center took place with the acquisition of the
63,000 square-meter Dazhongli block by the HKR Development Group. Thus, despite a
growing emphasis on historic neighborhoods as part of the broader shift to the qual-
ity of the built environment, the underlying economic motivations for development
still remained for the resource-scarce city center district. To reconcile the continued
need for economic growth and the burgeoning imperative for historic structures, new
and creative solutions that could mediate the two seemingly conflicting goals were
urgently needed.
Tax and real estate incentives by the Jing’an District complemented the 2005 con-
ferment of Creative Industries Clusters by the Shanghai Creative Industries Center,
created at the end of the previous year as a subsidiary of the municipal Economic
Council.59 Through the reuse of former industrial buildings, largely concentrated in the
northern part of Jing’an, the policies gave rise to a process for producing creative incu-
bation spaces for what were considered lucrative cultural industries. The combination
of district-implemented incentives and municipal recognition for creativity was pre-
cisely the kind of new and creative solution to mediate the seemingly conflicting con-
ditions of economic productivity and heritage conservation. The production of creative
industries clusters, with its attraction of internationally connected tertiary industries,
fitted well into the aspiration for a ‘Global Jing’an.’
In August 2006, the fourth Harvard Business Review China Case Contest took
place in Shanghai and was organized by the municipal Economic Council, the Jing’an

252
 District government and the magazine, Harvard Business Review China. The theme was
“How to Build Jing’an Nanjing Lu into One of the International Symbolic Shopping Dis-
tricts [南京西路如何成为国际购物标志性地区之一].”60 Jing’an’s selection as part of the
Harvard Business School case studies was much in line with the District’s pursuit of
international input. Soliciting ideas on how to enhance a ‘Global Jing’an’ from young
business talent, the contest engaged teams from ten Asia Pacific business schools on
improvement concepts for its key commercial corridor. Of all the proposals tabled, the
concept of the winning team from the University of Hong Kong would go on to be in-
corporated by the District authorities. The student team’s proposal for Shanghai’s West
Nanjing Lu to emulate Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue took hold in the District, as the Dis-
trict mayor reiterated the need to continue the pursuit and attraction of world-class
brands to ensure the competitiveness of the city’s smallest district.61
Also organized by the Jing’an District government with the municipal Econom-
ic Council and the magazine, Forbes China, was the launching of the annual Forbes
Jing’an Nanjing Lu Forum which brought in international expertise. New York’s Fifth
Avenue business community leadership, the Président du Comité Champs-Elysées and
the leadership of the business community in Tokyo’s Ginza District were all invited
guests. Their knowledge and experience in their jurisdictions served as role models
for Jing’an.62 The choice of targets for Jing’an’s aspiration made its course of develop-
ment clear: a high-end business district with headquarters for international corpora-
tions. Following the forum, the District government announced that another 1.3 mil-
lion square meters of land would be allotted for further development in time for the
2010 World Expo in Shanghai.63
From large-scale urban renewals in the north of Jing’an, the District authorities
turned also to the more residential and commercial neighborhoods south of West Nan-
jing Lu. (Fig. 9) In early 2008, the District government announced the establishment
of the Weihai Lu Culture and Media Street [威海路文化传媒街].64 Weihai Lu is a small
east-west street parallel to West Nanjing Lu and was known for the clustering of small
automobile-related industries.65 With the Shanghai Television Station and a num-
ber of newspaper publishers already established along the street since Liberation in
1949,66 economic transition has further transformed the street with the demolition of
old lilongs and the closure or relocation of small manufacturing. In line with the devel-
opment of a ‘Midtown of China,’ the 2008 campaign rendered Weihai Lu the next ‘Mad-
ison Avenue of Shanghai,’ promoting media clustering along the street.67 The initiative
also was the first to give programmatic emphasis to the Jing’an Villas. Jing’an Villas
had an entry and address from both West Nanjing Lu and also Weihai Lu.68
While the Jing’an District government was concocting plans for the ‘Midtown of
China’ and the ‘Madison Avenue of Shanghai’ in a ‘Global Jing’an,’ endogenous, or bot-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

tom-up, developments were also taking place in the undemolished and socio-econom­
ically diverse urban fabric in the area. In 2006, when an old warehouse building num-
bered 696 on Weihai Lu emptied out, an informal clustering of artists took shape,
bringing together international galleries and young artists. With the spillover effect
of the creative community that congregated at 696 for events such as Weekend Open
Studios every July,69 the adjacent lilong quartier of Jing’an Villas also began transform-
ing. At the same time, municipal implementation of heritage conservation policies in
the mid-2000s reinforced the growing popularity of Shanghai’s modern era building

253
 Lu
ng
nji
Na

N
0 50 250m

Municipal Redevelopment Foreign Developers

Public Amenities Commerical Development
Renewal of Inadequate Facilities Urban Renewal Danwei Redevelopment

Redevelopment on Industrial Land Housing Redevelopment Cooperative Developments

Fig. 9 Map of the Jing’an District with leased land plots for development, 2000

stock. The combination of heritage appropriation and diversifying consumer demand

for small commerce was creating alternatives to the Jing’an District’s singular vision
of a ‘Midtown of China’ on the ground.

Evocation of Heritage—Redefining
Jing’an Villas
At the end of 2009, the Jing’an District began to give the Jing’an Villas a facelift. Along
with upgrades to other recognized heritage architecture in Jing’an, including the Sun
Apartments [太阳公寓], and the Zhang Gardens [张家花园], all nearby, the renovations
were just in time for the expected visitors of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. Bricks
were taken from Dazhongli [大中里], a nearby lilong compound just one block east that
was undergoing demolition. Dazhongli’s site was acquired by the Swire Group to be re-
developed as a high-end commercial project. According to experts, because construc-
tion had taken place at a similar time, the red bricks were judged appropriate for reuse

254
 in the renovation of Jing’an Villas.70 Jing’an Villas’ management company, the Jing’an
Real Estate Group [静安置业集团], which belongs to the District’s Department of Hous-
ing Management, invested 40 million R MB on the upgrade.71
Since economic liberalization accelerated in the 1990s, there has been a growing
awareness of the value of architecture heritage. In 1994, Jing’an Villas, along with other
prominent buildings, were designated preservation-level architecture [保护级建筑] as
part of a core conservation area [保护核心区域]. But it wasn’t until the mid-2000s with
the municipality’s establishment of Fengmao Districts that entire neighborhoods, and
not only selected buildings deemed valuable, became less susceptible to the rampant
and rapid demolition and redevelopment that had prevailed in the 1990s. In 2002, Pro-
fessor Zheng Shiling of Tongji University, who had earlier authored a book on Shang-
hai’s modern era architecture,72 and who was also a member of the Expert Consultants’
Commission to the Jing’an District, had already produced the Jing’an District Jing’an
Villas Neighborhood Conservation and Renewal Plan and Design [静安区静安别墅地区保护
更新规划设计].73
The 2003 deliverance of the 12 Historic Cultural Fengmao Districts by the Munic-
ipal Planning Bureau would outline a 1.15 square kilometer West Nanjing Lu Historic
Cultural Fengmao District centered around the historic thoroughfare of West Nanjing
Lu, including the Jing’an Villas. (Fig. 10) It is one of the three designated Fengmao Dis-
tricts, which includes Jing’an District, and is the only one that is entirely within the
jurisdiction of Jing’an. Fengmao, as elaborated in the previous chapter, is a term for
the styles and features that are deemed valuable in heritage architecture and worth
conserving. Simply, Fengmao Districts are Shanghai’s conservation areas. The other
two Fengmao Districts, which are partly in Jing’an, cross administrative boundaries
shared with the adjacent Xuhui, Changning and Luwan Districts.74 Even though the
north side of most of West Nanjing Lu had, by the early 2000s, already been replaced

Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

Fig. 10 Plan for the West Nanjing Lu Historic and Cultural Fengmao District, 2003

255
 by large-scale commercial podiums, topped by the ‘hundred-million dollar towers,’ the
Fengmao plan nevertheless still also called out the Fengmao Streets, including parts
of West Nanjing Lu, which were prohibited from being widened and were conserved
for their historic streetscapes.
The core of municipal-level conservation policy regarded road widening as damag-
ing to Fengmao Districts as the destruction of buildings was.75 The road widening that
accompanied rapid urban upgrades in the 1990s not only often expedited the destruc-
tion of historic buildings along the widened road, but also destroyed what would later
be highly regarded as historic streetscapes. The prohibition of road widening was thus
implemented by the municipal Fengmao plan as the first line of defense against any
development-propelled transformation of historic neighborhoods.76 In the Jing’an Dis-
trict, iconic modern era shopfronts that were often replicated as film backdrops—the
part of West Nanjing Lu between Shimen Lu [石门路] and Tongren Lu [同仁路]—be-
came the target of streetscape conservation.77 To the south and north of the ridge of
high-rises along the Fengmao part of West Nanjing Lu, Excellent Historic Architecture
as well as buildings deemed worthy of conserving were outlined, in a patchwork of
Fengmao areas.
The Jing’an District turned its ongoing and aggressive residential developments
in the northern parts of the District, the continued densification and enhancement
of its West Nanjing Lu commercial spine, and the plans for the patchwork of historic
areas deemed valuable, into a strategy of ‘one axis two flanks, keeping the south and
changing the north [一轴两翼、南留北改].’ In February 2004, the Jing’an District Plan-
ning Bureau announced the Plan for the Conservation and Renewal of Jing’an District
Conservation Neighborhoods [静安区保护街坊保护与更新规划].78 The plan articulated
a reconciliation of the development and conservation maintenance of their spatial ad-
jacency. How to “both keep intact the neighborhoods’ historic fengmao in the 19 plots,
and also satisfy the needs of contemporary life [既保持这19个街坊完整的历史风貌，又能
满足现代生活需要],”79 as announced in local media, was central to the plan.
Before the District publicized the official conservation plan, selected public media
previewed the plan to the public.80 The coverage broadcast that road widening and re-
construction were off-limits in the Fengmao areas. But it also prefaced that when his-
toric buildings conflicted with infrastructural development needs, the repositioning of
these historic buildings, even in their entirety, might be necessitated.81 This outright
statement of infrastructure-necessitated circumstances for heritage relocation was in
direct contradiction to the central tenets of the municipal planners’ conservation pol-
icy. In hindsight, with knowledge of the Shimen Lu reconstruction to be developed
later, with its dramatic road widening and straightening, and the relocation of histor-
ic buildings for new construction, the divergence of approach to conservation by the
Jing’an District from the municipality’s heritage concepts would only seem to make
sense. The discrepancy between practice and policy also highlights the developmental
priorities and growth imperatives of the globally aspiring Jing’an.
Nevertheless, in 2007, Jing’an Villas and West Nanjing Lu became even more icon-
ic when they were featured as one of the key backdrops in director Ang Lee [李安]’s
2007 film Lust, Caution [色戒]. Set against a Republican-era narrative by writer Eileen
Chang [张爱玲], known for her novels evoking the cultural sensibility and atmosphere
of Shanghai’s pre-Liberation cosmopolitan heyday, the denouement of the story took

256
place in a well-known Indian-owned jew-
elry shop of the 1930s on West Nanjing Lu,
located along the street-facing part of the
Jing’an Villas.82 Even though, like many
other films of Shanghai, it was filmed off
location at the large film set built in Ched-
un Film Park in the suburbs of Shanghai—
the Cinecittà of China—the set’s location
highlighted West Nanjing Lu’s historic
importance. The stores that were featured
in the film, including the Kaisiling Cake
Shop, known still for its mont blanc—a
chestnut-cream pastry—and the Siberian
Furrier, can still be found on West Nan-
jing Lu. Following the film, stills were
used to advertise the cultural and com-
mercial value of real estate locales along
West Nanjing Lu.83 (Fig. 11)
That same year, a young Singaporean-
Hong Kong developer and entrepreneur,
Yenn Wong, opened Jia, a boutique ho- Fig. 11 Historic photo of Jing’an Villas, 1930 s
tel set in the historic Central Apartments
building that was built in 1926 and located at the corner of West Nanjing Lu and Taix-
ing Lu [泰兴路]. Though tucked between the 1990s new developments, the former Cen-
tral Apartments nevertheless resonated with other modern era apartments along West
Nanjing Lu. Across the street is the former Medhurst Apartments from 1934, now the
Taixing Apartments [泰兴大楼], and further east are the former Dennis Apartments
from 1928, now the Deyi Apartments [德义公寓], and the former Yates Apartments from
1936, now the Tongfu Apartments [同孚公寓]. All were inducted into the register for
Excellent Historic Architecture in the mid-1990s, together with Jing’an Villas. Steps
away from the shop-fronts made famous by Lust, Caution, the Hong Kong-based de-
signer that Wong hired for Jia repackaged the former apartment building’s historic
ambiance, giving it a “shabby chic residential look of haute heritage.”84 The character
‘Jia [家],’ meaning ’home’ in Mandarin, was part of a small international franchise of
projects that Wong pursued, where heritage architecture was reused and developed
into new commercial spaces. In Singapore, Wong redeveloped a number of pre-war
colonial-style ‘Black and White’ houses.85 In Hong Kong, Wong launched a number
of vintage commercial hubs. In Shanghai, the Jia project showed that in the midst of
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

the high-rises of the ‘Midtown of China’, the West Nanjing Lu corridor also harbored
valuable historic buildings that could be lucratively mined to attract an increasingly
sophisticated market.
As contemporary interest in the recent past of cosmopolitan glamour grew, docu-
mentation of Jing’an’s past was also increasingly disseminated. Academic and archival
research resumed in the 1990s, with an interest in urban development and manage-
ment from the pre-Liberation era. As economic liberalization and ensuing marketiza-
tion expedited, land resource allocation, civic construction, zoning, and the instru-

257
 1907-1913 1913-1919 1922 1938 1947

Fig. 12 Historic development of the neighborhood around Jing’an Villas

ments of urban governance from the Concession-era’s market economy, also became
increasingly of interest to the contemporary generation of bureaucrats and planners
dealing with market economic processes.86 Archival materials, accessible to a wider
public, became sources of analysis, interpretation and adaptation.87 One of the most
cited dissertations, later published as a book, analyzed the structure and products of
the International Concession’s Public Works Commission. This work also included a
key section that traced the straightening and development of the former Bubbling Well
Road as an important project by the Public Works Commission.88 Bubbling Well Road
was also known as Jing’an Temple Lu [静安寺路] in Chinese during the Concession-era
because it led to Jing’an Temple [静安寺]. It became an important connector between
the then central business district, located around the Bund, and the expanding west-
ern end of the International Settlement and the French Concession.89 The thoroughfare
quickly became a commercial spine for the expanding Shanghai.
Just as the expansion of the then Bubbling Well Road, now West Nanjing Lu, had
been crucial to the Concession-era’s urban growth, Jing’an Villas’ development was
part of Shanghai’s rapid socio-economic expansion and modernization at the begin-
ning of the 20th century. (Fig. 12) The stretch of land on which Jing’an Villas was devel-
oped had previously been the site of a Teochew clan cemetery before it became a horse
stable under the British in the International Settlements.90 In 1924, a wealthy mer-
chant, Zhang Tanru [张潭如], whose kin was known as the teacher to Republican China
leader Chiang Kai-shek [蒋介石],91 purchased the 2.25-hectare site and, in 1928, began
developing it into a new-style lilong compound. (Fig. 13) Compared to the grey-bricked
old-style lilong houses of nearby Zhang Gardens, also an upper-class development, the
red-bricked new-style lilong houses in Jing’an Villas, completed in 1932, with bathtubs,
flushing toilets, and garages for the automobile, were more modern. The houses also
catered to a westernized clientele. Many of the compound’s residents worked for inter-
national firms, and included known politicians, doctors, and intellectuals.
Lu Hanchao, historian of Shanghai, posited that the surge in interest in stories of
Shanghai’s modern era links the capitalist heyday of the city’s past to the economic
transition of the present.92 In the same vein, stories of Jing’an Villas’ historic origins
publicize an illustrious past for a re-globalizing Shanghai, reconnecting the in-coming
diaspora investments to their historic legacy. Famous modern era Chinese intellectu-
als such as Cai Yuanpei [蔡元培] and Yu Youren [于右任] were reported to have lived in
the houses in Jing’an Villas. One particular romance of the Republican-era art connois-
seur and collector Zhang Boju [张伯驹], one of the four ‘noble sons of Republican China’
[民国四公子], with the impoverished beauty Pan Su [潘素], who would later grow to be

258
 a famous painter under his patronage, evoked the cultured
ambiance of the spaces. The story of their hideout in the
Jing’an Villas, to escape Pan Su’s abductor, a powerful and
ranked officer of the Kuomintang, and how it rekindled their
forbidden love, is used to recall Shanghai’s cultural history.93
In 1942, Kong Xiangxi [孔祥熙], the husband of the eldest
of the Western-educated English-speaking Song sisters, pur-
chased much of Jing’an Villas and asked the American firm,
China Realty Company [中国营业公司], to manage the prop-
erties. The Song-Kong clan epitomized the Republican-era
alliance of money and power, particularly through the bro-
kered marriage of the youngest of the Song sisters to Chiang
Kai-shek. The appointment of family members to key posts
in the Kuomingtang (KMT )-ruled Republican government,
such as the finance ministry, gave the clan privileged access
to crucial economic information. Severe inflation and stock
market crashes in the 1930s became opportunities for the
Song-Kong clan and their cronies to accumulate and con-
solidate their expanding wealth. The Jing’an Villas was just
Fig. 13 Layout of Jing’an Villas one such acquisition, procured at a moment of crisis. When
the CCP won the Chinese Civil War and drove out fleeing
KMT from Mainland China in 1949, the number of gold bars leaving on ships to New
York, where many members of the Song-Kong clan also settled, was reported to be
outrageously disproportionate, given the national impoverishment at the time.94 Un-
der Communist rule, such corrupt excesses were depicted as the blight responsible for
weakening the nation. Public sentiment generally supported the Communist confisca-
tion of KMT- and foreign-owned assets in the early 1950s, along with the elimination
of the decadence of the former era.
Under the strictures of Red indoctrination, bourgeoisie sentiments were frowned
upon and artifacts tucked away. During the height of the Cultural Revolution, for-
eign connections, KMT links, along with the status of being born of the wrong class—
land-owning, industrialist, or educated—were grave circumstances and perilous for
life. Spaces manifesting the past and their occupants were invaded, attacked, occupied,
and confiscated. In families with any of the wrong associations, the past was hidden,
especially from the fervor of one’s own children, who were often the first to denounce
their parentage. Jing’an Villas was not spared either and coerced spatial redistribution
was as prevalent in the lilong compound as it was everywhere else in the city’s resi-
dential neighborhoods.
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

However, with economic liberalization, a dramatic shift in relation to history took

place. Embracing the market and its logic, as had been fostered under the Republican
era of the KMT, grew rapidly. Intellectuals and the bourgeoisie are again commend-
ed for embodying the Shanghai cultural lineage. Television period pieces, with stories
that took place during the Republican-era and were styled in its accoutrements, be-
came all the rage in the 2000s. Heritage has become the tool for enhancing the com-
mercial positioning of the West Nanjing Lu corridor and of the Jing’an District as a par-
agon of economic liberalization.

259
 Responding to the success of neighboring
Luwan District’s commercial developments
of historic lilong buildings in the Xintiandi
[新天地] and Sinan Mansions [思南公馆] proj-
ects, both favored by the municipal govern-
ment, Jing’an’s leaders felt compelled to stay
ahead in the inter-district competition.95 Since
the mid-2000s, the District has harbored am-
bitions to turn the nearby old-style lilong com-
pound of the Zhang Gardens into Jing’an’s own
version of Xintiandi.96 The seemingly bound-
Fig. 14 The ground floor of one of the Jing’an Villa less demand for new F & B nodes situated in
houses, ‘repair the old to be old [修旧如旧],’ 2012 fine-grained and small-scale historic build-
ings, preferred by tourists, expats, and the in-
creasingly affluent local middle class, seemed to the district to be the business plan
for development. Neighboring city center districts like Xuhui or Luwan, both part of
the former French Concession’s 1914 expansions, have many high-end modern era res-
idential compounds, which could be used for redevelopment. In Jing’an, where there
are fewer of the high-end modern era residential compounds, industrial heritage in the
northern part of the district south of the Suzhou River, and institutional buildings of
the former International Settlement were more often chosen as conversion sites. The
2012 conversion of a former Concession-era police station by the architecture firm, Neri
and Hu, who are considered the trailblazers of heritage reuse in Shanghai, for example,
testifies to the Jing’an District’s changing engagement of historic architecture to aug-
ment the service sector and creative incubator developments.
It was thus important, in the 2009 upgrade of Jing’an Villas, that the buildings
were ‘repair the old to be old [修旧如旧],’ a sentiment acknowledging the kind of irrep-
arable damage done to many buildings with less-prominent heritage architecture in
their repair and upgrade. (Fig. 14) As one official spokesperson for the upgrading proj-
ect described it, a serious search was made for the original looks for the gate, doors,
and windows, through multiple trips to the library and the archives.97 One news pro-
gram even claimed, albeit wrongly, that the upgrade changed the bricks of the Jing’an
Villas from grey brick to red, to show the effort put into the improvement.98 The use of
grey brick was prevalent for Chinese-built architecture in early 20th century Shang-
hai, whereas red brick was used for European-style buildings. The representation was
so distinct in the 1900s such that the French Concession authorities banned the use of
grey bricks for its residential quarters in order to promote a modern image of the city.
This misleading report was not, however, uncommon in the attempts to magnify the
city’s return to an earlier worldly elegance, which the historic quartier had physical-
ly embodied.
Following the 2009 renovation, one of the ground floor units at the end of a lane, a
living room that had previously been occupied by a tailor, was turned into an exhibi-
tion space for the history of the Jing’an Villas. The creation of this gallery space affirmed
the growing interest in the neighborhood’s architecture heritage and an awareness of
its cultural as well as economic value. When a Thai princess visited Shanghai in 2014,
she was taken to see the galleries of this very room, filled with plans and sections and

260
 other historic documents of the Jing’an Villas.99 The pride with which the neighbor-
hood was showcased to the visitors, revealing an appreciation of Shanghai’s modern
era legacies, contrasts to its accessibility to the locals. The exhibition hall, ironically, is
little known to the general public.

Jing’an Villas’ Commercialization and

Creative Enterprises
Whether or not it coincided with the upgrading, many small entrepreneurs began open-
ing shops in the mid-2010s in the Jing’an Villas. In early 2010, the District Planning Bu-
reau issued a notice that the heritage architecture of Jing’an Villas would undergo ‘ex-
change [置换],’ as part of the programmatic upgrade of the West Nanjing Lu corridor.
The visit of Yu Zhensheng [俞振声], Shanghai’s CCP Party Secretary, who served be-
tween 2007 and 2012, to Jing’an Villas, supported the speculation of an en-bloc reloca-
tion plan.100 Urban rumors of the impending commercial conversion of Jing’an Villas
cast a web of uncertainty over the future of the lilong compound. Many of the small
businesses seized the opportunity offered by the urban loophole of ambiguity. Within
just the month of May in 2010, three stores had vernissages to celebrate their openings.
Since the mid-2000s, small commerce establishments, ranging from milk tea sellers to
painting studios, expanded into the ground floor spaces in the Jing’an Villas.
Lao Wu, the owner of a café-cum-living room called Gezi Café, was dubbed by me-
dia pieces and by the young entrepreneurs in the lane as the grandee of the Jing’an
Villas new economies.101 He moved into a ground floor unit with a small terrace in
the summer of 2007. His café, initially a gathering place for friends, became a kind of
public living room for the incoming creative types.102 Indeed, when the district-spon-
sored renovations finished in time for the visitors of the 2010 World Expo—largely
Chinese tourists coming to Shanghai as China’s windows on the world—some dozen
‘cultural abodes 文化小屋]’ opened in the Jing’an Villas.103 (Fig. 15) A Taiwanese cura-
tor for a Taiwanese production company opened an art gallery. Local designers ran
small boutiques selling unique wares they crafted. The small entrepreneurs converted
the ground floor living rooms into galleries, boutiques, painting studios, crafts work-
shops, and cafés, tearooms and bars. Rather than retail spaces for efficient consump-
tion of goods and services, these small entrepreneurs strived to create experiences of
neighborliness in the ambiance of the red-bricked lilong houses. Many of them em-
phasized the leisurely pastime of ‘dropping in [窜门],’ a Chinese term for the kind of
spontaneous visits to friends’ and relatives’ homes in local neighborhoods.104 Visitors
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

and friends come and go to ‘play [玩],’ connoting a leisurely rite for rapport-building
in communities.
Once inside spaces such as the café Chabrol, anyone who habitually frequented
such spaces would instantly be reminded of places in other international trendy quar-
ters such as in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg or New York’s Williamsburg. With antique
leather sofas and film posters of À bout de souffle and other obscure art house flicks,
the space was started by a group of film buff friends. They sought a place where friends
could gather to share their hobby of film watching. A joint venture between designers

261
 1 2

3 4

5 6 7

9
Fig. 15 A selection of Jing’an Villas small enterprises in 2012: 1 Film/event space, 2 Craft Workshop, 3 Café, 4 Pearl Collector,
5 Bar, 6 Spa, 7 Library, 8 Fashion designer showroom, 9 Boutique

and bankers, the commercial success of the film café was less important than the am-
biance of the space. As the first generation who no longer grew up under the shadows
of a rigidly planned economy, the patrons and visitors could value a place like Jing’an
Villas, where ‘accent [腔调],‘ a Shanghainese word that connoted everything from ‘at-
mosphere,’ ‘style,’ to ‘carriage,’ was more important to the small entrepreneurs than
the profit-generating and quantitative measure of ‘consumer flow [人流].’105
Neighboring enterprises echo the laidback attitude to revenue turnovers. Some of
the small entrepreneurs still had full-time jobs at multinationals like Nike and inter-

262
national ad agencies like Wieden+Kennedy.106 Others worked for extensive periods in
multinationals and creative firms before taking the plunge to open up their own en-
terprises.107 Many of the small entrepreneurs returned from stints abroad. Some were
locals, helped by their retired parents in the running of the spaces. Others have hired
younger cohorts to man the studios while they were out in their other enterprises. The
decision to start up, by the young creative entrepreneurs, came both from the desire
to express individual design aspirations and from the interest to fill a market supply
they themselves often felt was undersupplied by the existing choices. Connections
and experiences forged and garnered in multicultural settings were complemented by
the necessity of being able to negotiate with the local resident committees and street
offices for real estate procurement and commercial approval. To many, “the goal of life
is just different [生活的目的不一样]” from those in the rat race of urban living outside of
Jing’an Villas’ seemingly self-organized enclave.108
Standardization and limited consumer choice had been the way of life under cen-
tral planning for decades. In the first decade of economic liberalization, marketization
brought the aspired global brands, embodied in the kinds of buildings that house these
out-of-reach elite products just a few steps across from Jing’an Villas on West Nanjing
Lu. As state enterprises collapsed and urban renewal sped ahead, privatization and
housing marketization raised average living standards while everyone strove to keep
up with the accompanying economic growth. In the second decade of economic liber-
alization, residents in coastal cities like Shanghai have settled into lives with growing
disposable incomes. For the internet-savvy younger generation, as well as for the in-
creasingly well-travelled older ones, the expansion of consumer choices is accompa-
nied also by an emphasis on uniqueness of products and services. Children of the rising
middle class prefer a more varied selection of goods that stands against generic mass
production. In contrast to the initial warm welcome to the multinational brands that
entered the Chinese consumer market en masse in the initial decade of the economic
liberalization, the growing demand for distinctive products by more discerning con-
sumers also reflects the desire for differentiation. Large conglomerates, lavishing on
advertising campaigns to shape taste and entice spending on their products, find Chi-
na’s coastal urban consumer no longer enamored with only big brands.109 Especially in
the inner circles of the trendy parts of Shanghai, popup events and social media blitz
hype up new samples of the latest products before the rollout of the next fad.
A mention in passing by a well-followed ‘cultural youth [文艺青年]’ on Douban, a
Chinese social-network service, is much better publicity than any normative means of
advertising, because it bestowed on the mentioned product or event potent street cred-
ibility. As many design shops had web showrooms before their ability to offer physi-
cal showrooms, online publicity through channels such as Weibo, the Chinese version
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

of Twitter, or Douban, easily link like-minded vanguards beyond place-based locality.

Outside visitors who manage to find the grazing sites of these cultural youths were of-
ten those who have access to the selected networks of Japanese and European design
magazines or were in the particular type of expat circles whose patronage of such ar-
eas emphasized the hidden factor. The under-the-radar feel of Jing’an Villas’s trans-
formation, the young small entrepreneurs’ shirking of official designation, and their
deliberate embedment deep inside a residential neighborhood, contrasted it to the
broader accessibility of the development and publicity of authorized creative clusters.

263
Fig. 16 Map of the conversions in Jing’an Villas, as of 2012

In multiple interviews, the small entrepreneurs of Jing’an Villas described their

products and services as “unique”, “different from the masses,” and “cultural.”110 They
distinguished the services and goods they offered as being different from the main-
stream brands, both high-end and low-end, that were peddled in the luxury malls and
small shops in the surrounding streets. They especially emphasized that what they of-
fered was unlike the products on offer in places like Tianzifang, the officially designat-
ed creative cluster that was often referred to as Jing’an Villas’ predecessor.
The historic setting of the neighborhood added to the creative entrepreneurs’ de-
sire for distinction from typical commercial enterprises. Ground floor units for com-
merce, as well upper-floor residences in the heritage-designated quartier, harbored
ambiances which many of the young entrepreneurs preferred as the habitat for their
own design productions. (Fig. 16) The ground floor spaces of Jing’an Villas’ lilong hous-

264
 es, which were originally designed for use as
rooms for welcoming visitors and as public
spaces in the private home, have, since Shang-
hai’s demographic densification and housing
shortage after Liberation, become multifunc-
tional spaces that served as bedroom, living
room, washroom, and even kitchen in one.111
For the houses that had been crammed with
up to eight families, the return of these spac-
es, to their originally designed functions by
the small entrepreneurs, seem at once nostal-
gic and forward-looking. In emphasizing the
modern era ambiance of the lilong neighbor-
hood, the small entrepreneurs seemed also
to hark to the cosmopolitan cultural habits of
domesticity formed before Liberation. At the
same time, the revival of old cultural habits
was taking form in new commercial spaces,
their reuse responding to contemporary mar-
ket demands. (Fig. 17)
Stories abound of encounters with Jing’an
Villas’ elderly neighbors, whose illustrious
cosmopolitan pasts spoke to a sensibility that
is closer to the current generation, both in their
modernity and their international outlook.
One elderly lady had addressed a small gath-
ering of internationals at her neighbor’s café
in fluent English, asking if they were holding a
Christmas party, much to the youngsters’ sur-
prise.112 These elderly coffee-drinking bour-
geois residents remaining from Shanghai’s
modern era were as much part of the patina
Fig. 17 Front of a house at Jing’an Villas, 2012 of the modern era lilong neighborhood. If any-
thing, the contemporary concoction of trendy
Western-style habits seemed to pale against the living history of the elderly bourgeoi-
sie and the younger urbanites could only try to emulate their modernity.
Nicole, a young Taiwanese gallerist, who was smitten with the spaces of Jing’an
Villas in 2010, proclaimed of the neighborhood, “this is the real Shanghai.”113 The pro-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

jection of a cultural past onto an imagined Chinese modernity, represented by places

like Jing’an Villas, holds a special relevance for the Chinese diaspora, including the Tai-
wanese, who often choose to settle back in Mainland, coming for both economically
motivated and culturally inspired reasons.114 For the Shanghainese of the generation
of Lao Wu, the quiet and character of Jing’an Villas was also a main draw.115 The small
entrepreneurs cited the atmosphere of the built environment from the 1930s as what
was suitable for the appreciation of his personally roasted coffee from different parts
of the world. The historian Lu Hanchao wrote that the revival of coffee culture in the

265
Fig. 18 Entrances through the terraces of Jing’an Villas, featuring small entrepreneurial establishments, 2012

266
267
Fig. 19 Local amenities in Jing’an Villas, rooted in the practicalities of everyday life for locals, 2012

context of economic liberalization, “is not just about coffee drinking per se, but about
the city’s presumably Westernized culture as many Chinese understand it.” At Jing’an
Villas, the coffee culture is indeed represented by the “children of reform (who) wish
they had lived in their grandparents’ age.”116
Stories propagated by the popular media affirm and accentuate the cultural reju-
venation of Jing’an Villas by the young entrepreneurs, and highlight how the neigh-
borhood projected an aura of continuity with the lineage of modern era cosmopolitan
Shanghai. The network of small entrepreneurs compensated for the lack of a singular
development group. The self-formulated affiliations between the cafés, boutiques, spas,
and galleries created an urban ecology that thrived on the perpetuation of progressive
resourcefulness and deliberate exclusivity. (Fig. 18)
The exclusive and under-the-radar feel of the neighborhood that the small entre-
preneurs cultivated at Jing’an Villas also has pragmatic reasons. The District made it
increasingly difficult to formalize commercial conversions, and the small entrepre-
neurs preferred to operate informally. Signage advertising the small businesses ap-
peared only when the ateliers, boutiques, and cafes were open. Although the small
businesses existed often without the necessary commercial licensing that is obligato-
ry for formalized enterprises, the small penalties, if any, seemed to be worth the low
rent and flexibility of leases that being off-the-record afforded.117 With often irregular
opening hours, the small businesses disappeared easily back into Jing’an Villas’ resi-
dential fabric. (Fig. 19) Walking down the main lane and not knowing that a particular
gallery or designer showroom was located down a specific side lane, one could easily
miss them. It was easy to mistake the neighborhood for any of the other increasing-
ly scarce older residential quartiers that remain in Shanghai’s city center. The gradu-
ated privacy of the public space network,118 both in proximity to the bustle of com-
mercial life at the periphery of the block but also preserving the quiet of the interior
public spaces, was important both to the social success of the urban morphology and
its reuse.119
The architecture type of the lilong houses also reinforced its residential potential,
rather than pushing Jing’an Villas towards complete commercialization. Jing’an Villas’
new-style lilong houses were, in their design, suited to contemporary living and up-
grades, contrasting with older types that required plumbing installation and parking
accommodation.120 The modernity of Jing’an Villas’ architecture also meant that the

268
 feasibility of their upgrades did not require commercialization, allowing them to more
likely remain as residences. Thus, in Jing’an Villas, it was not only commercial conver-
sion that was changing the quartier. Many of the small entrepreneurs also chose to live
in the neighborhood for the same reasons that their businesses were started here. Loft-
like spaces on the top floors and a staggered layout around the central stairway, char-
acteristic of the lilong house, have made the buildings favored as residences.
When population increases forced the subdivision of the lilong house, originally
designed for one family, into multiple units shared by many families, the separation
of the front and the back of each house on the ground floor allowed the upper floors
to have a private entrance from the back, while the ground floor unit had the front
entrance and terrace. (Fig. 20) With the exception of the intermediate floors, through
which the residents of the upper floors had to pass in order to reach their units, the li-
long houses in reality became individual and independent units. Private kitchens were
also installed on the roof terraces.
One young Shanghainese fashion designer with a showroom in Jing’an Villas,
amongst other stores in the city center, lived in a second-floor rental in 2013.121 Her
popularity in the neighborhood made her a default go-to person to be introduced to
the network of the young entrepreneurs.
Among those active in the scene—film
screenings, pop-up events, catered dinner
parties, and exhibitions—but who do not
have their own store on the ground floor,
were a Chinese-learning American musi-
cian and a self-taught landscape design-
er from Australia, who shared a rooftop
flat.122 The convenience of the famous lo-
cal noodle stall nearby, at the end of an
adjacent side lane, and the cheap rent of
publicly managed lilong houses, were key
ingredients for the network of creative
types who chose to settle in Jing’an Villas.
Some of the residents also purchased
the usage right of their units, including a
young Chinese architect who had studied
in Berlin and who is the principal of a suc-
cessful award-winning architecture firm.
Despite reservations about the long-term
uncertainties of the investment, she reno-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

vated her third-floor unit in Jing’an Villas,

Fig. 20 Back of the houses at Jing’an Villas, 2012
knocking down walls and enclosing the
roof terrace to convert it into an enclosed
kitchen.123
Similarly, by token of its architecture
type as well as its location, the lilong com-
pound also did not need commercializa-
tion to save its physical existence. Jing’an

269
 Villas had been listed as the site of munici-
pal-level Excellent Historical Architecture
since 1994. The bestowment of conserva-
tion status, though not always a guarantee
for actual protection in China,124 shielded
Jing’an Villas from the kind of overt dem-
olition that took place in many other lilong
neighborhoods. If anything, the figure of
Jing’an Villas was the constant among
changing proposals in all the plans pro-
posed for the West Nanjing Lu develop-
ments since the early 1990s.
The moving out of older and poorer res-
idents and the incoming of younger and
wealthier residents and entrepreneurs
seemed to indicate the kind of gentrifica-
tion much written about since the 1960s
in North America and Europe. In reality,
demographic shift has been a circumstan-
tial resolution to the systemic inability to
Fig. 21 The residential demographic in the lilong remains
local, 2012 marketize housing in Shanghai’s historic
city center areas under transition econo-
my. The unique framework in Shanghai’s city center neighborhoods, where a large
percentage of properties that were not marketized then came under conservation ju-
risdiction, has preserved the semblance of public housing in the center of some of the
most valuable real estate in the city and maintained the dual housing market. In Jing’an
Villas, just like in many other similar lilong neighborhoods, ‘ownership-right houses
[产权房]’ sold for 60,000 R MB per square meter, equivalent to more than 10,000 USD
in 2010.125 Because of legacy conditions and the fragmentation of each house, most of
the units in Jing’an Villas remain publicly manag ed. Rent-free units that were allotted
by the former danwei work units still nestle amongst renovated historic houses sell-
ing for millions of US dollars. Under the existing circumstances, the persistence of un-
certainty as to the future of ownership rights of these structures has also made their
conversion lucrative. Willing and able sub-letters could use the earnings from renting
out their old cramped quarters to afford newer housing with more privacy and ame-
nities, while sub-lettees in turn could get the chance to start a new business without
having to fork out the exorbitant rents in the marketized properties of prime locations.
With the growing renown of Jing’an Villas, even the older residents caught on to
the market demand for commercial conversion. (Fig. 21) On seeing the neighborhood
changes, an occupant at number 31 renovated her room to turn it into a gallery in
2011.126 Other businesses also blossomed in the neighborhood since the 2000s. When
many of the office towers and shopping centers in the surrounding neighborhood were
finished in the late 1990s, the influx of office workers was also accompanied by a boom
of lunch services, not only in the official restaurants along Nanjing Lu already in place,
but in the food streets like Wujiang Lu, where fast, tasty, and affordable options com-
peted with each other in the pull for the midday white-collar diners. In the mid-2000s,

270
as more expats and white-collar workers flooded the demand side of the market, and
with a limited variety of meal options, places catering to more global tastes quickly
opened.127
In 2006, Denny House Milk Tea opened in the ground floor room of a house one
number down from the main lane. Its Chinese name being ‘Silk Stockings Milk Tea
[丝袜奶茶],’ it was not the first instance of retirees trying their hand at business. A se-
ries of small bubble tea places in the rooms just adjacent to the main lane opened in
the following year. The trend for milk tea itself sits between the traditional tea-drink-
ing culture of the older generation and the pick-up-and-go contemporary youth cul-
ture, imported from nearby Taiwan.128 Unlike the passive attitudes towards profit and
patronage that the young creative entrepreneurs conveyed, these small businesses
opened by older local entrepreneurs clearly cared about customer flow.
To the younger creative entrepreneurs, existing alongside these small business-
es opened by older local entrepreneurs also made their own new-fangled enterpris-
es more “real.”129 At the same time, there lingered a simultaneous fear of the impact
of impending commercialization.130 Not only did price hikes in rent endanger all the
small businesses, but many worried commercialization would drive out the old res-
idents and the old businesses that had given identity to the neighborhood. Ma Liang
[马良], an artist who grew up in the neighborhood and came back to open his studio in
the adjacent Weihai Lu 696 art warehouse, feared an impending erosion of the local
identity in the neighborhood where he grew up.131 This wariness of rapid commercial-
ization by the small entrepreneurs themselves seemed to be a fundamental irony of
the neighborhood’s upgrade.
Anxiety about possible over-commercialization in Jing’an Villas, from the 30–70 ra-
tio of commerce to residence, to the 70–30 ratio in places like Tianzifang, defined the
mind set of the young entrepreneurs.132 Ever ready to move and find new locales, the
young small entrepreneurs were prepared for the everyday effects of ad-hoc policies
as part of doing business in rapidly transforming Shanghai. From state-backed promo-
tion of a residential quartier’s conversion into a creative commercial area, such as in
Tianzifang, or short-notice functional change and closure, as exemplified most recent-
ly by the shut-down of the neighboring Weihai Lu 696, the discretionary implemen-
tations have had unpredictable outcomes on different kinds of creative developments.
In Jing’an Villas, the small entrepreneurs saw potential for reusing the historic ar-
chitecture to accommodate a growing demand for products and services of the cre-
ative economy. They exploited the urban loophole of ambiguity, especially after the
district-implemented upgrade, suggesting a possibility of commercialization. Despite
their professed nonchalance towards commercial profit, the institutional framework
of public ownership and low rents had in effect subsidized their small businesses. The
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

small creative entrepreneurs’ choice to remain informal within the still largely res-
idential Jing’an Villas fed the image of exclusivity, while ensuring flexibility. At the
same time, the endogenous clustering of creative entrepreneurs and the self-organiz-
ing network seemed to suggest an alternative and more socio-economically diverse
model for commercial conversions in residential neighborhoods.

271
The Precedent of Tianzifang
for Commercialization
A case often cited as the precursor for the developments at Jing’an Villas in the early
2010s is the development of another lilong neighborhood called Tianzifang in the ear-
ly 2000s.133 In the lead-up to its shutdown, both sides of Jing’an Villas’ conflict used
Tianzifang’s developments to extol and condemn the developments in Jing’an Villas.
An online attack of Jing’an Villas entitled “Jing’an Villas is not Tianzifang,”134 first trig-
gered a continued debate about the implications of commercialization, heritage con-
servation, and creative incubation in the transformation of the lilong compound itself.
Thus, a more thorough account of Tianzifang is offered here.
Tianzifang, like Jing’an Villas, was a residential neighborhood. Partial commercial-
ization and low rents that followed an initial round of top-down reuse and upgrade
measures attracted young start-ups to Tianzifang. Within a few years of the first trans-
formations, Tianzifang became known as a commercially successful case of bottom-up
reuse in Shanghai. Along with the projects of Bridge 8 and M 50, Tianzifang was also
responsible, from the mid-2000s, for the municipality’s interest in, and development
of, the creative industries clusters as reuse projects.135 Together with Xintiandi, it was
exemplary for informing the ensuing developments in the commercial potential of his-
toric houses, although the scale of Tianzifang’s bottom-up success, in contrast to Xin-
tiandi’s top-down one, has not yet been surpassed. As a prominent early example for
the reuse of a residential block, Tianzifang remains one of the most popular creative
clusters and has since the mid-2000s become overwhelmed by commerce, with grow-
ing rents driving out the small creative entrepreneurs who originally made it famous.
There are many characteristics in the transformation of Tianzifang and Jing’an Vil-
las that have made them comparable for the popular media, especially in the lead-up
to Jing’an Villas’ shutdown. Both are considered bottom-up developments initiated
by small entrepreneurs. Because their developments were not executed under one de-
velopment group, the incremental transformations were notable for their endogenous
process. Both developments took place in historic neighborhoods, where residential
architecture was reused for commerce. They are both cited as examples and counterex-
amples of heritage conservation. The commercialization of residential neighborhoods
both leads to shifts from old residents to new entrepreneurs, from old entrepreneurs to
new entrepreneurs, and from old residents to new residents. The socio-economic shift
and the nuanced relationships between different stakeholders underline the gentrifi-
cation discourse. The degree of commercialization in relation to remaining residential
functions in the two developments also speaks to the differing phase of development.
Finally, the relationships of the developments to the local state are important in how
Tianzifang and Jing’an Villas converge and diverge finally.
The following interlude that describes the process of development for Tianzifang
is important in understanding the comparisons made with subsequent developments,
like that of Jing’an Villas. Unlike the abundance of documentation for Xintiandi’s de-
velopment, the lack of a complete account of Tianzifang’s development is also a reason
for its inclusion here. Although there is frequent mention of Tianzifang’s transforma-

272
 tion in existing literature about the city center changes in Shanghai,136 surprisingly
little could be found on the agents and processes of its transformation. Its inclusion
in existing case comparisons for creative development137 as well as for urban histor-
ic architecture reuse138 nevertheless has precluded a full version of its development
from being clarified. The lessons learned from the development of Tianzifang still offer
valuable input for ensuing projects.

The Street Office’s Initiative and the Threat of Demolition

Located in an area on the southern periphery of the French Concession and bordering a
former slum area around the now-covered canal Zhaojiabang [肇嘉浜], Tianzifang was
a residential neighborhood built in the 1930s, consisting of several different lilong com-
pounds that were interconnected and located north of the east-west running Taikang
Lu [泰康路]. Administrative restructuring in 1996 changed the administrative bound-
aries of the Luwan District where the neighborhood was situated. The newly created
Dapuqiao Street Office [打浦橋街道] appointed a new director, Zheng Rongfa [郑荣发],
an ambitious local bureaucrat who had done a stint at the District’s Ministries of Cul-
ture and Publicity. Dapuqiao was one of the poorer sub-districts of Luwan, especially
in comparison to the commercially oriented and culturally rich northern part of the
district that is closer to the commercial Huaihai Lu [淮海路]. The economic circum-
stances of Dapuqiao and Tianzifang motivated Director Zheng to rethink the devel-
opment of his jurisdiction. Initial thoughts were for developing a culturally oriented
barbell-shaped area along the newly widened east-west thoroughfare of Xujiahui Lu.
However, a collegue who had knowledge and involvement in real estate and Huaihai
Lu’s upgrade redirected Director Zheng to focus on the areas around smaller neighbor-
hood-scale streets, rather than around the high-traffic Xujiahui Lu.
Director Zheng’s first move was the cleanup of the wet-market street of Taikang
Lu. This opportunely followed on the heels of the nationally promoted and munici-
pally subsidized ‘Shopping Basket Project [菜篮子工程]’ which incentivized urban up-
grades around market streets.139 Because the local sub-districts had gained financial
autonomy during the 1980s restructuring, Director Zheng could fund his initiative.140
At the time, administrative restructuring gave more fiscal autonomy to the officials at
the Street Office level. In order to promote local development, the municipality also re-
funded business taxes to the registered businesses within its jurisdiction.141
Having consolidated the market into an abandoned neighborhood industrial build-
ing on the block, Director Zheng was ready for the next step. In 1998, Wu Meiseng
[吳梅森], a well-known entrepreneur who had returned from half a decade’s stay in
Canada, approached Director Zheng.142 His connection to well-known contemporary
artists like Chen Yifei [陈逸飞] and Er Dongqiang [尔冬强] helped bring them in as the
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

first tenants to the disused former industry buildings in the Taikang Lu neighborhood.
It was at his urging that neighborhood would develop creative industries, a term that
at the time of the transformation still had little cachet.
The block north of Taikang Lu, like other areas at the edge of the former Concessions,
had numerous neighborhood industries set within the residential neighborhood.143 In
the 1950s, nationalization had consolidated the privately owned enterprises and had
also expanded production from the low-rise buildings into newer slab buildings. Local
residents worked in proximity to their residences, in a configuration that is similar to

273
 the work-unit layout for more newly designed areas, where work and living were side
by side.144 By the 1990s, the state-owned production units that remained were Haihua
Tannery [海华制革厂第二厂], Kangfu Textiles [康福织造厂], Yongming Bottletop Facto-
ry [永明瓶盖厂], Jianchen Fragrance Factory [鉴臣香精二厂], Shanghai Food Process-
ing Machinery Factory [上海食品工业机械厂], and Shanghai Watch Accessory Factory
[上海钟表塑料配件厂]. They consisted of six buildings in Lane 210 off Taikang Lu. When
economic liberalization accelerated in the mid-1990s, the neighborhood factories on
Taikang Lu also closed.145 Wu Meiseng’s enterprises, under the aegis of the Street
Office, took the opportunity to sign contracts for long-term leases of the factory prem-
ises from the former SOE s.
The first artist to move in to the factory building was the painter Chen Yifei, who
had spent more than a decade in New York City before returning to Shanghai in 1992.
He immediately took to the abandoned industrial spaces and commented that it re-
minded him of Soho, an area in New York City well known for the artists’ reuse of for-
mer industrial spaces that had in turn helped rejuvenate the neighborhood.146 Other
artists followed, including the photographer Er Dongqiang in 1997.
In 1999, the Taikang Lu Art Street Administrative Committee [泰康路艺术街管理
委员会] was set up to oversee the leases, tenancy, and business development of the for-
mer SOE buildings in the block north of Taikang Lu. In addition to moving into a com-
pound of studios set up in defunct manufacturing buildings, Chen and his colleagues,
with expertise learned from time abroad, were asked to help curate the selection of
commercial bids to enter the block. With the justification of supporting cultural con-
version, Director Zheng was able to convince the district authorities and the munici-
pality to support renovations in mid-2001.
In 2001, the municipal Ministry of Housing and Land Resources Administration
announced that Taikang Lu’s Block 55, which included the artist-occupied factories
where upgrade efforts had been implemented, had been designated as part of an urban
renewal site.147 Development plans showed that the blocks north and south of Taikang
Lu, including Block 55, were slated for demolition and redevelopment. Municipal mas-
ter plans also showed the future plans for the area, with three-dimensional models of
the redevelopment inserted in the City Planning Exhibition, where it was visible to
the visiting public.148
Even though the municipality had announced the impending demolition and re-
development of the Taikang Lu neighborhood, the Street Office-led upgrade continued
and seemed to take on even more importance. In 2002, the artist Huang Yongyu [黄永玉]
renamed the main north-south running lane, where many art and graphics studios
had located, “Tianzifang,” after China’s first artist in historical records.149 The installa-
tion of the new inscription at the entrance of the lane officially marked it as the reali-
zation of the local government’s cultural aspiration. With persistent rumors of impend-
ing renewal, both Director Zheng and Wu reached out to important cultural figures in
their battle against demolition and redevelopment.

Seizing the Opportunity and Bottom-Up Conversions

In 2003, the Luwan District government signed the contract for the land lease of Block
55 to a Taiwanese development group.150 Residents, responding to the uncertainty of
the imminent demolition and displacement process, also began to sublease their exist-

274
 ing units while awaiting the impending compensation process. Claiming to be the first
to rent out his ground floor space was Zhou Xinliang [周心良], one of the middle-aged
‘educated youth [知青]’ returnees, who had been sent to Xinjiang during the Cultur-
al Revolution as part of the compulsory ‘up the mountain down to the countryside
[上山下乡]’ movement for urban youths of the wrong class.151 Like many other educated
youths who managed to return to their rapidly developing hometowns under the wel-
come-home policies, he neither fit into the collapsing state-planned economic system
of job allotments nor into the blossoming new economies. He subsisted on a monthly
welfare stipend of 300 R MB a month as compensation for his original displacement.152
In November 2004, he rented out his ground floor unit of 32 square meters to a young
fashion designer for a two-year lease of 4,000 R MB per month and moved into an up-
stairs unit that had been empty, paying 1,000 R MB per month. In addition to receiving
a salary of 1,500 R MB for manning the fashion designer’s shop, he received a rental in-
come of 5,000 R MB .153 It was the first exchange of this kind in the densely populated
residential neighborhood. Quickly, other residents also followed suit and profited from
the potential commercial use of their existing living spaces.
As the demand for commercial space in proximity to the now well-known artists’
cluster in the adjacent industrial buildings grew, Zhou also quickly became active as
a fee-free agent to introduce in-coming entrepreneurs to possible locales in the neigh-
borhood. With more enterprises in the lane, the businesses collectively benefited from
the increased foot traffic. Zhou explained that it was in his self-interest to help the
clustering of small enterprises: the creation of a critical mass would help people like
him become entrepreneurs in a way that he had never imagined before.154 As more
residents rented out their ground floor units to in-coming commerce, they set up a
self-governing body, the Tianzifang Shikumen Proprietors Administrative Commit-
tee [田子坊石库门业主管理委员会], electing Zhou as their director. In addition to mon-
itoring the kinds of renters that entered the neighborhood, the Committee was able
to collect 20,000 R MB to repair the paving in the lane.155 It is noticeable that the pat-
tern for the paving, made of square grey bricks, is different from the long and narrow
ones put down by the Street-Office-backed Taikang Lu Art Street Administrative Com-
mittee. The self-governing body saw the assistance they provided, helping the resi-
dents rent out of their ground floor units to commerce, as benefiting the community.
The Committee viewed itself as representing the interests of the residents in the face
of inevitable commercial development. The transformation of the neighborhood was
promoted as bottom-up.
While the residential neighborhood was rapidly transforming through these en-
dogenous processes, the publicity outreach by the well-networked Street Office Di-
rector Zheng and by Wu also reached important ears. Petitions by prominent artists
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

protested against the demolition of Block 55. Prominent architecture historians and
conservation proponents, such as Ruan Yisan [阮仪三] from Tongji University, also
argued for the preservation of Shanghai’s heritage as exemplified by Tianzifang. En-
gagement of influential municipal economists, like Li Wuwei [厉无畏] of the munici-
pal Economic Council gave additional support to promoting Tianzifang’s importance
for Shanghai’s creative industries development. American economist Richard Florida’s
2001 book, which related the creative class to the economic transition to post-industri-
al knowledge-based advanced capitalist urban economy, resonated well with the econ-

275
 omists of Shanghai.156 Shanghai’s economists and bureaucrats continued discussing
the municipality’s ongoing economic transition, in which the concept of a creative in-
dustries cluster, as the aspired knowledge economy’s spatial manifestation, quickly
caught on. In April 2005, Tianzifang was part of the first batch of the officially recog-
nized Creative Industries Clusters by the Shanghai Creative Industries Center (SCIC)
[上海创意产业中心], created in November 2004 by the Economic Council.157 Tianzi-
fang’s inclusion as a municipality-recognized Creative Industries Cluster signaled the
development’s significant contribution to the city’s economic development. In 2005,
the Shanghai Taikang Lu Historic Style Protection and Use Plan [上海市泰康路历史风貌保护
与利用规划 ], compiled by experts at the request of the Street Office, was also endorsed
by preservation experts.158 The inclusion of Tianzifang in the conservation plan indi-
cated that its historic architecture was valued as part of the city’s cultural heritage.
The validation by the double bestowments of heritage protection and creative in-
cubation encouraged and accelerated small-scale private commercial conversion. Gao
Yang [高扬], another overseas Chinese returnee who grew up in an old lilong house that
had belonged to his grandfather, Wang Yachen [汪亚尘], a famous painter in modern
era Shanghai, joined in the developments. Returning after more than two decades in
the US , Gao initially sold his family property and bought a unit nearby in a new build-
ing on the more upscale Sinan Lu in 2004. Daily shortcuts through the lanes of Tianzi­
fang, en route to the gym, alerted him to the commercial potential of Block 55. More
importantly, Gao saw rising demand in the mid-2000s in the influx of expats to Shang-
hai. Starting with one space that he rented out to a cashmere designer, who catered to
many expat visitors as well as local customers, he eventually came to manage some
40 rental properties in the lanes of Tianzifang.159 Many other small entrepreneurs who
saw the growing market quickly followed suit.
Development was incremental due to limited initial investment. The returns from
each developed unit in turn paid for the ensuing investment for upgrade. The individ-
ual-to-individual negotiation process for each upgrade at Tianzifang allowed both the
incumbent residents and the incoming entrepreneurs to reach mutually satisfactory
deals. As Wu revealed in 2006, even the 200,000 R MB initial investment for the Street
Office-backed upgrades was incremental: it came from the deposits paid by the rent-
ers in the SOE properties.160 Because the Street Office initiated the upgrades, it was
interested in improving the quality of the neighborhood’s environment, rather than
only gaining immediate financial returns. Compared to the private sector investments,
which would prioritize profitability, the local-state-sponsored projects had to perform
both in terms of profitability and imageability. This emphasis on a longer-term strate-
gy contrasted with redevelopment projects, where professional developers expected
a rapid return on investment. A neighboring redevelopment and industrial reuse proj-
ect invested in by Hong Kong developers charged 6 R MB per square meter per day for
commercial rentals.161 In contrast, with a view toward long-term development, the
Street Office was willing to maintain low rental rates of 1.50 to 2.50 R MB per square
meter per day at Tianzifang.162
Compared to the prevalent mode of en-bloc developments in 1990s Shanghai,
where one developer with enough investment capital pushed out all the residents to
demolish a large area and redevelop at a much higher density as quickly as possible,
the reuse model over a longer timespan was accommodating to existing occupants

276
Fig. 22 Enterprises in Tianzifang, 2012

and in-coming entrepreneurs. It is an alternative that nevertheless still capitalized on

the existing structures. (Fig. 22) The ‘soft conversions [软改造]’ of Tianzifang not only
seemed to sidestep growing criticism of the brutality of forced residential displace-
ment. By incrementally developing selective commerce also, and providing spaces for
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

artistic production, the transformations turned the neighborhood into an example of

a successful creative cluster.

Municipal Recognition of Tianzifang

It was in the Municipal Planning Bureau in 2006 that the importance of the Tianzifang
block as a precedent for ensuing developments was made clear. A key author for the
municipality’s heritage conservation policies and a rising star of the Municipal Plan-
ning Bureau, Wang Lin, revealed in an interview that, following the multi-party ne-

277
 gotiations between the developer, the district, and municipal authorities, Tianzifang
was the first site to use the ‘transferable air rights’ concept as a planning instrument
in China.163 ‘Air right’ is a type of development right, referring to the volume of empty
space above a property that has potential to be developed at a higher density. Air right
belongs to the owner of the land, above which the volume exists. When the air right
becomes transferable, it allows an exchange to happen between the owner of the land,
above which the air right exists, with others. Those others who become the recipient
of the air right can use the unfulfilled density of the original plot, from which the air
right originates, in another plot, to exceed the maximum allowable development den-
sity of this second plot.164 High-density metropolises like New York have innovated
the transferable air rights concept, where “it had been introduced for the sake of preser-
vationists’ requirements—sites occupied by buildings worthy of historic preservation
but with lower levels of utilization were to have been relieved of economic pressure in
order to safeguard them from profit-oriented redevelopment.”165
Even though, at the time, the notion of preservation of a neighborhood such as
Tianzifang had not occurred to the parties involved, it was at Wang’s suggestion that
the concept of transferable air rights was considered. Transferable air rights would of-
fer the District, as manager of the block, the financial incentive for not demolishing
the neighborhood on the north side of Taikang Lu, which included Tianzifang. It also
would offer the developer the same development volume that the developer had paid
for. In December 2006, nevertheless, public notices were still posted announcing the
impending demolition. After multiple negotiations, resistance from the residents, the
Street Office, and its influential allies, the Taiwanese developer’s acquisition of the
northern block was halted. The developer was able to pay for the air rights of Tianzi-
fang. In return, it received permission to build at twice the density as previously allot-
ted on the block to the south of Taikang Lu.166 In the process, however, Director Zheng
was demoted from his post at the Street Office by the District and transferred to anoth-
er post.167 His vocal advocacy for the protection of the entire block, rather than only
of the former factory buildings that he helped make well known as Tianzifang, chal-
lenged the Luwan District’s political hierarchy.168
From the experience, the Municipal Planning Bureau also saw its increasingly im-
portant role as an arbiter for the different private and public interests, rather than only
as an executor of development.169 With commercial and social success of reuse of low-
rise structures, the Municipal Planning Bureau also saw the bottom-up problem-solv-
ing by the residents and stakeholders as necessary to upgrade by way of marketiza-
tion. Reciprocal bottom-up and top-down efforts yield mutual benefits to the different
public and private stakeholders.170 Moreover, given the time frame for project devel-
opments and the calculation of investment versus return, planning serves to mediate
the long-term gains to meet short-term market demands. Even though Wang admit-
ted that the circumstances for the Tianzifang project were unique, and its context in
an open-minded and forward-looking Shanghai even more so, “Tianzifang is a chance
and example that this kind of development is possible in China.”171
The Municipal Planning Bureau issued the Luwan District Taikang Lu Tianzifang
Detailed Development Control Plan [卢湾区泰康路田子坊控制性详细规划调整 ], developed
from 2007 to 2008. In 2008, the Municipal Planning Bureau included the area inside the
block north of Taikang Lu, including both the lilongs as well as the factory buildings as

278
 part of the municipal-level Historic Cultural Fengmao Conservation District. The block
could no longer be demolished without formal permission from a municipal-level
review commission. The block has been saved, at least for the foreseeable future.
With uncertainty of demolition eliminated, conversions of residential to commer-
cial accelerated in 2007. Rentals also grew along with demand. In 2004, a 32-square-
meter unit had cost 4,000 R MB a month. By 2007 it was already 8,000 R MB .172 Lo-
cal stakeholders were concerned with attracting investment to upgrade, and offering
cheap rents to attract creative enterprises. High vacancy rates resulted from rents that
were too high, especially for the wrong kind of business that could not survive.173 The
frictions between the two governing bodies, the state-controlled Taikang Lu Art Street
Administrative Committee and the community-organized Shikumen Proprietors Ad-
ministrative Committee, however, flared when the common foe of demolition-based
development was defeated. The Art Street Administrative Committee saw the self-or-
ganized efforts of the residents in the ‘conversion of residential to non-residential use
[居改非]’ as illegitimate. The resident-landlords of the Shikumen Proprietors Adminis-
trative Committee were keen on state sanction, so that the businesses that rented the
ground floor units could acquire commercial licensing, undergo taxation, and become
legally recognized.174

The District Retakes Control

In March 2008, the Luwan District government established the Tianzifang Manage-
ment Committee [田子坊管委会], formally recognizing the reality of residential-to-com-
mercial conversions, taking control of the block’s developments. The directorship of
the Committee was assigned to the Deputy Mayor of the Luwan District, and the dep-
uty directors came from other important posts at the district level, including those
from the District Development and Reform Committee.175 The district followed with
10 million R MB in support for the infrastructural upgrade of the residential buildings.
By year’s end, the municipality changed the official land use for the block from residen-
tial land use [居民用地] to mixed land use [综合用地], through the issuing of a special
annually reviewed permit for the conversion.176 With this land use conversion, small
entrepreneurs could apply for commercial licenses and renters would have to pay 2.5 %
tax on rental profit.177 The District allowed the real estate management company, the
Tianzifang Investment Consultancy Limited [田子坊投资咨询有限公司] belonging to
Wu Meiseng, to keep the long-term leases, for the 10 or 20 years that he had signed
with the SOE s, with the exception of two of the buildings. The District would take over
these two buildings under its own management firm and the two buildings would be
leased out directly for one- to three-year terms, with annual rent increases of 5–10 %.178
Since Tianzifang’s inception, the majority of creative productions had been located
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

in the five-story former manufacturing block on the eastern edge of the block, predom-
inantly with architecture, graphic design, and advertising offices. The residential area
that incrementally converted to commercial use, served initially as a catchment area
to the creative hub, but soon took on a life of its own. The range of gastronomical hubs
cater to a Westernizing taste, with Thai, Japanese, and Western restaurants, cafés, and
bars. Retail stores sell goods popular with visitors such as antiques and Mao-era sou-
venirs, targeting expats and tourists. Even though a dashing new mall, the ASE Center
[日月光中心], rose across the road, the tourists continued to flock to Tianzifang’s narrow

279
 lanes and old shikumen lilong architecture, basking in its ambiance of old Shanghai. At
the end of 2009, when the Dapuqiao stop for subway Line 9 opened under the ASE
Center, in time for the 2010 World Expo, it conveniently brought even more visitors
to the booming area. In 2010, the Municipal Tourism Bureau listed Tianzifang, which
welcomed more than 6,000 visitors daily, as a Triple-A Travel destination.179 Its pres-
ence in Shanghai’s official art map additionally marked it as an important stop for cul-
tural tourists. During the 2010 World Expo itself, Tianzifang was also named as an ex-
emplary ’Expo Off-Site Urban Theme Realization Area [世博园外的城市主题实践区].’180
Residents who still occupied upstairs units, mostly elderly people who had no in-
terest in benefiting from the commodification of their former dwellings and who pre-
ferred the easily accessible location of the city center, complained about the trans-
formations to their neighborhood, even though it was the commercial success that
preserved the lilong from demolition. Nevertheless, across Taikang Lu, demolition and
displacement were underway in 2008, showing a remarkably different outcome for
the community only one street away.181 Even though Tianzifang’s incremental devel-
opment had resulted in the outward appearance of social diversity and cohesion, con-
flict between residents and commerce persisted. Businesses that opened noisily late
into the night could not avoid disturbing their neighboring residents, especially in
the confines of the dense lilong. With the formalization of commercialization in 2008,
building management fees rose to 400 R MB per month from the residential norm of
20 R MB per month.182 With annual tax revenues for the Tianzifang block at 300,000 to
400,000 R MB , it had long recouped the 18 million R MB that the Luwan District invest-
ed for the area’s upgrade. Rising commercial rents were also exaggerated, with claims
that they exceeded even the Jing’an District’s Golden Triangle of high-rise office tow-
ers.183 In 2009 the Luwan District also reacted to residents’ complaints and no longer
permitted subletting to F & B enterprises in the block to alleviate further conflicts.184
In 2012, almost 70 % of the units of the total 671 in the designated Tianzifang area were
rented out as commercial. The remaining units were equally divided between the orig-
inal residents and subleasing tenants.185
Throughout the development process of the Tianzifang area, a diversity of agents
were responsible for shaping its current state: a local government bureaucrat initiat-
ed the transformation of the area; state-allied entrepreneurs executed the initial con-
versions and reuse of former institutional real estate; small entrepreneurs saw and
capitalized on the commercial potential in the residential buildings; a planning bu-
reaucrat whose negotiations and concept of air right transfer secured Tianzifang for
conservation.186 Although the citizens organized the Shikumen Proprietors Admin-
istrative Committee, it was finally the state-controlled Tianzifang Management Com-
mittee that took over management of the area. In taking back its oversight authority,
the local state also reaped the benefits from the area’s continued commercialization.
The business success of Tianzifang as a neighborhood could thus be attributed to the
commercial interests of the local state. Often represented as a successful case of bot-
tom-up entrepreneurism—it is important to note that though bottom-up agents did
play a role, the initiation, development, and current existence of Tianzifang was and
is finally contingent on the state’s consent.
The financial success of Tianzifang and the unanticipated tourist draw to the old
neighborhood alerted the state authorities to the image-making capacity of the project.

280
 To the public sector and private entrepreneurs, Tianzifang harnessed the economic
potential of a historic neighborhood as a cultural draw both for visitors and locals. To
the small entrepreneurs, the degree of mass commercialization that Tianzifang expe-
rienced, endangered the kinds of boutique enterprises that they saw as their unique
forte. They would have preferred the commercial spaces to be interspersed amongst
residences, which would have made the visits to their enterprises more unique and
authentic.
In Jing’an Villas, like at Tianzifang, risk-taking small entrepreneurs exploited the
urban loopholes of ambiguity and uncertainty under economic transition. Similarly,
commercial conversion incrementally transformed the historic residential buildings.
In a different district and at a later moment in time, the Jing’an Villas debacle would
also be distinguised from that of Tianzifang in showing the limits of the urban loophole
and the evolving adaptive governance of the state.

The Public Relations Wars and the Differing

Visions of Jing’an Villas’ Future
At the end of November 2010, the newspaper Youth Daily [青年报 ] reported on the com-
plaints of residents against the small businesses of Jing’an Villas.187 Entitled “Jing’an
Villas, Covered with Cooking Grease,” the article reacted to and concurred with a long
diatribe entitled “Jing’an Villas is not Tianzifang!” In the piece, a man using the alias
‘Roger’ attacked the influx of small businesses to Jing’an Villas and lamented the com-
mercialization of Tianzifang as a violation of the unalienable rights of the original,
local, and valuable residents.188 The targets of the attacks were the small businesses
that opened late into the night, infringing on the orderly living habits of their assid-
uous neighbors. The condemnations extended to the polluted practices of the restau-
rants. The article pointed out that the bars, restaurants, and even the opening of a
dance hall—next to the Neighborhood Committee, no less—and the impudence of
the in-comers brought the residents to a point of no choice.189 Beyond the disorder-
liness wrought on the historic neighborhood by the in-comers, the rising rents driv-
en by commercial growth was also a source of resentment. To top it off, according to
the article, only three of the shops had official licensing. The rest, more than 80, were
unregistered and illegal.190
The day after the article was published, the usual rotation of inspections by the
District Administration for Industry and Commerce intensified. Signage from cafés
and small shops was confiscated. The District Administration for Housing also issued
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

notices for reorganization, requiring that residential units not be used for other uses,
reacting to the Youth Daily article’s elaboration of dangerous practices, such as unli-
censed dentists endangering the lives of unknowing victims.191
In the days following the crackdown, a series of articles came out contending the
opposite. In contrast to the Youth Daily, a known mouthpiece of the Communist Youth
League located in the Jing’an District, articles from more liberal media cast the small
creative entrepreneurs as quiet and cultural types, who were fastidious and victim-
ized by a small number of belligerent and jealous neighbors.192 These counter articles

281
 reported how, during the state-led raids, some of the small shops managed to close
with the help of warnings by neighbors, evading official capture, while others were
lucky to stay out of unwelcome limelight, also with the help of the local community.193
The sympathetic portrayals of the startups were complemented by praises for the small
creative entrepreneurs’ revival of Shanghai’s past cosmopolitan savviness and their
activism in engaging the local identity.
The small entrepreneurs interviewed agreed with the assertion that they too, did
not wish Jing’an Villas to become Tianzifang.194 They claimed that it was they who
had suffered the rent increases as they tried to balance starting a small business with
doing something that they liked.195 As to the accusation that they lacked business li-
censes, the small entrepreneurs retorted that the Commerce and Industry Bureau had
always practiced the art of “one eye open and one eye closed [睁一眼闭一眼].”196 It is
well known that small commerce starting out usually lacks the legal paperwork nec-
essary for commercial licensing. For both the local state bureaucracy and the small en-
terprise, this grey zone between formality and informality was the norm rather than
the exception. The responses of Jing’an Villas’ small entrepreneurs thus were nothing
extraordinary. The only certainty that they saw was that the “the government is cer-
tain to intervene, and the real estate prices will continue to rise.”197 If nothing more,
the statements confirmed the small entrepreneurs’ acceptance of their transitory role
in the neighborhood.
The District government, just prior to the Jing’an Villas crackdowns, had urgent
matters at hand that required a public relations diversion. In November 2010, a fire had
broken out in a 28-story apartment tower under renovation on Jiaozhou Lu [胶州路],
causing the death of 58 and leaving 71 people injured. The residential tower was under-
going an upgrade by District-affiliated construction firms, which had won their con-
tracts through a bidding process. Investigations, however, revealed that the welders
were working without licenses and the insulation materials were also not officially ap-
proved. This led to implications of collusion between the District-owned contractors
and authorities. That the residents of the destroyed apartment building were teachers
and other public servants made them influential figures in the follow-up.198 The dam-
age from the incident, beyond the financial loss of 158 million R MB , was the tarnished
reputation of the Jing’an District leadership in the Shanghai political arena. The inci-
dent even attracted the attention of Western media, which cited the fire as a case for
corruption as obstacle to China’s development.199
With a reshuffling of the District leadership as a result of the fire,200 a period of calm
seemed to resume. Debates continued on the balance between commerce and culture
in the future of historic neighborhoods,201 with articles continuing to speculate as to
the appropriate future for places like Jing’an Villas.202 In the meanwhile, the renown
of the lilong seemed to have only grown, with even the American news outlet CNN
reporting, “Is Jing’an Villa the new Tianzifang?”203
Early in 2011, announcements were made on the eviction of artists from a large
warehouse compound at Weihai Lu 696. The compound, centered on a Concession-era
building that had been converted into the Shanghai Components Factory Number Five
[上海元件五厂]. The factory had been the first and one of the most important semi-con-
ductor production sites in China under the planned economy.204 Over the decades, slab
buildings had in-filled the compound and additional floors were added to the origi-

282
Fig. 23 Weihai Lu 696, 2014

nal building, which was rumored to have once been an opium warehouse. Since 2006,
when the compound’s management changed hands, it was sub-leased to young art-
ists who sought cheap rents, large spaces, and were willing and even happy to be in
buildings that were industrial-scale and unpolished. One of the first tenants, a young
photographer who grew up in the neighborhood moved in in the fall of 2006. Others
quickly followed. The compound rapidly became a vibrant place of artist gatherings,
exhibitions, and other events.205 Galleries opened next to painting studios and fash-
ion designer ateliers. There was a spillover effect on neighboring Jing’an Villas, as the
network of creatives expanded also into the lilong. In October 2010, artists in Weihai
Lu 696 reported, in an article entitled “Gentrification in Shanghai,” that development
plans seemed to be underway, with investors visiting their art factory.206 Soon, the
international occupants of Weihai Lu 696 helped broadcast its impending closure. The
Wall Street Journal published an article “Whither 696 Weihai Lu?”207 With a final fare-
well bash to celebrate the brief existence of one of the last affordable art spaces left in
the city center, Weihai Lu 696 closed in May 2011. (Fig. 23)
At the same time, in the plot just east of Jing’an Villas, demolition of the adjacent
lilong neighborhood continued in preparation for the proposed station of subway Line
12. The District continued to announce its bureaucratic transparency with regard to the
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

relocation of residents in the newest renewal projects.208

In November 2011, the District again sent its officers from the Administration for
Industry and Commerce on a spontaneous sweep to catch un-licensed commerce oper-
ating in Jing’an Villas. The closure of Denny House Milk Tea and the carting off of one
its employees would be the grim consequence of this round of crackdowns.209 The is-
sued arguments remained the same. Jing’an Villas’ heritage status as Excellent Histor-
ic Architecture came to the fore in the demand for respect for the buildings. Simply put,
the argument went, “the act of ‘break the wall and open the shop’ is not good for the

283
 overall fengmao conservation of the neighborhood [破墙开店对于小区整体风貌的保护
非常不利].”210 Condemnations of the unsanctioned ‘conversion of residential to non-res-
idential use’ was framed around the importance of the existing residents. With each
round of warnings issued by the District and accompanying inspections, the clamor
for the dismantling of commercial spaces seemed to remain just that, a clamor. The
District seemed increasingly organized with each drill, bringing back, under the um-
brella of the Administration of Industry and Commerce, the Departments of Food and
Drugs, Real Estate Management, Environment, Hygiene, and Urban Management.211
As the small commerce returned after each event, the official decrees were becoming
largely obligatory rehearsals that managed to dismantle signage and chase out a few
token enterprises. Even the threat of the fine of 50,000 R MB seemed toothless, as more
and more publications advertised the charms of Jing’an Villas.212
The stance taken by the Neighborhood Committee deliberately avoided the issues,
even affirming that those already issued licenses were making the lives of the res-
idents better. The fine line between businesses that were considered intrusive and
those that were considered neighborhood amenities would be an issue to be grappled
with, in the context of the continuing debate about what is appropriate to a residential
neighborhood that also happened to be designated as fengmao architecture.
The primary reason given for the ban of commerce was fengmao conservation for
residential use. As was visible in many other parts of the city, fengmao conservation
became the ready alibi and urban loophole of exception for state involvement.213 The
state’s assertion of control over properties in the name of fengmao conservation, more
importantly, set an example to reinforce its authority over other small commerce. Ac-
ademic experts publicly supported the state’s claims for fengmao conservation. As
prominent conservation proponent, the former deputy director of the Municipal Plan-
ning Bureau and respected dean of the Tongji School of Architecture, Wu Jiang [伍江],
deemed, in the case of Jing’an Villas, a necessary lowering of the residential density
was better for its historic architecture.214
Interestingly, the argument against commerce in the residential neighborhood has
little historic precedent. In the 1930s, the ground floor spaces of some of the houses in
Jing’an Villas famously served commercial purposes. Part of the historic character that
was lent to the neighborhood was its mixed use of functions. Even the District Annals
from 1996 noted that Jing’an Villas historically had hotels, dance halls, billboards, and
also bars and cafés run by expats.215 Since its inception, the trajectory of commer-
cial activities in Jing’an Villas has been no more than a physical manifestation of the
changing political economy. In the 1980s, with waning central planning, small shops
and canteens opened in the courtyards of some of the Jing’an Villas’ houses. It was in
fact the Street Office that encouraged the small shops and canteens, partly to accom-
modate residential shopping needs but also pragmatically to resolve the employment
situation of numerous returnees from the ‘up-the-mountain and down-to-the-coun-
tryside movement.’ A small wonton shop at Number 97 run by a limping old man who
had been known for selling his small wontons to the pre-1949 elites of the neighbor-
hood became especially popular.216 He had learned his trade from his master before
Liberation. His stall, which re-opened in the 1980s, was as much a response to a city
returning to normalcy as the continuation of its commercial stride, drawing on the
demands of the neighboring residents as well as surrounding office workers.

284
 A series of discussions were tabled to debate whether fengmao conservation also
meant keeping the buildings’ residential function, especially in the context of West
Nanjing Lu’s commercial role in the city. Rather than dodging the crux of the problem
as many of the engaged academic experts tended to do, one voice that directly ad-
dressed the issue was that of the Tongji professor Zhang Song [张松]. He commented:
“facing the issues of reuse of residential buildings, the government needs to think more
holistically, including ownership rights of the building, whether activities such as the
opening of cafes affect the fengmao of the architecture, but also whether they impact
the lives of the neighbors; in cases where there is an impact, would there be appro-
priate compensation given in a timely manner as part of the policy.”217 In earlier dis-
cussions with Zhang, his directness in addressing fragmented ownership in existing
residences and identifying it as the determining role in future proposals is notable.218
His master’s student’s 2007 thesis focused on the small-scale lilongs located in large
blocks, or what the piece referred to as ‘piecemeal [零星]’ lilongs, in Shanghai’s urban
renewal processes. It was one of the few studies specifically looking at conditions on
the ground, and it had used Jing’an as a case study for delving into the set of economic
issues underlying the difficulties of developing city center lilong housing.219
Faced with the unsettled challenge of Jing’an Villas, one clever member of the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Shanghai Committee [政协] pro-
posed, in 2012, the wholesale relocation of the residents and to set up a special organiza-
tion for the reuse of the fengmao architecture.220 The committee member, the chairman
of the board of Shanghai Haodu Real Estate Development and Management Limited
[上海豪都房地产开发经营有限公司], also recommended the establishment of a reloca-
tion fund that accumulated earnings from earlier developments.221 The fund’s ac-
cumulation resembled the incremental development method in Tianzifang’s devel-
opments.222 Discussions of the difficulties of feasibly maintaining publicly-owned
housing had already surfaced in 2010.223 This proposal seemed to be one where, if
done right, almost everyone could benefit. Despite the feasibility of the proposal and
the business interests behind it, executing the negotiations with occupants required
political willpower.
Notwithstanding the number of years of drawn-out debate on the outlook for
Jing’an Villas, the compound’s wholesale shutdown in 2013 nonetheless still seems
harsh and shocking. The urban rumor was that one connected resident wrote thou-
sands of letters to officials to complain of the growing number of commercial activities.
This triggered and sealed the fate of Jing’an Villas’ small businesses.224 With more than
28 surveillance cameras installed, which was more than two on each of the 12 horizon-
tal lanes and main axis, the control that the District authorities wanted was now much
more ready to be realized.225
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

According to the newly appointed head of the District Administration for Industry
and Commerce, input from the Neighborhood Committee of 45 members, representing
some 960 families living in Jing’an Villas, and totaling approximately 4,000 residents,
were “unanimously for the cleanup effort.”226 He emphasized that the installation of
the entry system not only cut off the customers of the businesses, but also added secu-
rity to the neighborhood, thus improving the quality of life and safety. The official even
elaborated that the design for the system underwent multiple design iterations so that
the installed gates would not ruin the area’s historical fengmao.227

285
Fig. 24 Rendering for the possible upgrade of Jing’an Villas, 2009

These rationalizations were well practiced by the time of the official closure in 2013.
Officials attributed the influx of small businesses to the district-financed upgrade from
2009. One deputy director at the Administration for Industry and Commerce even
commented that “it is as if the small commerce plotted to enter the upgraded build-
ings together.”228 The disparaging tone taken by officials framed the exploitation of a
publicly funded investment for improving the living conditions of residents by enter-
prising, yet undeserving, private shopkeepers.
In the publicity war for the future of Jing’an Villas, both the local state and its al-
lies, and the small entrepreneurs and their supporters evoked Tianzifang in their ap-
peal to the public for support. Proponents of the shutdown emphasized Tianzifang’s
over-commercialization and its resident-business conflicts to magnify the negative
aspects of Jing’an Villas’ commercial conversions. The small entrepreneurs similar-
ly criticized the exponential rent rise and loss of residential life in Tianzifang to show
that they too wanted to safeguard the existing diversity of Jing’an Villas. Both sides
made claims to fengmao conservation in their visions for Jing’an Villas. The authorities
claimed that the return to a purely residential neighborhood would be best for feng-
mao, while the entrepreneurs saw themselves as contributing to Jing’an Villas’ histor-
ic ambiance. While more important political priorities took precedence, the District
rehearsed its justification for and the execution of the final shutdown.
In the interim development of Jing’an Villas, the small entrepreneurs took a risk
in thinking that their version of commercialization would be accepted. An image that
had accompanied the announcement of the 2009 upgrade of Jing’an Villas showed a
vision, which the entrepreneurs saw potential in taking part in: the rendering showed
the Jing’an Villas with small globalized commerce. (Fig. 24) The entrepreneurs’ imag-

286
 ined potential for Jing’an Villas did not match that of the Jing’an District officials.
For the district officials, Jing’an Villas would become Global Jing’an’s own version of
Xintiandi, not Tianzifang.229

The Neighboring En-Bloc Development

of Dazhongli
At the beginning of June 2013, more than half a dozen media outlets announced the
cleanup of Jing’an Villas. A few days earlier, at the end of May, the demolition of the
remaining ‘nail houses’ on the Dazhongli site were tweeted on the Chinese version of
Twitter, Free Weibo.230 The development of Jing’an Villas’ neighboring sites, described
in this section and the following one, will contextualize Jing’an Villas’ shutdown as
part the larger vision that the District has harbored for the West Nanjing Lu corridor
and show the state’s closure of the earlier urban loopholes of gaps and ambiguities in
favor of urban loopholes of exceptions.
The 62,800-square-meter site for the Dazhongli project, considered part of the de-
velopment of the subway Line 13 station, was the most recent and largest in the West
Nanjing Lu area. Bordered by Shimen Lu on the west, Qinghai Lu [青海路] on the east
and Weihai Lu on the south, the Dazhongli site was home to one of the largest, and in-
tact old-style lilongs called Dazhongli [大中里]. On the last day of 2002, the Hong Kong
developer HKR International [兴业国际], known for its Discovery Bay project on Hong
Kong’s Lantau Island, acquired, for 1.306 billion HKD (equivalent to 167 million USD ),
the land use right from the Jing’an District for Blocks 40 and 46. This was HKR ’s sec-
ond project in Shanghai, having collaborated with Kerry Properties on the residential
complex Central Residences, further west on West Nanjing Lu.
When reporting on the Dazhongli project’s acquisition and projected redevelopment,
media outlets noted how the Hong Kong developers had prospered from China’s prop-
erty boom.231 A story about how a penthouse unit in a tower by Hutchinson-Whampoa,
on the corner of Anfu Lu and Wulumuqi Lu, had commanded a more than 6,500-USD -
per-square-meter price in 2002, was cited as an example of the high profits generated
by commercial housing development. Against this backdrop, Dazhongli was framed
as one of the many developments by the teeming set of Hong Kong investors, includ-
ing Sung Hung Kai, New World, Hutchinson-Whampoa, Wheelock, Shui On, and more.
Their development experience, specializing in the high-end market, had not deterred
them from betting on an emerging market such as in Shanghai. As a result, these in-
vestors were cashing in on the booming residential market in China.232 Returns of 8 %
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

to 10 % for office developments and even more on residences, as reported by the repre-
sentatives of HKR , made the more than 4.5 billion HKD estimated investment for the
Dazhongli development worthy of the outlay. Plans for the northern part of Blocks 40
and 46 were for 160,000 square meters of commercial spaces, offices, hotels, and ser-
vice apartments. The southern part of the block was for 120,000 square meters of resi-
dences and small commerce.233 By announcing their objective of “creating a new land-
mark on Nanjing Lu [打造南京路的新地标],” HKR also showcased their intent to align
their development with the broader ambitions of the Jing’an District.234

287
 Although the District Planning Bureau had
announced that the relocation process would
start immediately after the signing of the land
lease in 2002, it wasn’t until four years later, in
April 2006 that the negotiations for the reloca-
tions began. A few months later, in November,
another Hong Kong development giant, Swire,
would buy a 50 % stake in HKR ’s Dazhong-
li project, for 1.265 billion HKD (equivalent
to 163 million USD ), an amount indicating
that the site’s value had already doubled.235
Swire was known for its early stake in the Cit-
ic Square development, which was completed
in 2000 and became part of Jing’an’s Golden
Triangle, two blocks away from the Dazhong-
li site. The new consortium’s development in-
vestment for the Dazhongli site also doubled
to more than 10 billion HKD .236
In 2006, as Ang Lee’s filming of Lust, Cau-
tion would bring this particular stretch of West
Nanjing Lu back into the popular imagination,
Fig. 25 Cover for the film Nostalgia [乡愁] made in the grandson of one of Dazhongli’s residents
Dazhongli in 2006 also made a documentary film called Nostalgia
[乡愁 ].237 (Fig. 25) The film tried to document
the daily lives in the Dazhongli before it underwent the demolition and relocation
process. Of the 1,600-some families and more than 7,000 residents, some were like
the 99-year old grandmother of filmmaker Shu Haolun [舒浩仑], who had lived in the
neighborhood for decades. Shu’s grandfather had come to Shanghai and worked in the
Siming Bank on West Nanjing Lu, opened by fellow Ningbo financiers.238 The house
that he had leased in Dazhongli was built in 1926 and was characteristic of the ur-
ban middle-class lilong housing of the time. The house had since been subdivided and
shared by up to eight families of up to 35 people at one point. Like many of Shanghai’s
lilongs, the proximity and density of inhabitation created uniquely local habits of spa-
tial appropriation, marking out territories of semi-private public spaces.239
The film Nostalgia’s portrayal of life inside the old-style lilong of Dazhongli cap-
tured the social changes wrought through the decades. The documentation of every-
day life inside one of Shanghai’s most prevalent forms of urban housing until the 1980s
was especially prescient in the context of the lilong’s rapid and large-scale disappear-
ance from Shanghai starting in the 1990s. The film showed the everyday life of open
doors, shared meals, vegetable peddlers, and hawkers selling traditional Shanghainese
snacks—the unique measures of their portioning served as reminders of the food ra-
tions under planned economy. Daily life carried on, despite the shiny office towers,
global brands, fast-food chains, and gated apartment towers that sprouted up nearby,
which represented Shanghai’s re-emergence as an international metropolis.240 While
the film lamented the loss of the intimate social life that took place in the lilong com-
munities, it was also optimistic about how everyday life had improved with newly

288
built housing. The reality of better living conditions, with indoor plumbing and pri-
vate infrastructure especially, was fundamental to the urban renewals that began in
the 1990s. Nostalgia for the past could not deter the inevitability of rapid urban trans-
formations. As the residents recognized, the erosion of the old social network, by the
growing number of non-Shanghainese migrants as well as by the exodus of the young-
er generation, had already changed the neighborhood.241 By the end of 2006, the Dis-
trict reported that almost 60 % of Dazhongli’s units, 1,224 families, had signed the relo-
cation contracts. The residents had agreed to the compensation and would be moving
to new homes in Taopu [桃浦], a northwest suburb of Shanghai.242
The site boundary for the redevelopment included the small block to the north of
the Dazhongli lilongs and across a small street called Wujiang Lu. Wujiang Lu was a
well-known food street that had been home to some famous local Shanghai eateries
such as Yang’s Shenjian Buns [小杨生煎] among an assortment of noodle and dump-
ling stalls that lined its low-rise street fronts on the northern edge of the Dazhong-
li neighborhood. Homemade snacks brought from the kitchens in the lilong were on
offer, as well as other services by tailors, cobblers, and barbers. The rising crop of
office complexes along West Nanjing Lu, filling up since the 2000s, fed the street’s
success. These mom-and-pop shops were not just affordable and convenient during
the busy lunchtime crunches. The unpolished and slightly run-down ambiance had
lent its products and services a credible authenticity, attracting visitors from other
parts of the city who came to shop on West Nanjing Lu. This eastern portion of Wuji-
ang Lu contrasted with, but also supplemented, the street’s western part, which was
straightened and redeveloped in the mid-1990s when the station for subway Line 2 was
built.243 In the western portion of the same street, goods provided by international
chains such as Starbucks and localized transnational chains like Wagas, offered what
the white-collar workers called “upgraded as the ‘luxury edition’ [升级成了’豪华版’]”
of the food street.244
Known at one point as “Love Lane” because of its meandering profile, Wujiang Lu’s
form came from its water-based origins. West Nanjing Lu, once named Bubbling Well
Road, was also meandering in profile until it was straightened in the western-expan-
sion of the International Settlement. In a 2006 Tongji University dissertation examin-
ing the origins of the road formation in the International Settlement, Wujiang Lu’s cur-
vature was just outside the boundary of its study of the road network’s evolution along
Bubbling Well Road.245 Perhaps not unrelated, the boundaries of the municipal-level
conservation plans drawn in 2004 also just excluded the historic street, even as the
plan emphasized the fragments of other streets for fengmao conservation.246 The con-
servation of the streetscape had been deemed one of the most important parts of feng-
mao conservation for Shanghai’s modern era urbanism. These exclusions in the 2006
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

research of the area may not have been deliberate. But they hinted at a prior knowledge
of the inevitable development of the block to the east of Shimen Lu and the irrevoca-
bility of the growth-propelled renewal that had already sealed the fate of the neigh-
borhood. By refraining from critical opposition, often seen in the form of research, and
more crucially, withdrawing in time—for it was too late anyway to change the course
of development—the proponents of conservation who were both in academia and in
the state bureaucracy had, in this act, tacitly consented to the area’s erasure. Fengmao
conservation, especially in the economic-growth-driven and resource-scarce district

289
 Figs. 26, 27 Dazhongli Control Plan with development outline, left; and proposed density, right, 2008

of Jing’an, had been an afterthought in planning around its more important develop-
ments that would generate income.
At the end of February 2008, the District Planning Bureau publicized plans for the
Dazhongli development,247 seeking public consultation as part of the requisite pro-
cedural transparency that was instituted with the 2003 revision of the Shanghai Ur-
ban Planning Regulation.248 (Figs. 26, 27) The unveiled plans, with a window for pub-
lic feedback until 7 March 2008, showed a change in the development’s program from
the inclusion of residences to an entirely commercial plan. Two towers designated as
hotel usage to the northern edge of the site were limited to 80 meters. Two more office
towers limited to heights of 170 meters and 250 meters were sketched out in the mid-
dle of the block closer to Shimen Lu at the western side of the block. Seeming to have
come from a new sales strategy, the programmatic shift to 300,000 square meters of
pure commercial space was notably rare, even for Shanghai. Nevertheless, develop-
ment proceeded, and at the end of 2008, construction for subway Lines 12 and 13 began.
The managing director of HKR International Limited, Victor Mou-ching Cha [查懋成],
reiterated a year later, on 6 March 2009—in fluent Shanghainese no less 249—the aspi-
ration for the Dazhongli project to become the new high-end shopping and recreation
hub of Shanghai. Cha was quoted to have said “believe me, in time, this place will defi-
nitely exceed Xintiandi [你相信我，这里到时候肯定将超过新天地].”250 The primary com-
petitor to the Jing’an development at that time was a project by another Hong Kong
development giant, Sung Hung Kai, on a 39,000-square-meter site on Huaihai Lu in
Xuhui, of the International Commerce Center (ICC). Like the Dazhongli development,
the ICC development was planned as an enormous complex of high-end shopping and
F & B in the podium of its IAPM mall, with Grade-A offices and serviced apartments in
the towers above. It too aimed at becoming a new retail and recreation hub. Huaihai Lu

290
and West Nanjing Lu have historically been Shanghai’s main retail spines. They have
largely maintained their status as such, despite the proliferation of competitive shop-
ping sub-centers, both in Puxi and Pudong, since economic liberalization accelerated.
The historic rivalry between the city center districts was played out in their newest
and nearly last chances—given the growing difficulty of granting land lease deals—for
large-scale developments in the forms of the ICC and Dazhongli projects.
A few days later, the start of the Dazhongli site’s construction was officiated with
the highly publicized relocation of an Excellent Historic Building to inside the devel-
opment zone. With the blessing of Tongji University’s Building Relocation Technology
Research Center, a 57-meter horizontal shift of what was once a garden-style private
house, which later became the administrative building of a middle school, began on
10 March 2009 on the southern part of the site.251 The red-bricked house was built in
the 1920s by the brothers Qiu Xinshan [邱信山] and Qiu Weiqing [邱渭卿], who made
their fortune in the imported dye business during World War One.252 Like many tra-
ditional families of China, they had built two identical houses next to each other that
were in a hybrid Western style.253 Reportedly known at the time for their daily morn-
ing habit of releasing their thousands of pigeons into the sky, the Qiu brothers had
also, sensationally, kept a garden menagerie with tigers, alligators, and pythons.254
With the start of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, the house to the east was leased to the
private Minli High School [民立中学]. In the 1950s, the school was nationalized. A fire
in 1942 destroyed the tower in the western building, and the school also took down
its tower in the eastern building for symmetry. Several sources also reported that the
house to the west was used as a clubhouse during the war by what was considered the
Chinese puppet government under Japanese control. In 1999, the municipality listed
the remaining building as Excellent Historic Architecture.255
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, visited Minli Middle School on a walk in
the area during the October 2001 APEC Meeting in Shanghai. Reports of his admiration
of the school’s architecture showed the building’s heritage importance.256 In Septem-
ber 2004, the school moved to a new building on Weihai Lu, leaving the 1,780-square-
meter premises of the historic building open for redevelopment. Although much of the
Chinese-language coverage only spoke of the move of the building as part of conserva-
tion efforts and elaborated on the building’s stylistic elements, the English-language
reporting gave away the envisioned future of the former Minli Middle School/Qiu resi-
dence: “the Jing’an government now plans to renovate the remaining ‘castle’ and turn
it into a club.”257 The proliferation of the club house, especially as an economically vi-
able means of reusing historic villas, as was elaborated in the previous chapter, rec-
onciled the growing emphasis on heritage architecture with the impetus for devel-
opment. Jing’an’s long-harbored Xintiandi aspirations, through the deployment of
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

a conserved historic architecture as value marker, were starting to come to fruition,

realized with the convergence of technical expertise and financial support.
Set back approximately 55 meters from the curb, the original location of the ga-
zetted heritage building would have been in the middle of the development of new
high-end retail and office spaces. Worries about the potential destruction of the for-
mer school building by alumni of the school were publicized when the demolition of
the Dazhongli lilongs began. (Fig. 28) Even though the outline of the development con-
trol area created a 30-odd meter buffer around the former Minli Middle School/Qiu

291
 residence in the conservation plan, the real es-
tate needs of the developer required a contin-
uous space for new construction rather than
a ‘donut’ condition around the historic build-
ing. (Fig. 29) After extended consultation with
experts, everyone involved, from the develop-
er to the municipal bureaucrats, agreed to the
horizontal relocation of the building to make
possible the continuous development of new
construction.258 Requirements for the feng-
mao building otherwise remained stringent. Fig. 28 The demolished site of Dazhongli, 2009
The developer not only had to keep the histor-
ic building, the government also required the developer to conserve and upgrade it.
The municipal Cultural Administration Committee and Real Estate Administration fur-
ther required the developer to keep intact the southern and northern elevation of the
historic building, as well as some of its ornamental details. The developer bought the
building for 2.4 million R MB , shelled out 7 million R MB for the move of the building,
and another 13 million R MB for its renovations.259 The fengmao investment, neverthe-
less, paled against the Dazhongli investment.
The expertise for horizontally relocating heritage architecture to make room for
new developments had been honed since economic transition began. Confidence in the
move of the former Minli Middle School was pronounced. The 2003 move of the Shang-
hai Concert Hall [上海音乐厅]—originally built in 1930 and weighing 5,850 tons—by
66 meters east along East Nanjing Lu, to make
space for the construction of Yan’an Lu elevat-
ed highway to its north, was cited as an im-
portant technical experience.260 One of the
earliest moves of what was considered his-
torically important architecture was the 1985
shifting of the Sanshan Guild Hall [三山会馆]
to make room for the construction of the feed-
er road to the Nanpu Bridge.261 The 30-meter
move of the Guild Hall took place with the
re-assembly of the original wooden build-
ing. It set a precedent in the shifting of monu-
ments to give room to infrastructural expan-
sions. The moving of the former Minli Middle
School thus was only an inherited solution to
resolve spatial conflicts that arose between
contemporary development and historic con-
servation. From the neighboring lilong houses
of Dazhongli, their dismantled red bricks were
conveniently used to lend authenticity to the
2009 repairs of Jing’an Villas.
Fig. 29 Plan of Dazhongli showing the overlap of
conservation plan and proposed relocation of heritage One month after the dramatic relocation of
building, 2009 the former Minli Middle School, the Detailed

292
 Plan for Dazhongli at Jing’an District Plot 40 and
46 [静安区40号、46号街坊（大中里）详细规划] de-
velopment was approved by the municipality
on 10 April 2009.262 What was visible inside
the 92,700-square-meter block, largely occu-
pied by the lilong compounds of Dazhongli,
were cutouts totaling 29,700 square meters.
This made the total developable area smaller.
(Fig. 30) One of the cutouts on the eastern side
of the block belongs to the national-level Re-
search Institute 711 of the China Shipbuilding
Group. This plot had been developed in 2000
into a complex comprising a 28-story residen-
tial tower on its south side and a 29-story of-
fice and residential mixed-use tower on its
north side joined by a three-story lobby and
clubhouse podium. The complex is called Sea
of Clouds Garden [云海苑]. It is noteworthy
that this development did not appear in the
development plan of the district from 2000,
Fig. 30 Plan of Dazhongli showing subway lines, and because of its ownership by a national- rather
with cutouts totaling 29,700 square meters, 2010 than municipal- or district-level state institute.
As a national-level state institute, it is exempt
from and impervious to any sort of municipal- or district-level planning.263 A mosaic of
national-level land owners in the city center districts would not only explain the irra-
tionality of resulting developments and incoherence within their surrounding context,
but, through their urban manifestations, also bring to light the political hierarchies as
well as the economic positions of the state institutions and enterprises that make pos-
sible these urban loopholes of exceptions.
To the northeast of the block, a low-rise hospital complex occupies a prominent
corner. The original house was built in 1936 as the home to real estate entrepreneur
Zhou Xiangyun [周湘云] who was originally from Ningbo.264 With a flat roof and rib-
bon windows, the house was a reinforced concrete structure with many of the then
latest infrastructural amenities, including a small lift for the three-story house and
plumbing fixtures. It had been designed by Davies, Brooke, and Gran Architects. With
the plaque of Villa Bayankara still visible at the entrance, the house was also home to
one of Shanghai’s first cars, which was given the license plate 001, being the first to
be issued. In 1943 when he died, Zhou was listed fifth in the tax roster of the Conces-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

sion-era Municipal Council. The house was recorded as given to the government in 1965,
though in reality it had already been occupied in 1950 by the Department for Foreign
Trade’s Huadong Bureau [华东局], a high-ranking part of the CCP bureaucracy. When
the bureau vacated the house, Yueyang Hospital [岳阳医院] took over the building and
grounds. Like the former Qiu residence that became Minli Middle School, it is also a
modern era garden-style house selected as Excellent Historic Architecture by the ga-
zetting of 1999.265 But with its hybrid Western and Chinese architectural details of
arches and colonnades, it is a contrast to the ivy-grown red-bricked ambiance of the

293
 former Qiu residence. Architecture pun-
dits, who were proliferating in the early
2000s, described the house as neoclassi-
cal. The former Zhou residence would lat-
er be catalogued under the international
modern style.266 (Fig. 31) Whether it was
due to the intractability of removing the
hospital tenant or whether the building’s
architecture style, with its white-tiled
façade and taut steel windows, would
have rendered the building unfit for the
nostalgia-inducing image of old Shanghai
Fig. 31 The Yueyang Hospital building that flourished in the popular imagina-
tion, the plot’s land use, in the publicized
development plan of 2009, remained listed as medical. This second of the gaps in the
Dazhongli development shows how the combination of building style and its contem-
porary function could yield different results in the building’s redevelopment. The fate
of the former Minli Middle School/Qiu Residence, relocated and reused as part of the
commercial development, differs dramatically from that of the former Zhou residence,
intact and still functioning in its post-Liberation role of a hospital.
Directly to the north of the hospital is a six-story office complex, the Mayflower
Commercial Building [五月花商务楼], built in 1996. The site belonged to the district Ad-
ministration for Grain in the land lease plan of 2000.267 To the west of the hospital is
a 31-story office tower, Oriental Zhongxin Tower [东方众鑫大厦], finished in 2004. A
Grade-A office building advertised as housing tenants such as Black and Decker and
Belkin, it was part of the District’s 2000 land-lease plan, and its plot was listed as be-
longing to the municipal CCP Propaganda Department.268 In the publicized 2009 de-
velopment plan, the land use of these two contemporary projects was listed as com-
mercial. Specifically, the plot of the Mayflower Commercial Building was listed for
financial industries and that of the Oriental Zhongxin Tower was listed as commercial.
More similar to the gap in the Dazhongli development block on which the Sea of Clouds
Garden sits, the third of the gaps belonged to institutional landlords that had devel-
oped the sites commercially. Along with the Sea of Clouds Garden compound, the mo-
saic of modernization had spearheaded the shift of the block from largely residential,
with a school, shops, and hospital to accommodate the local population, to one that is
entirely commercial. With the Four Seasons Hotel to the southwest of the block, the
Shanghai Television Station tower to the east of the block, the high-rise residential de-
velopment called Top of City [中凯城市之光] to the south, and the West Nanjing Lu of-
fice corridor to the north, the commercial tone was set for the realization of the goals
of the district for a Global Jing’an.
Disappointment soon mounted at the slow pace of the Dazhongli project’s devel-
opment. At the Shanghai Jing’an West Nanjing Lu Commercial Real Estate Summit
Forum [上海静安南京路商业地产高峰论坛] in September 2009, the district mayor an-
nounced the opening of the Dazhongli development to be 2012.269 There were whis-
perings in the background, however, of the hurdles faced by large-scale en-bloc devel-
opments that had aimed too high in the luxury market. Responding to the repeated

294
comparisons to the Champs-Élysées, Fifth Avenues, Oxford Streets, and Ginzas of
world capitals that the District has aspired to emulate, Chinese developer giant, Pan
Shiyi [潘石屹], retorted at the Forum that the developments along the West Nanjing Lu
corridor should not only be aimed at transnational corporations, but also supply the
growing number of national enterprises.270 Warnings of a property bubble also lin-
gered at the Forum, even as the District announced a cap on commodity residential
development at the same time.271
By early 2010, the Wujiang Lu food street to the north of the Dazhongli site was de-
molished and the horizontal moving of the heritage building of the former Minli Mid-
dle School was completed.272 Yet announcements of delays to Dazhongli’s various con-
structions continued.273 Technical difficulties with the subway construction, and the
measured and unhurried nature of Swire’s corporate decision-making structure, were
all cited as reasons for the almost decade-long development process.274 Although no
mention was publicly made of the obstinacy and growing cunning of residents—reg-
istering additional hukou to claim higher compensation, amongst other tactics—the
prolonged negotiations with these nail residents of the block were also another crucial
source of delay.275
With the opening of the World Expo in 2010, subway construction as well as relo-
cation negotiations with the remaining residents of the Dazhongli block halted. One
of the most important municipal projects for Shanghai as measured by investment
quantity, the Expo was a chance to present to the predominantly domestic visitors that
Shanghai was the role model for the nation. With the slogan literally translated to ‘the
city, allows life to be even better [城市,让生活更美好]’ confidence in the benefits of ur-
ban transformation could not be more palpable. The kinds of conflicts that relocation
negotiations raised were not suitable for the time.
Announcements for the beginning of above-ground construction were finally
made at the end of 2012.276 Misgivings about the lapsed progress for the project con-
tinued to fuel speculation that the construction delays had to do with the investors
waiting for the real estate prices to rise in order to ease cash flow.277 In May 2012, the
central government issued an updated Regulation for Handling of Unused Land [闲置
土地处置办法] to mitigate the growing number of vacated but undeveloped urban land
in prime locations.278 According to the new regulation, after a year of vacancy, a fee
would be imposed on the developer, and after two years, the land could be returned
to the leasing body. The clarifying of the terms of relocations was intended to be re-
solved prior to the issuance of land-lease. The target of this new legislation was the
type of decade-long stalling that had produced conspicuously empty sites in many
city center locations.
The block-scale development of the Dazhongli epitomized the preferred and prev-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

alent process for urban renewal to achieve economic targets, complimented by pro-
grams and designs for attracting international corporations and global brands. (Fig. 32)
In contrast to the demolition projects a decade earlier, where residents were more pli-
able and willing participants eager to move away to better lives, the rising prices for
compensation, the difficulties posed by savvy residents, and the additional demands
by the local state have all made developments increasingly expensive and laborious.
The more than decade-long development time frame of the Dazhongli project not only
seems to be increasing the investment outlay. The increasingly rigid demands by the

295
Figs. 32, 33, 34 Development Plan for Dazhongli 2009, above left; renderings for the Dazhongli project with view of
the conserved and relocated heritage, above right; and birds-eye view of the Dazhongli project, below right

District, requiring, for example, that the exits for subway Line 13 be integrated into
the commercial base of the building, also have added to the construction costs.279 The
new-fangled emphasis on fengmao conservation also added additional costs and re-
quests from the District for future developments. (Fig. 33) All this has made it clear
that such large en-bloc urban renewal projects in Shanghai’s city center are becoming
increasingly rare. Future projects would therefore have to be nimbler and less mono-
lithic. (Fig. 34)
The Dazhongli development in many ways is a continuation of the Golden Trian-
gle projects. By engaging large international investors with real estate experience, the
Jing’an District is assured that the outcome of the development would contribute to its
vision for a Global Jing’an and a Midtown of China along the West Nanjing Lu corridor.

Zhang Gardens:
Jing’an Develops Its Heritage Value
If the Dazhongli project was the last of the large block-scale demolition and rede-
velopment projects in the city center, then the developments of the Zhang Gardens
block—just to the west of the Dazhongli project and east of Jing’an Villas—suggests
a new process for urban upgrade in the context of heritage emphasis. The location of
two new subway stations and tracks for subway Lines 12 and 13, begun before the 2010
World Expo, under the block adds an additional dimension of transport-oriented de-
velopment. The construction of the subway line 2 in the 1990s was crucial in shaping a

296
commercial new spine for real estate de-
velopments along its strategically located
stations. Similarly, the construction of the
two new subway lines and the land allot-
ted for the construction of their stations
are also closely connected to the redevel-
opments of the old, lower-density urban
fabric into new, higher-density commer-
cial programs.
Located on two blocks, one just west
of Maoming Lu [茂名路] for subway Line 12,
Fig. 35 Corner of Weihai and Maoming Lu, where demolition
on the eastern side of Jing’an Villas, (Fig. 35) for the construction of subway Line 12 has left the sides of
and the other under the parallel Shimen Jing’an Villas exposed, 2012
Lu for subway Line 13, at the end of the
adjacent block to the east, the connection of the two stations required a linkage much
like the long bar connecting the two weights at opposite ends of a barbell. The layout of
subway station connections in Chinese cities is noticeably dispersed, especially in the
long distances between connecting stations. (Fig. 36) Partly attributable to the difficul-
ty of underground construction below existing urban structures, especially in dense
city center areas, the barbell, rather than a shorter dumbbell model predominates in
Chinese cities. Since land is needed for infrastructure development and for the public
good, acquisition is easier to justify than for purely commercial development, and the
barbell leads to a maximization of land acquisition. In the Chinese context, land clear-
ance, in the name of public infrastructure construction, also provided the grounds
for some of the largest-scale demolition and renewal projects in many city center ar-
eas.280 Some of the largest shopping and office complexes in Shanghai are visibly locat-
ed on top of subway stations, with some of the longest interchanges. Conversely, land
around subway stations also increases in value because of the proximity to transport.
Local media touted the value increases for land around stations as well as the guaran-
teed commercial rental rates of plots.281
Redevelopments are increasingly facing growing challenges, especially with ris-
ing compensation demands and bureaucratic transparency required of residential re-
location. Residents are growing increasingly wily in their demands and negotiations,
driving profit margins down through protracted development timelines. This is exem-
plified by the delays and complications of the Dazhongli project. Such large-scale city
center developments are thus growing increasingly rare. Smaller developments that
are more acupunctural and less cost-intensive seem to be a new direction for renewal.
The developments around the West Nanjing Lu stations for Lines 12 and 13 under
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

construction, while continuing to adhere to the Jing’an District’s developmental am-

bitions, were also adapting to new planning strategies that capitalize on the growing
value of heritage architecture. Recognition of the growing scarcity of city center land
for redevelopment,282 together with the built density limits set by conservation poli-
cies, have made the rare plots even more valuable. In November 2014, one of the plots
cleared for the station for subway Line 12 became one of the most expensive pieces of
land to go up for bidding in Shanghai, increasing the pressure for it to fulfill develop-
mental expectations.

297
 Fig. 36 Plan for the metro station connection, 2008

The lilong neighborhood called Zhang Gardens [张家花园] sits between the two ends
of the barbells of the subway development. In the early 1990s, the area was slated for
en-bloc demolition. In the 1993 plan drawn up by the municipality, the Zhang Gardens’
lilongs were to be replaced by point towers set in a loose landscape of plazas and pedes-
trian ways. But with the 1995 central government approval for subway Line 2 and the
subsequent relocation and land clearance of the part of the block south of West Nan-
jing Lu between Maoming Lu and Shimen Lu for the construction of the subway station,
plans changed. The 1998 plans showed the development of Wujiang Lu as a pedestrian
street, framed by high-rises along Nanjing Lu to the north, under which would be the
station, and a row of commercial buildings to the south.283 In this design, the pedes-
trian street of Wujiang Lu was given such high priority that the north-south Shimen
Lu ended in a dead-end in the plan.
This plan was not followed through. When fengmao conservation arrived in the late
1990s, the Zhang Gardens would fall inside the municipal conservation plan’s bound-
aries for Jing’an’s patch-worked fengmao jurisdiction. In 1999, the Jing’an District Com-
prehensive Conservation Plan [静安区总体保护规划] included the Zhang Gardens as a
conserved neighborhood.284 That same year, the three lilongs along Maoming Lu on
the western side of the Zhang Gardens block, Deqingli [德庆里], Rongkangli [荣康里]
and Zhenxingli [震兴里], would also be gazetted by the municipality as Conservation
Units.285 In place of the demolition and redevelopment of Zhang Gardens, Dazhongli
fell just outside of the conservation boundary. Whereas in the early 1990s Zhang Gar-
dens had been evaluated to be the site for new development and Dazhongli was kept,
the fates of the two blocks were swapped. Dazhongli was land-leased by the District
in 2002, and was demolished for redevelopment.
In the early 2000s, a series of plans were drawn for Zhang Gardens to study the po-
tentials of the neighborhood and how to redevelop the area. In June 2002, a Shanghai
Jing’an District Taixing Lu Zhang Gardens Neighborhood Block Conservation and Renewal

298
Plan [上海市静安区泰兴路张家花园街坊保护更新规划] was drawn up by the developers
of the Golden Taiyuen Group [金大元有限公司].286 (Fig. 37) In it, a study of the potential
reuse for the conserved neighborhood was first drawn up. The Golden Taiyuen Group
is a private developer that has been involved with luxury residential developments in
Pudong. Its involvement in Zhang Gardens in the early 2000s suggested the District’s
interest in a private partnership for the renewal of the neighborhood. At the end of
2003, following the municipal designation of the West Nanjing Lu Historic Cultural
Fengmao Conservation Area [南京西路历史文化风貌保护区], the District Planning Bu-
reau also issued a Plan for the Conservation and Renewal of Jing’an District Conservation
Neighborhoods [静安区保护街坊保护与更新规划] in February 2004.287 In this plan, Zhang
Gardens was secured from future land lease of the sort under consideration with the
likes of the Golden Taiyuen Group.
The District engaged a team from Tongji University in July 2004 to produce a Jing’an
District West Nanjing Lu Jiedao Community Development Plan [静安区南京西路街道社区
发展规划]. The purpose of the study was to consider how to reconcile the needs of resi-
dential life in the conservation buildings with that of the District’s developmental de-
mands. Tongji’s team of academics conducted extensive surveys and interviews in an
area that partially overlapped the conservation area. They collected data on the educa-
tional level, financial status, employment type, and residential tenure type of the res-
idents in the neighborhood around Shimen Lu. Although most of the findings remain
inaccessible, an article by one of the researchers was published in 2006, critiquing the
growing socio-spatial segregation that resulted from rapid commercial-oriented devel-
opments in the old residential neighborhoods.288 The piece pointedly cited the 91.10 %
investment capital pumped into commercial real estate development compared to the
meager 8.49 % put in for basic infrastructure and upgrade projects, resulting in the
uniquely Jing’an characteristic of high-end commercial spaces.289 But more crucial-
ly, the socio-economic differentiations the research found were not only between the
adjacent newly constructed gated residential community and older lilongs, but also
the growing disparity inside old lilong neighborhoods, where new residents interfaced

Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

Fig. 37 Plan for Wujiang Lu redevelopment at the West Nanjing Lu and Shimen Lu intersection, 1998

299
 with old locals.290 Concurrently, several master’s theses from Tongji delved into clos-
er spatial analyses, complementing the study on spatial fragmentation.291 One mas-
ter’s thesis zoomed in to analyze the pedestrian networks, spatial hierarchies, and
public use of the open spaces in old neighborhoods like that of the Zhang Gardens.292
The studies pointed out that small commerce, which accommodated residential life
and enlivened the open spaces of lilong neighborhoods, provided livelihoods to many
working-age residents who had been left behind by the economic liberalization’s dis-
solution of socialist-era ‘iron rice bowls.’ The low-cost services and goods of small com-
merce had, in turn, also supported the everyday life of many aging residents. These ag-
ing residents, often with modest incomes, have remained in the city center. In March
2005, the scholars completed the West Nanjing Lu Jiedao Community Development Plan.
Unlike the extensive historic studies for the western end of the French Concessions,
which began in the early 2000s at Tongji University, Jing’an District’s portion of the for-
mer International Settlement was relatively under-studied.293 Whether the rapid dem-
olitions had rendered historic studies irrelevant, or whether there was a fundamental
under-appreciation of the area that encompassed Jing’an District, the lack of interest
and hence study, had gone hand in hand with the plans for its modernization. The pau-
city of research has made the implementation of conservation policies selective on the
ground to suit the economic visions of the District.
While the academic analyses confirmed what most residents already knew as the
growing conversion of prime city center residential neighborhoods into profitable
high-end commercial developments, the building glut already set in motion contin-
ued. At the end of 2005, the new high-rise luxury residential towers, ranging from 25 to
29 stories high, of the apartments Crystal Pavilion [经典茂名公寓] opened at the north-
ern end of the Zhang Gardens block. The buildings to the north of the Crystal Pavilion
site had been owned by five main district- or municipal-level state-owned enterpris-
es. They had been rapidly demolished in the 1990s. Their plots were consolidated and
redeveloped into the first commercial towers along West Nanjing Lu in the late 1990s
with the construction of subway Line 2.294 The sites of the Crystal Pavilion had been
largely residential. In the same stroke of subway development, the vacated plots be-
came consolidated and allotted to the District’s Subway Office.295 The Subway Office
made good use of the land that had been cleared of residents and acquired for subway
construction. The Crystal Pavilion plot, and the one adjacent to the east of it, rose to
become profitable new high-end residences.
Two years later, four more towers of luxury residences ranging from 27 to 32 sto-
ries, called Four Seasons Gardens [静安四季苑] opened on the plot to the east of Crystal
Pavilion. Palmer and Turner Architects, a firm that played an important role in pro-
ducing many Concession-era modern buildings in Shanghai and later in Hong Kong,
designed the complex. With their contemporary design, recreational amenities, and
exclusive clubhouses, the local newspapers deemed the two residences to be exempla-
ry for “satisfying the successful personage’s high-ended pursuits, shaping the mod-
el for Shanghai’s most tasteful and status symbolic residences [满足成功人士的高品位
追求，塑造上海最具品味和身份象征的名宅典范].”296 The quality residents in the two new
tower developments were well matched to the nearby high-income commercial and of-
fice hub of the Golden Triangle. The ease of access to the Wujiang Lu pedestrian street,
with its plentiful options for food and entertainment, and to the West Nanjing Lu sub-

300
 way stations, marked their advantageous locations as matchless.297 Thus, despite the
2005 study’s critiques of growing social segregation and highlighting the qualities of
the older neighborhoods, the District’s implementation of West Nanjing Lu corridor’s
upgrade continued.
Mid-year 2008, it was announced that the central government’s State Council ap-
proved proposals for Shanghai’s subway Lines 12 and 13. Public consultation for the
Detailed Plan for Construction on the Plot for the West Nanjing Lu Stations of Subway Lines
12 and 13 and their Interchange Passage in the Jing’an District [静安区地铁12、13号线南京
西路站及换乘通道地块修建性详细规划] (referred from hereon as the Detailed Plan) was
opened on 19 September.298 The publicized plans demarcated the ‘barbell’ shape for
the subway stations’ interchange on the three underground plans. While the under-
ground specifications were still largely diagrammatic, a map labeled as ‘the area for
relocation’ showed the barbell shape’s repercussions for the existing above-ground
structures. The accompanying announcement confirmed the demolition of the exist-
ing buildings as necessary for the underground constructions to accommodate the
new stations.299 Three detailed plans showed the proposed new constructions for the
three parts of the ‘barbell,’ locating the grade-level subway exits and the public plazas
for the pedestrian spill-out.300
The document also clarified that, in accordance with the municipal conservation
plan’s decree for height and volume in the West Nanjing Lu Historic Cultural Fengmao
Conservation District, especially along the two sides of the top-graded Fengmao Street
of Maoming Lu, the total rebuilt volume of the two western parts of the ‘barbell’ would
be lower than their original built density. Higher volumes in the eastern part of the ‘bar-
bell,’ which borders the much wider Shimen Lu, would compensate the reduction. The
new volumes across Shimen Lu to the east in the Dazhongli development, as well as the
high-rises already existing in the southeastern part of the block, including the Wang-
wang Tower [旺旺大厦] and the Four Seasons Hotel, justified the 19-story commercial
office tower on the southern part of the eastern ‘barbell.’ The total reconstructed vol-
ume of all three parts of the ‘barbell,’ nevertheless, would be less than that of the orig-
inal built density. For a District where urban densification has been crucial to its eco-
nomic growth, the respect accorded the municipal conservation plan seemed to show
a change of tack for development. Additionally, a number of selected historic buildings
to be demolished would be reconstructed, in respect of fengmao conservation. (Fig. 38)
Coincidentally, on the same day as the public announcement of the Detailed Plan,
an unlimited company called UK Refiners Architectural Consulting was incorporated
in Hong Kong. Looking at its name, it is obvious that, despite the explicit attachment
of foreign connections, there were some local connections at work.301 UK Refiners
Architectural Consulting would later become the masterplanner for the Plot 110–19, the
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

western ‘barbell’ of the transit-driven development neighboring Jing’an Villas.

Tongji University was also again engaged in The Study of the Conservation and Use for
Jing’an District’s Number 42 Neighborhood (known as the Zhang Gardens) [上海静安区42街坊
（张家花园）保护利用研究], which began in April 2008. Continuing until the end of 2009,
the public announcement by the Jing’an District’s news website called the project the
“Zhang Gardens Conservation and Strategies Research [张家花园保护与策略研究].”302
The word ‘strategy’ instead of ‘use’ in the title for the project may have been used so
as not to alarm the public with the possibilities of use exchanges. Use exchanges usu-

301
 Fig. 38 Conservation plan for the Zhang Gardens block, 2013

ally suggest residential relocation and compensation, associated with demolition and
redevelopment projects. What was also released was that the meetings between the
executing district bodies of the Jing’an Real Estate Group, Jing’an Exchange Group
[静安置换集团]—the corporatized entities of the District created following economic
liberalization—and the academics were fruitful exchanges of theory and practice.303
At the same time, publicized panels with expert discussions followed the public con-
sultation for the Detailed Plan in early October 2008.304 The feedback must have been
positive. Two months later, in early December, the two stations under planning began
construction.
In April 2009, while art studios held open houses at the informally settled art-
ist compound of Weihai Lu 696, and the municipality approved the Detailed Plan for
Dazhongli’s development, Jing’an District announced an initiative for the ‘Cultural
Imprint Project [城市文化印记项目].’305 In the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo’s open-
ing in the summer, the Cultural Imprint Project was one of many programs kicked off
for its impending influx of visitors, highlighting Shanghai as the nation’s role model.
Renovations of Zhang Gardens as part of the Cultural Imprint Project began in June
2009.306 A three-bay shikumen house, along Zhang Gardens’ main lane, was renovated
and renamed the “Zhang Gardens Grand Living Room [张园大客堂].” It was known that
the house became a citizen-formed primary school in the early 1940s and was merged
with another school in the 1980s. After the renovation, old furniture, photos as well
as an old movie projector were brought to the Grand Living Room to revive the ambi-
ance of old Shanghai.
An article by Lou Chenghao [娄承浩], an author of numerous books on heritage
architecture in Shanghai, came out just as the renovations began, offering a histor-
ic account of the area, concluding with a call for the revival of Zhang Gardens: “to
use the former site of the Zhang Gardens, commemorate its history, and rebuild its

302
 brand [利用张园遗址，追忆张园历史， 重塑张园
品牌].”307 Lou’s wish list for the area seemed
to be put in place. In the ground floor area, fur-
nished with Chinese-style tables and benches,
the Grand Living Room looked like a historic
teahouse. The space had become a communi-
ty center for the neighborhood’s elderly resi-
dents. With growing interest in the heritage
of the old buildings, a local resident came out
to confirm that the building had indeed been
a night school to an underground resistance
movement of the CCP, 308 enhancing its his-
toric and more importantly, revolutionary cre-
dentials.
In the land-scarce and economically ambi-
tious inner city district that has set the exam-
ple for Shanghai’s urban renewal, the cultural
heritage of historic buildings in the neighbor-
hood, had, until the 2010 World Expo, been
largely superseded by developmentalist im-
Fig. 39 Installed new gateway to Zhang Gardens, 2010 peratives. It was in the preparation for the
Expo, bringing together the numerous depart-
ments of the District in a concerted effort of tourism artifact production, that the Dis-
trict unearthed the economic value embedded in the remaining historic architecture.309
The Grand Living Room was opened at the start of 2010 to great fanfare.310 After the
Lunar New Year at the end of February 2010, Jing’an District announced plaques com-
memorating 50-odd former residences of historic luminaries in the District.311 One of
the many former dwellings of Mao, just south of the Zhang Gardens block, had already
been a national-level heritage site since 1977. Visitors and guests were promised, in ad-
dition, at every hundred meters or so, descriptions of former homes of some of China’s
famous sons and daughters, who had either lived or passed through the city in the
Republican era. As part of the commemorations, a new 28-meter-high metal gate was
also installed at the northern end of the main artery through Zhang Gardens. (Fig. 39)
In the form of the shikumen, the old stone threshold entryways for the row housing,
the metal form was a contemporary tribute to a newly recognized and honored part
of Shanghai’s past.312

Zhang Gardens’ Cosmopolitan History, Nostalgia for the Future

Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

With the bestowment of honors, the historic significance of the Zhang Gardens neigh-
borhood was increasingly broadcast through the popular media preceding the 2010
World Expo. The site of Zhang Gardens belonged to an English merchant who had
sold it, in August 1882, to a merchant from Wuxi named Zhang Shuhe [张叔和]. Zhang
turned the 22-mou site into a garden which he named Weichun Gardens [味莼园].313
Even though the Weichun Gardens had many Chinese elements, such as inscriptions
of historical references in the built space, the park itself was built with lawns, ponds,
and flora that more resembled the 19th century English gardens than the traditional

303
Figs. 40, 41 Historic postcards of Zhang Gardens with Arcadia Hall, above; and amusement park, below

vernacular gardens of the region. The Weichun Gardens also came to be called the Gar-
dens of the Zhang Family [张家花园], or simply Zhang Gardens [张园], named after its
patron. In 1885, the park was opened to the public, at first with no admission charge. In
1892 a Western-style building was built at the center of the park, named Arcadia Hall
[安垲第]. Arcadia Hall was two stories, with a lookout tower in one corner that was one
of the highest places in the city.314 Many visitors came to Arcadia Hall, which could
hold more than 1,000 people. It became the place for speeches and events in the ensu-
ing decades. From postcards of the time, the park and its buildings looked much like
other amusement parks of its era. (Fig. 40, 41)
The historian Xiong Yuezhi [熊月之] related the rise of the Zhang Gardens to the cul-
tural hybridity of modern era Shanghai.315 He posited that, as the largest public space
in Shanghai, with a range of activities, from restaurants, teahouses, different kinds
of theaters, meeting halls, exhibition spaces, to gyms and photography stations, the
park revealed a modernity of the rapidly growing and industrializing city.316 From the
first electric lights to the first bicycles, the accoutrements of the park were much in
the spirit of a cosmopolitan Shanghai that was adapting all manners of new, imported,
and largely Western goods and habits. One article, “Back then the Zhang Gardens was
the Small World Expo,” used a comparison made by the deputy director of the Jing’an
Cultural and Historic Museum.317 This deputy director was a frequent spokesman for
the area’s upgrade. He compared Zhang Gardens’ assortment of cultural novelties and
technological innovations to those at the 2010 World Expo. Drawing the link between
international showcases at the present-day Expo and the historic Gardens did not just
make the illustrious past of the Jing’an more relevant. Its claims to Shanghai’s histor-
ic cosmopolitanism also made the city’s contemporary development and global inte-
gration seem inevitable.
That the old Zhang Gardens could harbor the contemporary aspirations of pres-
ent-day Shanghai supports an underlying narrative of the city’s revival and re-global-
ization. More compelling for contemporary interests, especially the District authori-
ties who had decided to put in the financial and manpower resources to renovate and
commemorate the area, were the contributions Arcadia Hall and its gatherings made
to China’s nation-founding. Amongst the noted events to have been given stage in the
Zhang Gardens were the speeches and events helmed by noted Chinese modernist
thinkers and reformers who espoused a growing nationalism that was also grounded
in a fundamental restructuring of China’s feudal socio-political system. Speeches by

304
 the likes of Sun Yat-sen and Cai Yuanpei
have been touted as the highlights of Ar-
cadia Hall, arousing a long-stifled nation-
al spirit that was beginning to stir. Events
representing China’s modernity also fa-
mously took place in the Zhang Gardens.
The Zhang Gardens hosted the first mod-
ern wedding ceremony in 1905. The pub-
lic cutting of the mandatory ‘queue’ hair-
style in 1911, which the Manchus rulers
Fig. 42 Historic photo of a gathering outside of Arcadia Hall had forced on all non-Manchu Chinese
men during their victory over the previ-
ous and last ethnically Han ruled dynasty, also famously took place in the Zhang Gar-
dens. The battles of the patriotic kungfu master, Huo Yuanjia [霍元甲], against for-
eign competitors—many contemporary audiences knew of Huo Yuanjia from the Hong
Kong TV serial, which had gripped the Chinese audience at the start of economic lib-
eralization in the 1980s318—were also fought on Zhang Gardens’ grounds in the 1910s.
The dissemination of these tales was part of the re-narration of the Zhang Gardens’ past
and the tales give the place a vital importance in the nascent movements towards na-
tionhood against the omnipresence of foreign and capitalist subjugation in the early
20th century. The tales, moreover, reinforced the importance of the Zhang Gardens to
the city and nation.
Xiong’s extensive analysis posited the Zhang Gardens’ radical origins as the spa-
tial manifestation of China’s modern urbanity.319 The cultural hybridity of the Zhang
Gardens’ form and the programmatic fusion of its recreation spaces showed a culmi-
nation of local pragmatism with cosmopolitan knowledge transfers.320 The accessibil-
ity of Zhang Gardens attested to Shanghai’s modern era conception of public space, a
new notion for its time. This open and accessible urban public space, crucially, served
as a platform for the discourse essential to China’s emerging modernity. From wom-
en’s bound feet to education modernization, the discussions held at Zhang Gardens
highlighted the political freedoms that were unique to Shanghai’s Concessions, which
were extraterritorial and exempted from imperial persecution. Debates that would
have been politically too sensitive in Chinese cities took place in Shanghai because
of the Concessions’ special immunity from censorship and oppression under the Qing
government. Conversely, the intellectual openness of the Concession city also drew
the most reform-minded contemporary thinkers to the growing metropolis.321 The
role that a place like Zhang Gardens played within this historic context was of utmost
importance: its public space was instrumental to a growing discourse on the nation’s
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

modernization and the foundations of what the CCP called the ‘New China.’ (Fig. 42)
This narrative arc was of particular importance to the contemporary media. Articles
such as “Xinhai Revolution and Shanghai’s Zhang Gardens: Revolutionary Idea’s Ori-
gins” attributed the founding of modern China and its ensuing revolution to the for-
mer pleasure park,322 propelling the revival of Zhang Gardens in the lead-up to the
2010 World Expo.
By the mid-1910s, many new spaces for modern entertainment arose in Shanghai,
including the renowned New World [新世界] and Great World [大世界], responding to

305
 the kind of consumption growth in the metropolis that accompanied industrializa-
tion and modernization.323 As the Zhang Gardens lost its former luster, it eventual-
ly stopped operations.324 It was also in the late 1910s that the growing population
of the city compelled the then more suburban areas, where the Zhang Gardens was
located, to be developed. The International Concession’s Municipal Council pushed
through infrastructural developments in preparation for further urban development.
Road straightening of the former Bubbling Well Road, now West Nanjing Lu and the
construction of north-south traversing Moulmein Road, now Maoming Lu, took place
at the end of the 1910s. In 1919, the Zhang Gardens’ site was sold off to a merchant called
Wang Kemin [王克敏] and developed into the lilong residences that are visible today.
All that is known and reported of how the lilong housing of Zhang Gardens came
about following the dismantling of the park grounds is that the residences were pres-
tigious in 1920s Shanghai. With a luxury of space that was unseen in other denser
lilong housing developments at the time, the individuation of styles in the different
rows of the Zhang Gardens development also attested to the financial resources of its
target residents. This individuation of styles distinguished Zhang Gardens from other
lilong compounds with their repetition of uniform designs. A few concerned citizens
have even traced the original names of the lilong homes to distinguish one from an-
other.325 The locale’s ideologically embedded beginnings faded in time. Everyday life
took place in its stead. Only the more public functions, such as the former schoolhouse
that has been converted to the Zhang Gardens Grand Living Room—recently discov-
ered to have had revolutionary affiliations—and the remains of the Arcadia Hall could
be showcased with the re-assembling of their radical beginnings.
Nevertheless, in the run-up to the 2010 World Expo, the district-wide renovations
of historic monuments and neighborhoods were aimed at attracting visitors from the
bright shiny international-branded shopping malls of West Nanjing Lu to an ideologi-
cally charged old Shanghai.326 The historic monuments and neighborhoods were high-
lighted to remind the rest of country, who were visiting Shanghai, of the city’s historic
struggles and contributions to the building of the nation. Shops selling antique toys,
furniture from old Shanghai, and cheongsams—the side-buttoned dresses that were
worn by women in Republican China—were promoted on adjacent streets like Shanxi
Lu [陕西路].327 The Republican era and its artifacts were again presented not only as
part of the insurgency against imperial domination, but as reminders of the hardships
the past generations had endured to make possible the success and prosperity of the
present. The District’s leadership, similarly, imagined a revival of the Zhang Gardens
lilong to revive the ambiance of its romantic past.328 As the Jing’an Cultural and His-
toric Museum’s deputy director and spokesman lamented, “today many of the young
people already don’t understand the era of their parents’ lives; here in the old long-
tang, they can get a glimpse of living conditions of their parents [现在很多的年轻人已
经不了解父母那个年代的生活了，在这个老弄堂里，他们可以窥见父母当年的生活状态].”
Whether cafés or barber shops, the desire was for the kind of furnishing, accessories,
and structures that looked like they came from that past era,329 albeit one that re-
mained ambiguous in its periodization or references. The ambiguity was perhaps more
conducive to the throngs of visitors who were more interested in a simplified con-
structed authenticity than the complexity and nuances of history. A Chinese-Ameri-
can photographer who conducted tours inside Zhang Gardens, using tricycles, antique

306
 Fig. 43 Plan for the redevelopment of Zhang Gardens, 2009

clothing, and other props to offer his visitors an authentic experience set to the back-
drop of the old houses, was cited by the authorities as the kind of historic recognition
that the area should garner.330

News Plans for an Old Area, New Ways for Heritage Conservation
In spring 2010, the District Planning Bureau publicized the Urban Design and Detailed
Control Plan for Partial Adjustment to Block 42 (Zhang Gardens) and Eastern Part of Block 43
[静安区42号街坊（张家花园）及43号街坊东侧地块城市设计与控详局部调整方案] for public
consultation in mid-July 2010.331 The authorities announced that the construction of
the new subway stations “brought opportunity to the conservation and renewal of the
Zhang Gardens [给张家花园的保护与更新带来了契机].”332 The plan was a follow-up to the
2008 plan for the subway station locations, and further detailed the programmatic in-
troductions for new construction as well functional changes to existing buildings. To
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

align with the designation of Fengmao District, the plan kept most of the existing vol-
ume of buildings. (Fig. 43) It also abided by its objective of “holistic-ness, authenticity,
sustainable development [整体性，原真性，可持续发展].” Especially for where the sub-
way stations were to be located, and which plots required demolition, the plan followed
a strategy of ‘demolish one give back one [拆一还一].’ Reconstruction of destroyed build-
ings was the plan’s tactic for conserving and reviving the area’s fengmao.333
There were many differences between the 2008 plan and that of 2010 for the block.
Firstly, a fragmentation of plots aligned more with the subway intervention. Along

307
 with the plot boundaries, functional designations were also changed. The new plan
replaced the largely residential functions with entirely commercial functions. It was
clear that the area around the exit of the subway station was too valuable to remain
residential. It would, inevitably, become commercial due to market forces, so the plan
officially outlined their commercial designations. Phase one development, outlined in
the 2010 revised development plans for the Zhang Gardens area, was of the east-west
connector between the two ends of the ‘barbell.’ The 2010 plan changed the land use
for the site of the Gonghui Hospital [公慧医院]. Like the residential area directly to its
west, the functional designation for Gonghui Hospital became that of a boutique hotel,
totaling about 12,680 square meters of built area together with the adjacent plot. More
specifically, the historic building at the center of the Gonghui Hospital complex was
also marked for reconstruction. The building had been built in 1932 by the well-known
Hungarian architect László Hudec, who had designed many of Shanghai’s modern era
monuments, and was built as a villa called the P. C. Woo residence.
In fall 2011, four garden-style houses disappeared from the enclosed building sites
for the stations of subway Lines 12 and 13. The disappearance aroused suspicions that
the demolition tide, which had swept through the District since the 1990s, was again
sweeping clear heritage buildings on new construction sites. News emerged that the
houses were in fact dismantled and put into storage for safekeeping until their later
reconstruction.334 A 5,000-square-meter warehouse in the suburban Jiading District
became the interim storage for the heritage buildings,335 while the construction area
underwent clearance and redevelopment. Two of the buildings had been under the ju-
risdictions of the District’s Grain Administration and the municipality’s CCP commit-
tee. The other two had been publicly managed residences shared by multiple families.
Like other fragmented residences they were in terrible condition. Despite the state of
wear that the buildings suffered, “the four buildings are kept because of their rich his-
toric and cultural content [之所以要保留这四幢建筑，是因为其具有丰富的历史文化内涵],”
explained the spokesperson for the Jing’an Architecture Ornament Company [静安
建筑装饰公司],336 one of the more than two dozen subsidiaries of the Jing’an Real Es-
tate Group that was responsible for the disassembly and storage of the buildings. That
the historic buildings’ heritage value warranted the labor-intensive tasks of extensive
surveying, documentation, and cataloguing of their material compositions, tectonic
constructions, and hardware parts from the old construction made clear the signifi-
cance of the effort.337 Just as the feat of the former Minli Middle School/Qiu residence’s
horizontal relocation has become the norm for fengmao conservation, so the disman-
tling, storage, and reconstruction of historic buildings showed a newer way of feng-
mao conservation to make way for economically driven urban development. A new
method of displaced safekeeping of valuables—even more drastic than that of the few-
hundred-meter move—emerged.
On the east side of the Zhang Gardens block, the southern corner along Shimen
Lu was already occupied by the 38-story Four Seasons Hotel and the plot just north
of it, by a 21-story tower. Both were part of the pre-2000 Jing’an developments. In the
2010 Zhang Gardens plans, a new 24-story tower, along with three low-rise buildings
visibly replaced a proposed set of lower-rise commercial buildings that were closer to
the original morphology on site in the 2008 plan. On closer look, three of the four low-
rises are the heritage buildings that have been dismantled, catalogued, and stored. In

308
Fig. 44 Axonometric view of the Zhang Garden’s redevelopment in relation to Dazhongli in the east and Jing’an
Villas to the west, 2014

the plan, they are reconfigured in a new urban formation to make room for the office
tower. (Fig. 44)

Conflicts on Vestige Land: the Nail Entrepreneur

Triggering a louder outcry than that on the disappearance of the heritage buildings
was the designated demolition and redevelopment of another four-story building on
the eastern end of the Zhang Garden block. Centering on the uncompensated eviction
of an entrepreneur from the four-story office building, which was pending legal action,
an article appeared in December 2010 criticizing the commercial interests of the Dis-
trict in the name of infrastructural development. The article provocatively assessed
the land grab that the District government and its affiliates made on the occasion of
subway construction.338 For the subway exits that required only 603 square meters, it
announced, the subway construction had claimed more than 35,000 square meters of
land for redevelopment.339
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

The building under scrutiny had once belonged to a state-owned bearing factory,
part of the historic cluster of the automobile value chain located around Weihai Lu. In
mid-2000, the factory, like many other surviving SOE s, became incorporated. It off-
loaded its real estate asset at auction to the larger state-owned conglomerate, Shang-
hai Electric. Shanghai Electric is one of a handful of municipal-level SOE s that had, by
the 2000s, consolidated many subsidiaries to become an international and listed com-
pany for power generation and electrical equipment. Shanghai Electric, like other con-
solidated municipal-level SOE s, had large landholdings in Shanghai’s city center. As

309
 the land was administratively-allocated under the planned economy,340 its exchange
has been curtailed. Since the mid-2000s, the central government has limited the abili-
ty to commercialize this type of land in the dual market of the transitional economy.341
Administratively-allocated land could only be exchanged between institutional owners
and remained in the hands of the state institutions.
Like many other properties on administratively-allocated land, the SOE as the sit-
ting landlord effectively marketized its well-located but un-sellable assets by subleas-
ing to private entrepreneurs. The private entrepreneurs could either occupy the space
as tenants or further sublease to other tenants following small upgrades. For the Shi-
men Lu Number 239 structure, a lease contract was signed in 2002 by the SOE that pro-
duced bearings with a company called Nuoheng Holdings [诺衡控股公司], which was
affiliated with the American retail giant PriceSmart. After a scandal broke with cor-
ruption charges brought against top management at Nuoheng in 2006,342 the lease for
the property was transferred to a private entrepreneur originally from Henan named
Liu Xuedong. Although his main business had followed the Internet of Things (IOT )
trend, he signed a ten-year lease with Shanghai Electric for the 5,000-odd-square-me-
ter former industrial space in the well-located Jing’an District. As a national IT talent
solicited by the Shanghai government for investment, Liu had initially registered his
business in the Zhangjiang Technology Zone in Pudong. But because of the more lu-
crative opportunities in the commercial city center, Liu moved his company’s business
registration to the more expensive Jing’an District. Paying its higher business tax, Liu’s
move was a gesture showing his contribution and cooperation with the District. Ren-
ovating the space as an industry cluster, and calling it Dream Arc Cultural Industries
Park [追梦方舟文化产业园], the spaces were subleased to three companies in 2007. A Tai-
wanese company in the food business, the U.S. stock market-listed hotel chain Hant-
ing [汉庭], and a business management and consulting firm that was later renamed the
Zhang Gardens Company, moved into the spaces.
With the start of construction for subway Lines 12 and 13, changes to the area were
made public and Dream Arc Cultural Industries Park was also included in the demoli-
tion and relocation zone. After Shanghai Electric sent the first eviction notice in April
2009, Liu waged a media war as well as a legal one. He saw that the area would grow in
value. Articulate and well-connected, Liu’s accusations against Shanghai Electric were
not only part of the tenacious effort to reap the most benefit out of the given circum-
stances. His attacks also exposed and attacked the land development process that has
become the prevalent order, even though his own business had also taken advantage
of the inflexibilities in the institution of administratively-allocated land and the oppor-
tunity created by the dual land market. Questioning the District’s use of infrastructural
development as an alibi to grab land for development, Liu scrutinized the language the
state used as the basis for its evictions to expose the state’s self-interest. Liu challenged
whether the new land use for ‘municipal public works [市政公用]’ was not merely an in-
terim label for the development of a higher and denser ‘commercial’ project by the Dis-
trict’s affiliate themselves. The persistent charges Liu launched in the courthouse and
through print and online media served to fray the nerves of the multiple stakeholders
in the small but contested space.
A number of blogs posted by Liu’s employees as well interviews with popular media
reported on the domineering methods of the District government. In one instance, Liu’s

310
 employees called the use of force by a large
police presence led by the deputy district
mayor to evict the employees of Liu’s com-
pany, the ‘6.5 Incident,’ named for the date
of its occurrence.343 In another instance,
the revelation of correspondence between
governmental bodies and the district court
assessing the ongoing case between Liu
and Shanghai Electric was framed as un-
due influence by powerful bodies of the
government on the legal process.344 But
the key accusation Liu launched was that
Fig. 45 Redevelopment of Zhang Plaza on the former the District’s subsidiary companies, in-
Semi-conductor Parts Number Four Factory site, opened cluding Jing’an Real Estate Group and its
in 2015
underling Jing’an Jingdi Company, were
both involved in the demolition and eviction process as well as the ensuing develop-
ment process. Liu cited an impending law that was to be implemented nationwide to
curb the kind of conflict of interest by the land resource organization as well as the
development company as the reason for the District government’s rapid actions.345
More than a dozen lawsuits were filed from the beginning of 2010 from all sides:
Liu’s company Yunshui Communications Technologies Limited [上海云水信息技术有限
公司], together with its lessees accused Shanghai Electric; Yunshui accused its lessees
and vice versa; Shanghai Electric accused the company that had been formed and was
responsible for the demolition and relocation, the Shanghai Subway Line 13 Develop-
ment Limited; and Yunshui accused Shanghai Subway Line 13 Development Limited.
Liu’s direct communication with the Jing’an District’s Administration for Land and Re-
sources early on to request a formal process for relocation and compensation revealed
the businessman’s objective. Like the well-reported nail house residents who held onto
their properties, Liu wanted to maximize the potential payoff compensation. The site’s
profitable returns, after its development, made the legal and media-aided tactics worth
Liu’s gamble.
The bottom line was the fundamental driver for the marketized economy. With the
growing paucity of city center real estate for densification and development, the dual
land market on historic sites further exacerbated the conflicts of interest in the pur-
suit of financial gain.

New Developments for the Centrality

While multiple stakeholders were contesting the Shimen Lu 239 site, another former
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

industrial site was undergoing a quiet transformation. Even though the incoming en-
trepreneurs had little interest in the historic Taixing Lu 99 site, they were drawn by
its proximity to West Nanjing Lu’s global luxury brands and also its convenient con-
nection to the subway. The development of a commercial cluster on the premises of
the heritage building opened in mid-2014. (Fig. 45) Dubbed Zhang Plaza in some of
the English-language coverage, the site belonged to the Shanghai Semi-Conductor
Parts Number Four Factory [上海半导体器件四厂]. A subsidiary of the municipal-level
network of production institutions that were directly managed by the Municipal Eco-

311
 nomic Council since the mid-1980s under the central government’s drive for techno-
logical development, the state-prioritized sector nevertheless failed to compete against
the financially stronger and technologically more advanced private sectors in the cap-
ital-intensive industry. De-industrialization in the District has been ongoing since the
1990s. Like the closure of Weihai Lu 696’s Components Factory Number Five, which
had been a key player in China’s high-tech sector prior to accelerated economic liberal-
ization, Taixing Lu 99’s had been later than that for other manufacturing sites because
of its high-profile legacy.
Reprogramming of institutional sites has many successful examples. With a col-
lection of restaurants, cafés, bars, and boutiques that have other branches also at clus-
ters such as Ferguson Lane, Yongfu Lu 47, and Anfu Lu 109–201,346 the transformation
of Zhang Plaza followed the trend of clustering enterprises, which tap into Shanghai’s
growing market of fusion F & B joints produced by and catering to the localized cos-
mopolitan network.347
A few months after the opening of the Zhang Plaza, delays in construction of the
underground interchange due to conflicts with heritage buildings was reported.348
Even as discussions of the importance of underground spaces continued and tech-
nical solutions were sought,349 it was noted that an underground passage would be
impossible.350 Because the 2010 plans showed the Zhang Plaza site to be slotted for
demolition and reconstruction, whether the commercial development was an interim
reuse project or whether it already showed a change in development despite the plans
remained unclear.
While the development of the east-west passage connecting the two sides of the
‘barbell’ remained unclear, the development of the western ‘barbell’ was ongoing. At
the end of October 2014, the District publicized a call for bids to develop Plot 111–09.
The elongated site, buttressed by Jing’an Villas to its west and Maoming Lu to its east,
was designated a heritage area in the 2004 municipal conservation plan. The munic-
ipal conservation plan also designated the north-south running Maoming Lu as one
of the Fengmao Streets to be conserved in its proportions and atmosphere.351 In spite
of the municipal designation, demolitions of Plot 111–09 were completed in mid-2011.
One building from the site was a garden-style residence that was packed with many
families. It was the fourth of the four heritage buildings dismantled and stored away
in Jiading’s warehouse in the conservation project.
According to the notice for development, the total site area was around 1.16 hect-
ares. Its use was a mix of commercial and office, of which not less than 90 % would
be commercial.352 The total built area was not to exceed 18,530 square meters and the
height was limited to 12 meters. The main program for the site was to be specialty retail,
with aims for it to accommodate cultural, entertainment, and recreational needs, as
well as offices for small enterprises. Starting at one billion R MB and with a built densi-
ty of 1.6, the cost for the built area would come out to 53,000 R MB per square meter. A
rendering for Plot 111–09 showed grey brick buildings next to low-rise new shop fronts
around a small plaza.353 The image could have come out of a North American new ur-
banism project. (Fig. 46) Refiners Architectural Consultants, in association with Tongji
Architecture Design Institute, authored the plans accompanying the bidding applica-
tion, which showed a masterplan composed of rows of low-rise lilong types between
a few larger volumes.

312
Fig. 46 Rendering for the development of Plot 111 – 09 adjacent to the Jing’an Villas site

The bid application was open for download in mid-November 2014, with the cutoff
for bids in mid-December. Although it was reported that there was interest from cen-
tral government state-owned developers as well as Hong Kong investors,354 only one
contending bid was made.355 It came as little surprise. As stipulated in the bid appli-
cation, the final contender would also have to shell out an additional 126 million R MB ,
including 8.6 million R MB for the subway infrastructure, 2.5 million R MB for conserv-
ing heritage architecture—paying for its dismantling and storage—and also 100 mil-
lion R MB for investment in the underground construction. The price per square meter
for the land lease alone was two times that of another plot open for bid just a few years
earlier. One of the most expensive sites on the market, with tight regulations regarding
its final development, Plot 111–09 was finally taken by two subsidiary companies of the
Jing’an Real Estate Group at the base price of one billion R MB .356

Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics

City center sites, with their diminishing land supply, have become increasingly diffi-
cult to acquire and develop in the three decades since economic liberalization began.
The developments of the land-marketized Dazhongli site and its adjacent Zhang Gar-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

dens site in the Jing’an District, the smallest and most economically driven city center
district in Shanghai, confirm the shift from an earlier mode of wholesale demolition
and redevelopment-cum-densification to a more selective conversion strategy neces-
sitated by the deceleration of development. The fragmentation of sites in their owner-
ship showed that the legacy of planned economy has complicated top-down visions
for upgrades. The changing role of former industrial sites as well as heritage buildings,
since economic liberalization began, has also reshaped their transformation and reuse.
At the same time, with the growing enunciation of conflicting interests between stake-

313
 holders in the perpetually transitioning political economy, urban development projects
have also become less clear, despite a growing impetus for procedural transparency.
In the case of the Jing’an Villas, the economically ambitious and globally aspir-
ing local state has harbored plans for the redevelopment and upgrade of this valuable
heritage architecture neighborhood since the mid-2000s. Yet the exact path for its
development has been uncertain. Rumors that developers have leased the property,
ready to convert the residential area into a commercial one, shrouded this uncertain-
ty. While discussions in government forums seemed to suggest marketization plans
for the neighborhood, public debates and media reportage to the contrary sent mixed
messages as to the future of the area. The mixed messages gave hope, for a time, to the
diversification of development modes. They also gave hope for a growing openness to
popular privatization that was incrementally mediating the interests of the residents
as well as the image project of the local state. Small entrepreneurs took advantage of
the urban loophole created by developmental uncertainty and tried to anticipate the
rumored impending commercialization. Their interventions formed a deliberately off-
the-radar creative cluster embedded in a residential area. The cluster gave the central-
ity a seemingly welcome commercial diversity. The hesitation on the part of the local
state, in the image project build-ups to the 2010 World Expo and abetted also by the
distraction of graver political issues, delivered an opportunity of development for the
small entrepreneurs. The small entrepreneurs, in turn, filled a niche by tapping into an
underused city center spatial supply.
Straddling the pressures of becoming popularized in the form of another Tianzi-
fang—which commercialized the majority of its residential units—and remaining se-
lectively unknown and also predominantly residential, Jing’an Villas seemed to have
showcased an achievable equilibrium between the creative reuse and preservation
through inhabitation. Localized cosmopolitans subtly harnessed the modern era ar-
chitecture and tried to stave off a full-scale commercialization that would upset the
balance struck between commerce and culture. The momentary coexistence of the
local and the global, along with the typological resilience of the modern era architec-
ture, made Jing’an Villas a decidedly convincing product of bottom-up reuse and up-
grade in the late 2000s. The specificities of the legacy structures, both in architecture
type, urban morphology, and their public management, seemed to have been an urban
resource for the continued development of Shanghai as a global city.
With the dramatic shutdown of the bottom-up small commerce, which was
momentarily favored and promoted, the incremental progress toward establishing a
localized equilibrium between the global and local quickly halted. A supporting rheto-
ric of overwhelming concern for the existing local residents magnified the sentiments
of those who felt threatened by the influx of new economies. When the memo to the
residents [告居民书] announced the closure of Jing’an Villas’ main lane to public traf-
fic to stem the source of consumer demand for the small commerce, the local state
further propagated the residents’ antagonism. Fengmao conservation, as the newly
minted priority of the culturally attuned Shanghai, also became the alibi for the small
entrepreneurs’ eviction.
Closer examinations reveal an increasingly shrewd use of the popular media to
foment discontent, pitting citizen against citizen. Fanning support by incumbent
residents, media deployment helped portray a salvaging role played by the local state,

314
in the conservation of the fengmao neighborhood. To regain control of an area so that
it could be commercialized by the District and not by private entrepreneurs also dis-
tracted from the more challenging conundrum of residents left behind by the proceeds
of marketization.
A 2013 District-instituted policy showed the authorities’ worries about the sustain-
ability of growing social differences. In particular, the authorities were concerned with
the rising cost of lunch. In response, they enforced price controls on lunches to pro-
mote the District’s competitiveness in attracting service sector talent.357 While such
a heavy-handed measure itself not only privileged the larger chain enterprises, which
had more capacity to absorb the costs of the imposed price-ceilings than the small
mom-and-pop shops, it also seemingly overlooked the source of rising lunch prices in
the area—that of mounting rents in the first place. It was the closure of spaces with
lower-rents in places like the Jing’an Villas and large-scale demolitions of areas like
Dazhongli and Wujiang Lu, that closed the pipelines for the variety and affordabili-
ty of lunches. White-collar customers from high-rise office towers had flocked to the
small canteens in the old lilongs as well as to the newly built chain restaurants. The
choices of the ten-yuan home-cooked boxed lunch, the 30-yuan small wontons at the
noodle stall, or the 100-R MB fast food meal at the pizza and sandwich place were pre-
cisely what had made the West Nanjing Lu corridor appealing to the constituents of
the tertiary economy.
The glaring disconnect in addressing the relationship between spatial diversity
and social stability is not a problem unique to Jing’an, or other neighborhoods in Chi-
na only. It remains a challenge for many rapidly developing and transitioning econ-
omies, where the concurrence of high- and low-end markets, from labor to rentals,
create the frictions of their coexistence. While the aspiration to become global over-
produces spaces at one spectrum of consumption, spaces at the other spectrum are
rapidly erased. The planned economy vestiges, themselves unplanned, were the re-
maining bulwarks against encroaching neoliberalization that officials were increas-
ing worried about in its socially destabilizing form. Even against the developmental
local state’s aspirations for the West Nanjing Lu corridor to become the ‘Midtown of
China,’ the transformation of Jing’an Villas may have shown an alternative develop-
ment that could have mediated the two polarizing extremes, its incremental timeline
a buffer against rapid change.
That plans had already been made for Jing’an Villas’ development was given away
by a rendering showing its commercialization.358 (Fig. 47) The image skillfully super-
imposed global branding, commercial signage, and ground floor shop windows, as
well as textured paving, new trees, and outdoor seating onto what was recognizable
as the main lane of Jing’an Villas. The setting looked rather like Xintiandi and Sinan
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China

Mansions, both projects that have taken red-bricked residential housing from Shang-
hai’s modern era and converted it into high-end shopping districts. Closer to the mod-
el of the Sinan Mansions, with the reaping of the benefits of commercial upgrading
contained in the hands of the local state and its affiliates, the orderliness of the devel-
opment and the easy recognition of its brands would set the new Jing’an Villas even
farther apart from that of the bottom-up ambiance of Tianzifang.
Pressured by the land resource scarcity linked to revenue generation and economic
growth, commercial development increasingly led and controlled by the local state is

315
Fig. 47 Rendering labeled as representing Zhang Gardens’ upgrade but showing visions for Jing’an Villas

steering the future developments of the area. The urban qualities that had diversified
the centrality and made it attractive would instead steadily be streamlined to make
possible variations of the sameness.
With the development of multiple commercial centers in the metropolitan area, the
historic commercial hubs of West Nanjing Lu and Huaihai Lu in the city center have
been pressured to specialize in order to compete with the newer, larger, and often eas-
ier-to-access retail areas. For many suburbanites who avoid the congestion of the old
city center and for the new Shanghainese with little memory or habit of historic shop-
ping areas, the appeal of the city center is waning. The local state has to recognize that
the historic neighborhoods in the city center, making for pleasurable strolls, appeal
to a different audience. Its socio-economic diversity and range of products in close
proximity to one another offer the kind of stimulating urban experience appealing to
a younger urbanite segment. The richness of experiences also appeals to many inter-
national personnel who moved to Shanghai precisely for its metropolitan setting. The
historic hubs, enhanced by transport access in the populous and expanded metropolis,
would be better off tapping into their remaining asset of attractive urbanism to sustain
growth as overall development slows.

316
 1 Interview with residents, 2014 . 2 Yingqiong Qiu 裘颖琼,
“静安别墅门禁系统还居民清净 封闭管理并非‘一刀切’ [Jing’an
Villas Entry Guard System Gives Back Quiet to the Resi-
dents, Closed Management Not ‘one Size Fit All’],” 东方网,
November 29, 2013 , http://news.163 .com/13 /1129/22 /
9ESP7 P9A00014AEE .html. 3 Ibid. 4 Interview, 2014 .
5 Ibid. 6 “上海静安别墅内市民养鹰当宠物 有许可证才能饲
养 [Citizen Rising Hawk as Pet in Shanghai Jing’an Villas],”
October 11, 2012, http://newhouse.sh.soufun.com/2012-
10 -11/8736892 .htm. 7 ‘Adaptive governance’ has been
characterized as the flexibility of the state under a tran-
sitional economy that has been crucial to its resilience in
the face of simultaneous economic liberalization and the
maintenance of the political status quo. See Sebastian
Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty:
Guerrilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance in China,”
in Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of
Adaptive Governance in China, ed. Sebastian Heilmann
and Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard Contemporary China Se-
ries 17 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2011),
1–27. 8 Kyle Long, “Shanghai: Where Skyscrapers Loom,
a Street-Food Paradise Thrives,” The Guardian, December
13, 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2012 /
dec/13/shangahi-street-food-jingan-villas. 9 Debbie Yong,
“Jing’an Villa—the New Tianzifang?,” CNN Travel, April 23,
2011, http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/life/jingan-villa-new-
tianzifang-351872 . 10 ‘Old Shanghai,’ as elaborated in
the previous chapter, is a term often used synonymously
for pre-1949 Shanghai. Rather than the more neutral
‘modern era’ Shanghai, it implies nostalgic sentiment to-
wards the historic image of the city. 11 Wei Wang 王蔚,
“藏在老弄堂的‘文化部落’ [’Cultural Tribe’ Hidden in the Old
Lilong],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, April 14 , 2010, http://whb.
eastday.com/w/20100414 /u1a722857.html. 12 The term
‘gentrification’ describes the process for the exchange of
poorer occupants for wealthier ones in a neighborhood.
It is accompanied by certain stylistic or lifestyle preferenc-
es. The sociologist Ruth Glass first used the term ‘gentri-
fication’ to describe changes to the neighborhood in Lon-
don’s Islington area in the 1960 s. See Ruth Glass and
Centre for Urban Studies, London; Aspects of Change
(London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1964). The concept has been
expanded by social scientists since, using cases from de-
veloped world cities. The ‘supply side theory of gentrifi-
cation’ explains the phenomenon through the concept of
‘rent gap’ or under-evaluated real estate that has enabled
their conversion and subsequent re-valuation. The ‘de-
mand side theory of gentrification’ explains the phenom-
enon in the context of transition to the post-industrial
service and knowledge economy and the return of ‘yup-
pies’ to the cities from the suburbs. Later in the context
of the neoliberalization of North America and UK , the re-
lationship to the arts and cultural producers is also drawn,
in assessing how the market used culture to justify its ur-
ban developments that result in social polarization and
spatial segregation. See, for example, David Ley, “Liberal
Ideology and the Postindustrial City,” Annals of the Asso-
ciation of American Geographers 70, no. 2 (June 1, 1980):
238–58; David Ley, “Alternative Explanations for Inner-
City Gentrification: A Canadian Assessment,” Annals
of the Association of American Geographers 76, no. 4
(December 1, 1986): 521–35; Neil Smith, “Gentrification
and Uneven Development,” Economic Geography 58 ,
no. 2 (April 1, 1982): 139–55, doi:10.2307/143793; Neil
Smith, “Gentrification and the Rent Gap,” Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 77, no. 3 (Septem-
ber 1, 1987 ): 462–65; Sharon Zukin, “Gentrification: Cul-
ture and Capital in the Urban Core,” Annual Review of
Sociology 13 (January 1, 1987 ): 129–47; Rosalyn Deutsche,
“Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City,” Octo-
ber 47 (December 1, 1988): 3–52, doi:10.2307/778979. In
Chinese urbanism, largely during the late 1990 s and
2000 s, gentrification has largely been used as a term to
describe the effect of large-scale urban restructuring that
has accompanied economic liberalization. Scholars used
the term ‘gentrification’ in Chinese cities to describe res-
idential neighborhoods that are demolished and redevel-
oped as high-end residences or for commercial use. It is
used as a critique of the polarization of socio-economic
differences that have taken place since economic liberal-
ization began. The relationship between private capital
and social segregation is critiqued. See Shenjing He,
“State-Sponsored Gentrification Under Market Transition:
The Case of Shanghai,” Urban Affairs Review 43, no. 2 (No-
vember 1, 2007 ): 171–98, doi:10.1177/1078087407305175;
Yingying Tian and Cecilia Wong, “Large Urban Redevelop-
ment Projects and Sociospatial Stratification in Shanghai,”
in China’s Emerging Cities: The Making of New Urbanism,
ed. Fulong Wu, Routledge Contemporary China Series 26
(New York: Routledge, 2007 ), 210–31; Shenjing He, “New-
Build Gentrification in Central Shanghai: Demographic
Changes and Socioeconomic Implications,” Population,
Space and Place 16, no. 5 (September 1, 2010): 345–61,
doi:10.1002 /psp.548 . The author finds this general usage
of ‘gentrification’ not specific enough in its description of
the transformation that happened. In this manner, the
entirety of Chinese cities undergoing renewal and rede-
velopment is undergoing ‘gentrification.’ The develop-
ment of the term ‘gentrification’ will be further elaborat-
ed in this chapter and the following two chapters. 13 The
concept of the ‘urban loophole,’ as elaborated in the in-
troduction, forms the framework around which the chap-
ters in this study are conducted. ‘Urban loophole’ is de-
fined as a mechanism for urban spatial production that
results from gaps, absences, or exceptions in the political
economy, and gives rise to spatial opportunities in the city.
Its products are therefore spatial. The existence of such a
mechanism mediates and cushions the impact of rapid
change. The concept is used to explain the rapidness of
China’s economic transition and global integration while
maintaining its political status quo. 14 Even with its re-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
sources of commercial building stock on large blocks,
Huangpu’s less industrious and more conservative bu-
reaucrats, mired in institutional legacies, were unable to
propel development as Jing’an’s industrious and progres-
sive ones have. 15 As elaborated in the previous chapter,
David Harvey calls the development of heritage as a pro-
cess ‘heritageisation’ and links it to “the production of
identity, power and authority.” David C. Harvey, “Heritage
Pasts and Heritage Presents: Temporality, Meaning and
the Scope of Heritage Studies,” International Journal
of Heritage Studies 7, no. 4 (January 1, 2001): 337, doi:10.1
317
 080/13581650120105534 . 16 Kori Rutcosky, “Adaptive 23 Ping Sun 孙平, “第一章经济技术开发区规划 第三节虹桥
Reuse as Sustainable Architecture in Contemporary 经济技术开发区 [Chapter 1 Economic and Technological
Shanghai” (Master’s Thesis for Asian Studies, Lund Univer- Development Zone Planning Section 3 Hongqiao Econom-
sity, 2007 ); Wan-Lin Tsai, “The Redevelopment and Pres- ic and Technological Development Zone],” in 上海城市规
ervation of Historic Lilong Housing in Shanghai” (Master’s 划志 [Annal of Shanghai Urban Planning], vol. 9 第九篇新
Thesis for Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania, 区开发和重点地区改建规划 [Development of new districts
2008); Juan Guan 管娟 and Meimei Guo 郭玖玖, “上海中心 and key districts upgrade plans], 12 vols. (Shanghai 上海:
城区城市更新机制演进研究—以新天地、8号桥和田子坊为例 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Scienc-
[The operation mechanism of urban regeneration in es Press, 1999), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node
Shanghai downtown-a study of Xintiandi, Bridge 8 and 2245/node64620/node64633 /node64725/node64731/
Tianzifang],” 上海城市规划 [Shanghai Urban Planning Re- userobject1ai58549.html. 24 “The right to use No. 26
view], no. 04 (2011): 53–59. 17 Shenjing He and Fulong land lot of 12,900 square meters in Hongqiao Economic
Wu, “Property-Led Redevelopment in Post-Reform China: and Technological Development Zone for 50 years was
A Case Study of Xintiandi Redevelopment Project in successfully sold out at the price of USD 28 million.”
Shanghai,” 2005, doi:10.1111/j.0735 -2166.2005.00222.x; “Shanghai Hongqiao Economic and Technological Devel-
Albert Wing Tai Wai, “Place Promotion and Iconography opment Zone,” accessed May 10, 2014 , http://www.
in Shanghai’s Xintiandi,” Habitat International, Urbaniza- shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node27118 /node27873 /node
tion in China, A Special Issue, 30, no. 2 (June 2006): 27997/n31510/n31511/u22ai73220.html. 25 The J. C. Man­
245–60, doi:10.1016 /j.habitatint.2004 .02 .002; Xuefei darin was designed by Singaporean architect, Zhao Zi’an
Ren, “Forward to the Past: Historical Preservation in Glo- [赵子安], who was involved in a number of other designs
balizing Shanghai,” City & Community 7, no. 1 (March 1, for the first wave of towers in the district. 26 Shipeng
2008): 23–43 , doi:10.1111/j.1540 -6040.2007.00239.x; Sha 沙似鹏 and Annals of Shanghai Office 上海市地方
You-Ren Yang and Chih-hui Chang, “An Urban Regenera- 志办公室, “古典俄罗斯风格的中苏友好大厦（上海展览中心）
tion Regime in China: A Case Study of Urban Redevelop- [Classic Russian Styled Sino-Chinese Friendship Complex
ment in Shanghai’s Taipingqiao Area,” Urban Studies 44 , (Shanghai Exhibition Center],” in 上海名建筑志 [Annals of
no. 9 (August 1, 2007 ): 1809–26, doi:10.1080/00420 Shanghai’s Famous Architecture] (Shanghai 上海: 上海社
980701507787. 18 Hiroyuki Shinohara, “Mutations of 会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Tianzifang, Taikang Road, Shanghai,” in The 4th Interna- Press, 2005), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node71
tional Conference of the International Forum of Urban- 994 /node81772 /node81774 /node81784 /userobject1ai
ism (IFoU) (The New Urban Question—Urbanism beyond 108997.html. 27 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, Or,
Neoliberalism, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2009), The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Post-Contemporary
http://newurbanquestion.ifou.org/proceedings/index. Interventions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991).
html; Chunbin Guo 郭淳彬, “旧城居住区自发性改造问题研 28 The term “Dragon’s Head” referred to Shanghai as the
究—以田子坊为例 [Study of Organic Conversions in Old City head of the Yangtze River Delta, a region that was com-
Residential Neighborhoods—case study of Tianzifang],” mercially vibrant and for which further opening was al-
in 转型与重构 — 2011中国城市规划年会论文集 (转型与重构— lowed in the accelerated economic liberalization that took
2011中国城市规划年会, Nanjing 南京: 中国城市规划学会、南 place after 1992. 29 It is often reported, not just in news
京市政府, 2011), 13. 19 The results of the use of urban media but also in academic papers from the mid-1990 s,
loophole through the creative alibi will be further elabo- that the “以浦东开发开放为龙头，进一步开放长江滑岸城市，
rated in the following chapters. 20 The deployment of 尽快把上海建成国际经济、金融、贸易中心之一，带动长江三
media as PR strategy in the market economy exemplifies 角洲和整十长江流域地区经济发展。[With the development
the growing entrepreneurial role the local party-state and and opening of Pudong as the Dragon’s Head, and with
its affiliates are playing in the market. At the same time the further developing of the Yangtze River cities, Shang-
the party-state is refining the ideological origins of pro- hai has been created as one of the global economic, fi-
paganda in the centrally planned economy. For an analy- nancial and commercial centers, catalyzing the economic
sis of the Chinese party-state’s manipulation of contem- growth of the Yangtze River Delta and further up-
porary advertising, see Geremie R. Barmé, “CCPTM and stream.]” 30 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Re-
ADCULT PRC ,” The China Journal, no. 41 (January 1, 1999): search Institute 上海市城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Ur-
1–23 , doi:10.2307/2667585 . See also Murong Xuecun, ban Planning and Design Institute, ed., 循迹启新-上海城市
“The New Face of Chinese Propaganda,” New York Times, 规划演进 [Follow the tracks and initiate the new: Evolu-
December 22, 2013. 21 Renlong Zhang 张人龙, “第三章立 tion of Shanghai’s Urban Planning] (Shanghai 上海: 同济
交工程 第二节人行立交工程 [Chapter 3 Bridges, Section 2 大学出版社 Tongji University Press, 2007 ), 135. 31 “静安南
Pedestrian Crossing Bridges],” in 上海市政工程志 [Annals 京西路规划（摘要）Jing’an West Nanjing Road Planning,”
of Shanghai Urban Construction], vol. 3 第三篇市区桥梁、 Jing’an District Government, June 2002, http://www.jin-
立交 [Bridges], 34 vols. (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学院出 gan.gov.cn/jagk/csgh/ztgh/200610/t20061031_32753.htm.
版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1998), 32 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Insti-
538 . 22 Jun Hu 胡俊 and Guangxuan Zhang 张广晅, tute 上海市城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning
“ 90 年代的大规模城市开发 — 以上海市静安区实证研究为例 and Design Institute, 循迹启新-上海城市规划演进 [Follow
[Large-scale urban development in the 1990 s—the Case the tracks and initiate the new: Evolution of Shanghai’s
of Development of Shanghai’s Jing’an District],” 城市规划 Urban Planning], 135. 33 Ibid. 34 Jun Qu 瞿钧, “第一章
汇刊 Urban Planning Forum, no. 04 (2000): 47–54 + 80. 南京西路商业街 [Chapter 1 West Nanjing Lu Commercial

318
 Street],” in 静安区志 [Annals of JIng’an District], vol. 5 第
五编商业 Commerce, 34 vols. (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科
学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press,
1996). 35 Ibid. 36 Caiqin Chen 陈彩琴 and Zhisheng Yu
余致胜, “三、专业特色街道, 美食休闲街—吴江路 ［Chapter
3 Specialty Industries Streets, Section Food and Recre-
ational Street—Wujiang Lu],” in 上海名街志 [Annals of
Shanghai’s Famous Streets] (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学
院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press,
2004), 1084 . 37 From interviews with former employees
of such state-owned factories, the trajectory of these
manufacturing sites whose former importance was re-
flected in their central locations, was rapidly eroded in the
1990 s economic reforms to the SOE s. One of the factories,
for example, that as of 2014 was the location of a large
Uniqlo on West Nanjing Lu, had been one of the many
production sites of the Shanghai Instruments Bureau. The
Instruments Bureau itself had consolidated and absorbed
many of the privately owned manufacturing enterprises
that were nationalized in the 1950 s, inheriting their skilled
workers. The bulk of these small-scale, but labor-intensive
and highly skilled productions were located in central
locations, and these small factories specialized and sup-
plied the entire nation’s value chain, often with few rivals
outside of Shanghai. In the late 1960 s and early 1970 s,
due to Cold War fears, decentralization of important in-
dustries away from the urban center in case of foreign
invasion, often forcibly relocated a proportion of Shang-
hai’s factories, with their equipment and labor, into inland
and rural sites. Although a small percentage relative to
the forcible relocation of the students in the same era,
both actions helped to depopulate the overcrowded cit-
ies with little infrastructural development to accommo-
date the growing population. However, the return of this
displaced demographic, together with the return of the
students, would also contribute to the housing demand
following liberalization. In the 1980 s, with the national
subsidization of domestic electronics and materials de-
velopments, which would evolve out of a lot of the skill-
sets of these existing industries, these specialized manu-
facturing hubs enjoyed a short period of national privilege.
But with accelerated economic liberalization and the as-
signing of Shanghai as the nation’s exemplary site for
global integration, joint ventures and foreign enterprises
with much advanced know-how as well as financial
resources would rapidly out-compete these domestic in-
dustries. Together with the SOE reforms of the 1990 s,
privatization of the assets would also motivate real es-
tate development as a means of institutional survival.
38 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Insti-
tute 上海市城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning
and Design Institute, 循迹启新-上海城市规划演进 [Follow
the tracks and initiate the new: Evolution of Shang­
hai’s Urban Planning], 148 . 39 “静安区双高战略指标体系
（2006 年-2010 年）[The Strategy for Jing’an’s Double High
Standards],” Jing’an District Government, 2001, http://
www. jingan.gov.cn/jagk /csgh/ztgh/ 20 0 610 /t 20 0
61011_32755 .htm. 40 Document shared by Professor
Zhu Jieming of the National University of Singapore, which
he received from the Planning Bureau of Jing’an in 2000.
41 Guobing Wang 王国滨 and Jun Tao 陶俊, “一、闻名遐
迩的十大名街, 高档、时尚购物街—南京西路 [Chapter 1 Ten
Famous Streets, Section High-Ended, Fashionable Shop-
ping Street—West Nanjing Lu],” in 上海名街志 [Annals of
Shanghai’s Famous Streets] (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学
院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press,
2004), 1084 . 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Interview
with district’s economic council, 2012 . 46 In the 2001
document The Strategy for Jing’an’s Double High Stan-
dards the densification of offices and commercial spaces
was pronounced as an economic imperative given the
district’s lack of land resources. See “静安区双高战略指标
体系（2006 年-2010 年）[The Strategy for Jing’an’s Dou-
ble High Standards].” 47 The term ‘centrality’ derives
from Walter Christaller’s study from the 1930 s on how
urban settlements, or ‘central places [zentralen Orte]’
evolved, and their size and spatial distribution in relation
to each other, as he studied in Southern Germany. See
Walter Christaller, Die Zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland:
Eine Ökonomisch-Geographische Untersuchung Über Die
Gesetzmässigkeit Der Verbreitung Und Entwicklung Der
Siedlungen Mit Städtischen Funktionen (Jena: Gustav
Fischer, 1933); Edwin von Böventer, “Walter Christaller’s
Central Places and Peripheral Areas: The Central Place
Theory in Retrospect†,” Journal of Regional Science 9,
no. 1 (April 1, 1969): 117–24 , doi:10.1111/j.1467-9787.1969.
tb01447.x. Since the 1990 s, the term has been used also
in relation to theories of ‘networked cities’ and graphic
theory, which posit that polycentric cities spatially simu-
late economic relationships in large firms in the collabo-
rations necessary for the post-industrial, knowl-
edge-based service economy. See, for example, Michael
D. Irwin and Holly L. Hughes, “Centrality and the Structure
of Urban Interaction: Measures, Concepts, and Applica-
tions,” Social Forces 71, no. 1 (September 1, 1992): 17–51,
doi:10.2307/2579964; David F. Batten, “Network Cities:
Creative Urban Agglomerations for the 21st Century,”
Urban Studies 32 , no. 2 (March 1, 1995): 313–27, doi:
10.1080/00420989550013103. In this text, ‘centrality’ is
used to denote Jing’an as an important and connected
commercial hub in the metropolitan area of Shanghai.
48 For an elaboration of the centrality’s role in Shanghai’s
economic restructuring, see Wufu 马吴斌 Ma, “上海中心城
区生产性服务业多中心空间结构研究 [Research on the ‘Poly-
centric’ Spatial Structure of Shanghai Producer Service
Industry]” (硕士 Masters Thesis, 上海师范大学 Shanghai
Normal University, 2009). 49 China’s sheer size and ad-
ministrative pecking order dwarves many other manage-
ment structures. 50 Linxia Chen 陈琳霞, “上海城区竞争力
研究 [Study of Shanghai Urban Districts’ Competitiveness]”
(博士 PhD Thesis, 复旦大学 Fudan University, 2004).
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
51 Modern era industrial development in proximity to the
Suzhou Creek had since 1949, become also interspersed
in the housing neighborhoods, creating a chaotic mixture
of industrial-residential area as a manifestation of the
planned economy’s emphasis on production at the ex-
pense of urban planning. See the following chapter for
details of the development processes for the northern
part of Jing’an district. 52 “上海南京西路整体规划出炉
[Shanghai West Nanjing Lu Comprehensive Plan Fresh
from the Oven],” 解放日报 Liberation Daily, February 21,
2002, http://www.curb.com.cn/pageshow.asp?id_forum=
319
000611. 53 Shanghai Jing’an District Government 上海市
静安区人民政府 et al., 打造上海世界级城市的都心 －“静安南
京路发展规划” 国际咨询报告 [Making Shanghai’s Interna-
tional-Graded City Center—“Jing’an Nanjing Lu Develop-
ment Plan” International Consultancy Report], 2002 ,
http://www.shjagh.gov.cn/seconds/newsinfo.asp?id=141.
54 Ibid., 21. 55 It is notable that Lujiazui of the 1990 s
replaced the Concession-era Bund as the financial district
of contemporary Shanghai. 56 Michael E. Porter and
Business School Publishing Corporation Harvard, On Com-
petition, Updated and expanded, Harvard Business Re-
view Book Series (Boston, MA : Harvard Business School
Pub, 2008). 57 It is notable that the bureaucrats of
Shanghai are competent and capable in the country.
58 Matthew W. Rofe, “‘I Want to Be Global’: Theorising
the Gentrifying Class as an Emergent Elite Global Commu-
nity,” Urban Studies 40, no. 12 (November 1, 2003):
2511–26, doi:10.1080/0042098032000136183. 59 The
following two chapters will elaborate more on the signif-
icance of the creative industries cluster establishment as
manifestation of the urban loopholes of exceptions under
economic transition. 60 Yinzhi Luan 栾吟之 and Wenjing
Wu 武文静, “南京西路如何成为国际购物标志性地区之一?
[How Did West Nanjing Lu Become One of the Iconic In-
ternational Shopping Areas?],” 解放日报 Liberation Daily,
September 25, 2006, http://jfdaily.eastday.com/eastday/
node4 /node101/node14261/u1a170714 .html. 61 Peiyun
Mao 茅佩云, “把静安南京路打造成中国的第五大道 [Making
West Nanjing Lu to Be China’s Fifth Avenue],” 第一财经日
报 First Finance Daily, July 10, 2009, http://money.163.
com/09/0710/02 /5DR24IV700253 B0 H.html. 62 Ibid.
63 “Shanghai Jing’an District`s Nanjing Road Set to Be-
come the Fifth Avenue,” The Official Shanghai China Trav-
el Website, October 15, 2007, http://www.meet-in-shang-
hai.net/news_detail2007.php?id=454 . 64 “威海路再变脸：
打造文化传媒一条街 [Weihai Road Makeover Again: Creat-
ing a Street for Cultural Media],” 互联网, March 31, 2008 ,
http://sh.pclady.com.cn/brand/review/ 0803 / 265273 .
html. 65 Huifang Chen 陈慧芳, Jianyi Hu 胡剑毅, and
Jukang Jin 金钜康, “三、专业特色街道, 上海汽配第一街—威
海路 [Chapter 3 Specialty Industries Streets, Section Car
Parts Street—Weihai Lu],” in 上海名街志 [Annals of Shang-
hai’s Famous Streets] (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学院出
版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2004),
http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node 2 /node 71994 /node 71
995 /node71999 /node72013 /userobject1ai77399.html.
66 The year 1949, which saw the founding of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China (PRC ) under the leadership of Mao
Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP ) is, in Chi-
na’s periodization, the year of ‘Liberation [解放].’ 67 Gu-
wei Zhang 张谷微, “威海路欲变身‘麦迪逊大道’ 老建筑修缮与
开发同步 [Weihai Road Will Become the ‘Madison Ave-
nue’—Simultaneously New Developments and Old Archi-
tecture Renovations],” 新闻晨报 Morning News, April 16,
2008 , http://xwcb.eastday.com/c/20080416/u1a421602.
html. 68 Jing’an Villas’ address is West Nanjing Lu Lane
Number 1125. 69 “威海路696 ·开放艺术 Weihai 696 Open
Art,” Aling的日志, June 23, 2007, http://jollierz.blog.163.
com/blog/static/3219632420075231074912 /. 70 Ning-
hua Song 宋宁华, “上海最大新式里弄住宅静安别墅等整体修
缮探访记 [Visit to Shanghai’s Largest New-Style Lilong
320
Jing’an Villa Awaiting Upgrade],” 新民晚报 New Citizen
Evening News, October 28 , 2009, http://sh.xinmin.cn/
sqkb/ 2009 / 10 / 28 / 2815322 .html. 71 “静安别墅 2010
[Jing’an Villas 2010],” 第一财经周刊 CBN Weekly, Decem-
ber 7, 2010, http://finance.ifeng.com/news/20101207/
3018536.shtml. 72 Shiling Zheng 郑时龄, 上海近代建筑风
格 [The evolution of Shanghai architecture in modern
times] (Shanghai 上海: 上海教育出版社 Shanghai Educa-
tion Press, 1999). 73 Unfortunately, author was not able
to procure this plan. 74 The Luwan district merged with
the Huangpu district in 2011, and the new district is called
Huangpu district. 75 For elaborations for the conceptual
framework for the conservation streets, see the previous
chapter. 76 Jiang Wu 伍江 and Lin Wang 王林, 历史文化
风貌区保护规划编制与管理：上海城市保护的实践 [The es-
tablishment and management of the Historic Cultural
Features and Styles Districts Conservation Plan: Cases
from Shanghai’s Conservation] (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学
出版社 Tongji University Press, 2007 ). 77 The term ‘mod-
ern era’ is used throughout the text to denote the physi-
cal built environment as well as the sensibility of the pe-
riod in Shanghai’s history prior to 1949, the year of China’s
Liberation. The term ‘Republican-era’ is a more specific
period within the modern era, largely denoting the period
in the 1920 s and 1930 s and the styles of that time. 78 静
安区城市规划管理局 Jing’an District Administration for Ur-
ban Planning, “静安区保护街坊保护与更新规划 [Plan for
the Conservation and Renewal of Jing’an District Conser-
vation Neighborhoods],” February 10, 2004 , http://www.
shjagh.gov.cn/seconds/newsinfo.asp?id=153 . 79 Lide
Wu 吴立德, “优秀建筑整体搬家 静安区力保老街坊 [Excellent
Architecture Move in Entirety, Jing’an District Ensure to
Protect Old Neighborhoods],” 城市导报 City News, Sep-
tember 11, 2003 , http://law.eastday.com/epublish/gb/
paper115 /20030911 /class011500003 /hwz640661.htm.
80 Jing Wang 王婧, “静安区规划保护老街坊 优秀历史建筑
整体搬家 [Jing’an District Ensure to Protect Old Neighbor-
hoods, Excellent Architecture Move in Entirety],” 青年报
Youth Daily, August 28 , 2003, http://news.sina.com.cn/
c/2003 -08 -28 /0922649638s.shtml; Wu 吴立德, “优秀建
筑整体搬家 静安区力保老街坊 [Excellent Architecture Move
in Entirety, Jing’an District Ensure to Protect Old Neigh-
borhoods].” 81 The reporters learned from the planning
bureau that “这片保护街坊周边的大部分道路将有待于进一
步拓宽、辟通，道路改建时，现代建筑全部或部分拆掉，较好
历史建筑予以保留，道路瓶颈处优秀历史建筑将采取整体平移
的处理方式 [when most of the roads next to these conser-
vation neighborhoods are awaiting the next level of wid-
ening, opening and reconstructions, modern architecture
will be entirely or partly demolished, and the relatively
good historic architecture will be kept, Excellent Historic
Architecture at road bottlenecks will undergo moving in
entirety as a method of resolution.] 82 Ang 李安 Lee, Lust,
caution 色戒, video recording (Universal, 2008). 83 In
2010, a website that advertised an apartment unit for sale
on West Nanjing Lu around the corner from Jing’an Villas
was overt in its use of images from Lust, Caution to ad-
vertise. The description for the apartment features was
preceded by a long description verifying the “cultural
commercial value” of the location. See http://blog.soufun.
com/30297150/10704060/articledetail.htm 84 http://
afso.net/projects/jia-hotel-lobby/ 85 “Epicure to Close
All Three Restaurants,” December 15 , 2013 , http://
www.soshiok.com/print/content/epicure-close-all-three-
restaurants. 86 Books published from theses show the
interest in topics on how historical urban governance in-
forms such governance during the contemporary period,
namely the economic transition of the 1990 s when the
market economy resumed its developments. Kai Yao 姚凯,
寻求变革之道 — 基于上海城市演进过程的规划管理创新探索
[Searching for the Way for Transformation—Exploration
of Urban Planning and Governance Innovation in Shang-
hai’s Urban Evolution] (Shanghai 上海: 上海科学技术出版
社 Shanghai Science and Technology Press, 2005).
Yuqiang Lian 练育强, “近代上海城市规划法制研究 [Study of
Urban Planning Law in Modern Shanghai]” (博士 PhD The-
sis, 华东政法大学 East China University of Politics and Law,
2009). 87 Documents from the Public Works Commis-
sion of the former International Settlement, and that from
the Conseil d’Administration Municipale of the former
French Concession, were first translated and then docu-
mented to garner the governance structures as well as
the development history of Concession-era Shanghai.
88 Qian Sun 孙倩, Jiang Wu 伍江, and Hesheng Zhao 赵
和生, 上海近代城市公共管理制度与空间建设 [Shanghai’s
Modern Era Urban Construction Administration System
and Spatial Development], 第1版 (Nanjing 南京: 东南大学
出版社 Southeast University Press, 2009). 89 Bubbling
Well Road, as known simply as ‘Horse Road [马路],’ de-
noting the width of the then newly built road, following
its straightening. 90 Shanghai grew quickly under its sta-
tus as a concession city beginning in the 1850 s, open not
only to refugees escaping the Taiping Rebellion of 1860 s
against the Qing Dynasty but also to mercantile influx from
the southeastern coastal areas. 91 It is interesting to note
that in the contemporary reportage of the Jing’an Villas,
connections of the development to these modern era no-
tables are drawn on to authenticate the importance of
the place. See Meng Li 李萌, “77岁静安别墅要‘恢复青春’
[77 Year Old Jing’an Villas will ‘Recover Its Youth’],”
东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, July 2 , 2009, http://
news.163 .com/09/0702 /10/5D78LEOB000120GR .html.
92 Hanchao Lu, “Nostalgia for the Future: The Resurgence
of an Alienated Culture in China,” Pacific Affairs 75, no. 2
(July 1, 2002): 169–86, doi:10.2307/4127181. 93 See 重庆
旅游新闻网 Chongqing Tourism News. 2011. “静安别墅，理
想的秘密社区 ［Jing’an Villas, the Ideal Secret Quartier”].”
November 1. http://www.cqtour.org/a/zhusu/20111101/
337.html [in Chinese] 94 Tales abounded in the 1940 s of
the indulgences by the clan, exemplified by the story of
Kong’s second daughter’s installation of the first modern
toilet in Chongqing during the war, using laborers to car-
ry up buckets of water to indulge the flushing when piped
water was not installed. 95 Interviews with Jing’an Villas’
small entrepreneurs, 2012 . 96 Ibid. 97 Tong Kong 孔
同, “上海 静安别墅将再现原生态海派风情 [Shanghai’s Jing’
an Villas Will Soon Recover Its Original ‘Haipai’ Disposi-
tion],” 新闻晚报 Evening News, July 1, 2009, http://
xwwb.eastday.com/x/20090701/u1a593808 .html. 98 “静
安别墅 弄堂商业的野蛮生长 [Jing’an Villas the Wild Growth
of Longtang Businesses],” 壹报通, July 4 , 2013 , http://
www.yibaotong.com/news/article-6059.html. 99 “‘泰国公
主’静安别墅行 [Thai Princess Visits Jing’an Villas],” 新闻晨
报 Morning News, April 28 , 2014 , sec. 社区报 Neighbor-
hood, http://114 .80.76.143:8080/cb-njxl/html/2014 -04 /
28/content_33010.htm. 100 “静安别墅不是田子坊！[Jing’an
Villas Is Not Tianzifang!],” 宽带山KDS, November 2010,
http://wap.kdslife.com/t / 1 / 15 / 59 1612 3 /?u= 0 &p=
1&look=&sc=235 &rnd=53 c1615 ead. 101 “静安别墅元老级
咖啡馆 [Jing’an Villas’ Coffeehouse Grandee],” June 13 ,
2011, http://www.myliving.cn/special_list/32 /971/2011_
06_ 13_ 14_ 34_ 31 .htm. 102 Interviews, 2011 , 2012 .
103 Wei Wang 王蔚, “藏在老弄堂的‘文化部落’ [’Cultural
Tribe’ Hidden in the Old Lilong],” 文汇报 Wenhui News,
April 14 , 2010, http://whb.eastday.com/w/20100414 /
u1a722857.html. 104 Ibid. 105 “腔调比人流量更重要的地
方 [the sensibility is more important than the people flow
in the place]” is the reason cited by small entrepreneurs
for the selection of Jing’an Villas as the place for their
“showrooms.” See “静安别墅2010 [Jing’an Villas 2010].”
106 Interviews with Jing’an Villas’ small entrepreneurs,
2012. 107 Ibid. 108 Yang Yang 杨扬 and Xiaoxin Lu 卢晓
欣, “上海城市进化：静安别墅的未来在哪里 [Urban Evolution
of Shanghai: Where Is the Future of Jing’an Villas],” 上海
壹周 Shanghai Weekly, March 30, 2011, http://sh.sina.com.
cn/news/e/ 2011 - 03 - 30 / 1534177831_ 2 .html. 109 The
2014 Economist issue’s cover is titled “China loses its al-
lure” highlighting the increasing barriers for multinationals
to stay competitive in China and an ensuing article in the
same issue highlights the growing sophistication of Chi-
nese consumers, making up a market that has great po-
tential. “China Loses Its Allure,” The Economist, January
25 , 2014 , http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/
21595001-life-getting-tougher-foreign-companies-those-
want-stay-will-have-adjust-china; “Doing It Their Way,”
The Economist, January 25, 2014 , http://www.economist.
com/news/briefing/21595019 -market-growing-furiously-
getting-tougher-foreign-firms-doing-it-their-way.
110 Multiple interviews in 2012–2013 with Jing’an Villas’
small entrepreneurs who described their products and
services with these characteristics, and who emphasized
their distinction from other enterprises. 111 For details
please see Chapter 3 . 112 重庆旅游新闻网 Chongqing
Tourism News, “静安别墅，理想的秘密社区 ［Jing’an Villas,
the Ideal Secret Quartier”],” Http://Www.cqtour.org,
November 1, 2011, http://www.cqtour.org/a/zhusu/20111
101/337.html. 113 “静安别墅2010 [Jing’an Villas 2010].”
114 Ping Lin, “Chinese Diaspora ‘at Home’: Mainlander Tai-
wanese in Dongguan and Shanghai,” China Review 11,
no. 2 (Fall 2011): 43–64 . 115 Interviews with Jing’an Vil-
las’ small entrepreneurs, 2011, 2012. 116 Lu, “Nostalgia
for the Future,” 178 . 117 This mode of knowingly risking
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
possible fines operates even in the seemingly more for-
mal developments, which will be elaborated in the next
two chapters. 118 The large block surrounded by larger
streets to the north and south of the block, and the fish-
bone structure of the lanes of the lilong creates a condi-
tion of graduated privacy. The houses at the end of the
cul-de-sac secondary lane are the most private of the
public spaces. 119 Gregory Byrne Bracken, The Shanghai
Alleyway House, Routledge Contemporary China Series
95 (New York: Routledge, 2013). 120 Chunlan Zhao,
“From Shikumen to New-Style: A Rereading of Lilong Hous-
321
 ing in Modern Shanghai,” The Journal of Architecture 9,
no. 1 (2004): 49–76 , doi:10.1080/136023604200019
7853. 121 Interviews with Jing’an Villas’ small entrepre-
neurs, 2012, 2013. 122 Ibid. 123 Interviews with Jing’an
Villas’ small entrepreneurs, 2012. 124 See the chapter on
the Cultural Street in the development of the conservation
policies in Shanghai and their impacts. 125 “静安别墅
2010 [Jing’an Villas 2010].” 126 Yang 杨扬 and Lu 卢晓
欣, “上海城市进化：静安别墅的未来在哪里 [Urban Evolution
of Shanghai: Where Is the Future of Jing’an Villas].” 127 In
2000, for example, the founder of what would become
the first outlet of contemporary healthy cuisine started
his Element 72 juice bar on West Nanjing Lu. It would
grow enormously successful in tapping into a yet un-ful-
filled market. 128 Paul Manning, Semiotics of Drink and
Drinking, Pap / Psc edition (London: Bloomsbury Academ-
ic, 2012). 129 Interview, 2012, 2013. 130 Mu Qing 青牧
and Leilei Huang 黄蕾蕾, “静安别墅，市井与文艺的混搭
[Jing’an Villas, the mix of Urban Life and Arts and Culture],”
生活周刊 Life Weekly, December 14 , 2010, http://www.
why.com.cn/epublish/node 32682 /node 37030 /user.
131 “Gentrification in Shanghai,” Shanghai Monthly, Oc-
tober 12, 2010, http://www.shanghaimonthly.info/blog/?
p=157. 132 Interview, 2012 , 2013 . 133 “繁华都市里净土
上海闹中取静的怀旧老街 [Paradise inside the Bustling City,
Quiet and Peace in the Nostalgic Old Streets of Shanghai],”
时尚传媒集团, October 17, 2013, http://xm.ifeng.com/xmlv
you/zoubianzhongguo/detail_2013_10/17/1346749_0.shtml.
134 “静安别墅不是田子坊！[Jingg坊！RL ”:”http://wap.kd-
slife.com/t 135 The projects Bridge 8 and M50 will be
discussed in the next chapter. 136 Shinohara, “Mutations
of Tianzifang, Taikang Road, Shanghai”; Guan 管娟 and
Guo 郭玖玖, “上海中心城区城市更新机制演进研究—以新天
地、8号桥和田子坊为例 [The operation mechanism of ur-
ban regeneration in Shanghai downtown-a study of Xin-
tiandi, Bridge 8 and Tianzifang]”; Qingchang Chen 陈青长,
“浅谈田子坊的再生模式 [Talking about the Regenerative
Mode of Tianzifang],” 中外建筑 Chinese and Overseas Ar-
chitecture, no. 03 (2012): 87–89. 137 Nanxi Su, “Art Fac-
tories in Shanghai: Urban Regeneration Experience of
Post-Industrial Districts” (Masters Thesis, National Univer-
sity of Singapore (NUS ), 2008). 138 Rutcosky, “Adaptive
Reuse as Sustainable Architecture in Contemporary
Shanghai.” 139 Until the late mid-2000 s, numerous
streets in residential neighborhoods served as daily
wet-markets, where everything from poultry to fish could
be bought. It was in the 1990 s when economic liberaliza-
tion began that the image of development and hygiene
prompted the building of infrastructures for food and the
relocation of markets indoors. It was part of the nation-
wide initiative of the 菜篮子工程 “Shopping Basket Project.”
In usual cases for open-air wet-market cleanups from the
street in Shanghai, promoted by former mayor Zhu Rong-
ji, the city usually funds 40 %, the district 40 % and the
market itself 20 %, in a scheme known as 442. But in the
case of Taikang Lu, the Street Office under Director Zheng
paid for the renovation of the old factory building and the
relocation of the stalls. 140 “老郑和他的田子坊人物聚焦
[People Focus: Mr. Zheng and His Tianzifang],” 上海知青
网, April 13, 2009, http://zhiqingwang.shzq.org/hlj/news-
Body.aspx?ID =1343 . 141 Fayong Shi, “Local Pro-Image
322
Coalition And Urban Governance in China,” in Contempo-
rary China Research Papers No 1 (Hong Kong Shue Yan
University: Hong Kong Shue Yan University, 2010). 142 Wu
had opened a famous crab-specialty restaurant, which
was popular with cultural celebrities of the time. This
network would be important to the involvement of the
artists in Tianzifang. 143 Early industries included Kang-
fu Textiles [康福织造厂], Shanghai Tannery [上海皮厂二厂],
Zhengfen Dye Factory [正丰漂染厂], Jianchen Fragrance
Factory [鉴臣香精二厂], Tianran MSG Factory [天然味精厂].
See Yan Zuo 左琰 and Yanqing An 安延清, 上海弄堂工厂的
死与生 [Death and Life of the Shanghai Longtang Facto-
ry], 第1版, 工业遗产保护与再生丛书 (Shanghai 上海: 上海科
学技术出版社 Shanghai Science and Technology Press,
2012). 144 The work-unit, or danwei [单位], was part
of the employment arrangement under the centrally-
planned economy. Each unit was responsible not only for
the employment of its employees but also for provisioning
housing and other welfare infrastructure for its employ-
ees. In large production sites that are built in the suburbs,
new housing neighborhoods are built to accommodate
the employees. In the city center, on the other hand, hous-
ing in proximity to each work-unit may be acquired by the
work-unit to rent to its employees. 145 Many SOE s col-
lapsed under pressure of marketization and competition
following reform in the 1990 s, letting go of numerous
workers, and leaving their properties as their remaining
asset. 146 “老郑和他的田子坊人物聚焦 [People Focus:
Mr. Zheng and His Tianzifang].” 147 The announcement
for the demolition and renewal plan was made in the
document “Shanghai Housing Resources Arrangement
Document 315 沪房地资安 [2001] 315号]” from 2001. See
also hui_kai1945 , “上海市打浦桥55 街坊变成打浦桥‘商厦’
［Shanghai’s Dapuqiao’s Block 55 Turned into Dapuqiao’s
‘Commercial Tower’],” August 10, 2012, http://huikai.wap.
blog.163.com/w2 /login.do?type=relogin&tip=-16
148 Xiaoxiao Wan 万晓晓, “张氏家族‘卷土’大陆 日月光集团
数千亿地产布局 [Zhang Family Returns to Mainland ASE
Group Layout Hundred Millions of Real Estate],” 经济观察
网, July 9, 2010, http://www.eeo.com.cn/industry/real_es-
tate/2010/07/08 /174950.shtml. 149 The word 坊, trans-
literated fang, is used to denote both the lane and the
surrounding neighborhood that it traverses, often as the
main artery. The name of the first artist mentioned by the
Chinese historic book 史记 Records of the Historian, was
called 田子方 Tian Zifang, which is homonymous with
what Huang would name as Tianzifang. Thus, the name
given to the new development was an evocation of the
art links from Chinese history. 150 In January 2003, the
District Ministry of Housing and Land Resources Adminis-
tration announced that Block 55 would undergo demoli-
tion and displacement, or chaiqian [拆迁]. The develop-
ment companies were the government-backed firm
Shanghai Xincheng Development [上海兴城建设发展有限
公司] and the Wealthy Joy Co Ltd [和富乐国际有限公司],
which was a firm listed in Hong Kong. In May 2003, the
two firms, Shanghai Rutile Real Estate Development Co.
[上海鼎荣房地产开发有限公司] and the Shanghai Dingle
Real Estate Development Co. [上海鼎乐房地产开发有限公
司] were founded and registered in Shanghai with regis-
tered capital of USD 34 ,200,000 and USD 33,480,000
respectively. Wealth Joy Co owns 99 % of the stocks in
both. And the legal representative for both firms was that
of the Taiwanese tycoon Richard Chang 张洪本. In August,
the two firms received the Permission for Building Dem-
olition and Displacement [房屋拆迁许可证,] for Block 55.
151 Jingxin Zhang 张靖欣, “原住民自行开发田子坊二期出租
[Original Residents Self-Organize to Redevelop for Rental
Tianzifang Phase Two],” 上海商报 Shanghai Business Dai-
ly, September 19, 2006, http://www.shbiz.com.cn/Item/
40016 .aspx. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid. 154 Ibid. 155 Ibid.
156 Richard L. Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And
How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Ev-
eryday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2004). 157 “田子坊
Tianzifang,” 中共黄浦区委门户网站 Website of the Huang-
pu District CCP, accessed May 23, 2014, http://www.lwdw.
sh.cn/lwdj/infodetail/?infoid= 1 b 3 eb 816 - 59 ab- 4 bda-
a3 ae-2ce5079 cc04 e&categoryNum=018 . 158 Guo 郭淳
彬, “旧城居住区自发性改造问题研究—以田子坊为例 [Study
of Organic Conversions in Old City Residential Neighbor-
hoods—case study of Tianzifang].” 159 “弄堂里的商业区
[Commerce Area in the Longtang],” 23 2009, http://
www. 360 doc.com/content/ 14 / 04 01 / 13 / 15398581 _
365447857.shtml. 160 “创意产业园模式之思：投资拉动还
是依托人力,” 第一财经日报 First Finance Daily, August 30,
2006, http://www.bridge8.com/website/htmlcn/news_18 .
htm. 161 Bridge 8 , a redevelopment of a former indus-
trial compound owned by the automobile industry nearby,
cost 40 million RMB initially to upgrade and is on a 20 -
year lease where a fast timeline allows for returns to kick
in already after 5 years. An elaboration of the processes
of industrial reuse is in the following chapter. 162 “吴梅
森:生意人?文化人?策划人? ［Wu: Businessman? Cultural-
ist? Strategist?],” 政治论文发表, 中国论文网, (February 24 ,
2012), http://www.xzbu.com/1/view-164542.htm. 163 In-
terview with Wang Lin, 2012. 164 Alex Lehnerer, Grand
Urban Rules (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2009), 162 .
165 Ibid. 166 Interview with Wang Lin, 2012. 167 Even
though Zheng received additional accolades and titles,
the relief of his duty was a result of his direct confronta-
tion of both the district mayor and other ministers in the
effort to preserve the block. See “老郑和他的田子坊人物聚焦
[People Focus: Mr. Zheng and His Tianzifang].” 168 Xians-
hu Cheng 程贤淑, “‘石库门博览馆’风韵万种 人大代表呼吁保
护泰康路历史风貌区 [Shikumen Museum Multiple Charms,
People’s Congress Rep Appeal to Protection of Taikang
Road Historic Styles Area],” 新闻晚报 Evening News, Jan-
uary 26, 2005, http://old.jfdaily.com/gb/node2 /node17/
node38 /node51268 /node51275 /userobject1ai784658 .
html. 169 Wang, Interview with Wang Lin. 170 Accord-
ing to Wang, “个体行为”is more important, followed by the
market and taste. The government’s role is the 底线 or
bottom line. Ibid. 171 Ibid. 172 The same unit was more
than 10,000 RMB /month in 2009. “弄堂里的商业区 [Com-
merce Area in the Longtang].” 173 “房租上涨，上海创意
产业受阻 [Rents Rise, Obstacles to Shanghai’s Creative In-
dustries],” 国际金融报 International Finance Daily, June 7,
2007, http://news.sohu.com/20070607/n250431907.shtml.
174 Jingxin Zhang 张靖欣, “是城保新模式还是违规居改非
[New Model for Urban Conservation or Illegal Residential
Conversion],” 上海商报 Shanghai Business Daily, Septem-
ber 22, 2006, http://www.shbiz.com.cn/Item/40319.aspx.
175 Jingxin Zhang 张靖欣, “田子坊‘民办’变‘公管’ [Tianzifang
Changes From ‘people Organized’ to ‘state Managed’],”
上海商报 Shanghai Business Daily, April 17, 2008 , http://
www.shbiz.com.cn/Item/77431.aspx. 176 According to
the law regarding Shanghai Residential Rental 上海市房屋
租赁条例, residential designated buildings are not permit-
ted to be converted to non-residential uses. On Luwan
District’s request, the Municipal Housing Ministry issued a
special document “关于卢湾区田子坊地区转租实行审批制的
申请报告 [Regarding the Application for the System of Re-
view and Approvals in order to Implement Luwan District
Tianzifang Area’s Subleasing]” that permitted the proce-
dures to be carried through legally, pending annual review
and approval process. See “上海田子坊：‘三得利’的市场化
实践 [Shanghai Tianzifang: Putting Marketization to Prac-
tice in ‘Three for Benefits’],” 世联行 World Union, Septem-
ber 10, 2012, http://www.worldunion.com.cn/cn/chuban/
comdetail.aspx?nc=105005001002&id=100000205139
599. 177 “弄堂里的商业区 [Commerce Area in the Long-
tang].” 178 For properties such as Taikang Lu Lane 210,
Numbers 5 and 7 that the district has acquired, its own
management firm, Luwan Jingwei Group [卢湾经纬集团],
would be directly reaping the profits of the market-rate
rentals. But in gratitude for Wu’s connections that initiat-
ed the culturally led conversion, his firm retains the man-
agement right to the other SOE properties. See “上海田子
坊：‘三得利’的市场化实践 [Shanghai Tianzifang: Putting
Marketization to Practice in ‘Three for Benefits’].” 179 Jing
Zhang 张靖, “吴梅森：一人、一坊、一梦 ［Wu: One Person,
One Neighborhood, One Dream],” 北京周报 Beijing Week-
ly, March 18 , 2010, http://www.beijingreview.com.cn/
2009 news/renwu/ 2010 - 03 / 18 /content_ 255923 .htm.
180 Yingcai Xu 徐银才, “上海田子坊的前世今生 [Shanghai
Tianzifang Past and Present],” 徐银才文学网, February 17,
2011, http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_517081ff0100 pgnr.
html. 181 In an open letter to the developers, a resident
wrote that the compensation proposed for his 40 -square
meter unit, a unit that was occupied by five people in his
family, was 13,968 RMB , commenting that the land prices
were 5–6 times already. After negotiation, the final com-
pensation by the Displacement Unit was 625,600 RMB .
Accordingly, that was the equivalent to five years of rent-
al profits, not including taxes imposed, for a ground floor
unit in the block north of Taikang Lu. See Jinlong 朱金龙
Zhu, “告台湾商人张洪本、张虔生 [To the Taiwanese Ty-
coons Richard Chang, Jason Chang],” November 20, 2013,
http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-3823187-1.shtml. 182 “弄
堂里的商业区 [Commerce Area in the Longtang].” 183 Dong
Yang 楊冬 and Fuqing Teng 滕芙勤, “层层转租 田子坊租金
超梅泰恒 [Sublease on Every Floor, Tianzifang Rentals Ex-
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
ceed the Golden Triangle],” 新闻晚报 Evening News, No-
vember 2 , 2011, http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5 /
www.cnstock.com/index/gdbb/ 201111 / 1643374 .htm.
184 Jingxin Zhang 张靖欣, “田子坊再次成为城市发展的热点
[Tianzifang Again Becomes the Hotspot of Urban Devel-
opment],” May 15, 2014 , http://www.shbiz.com.cn/Item/
234038 .aspx. 185 Ibid. 186 To be noted is the time lag
necessary for obtaining the different parts of the case vi-
gnette. The former director of the Street Office, Zheng,
who started the project in 1997, did not, until 2009, talk
extensively about the project that he began. He repre-
323
sented the local state and it is thus understandable that
publicity would slow career advancement in the pecking
order of cadres. In contrast, Wu, who was largely inde-
pendent, was discussing the project, in 2006, because of
his role as a publicly-engaged private entrepreneur, po-
litically backed by the Street Office. 187 Yi Chen 陈弋, “静
安别墅 油天油地 恶劣环境让居民抱怨小区里开了80多家店铺
且多数无证 [Jing’an Villas, Covered with Cooking Grease:
Degraded Environment Prompts Residents’ Complaint
about 80 -Some Businesses Largely without License],” 青
年报 Youth Daily, November 30, 2010, http://www.why.
com.cn/epublish/node4 /node34013/node34016/userob-
ject7ai248802 .html. 188 “静安别墅不是田子坊！[Jingg
坊！RL ”:”http://wap.kdslife.com/t 189 Ibid. 190 Ibid.
191 Chen 陈弋, “静安别墅 油天油地 恶劣环境让居民抱怨小
区里开了80多家店铺且多数无证 [Jing’an Villas, Covered
with Cooking Grease: Degraded Environment Prompts
Residents’ Complaint about 80 -Some Businesses Largely
without License].” 192 Qing 青牧 and Huang 黄蕾蕾, “静
安别墅，市井与文艺的混搭 [Jing’an Villas, the mix of Urban
Life and Arts and Culture].” 193 Ye Zhi 职烨 and Yucheng
He 贺雨程, “静安别墅这次又要怎么办？[Jing’an Villas What
Should Be Done This Time?],” 申报, December 8 , 2011,
http://data.jfdaily.com/a/2448588 .htm. 194 Chengying
Jiang 姜晟颖, Ye 职烨 Zhi, and Chao 钱超 Qian, “若把静安
别墅变成田子坊你还会喜欢吗？[Would You Still like Jing’an
Villas If It Is Turned into Tianzifang?],” 申江服务导报, De-
cember 8 , 2010, http://news.163.com/10/1208 /10/6NC-
GQNB700014AED .html. 195 Ye Zhi 职烨, “在静安别墅，文
艺的买卖有多难？ [At Jing’an Villas, How Difficult Is the
Business of Culture and Arts?],” 申江服务导报 Shanghai
Times, December 8 , 2010, http://news.163.com/10/1208 /
10/6NCGP2EC00014AED .html. 196 One entrepreneur
said of the district’s management of the licensing: “其实
工商对于我们的管理只是睁一眼闭一眼，没有想要正真管。他
们都知道这里的状况，但是面子上的事情还是要做的 ［in re-
ality the Industry and Commerce bureau manages us with
only ‘open one eye close one eye’, they don’t really want
to manage us. They all know the situation here, but we
still have to do the things (i.e. not publicizing the small
business and not opening too late) that are for saving
face].” Ibid. 197 Ibid. 198 The influence of the residents
was apparent in their ability to secure the upgrade of the
tower: because rapid development of an adjacent high-
rise had impinged on the daylighting, their complaints led
the district to try to ameliorate their grievances through
cosmetic upgrades which in turn led to the fire. 199 Vic-
tor Shih, “Guest Post: Corruption May Undo China’s
Economic Miracle,” Financial Times, accessed May 2, 2014 ,
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/ 2011 / 08 / 19 /guest-
post-corruption-may-undo-chinas-economic-miracle/.
200 “上海‘11·15’特大火灾事故中受查处的54 名事故责任人名
单 [List of 54 Responsible Persons under Investigation and
Reprimand for the Shanghai ‘11–15’ Large Fire Disaster
Incident],” 人民日报 People’s Daily, June 10, 2011, http://
www.chinasafety.gov.cn/newpage/Contents/Channel_
5498 /2011/0610/134117/content_134117.htm. 201 “上海
城市进化论 如何平衡商业与文化 [Shanghai’s Evolution:
How to equilibrate commerce and culture”,” 上海壹周
Shanghai Weekly, March 30, 2011, http://sh.sina.com.cn/
news/e/2011 -03 -30/1534177831.html. 202 Yang 杨扬
324
and Lu 卢晓欣, “上海城市进化：静安别墅的未来在哪里 [Ur-
ban Evolution of Shanghai: Where Is the Future of Jing’an
Villas].” 203 Debbie Yong, “Jing’an Villa—the New Tianzi-
fang?,” CNN Travel, April 23 , 2011, http://travel.cnn.
com/shanghai/life/jingan-villa-new-tianzifang- 351872 .
204 Denis Fred Simon and Detlef Rehn, “Innovation in
China’s Semiconductor Components Industry: The Case of
Shanghai,” Research Policy 16 , no. 5 (October 1987 ):
259–77, doi:10.1016 /0048 -7333(87 )90010 -2 . 205 Syl-
via Bai, “A Tour of Shanghai’s Burgeoning Art Haven, Wei-
hai Lu 696,” Blouin Art, October 8 , 2010, 696, http://
uk.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/277663/a-tour-of-shang-
hais-burgeoning-art-haven-weihai-lu-696 . 206 “Gen­
trification in Shanghai.” 207 Lisa Movius, “Whither 696
Weihai Lu?,” WSJ Blogs—Scene Asia, January 11, 2011,
http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/ 2011 / 01 / 11 /whither- 696 -
weihai-lu/. 208 Jijun Cao 曹继军 and Weiqi Yan 颜维琦, “
上海:事前征询群众意见 让旧区改造‘一路阳光’ [Shanghai:
Consult the People Before, Transforming Old Districts ‘one
Way Sunshine’],” 光明日报 Guangming Daily, August 17,
2011, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2011 -08 /17/c_
121870028 .htm. 209 Jiawen 邬佳文 Wu, Di 徐笛 Xu, and
Jiejin 吴洁瑾 Wu, “静安别墅丝袜奶茶被勒令停业 [Jing’an Vil-
las Denny House Milk Tea Closed down],” 东方早报 Orien-
tal Morning Post, November 25, 2011, http://sh.sina.com.
cn/news/s/2011 -11 -25 /0807201421.html. 210 Meng Li
李萌, “静安别墅将保留有证店铺 其余85 家商铺将逐步关停
[Ji ng’an Villas Will Keep Licenced Shops, Other 85 Shops
Will Be Closed],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, Novem-
ber 26 , 2011, http://dfdaily.eastday.com/d/20111126 /
u1a941407.html. 211 Ibid. 212 Kyle Long, “Shanghai:
Where Skyscrapers Loom, a Street-Food Paradise Thrives,”
The Guardian, December 13, 2012, http://www.theguard-
ian.com/travel/blog/2012 /dec/13 /shangahi-street-food-
jingan-villas. 213 The previous chapter elaborated on
heritageisation in Shanghai, the development of fengmao
conservation as concept and practice, and its relation to
the state hegemony. 214 According to Wu, the priority
of interests should be for the residents and not for the
tourists and visitors. The heritage conservation efforts will
take time to implement, but should eventually lower the
residential density. See “静安别墅装门禁引发利益之争 官方
称还需商讨 [Jing’an Villas’ Installation of Keycard Gates
Causes Arguments over Cost Benefits, Officials State Still
Need to Discuss Commerce],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning
Post, October 30, 2013 , http://sh.sina.com.cn/news/b/
2013 -10 -30/111167959.html. 215 “素有“小上海”之称的静
安别墅（今南京西路1025 弄）内，不仅有旅馆、舞厅、弹子
房，还有西人开设的酒吧、咖啡馆等 [Jing’an Villas, also
known as ‘Little Shanghai (today’s West Nanjing Lu Lane
1025, not only had hotels, dance halls, billboard houses,
but also had bars and cafés opened by westerners].” Jun
Qu 瞿钧, “第二章街道分述, 第四节威海路街道 [Chapter 2 Jie-
dao, Section 4 Weihai Jiedao],” in 静安区志 [Annals of
Jing’an District], vol. 第三编街道 [Volume 3 Jiedao] (Shang-
hai 上海: 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of So-
cial Sciences Press, 1996), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/
node2 /node4 /node2249/node4412 /node17431 /node
17651/node17661/userobject1ai6472 .html. 216 Liuqing
Yan 严柳晴, “静安别墅‘阿跷馄饨’的前世 今生:搬场后最舍不得
老食客［Jing’an Villas ‘Wonton Uncle’’s Previous Incarna-
 tion, in This Life: Most Missed Are the Old Customers after
Forced Move],” 青年报 Youth Daily, November 1, 2013, sec. A.
217 “对于类似的民居，在面临再利用的问题时，政府需要考
虑得更周全一些，包括建筑本身权属是否允许，开咖啡馆等形
式有没有损坏建筑风貌，是不是影响到其他居民的生活；如果
要产生影响，是不是有相应的补偿机制及时跟进。这些都需要
早作考虑，且不能照搬某个模式一刀切。如果等到矛盾产生乃
至形成气候了再去干预，恐怕会变得很被动.” Shenjing He,
“State-Sponsored Gentrification Under Market Transition
The Case of Shanghai,” Urban Affairs Review 43 , no. 2
(November 1, 2007 ): 171–98 , doi:10.1177/10780874073
05175; Yingying Tian and Cecilia Wong, “Large Urban Re-
development Projects and Sociospatial Stratification in
Shanghai,” in China’s Emerging Cities: The Making of New
Urbanism, ed. Fulong Wu, Routledge Contemporary China
Series 26 (New York: Routledge, 2007 ), 210–31; Shenjing
He, “New-Build Gentrification in Central Shanghai: Demo-
graphic Changes and Socioeconomic Implications,” Pop-
ulation, Space and Place 16, no. 5 (September 1, 2010):
345 – 61 , doi:10.1002 /psp.548 . 218 Interview, 2012 .
219 Yimin Sun 孙亦敏, “上海市中心城区零星旧里更新研
究—以静安区为例 [Study of Shanghai City Center Area’s
Renewal of the Piecemeal Old-style Lilongs—using the
case of Jing’an District]” (硕士 Masters Thesis, 同济大学
Tongji University, 2007 ). 220 “静安别墅出路究竟在哪里 委
员建议居民整体搬迁 [Where Is Jing’an Villa’s Outlook?
Committee Member Recommends Relocating All the Res-
idents”],” 新闻晚报 Evening News, January 12 , 2012 ,
http://news.sh.soufun.com/ 20 12 - 0 1 - 12 / 6 8 412 18 .
htm. 221 Yiqiong 顾一琼 Gu and Zhen 邵珍 Shao, “代表委
员热议文化保护：特色民居保护该走哪条道 [Representative
Committee Member Discuss Cultural Conservation: Con-
servation of Unique Residential Architecture Should Go
Which Way?],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, January 19, 2012,
http://news.dahe.cn/ 20 12 / 0 1 - 19 / 10 1057413 .html.
222 The persistence of the ’72 residents [72房客]’ phe-
nomenon, denoting the residential overcrowding and
shared infrastructure, which persist in historic housing
with property tenureship holdovers from the planned
economy era was cited as the major obstacle to improv-
ing living conditions. 223 Zhanjun Li 李战军, “上海直管公
房长期积累的问题十分严峻 [Long-Term Accumulated Prob-
lems of Shanghai’s Directly Managed Public Housing Se-
rious],” May 12, 2010, http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4 ­
bea7bd70100 i6 hm.html. 224 Interview with residents,
2014 . 225 Yingqiong Qiu 裘颖琼, “静安别墅门禁系统还居
民清净 封闭管理并非‘一刀切’ [Jing’an Villas Entry Guard
System Gives Back Quiet to the Residents, Closed Man-
agement Not ‘one Size Fit All’],” 东方网, November 29,
2013, http://news.163.com/13/1129/22 /9ESP7P9A00014
AEE .html. 226 “在整治前，我曾委托居委会召集了四十五名
居民代表座谈，听取民意。居民们的想法很一致，很支持整治
工作，认为安装门禁是利大于弊。门禁安装后，不仅能让商户
消失，小区内还将增加24 小时安保力量，整个小区的品质和
安全性就提高了。为了不让门禁安装破坏小区的风貌，门禁的
设计更三易其稿 [before the reorganization, we had held
meetings with forty-five resident representatives through
the residential committee, to get the residents’ opinions.
Their opinions were very similar, very supportive of the
reorganization, seeing the installation of the gate as more
beneficial than detrimental. After installing the gate, not
only did it make the commerce disappear, but also made
the neighborhood secure for 24 hours, increasing the
quality and security of the entire compound. And to not
ruin the fengmao of the neighborhood, the design of the
gate was well-considered.” See Yanping Fan 范彦萍, “静安
别墅围剿无证商户 人性化设置门禁 早晚高峰放行 [Encircle
and Suppress Businesses without Permits in Jing’an Villas,
Humanely Install Gated Entrance, Allowing Morning and
Evening Rush-Hour Traffic],” 东方网, October 25, 2013 ,
http://sh.eastday.com/m/ 20131025 /u 1 a 7734121 .html.
227 Ibid. 228 Ibid. 229 Kong, “上海 静安别墅将再现原生
态海派风情 [Shanghai’s Jing’an Villas Will Soon Recover Its
Original ‘Haipai’ Disposition].” 230 “今日房产：#直播大中
里#钉子户正在… [Today’s Real Estate: #livefrom-
Dazhongli#nailhouseisbeingdemolished],” 自由微博 Free-
weibo.com, May 24 , 2013 , https://freeweibo.com/wei-
bo/3581418812456377. 231 Weirong Gu 顾卫荣, “香港地
产巨头会战上海高端市场 兴业再造‘新天地’ [Hong Kong Real
Estate Giant Will Battle in Shanghai’s High-End Market,
HKR Re-Produce ‘Xintiandi’],” 新闻晨报 Shanghai Morning
Post, January 15, 2003, http://old.jfdaily.com/gb/node2 /
n o d e 1 7/ n o d e 3 3 / n o d e 6 0 5 5 / n o d e 6 0 6 4 / u s e r o b -
ject 1 ai 6 8 8 4 4 .html. 232 Ibid. 233 Ibid. 234 Ibid.
235 Xiuhao Liu 刘秀浩 and Jie Wang 王杰, “兴业国际携太
古地产百亿港币开发上海大中里 [HKR Takes on Swire Prop-
erties for Billion HKD to Develop Shanghai Dazhongli],” 东
方早报 Oriental Morning Post, November 30, 2006, http://
biz. 163 .com/ 06 / 1130 / 03 / 3156521 S 00020Q EO .html.
236 Ibid. 237 Haolun Shu 舒浩仑, 乡愁 Nostalgia, Docu-
mentary (2006). 238 Ningbo is one of China’s oldest cit-
ies and is in the northern Zhejiang Province. It is still
known for its shrewd business people. Many of the entre-
preneurs in modern era Shanghai were from Ningbo.
Many of the Hong Kong tycoons who emigrated from
Shanghai were originally from Ningbo. 239 Chijeng Kuo
郭奇正, “上海解放後到改革開放前城市集居形式蛻變中的身體
經驗 [The Bodily Experience within the Transformation of
Dwelling Forms between 1949 and the 1980 s],” 考古人類
學刊 Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology, no. 704
(2011): 203–42 . 240 Xiaofei Zhen 甄晓菲, “石库门乡愁
[Shikumen Homesickness],” 南方周末 Southern Weekend,
July 20, 2006 , http://www.xici.net/d40177025 .htm.
241 Xiaolin Hang 杭晓琳, “上海最老石库门里弄之一动迁引
爆都市乡愁 [One of Shanghai’s Oldest Shikumen Li-
long—Relocation Triggers Urban Nostalgia],” 南都周刊
Southern Capital Weekly, August 14 , 2006, http://news.
sina.com.cn/c/2006 -08 -14 /184810722356.shtml. 242 静
安建设和交通委员会 Jing’an Construction and Transport
Committee, “大中里动迁基地签约率达到59.84％ [At Dazhong-
li Relocation Site Signing of Contract Rate Reach 59.84 %],”
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
December 31, 2006, http://jianwei.jinganJing’an.gov.cn/
jajw/platformData/infoplat/pub/jajw_12 /docs/200701 /
d_180117232.html. 243 Chen 陈彩琴 and Yu 余致胜, “三、
专业特色街道, 美食休闲街—吴江路 ［Chapter 3 Specialty In-
dustries Streets, Section Food and Recreational Street—
Wujiang Lu].” 244 Yanping Fan 范彦萍, “年底,上海吴江路
小吃街真的要没了 [By Year’s End, Shanghai Wujiang Lu
Food Street Will Really Be Gone],” 青年报 Youth Daily, De-
cember 1, 2009, http://why.eastday.com/q/20091201/
u1a662671.html. 245 Qian Sun 孙倩, “上海近代城市建设
管理制度及其对公共空间的影响 [Urban Construction Ad-
325
 ministration System and its Impact on Public Space in
Modern Shanghai]” (博士 PhD Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji Uni-
versity, 2006). 246 Wu 伍江 and Wang 王林, 历史文化风
貌区保护规划编制与管理：上海城市保护的实践 [The estab-
lishment and management of the Historic Cultural Fea-
tures and Styles Districts Conservation Plan: Cases from
Shanghai’s Conservation], 152–53 . 247 静安区规划局
Jing’an Planning Administration, “《静安区40、46号街坊(
大中里地块)详细规划》征询公众意见 [“Jing’an District Block
Number 40, 46 (Dazhongli Site) Detailed Plan] Seeks Pub-
lic Feedback],” February 26, 2008, http://218.242.36.250/
News_Show.aspx?id=9882. 248 Cao 曹继军 and Yan 颜
维琦, “上海:事前征询群众意见 让旧区改造‘一路阳光’ [Shang-
hai: Consult the People Before, Transforming Old Districts
‘one Way Sunshine’].” 249 Victor Cha’s father is the
founder and chairman of HKR 查濟民, Chi-ming Cha, a
well-known industrialist who began in the textile and dye
business and who, like many other industrialists, had em-
igrated to Hong Kong from Shanghai in the late 1940 s.
The use of Shanghainese dialect is notable in the intimate
connection between Shanghai’s rapid global integration
and economic development, and foreign investments,
largely from Hong Kong and Taiwan’s Chinese diaspora,
that had made the development possible. 250 Xiuhao
Liu 刘秀浩, “上海再建顶级娱乐消费地标 豪言将超新天地
[Shanghai Builds Top-Level Recreation and Consumption
Landmark, Boldly States Will Exceed Xintiandi],” 东方早报
Oriental Morning Post, March 12 , 2009, http://nb.fccs.
com/news/html/2009/03/12 /2022951.shtml. 251 Guwei
Zhang 张谷微, “90岁民立中学将‘走’至威海路 专家:万不得已
之策 [90 Year Old Minli Middle School Will ‘go’ to Weihai
Lu, Expert Says Last Resort Strategy],” 新闻晨报 Morning
News, March 11, 2009, http://xwcb.eastday.com/c/2009
0311/u1a546549.html. 252 When the stash of dyes that
the Qiu brothers had bought from their fleeing former
German boss became the sole supply during the wartime
import cutoff, they became rich. Shipeng Sha 沙似鹏 et al.,
“动物安居的城堡式花园：邱氏兄弟住宅（民立中学）[Castle-
Styled Garden with Menagerie: Qiu Brothers’ Residences
(Minli Middle School)],” in 上海名建筑志 [Annals of Shang-
hai’s Famous Architecture] (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学
院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press,
2005 ), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node71994 /
node 81772 /node 81775 /node 81786 /userobject 1 ai 109
025.html. 253 Ibid. 254 Luxia Song 宋路霞, 回梦上海老
洋房 [Dreaming of Shanghai’s Old Western-style Houses],
回梦百年上海系列 (上海 Shanghai: 上海科学技术文献出版社
Shanghai Science and Technology Press, 2004). 255 Sha
沙似鹏 et al., “动物安居的城堡式花园：邱氏兄弟住宅（民立
中学）[Castle-Styled Garden with Menagerie: Qiu Brothers’
Residences (Minli Middle School)].” 256 Michelle Qiao,
“War Paint Built Qius’ Zoo,” Shanghai Daily, November 11,
2004 , http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004 -
11/11/content_390515.htm. 257 Ibid. 258 Qijun Zhou 周
其俊, “‘民立’老校舍‘行走’威海路 [Minli’s Old School Building
Cross Weihai Lu],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, March 11, 2009,
http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2009 -03 -11/083315291265s.
shtml. 259 Ibid. 260 Xinjie Jiang 蒋昕捷, “让老房子穿鞋
走路 [Allowing Old Houses to Wear Shoes to Walk],” 中国
青年报 China Youth Daily, April 15, 2009, http://zqb.cyol.
com/content / 20 0 9 - 0 4 / 15 /content_ 2624261 .htm.
326
261 For the importance of the Sanshan Guild Hall to the
development of the conservation policy in Shanghai see
the previous chapter. Also see Shipeng Sha 沙似鹏 et al.,
“保存最完美的会馆建筑：三山会馆 [Best Preserved Clan-
house Architecture: Sanshan Huiguan],” in 上海名建筑志
[Annals of Shanghai’s Famous Architecture] (Shanghai 上
海: 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sci-
ences Press, 2005), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2 /
node71994 /node81772 /node81776/node81788 /userob-
ject1ai109095.html. 262 关于静安区40号、46号街坊（大
中里）详细规划的批复 [Approval for the Detailed Plan of
Jing’an District Neighborhood Number 40, 46 (Dazhong-
li)], 2009, http://www.shgtj.gov.cn/ghsp/ghsp/ja/201001/
t20100107_355892.html. 263 The most prominent case
of the un-touchability of a national-level plot is that of the
Shanghai Exhibition Center, further west on West Nanjing
Lu. Located across the Portman-built Shanghai Center, the
district’s attempts to integrate its prime location site into
future plans have only been met with frustration, due to
the disinterest and thus inaction on the part of its cen-
tral-government owner. Interview, 2012 . 264 Many of
the lilong developments with the character qing [庆] in
their names belonged to Zhou Xiangyun’s family enter-
prises. 265 Shipeng Sha 沙似鹏 et al., “美轮美奂的海上洋
楼 房地产巨商的花园住宅：周湘云住宅（岳阳医院）[Chap-
ter Beautiful Western-Styled Buildings, Section Real Es-
tate Entrepreneur Giant’s Garden-Styled Home: Zhou
Xiangyun’s Home (Yueyang Hospital)],” in 上海名建筑志
[Annals of Shanghai’s Famous Architecture] (Shanghai 上
海: 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sci-
ences Press, 2005), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2 /
node71994 /node81772 /node81775/node81786/userob-
ject1ai109041.html. 266 Shunsheng Xue 薛顺生 and
Chenghao Lou 娄承浩, 老上海花园洋房 [Old Shanghai’s
Western-Style Garden Houses] (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学
出版社 Tongji University Press, 2002). 267 Municipal land
use plan, 2000. 268 Ibid. 269 Xiuhao Liu 刘秀浩, “静安
区大中里项目2012年开门迎客 [Jing’an District’s Dazhongli
Projects Opens and Welcomes Guests in 2012],” 东方早报
Oriental Morning Post, September 27, 2009, sec. 财经 Fi-
nance, http://xinwen.haozhai.com/news_143640.html.
270 Guilan Chen 陈桂兰, “国内名企抢占上海静安南京路
［Famous Enterprises Fom China Fight to Occupy Shanghai
West Nanjing Lu],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, September 25,
2009, http://whb.eastday.com/w/20090925/u1a634997.
html. 271 Ibid. 272 Meng Li 李萌, “吴江路小吃街彻底告别
市民 [Wujiang Lu Food Street Completely Bids Farewell to
Citizens],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, February 25,
2010, sec. 大都会 Metropolis, http://epaper.dfdaily.com/
dfzb/html/2010 -02 /25/content_200943 .htm. 273 Ming-
ming Qin 秦明明, “大中里项目一年两延期 [Dazhongli Proj-
ect Delays Twice in the Year],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning
Post, March 24 , 2011, http://epaper.dfdaily.com/dfzb/
html/ 2011 - 03 / 24 /content_ 4 624 4 3 .htm. 274 Ibid.
275 Interview, 2014 . 276 Zhigui Shen 沈之佳, “‘大中里’地
上工程下月开工 [Dazhongli Will Begin Construction next
Month],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, November 27,
2012, http://www.dfdaily.com/html/136/2012 /11/27/900
221.shtml. 277 Yan Jiang 姜燕, “上海大中里项目十年始动
工 太古错失黄金期 ［Shanghai Dazhongli Project Starts af-
ter Decade, Swire Missed Opportunity for Golden Period],”
时代周报 Time Weekly, December 13, 2012, http://finance.
ifeng.com/news/house/20121213/7424567.shtml. 278 国
土资源部 Ministry of Land Resources of the PRC , 闲置土地
处置办法 [Regulation to Handle Unused Land], vol. 国土
资源部发(2012) 第53号, 2012 , http://www.mlr.gov.cn/
zwgk/zytz/201206/t20120607_1107632.htm. 279 Yi Wu
吴怡, “独家揭秘：上海施工最难的城市综合体—大中里 [Se-
crets Revealed: Most Difficult Construction Site in Shang-
hai for Urban Mixed Typology—Dazhongli],” 今日房产 Real
Estate Today, accessed January 25, 2015 , http://www.
gotoday.com.cn/DefaultPage/ 17286 /new_show.htm.
280 Xinjie Tian 田新杰, “上海地铁临时用地疑似违规出让调
查 ［Investigation of Doubtful Against-Regulations Leas-
ing of Land Used Temporarily for Shanghai Subway],” 21
世纪经济报道 21st Century Economic Report, January 20,
2011, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2011-01-20/042421843
778 .shtml. 281 Jie Song 宋杰, “静安南京路地铁上盖地块成‘
最后的钻石’ [Jing’an Nanjing Lu Plot Above the Subway
Becomes ‘Last Diamond’],” 上海商报 Shanghai Business
Daily, July 10, 2014 , http://www.shbiz.com.cn/Item/2378
09.aspx. 282 Since policies calling for transparency on
urban land use-right leases came into force, Shanghai has
made public all bid processes on its website http://www.
shtdsc.com/bin/dkxx/t/s. Of the 1105 entries catalogued
and archived since 2013, only very few are from city cen-
ter districts such as Jing’an or Huangpu. 283 Shanghai
Urban Planning and Design Research Institute 上海市城市
规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design In-
stitute, 循迹启新-上海城市规划演进 [Follow the tracks and
initiate the new: Evolution of Shanghai’s Urban Planning],
140. 284 Jian Gong 贡坚, “张家花园一份关于上海传统城市
居住形态的调查报告及思考 [Zhang Garden, A Research Re-
port and Thoughts on Shanghai’s Traditional Urban Resi-
dential Form]” (硕士 Masters Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji Uni-
versity, 2005), 68 , http://max.book118 .com/html/2013 /
1210/5179154 .shtm. 285 Ibid. 286 Gong 贡坚, “张家花园
一份关于上海传统城市居住形态的调查报告及思考 [Zhang
Garden, A Research Report and Thoughts on Shanghai’s
Traditional Urban Residential Form].” 287 静安区城市规
划管理局 Jing’an District Administration for Urban Plan-
ning, “静安区保护街坊保护与更新规划 [Plan for the Conser-
vation and Renewal of Jing’an District Conservation Neigh-
borhoods].” 288 Yi Huang 黄怡, “大都市核心区的社会空间
隔离—以上海市静安区南京西路街道为例 [Socio-spatial seg-
regation in Metropolitan Nuclei Areas: a case study of Nan-
jing Xilu Street, Shanghai],” 城市规划学刊 [Urban Planning
Forum], no. 03 (2006): 76–84. 289 Ibid. 290 Ibid. 291 Xi­
ao Wang 王潇, “关于社会分类的研究－以上海静安为例 [Re-
search Regarding Social Fragmentation, Taking Shanghai
Jing’an as Case]” (硕士 Masters Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji Uni-
versity, 2004). 292 Gong 贡坚, “张家花园一份关于上海传
统城市居住形态的调查报告及思考 [Zhang Garden, A Re-
search Report and Thoughts on Shanghai’s Traditional Ur-
ban Residential Form].” 293 In addition to Gong’s anal-
ysis of Zhang Gardens in his master’s thesis, a few others,
one on the residential developments in the Jing’an district
in 2007, one on the growth of service industries on West
Nanjing Lu, and one on high density real estate in the dis-
trict, have studied the developmental capacities of the
district with little reflection on the legacy structures and
their contemporary impact. One master’s thesis on the
development density in conservation zones had passed
over Zhang Gardens in 2006. Only in 2012 did there ap-
pear a master’s thesis that resembles somewhat the re-
search done on piecing together the historic urban devel-
opment of what was later to become the Jing’an District.
See Peng Gao 高鹏, “上海市中心城旧居住区更新方式比较研
究—以静安区为例 [The renewal of scattered old lilong
dwellings in the central city of Shanghai-case study on
Jing’an District]” (硕士 Master’s Thesis, 上海交通大学 Shang-
hai Jiaotong University, 2007 ); Jie Hou 侯洁, “上海现代服
务业集聚区商务旅游开发研究: 以上海南京西路专业服务商务
区为例 [Research on the Business Tourism Development
of Shanghai Modern Service Industry Cluster Districts—a
Case Study of Nanjing West Road Professional Service
Commercial District in Shanghai]” (硕士 Masters Thesis, 上
海师范大学 Shanghai Normal University, 2008); Ling Ge 葛
玲, “上海市静安区土地集约利用研究 [Study of Land Inten-
sive Utilization in Shanghai Jing’an District]” (硕士 Masters
Thesis, 上海交通大学 Shanghai Jiaotong University, 2009);
Jiahuan Chen 陈佳澴, “城市历史风貌区保护规划中的建筑密
度研究—以上海历史文化风貌区保护规划的实践为例 [Study
of Architectural Density in the Urban Historic Fengmao
Conservation Plan, with cases from the implementation
of the Conservation Plan for Shanghai’s Historic Cultural
Fengmao Districts]” (硕士 Masters Thesis, 同济大学 Tongji
University, 2005); Xia Ren 任夏, “近代上海静安区城市化研
究（1862–1949）[Study of modern era Shanghai Jing’an
District’s urbanization (1862–1949)]” (硕士 Masters Thesis,
复旦大学 Fudan University, 2012). 294 Two of the plots
belonged to the City Clock and Watch Company, which
belonged to the Light Industries Group and the Beijing
Zhongchuang Company, that belonged to the Municipal
Science and Technology Committee. The other three be-
longed to the Jiubai Group and Kaikai Group, both be-
longing to the Municipal Commerce Committee. 295 At
the same time, the low-rise lilong homes at Lane 550 in
the southern portion of Zhang Gardens block were also
demolished. In the late 1990 s rush for infrastructural up-
grades and subway constructions, many renewal projects
were pushed through in the optimism for moderniza-
tion. 296 Jun Chen 陈君, “下楼即是吴江路 静安核心区域标
杆性豪宅 [Downstairs Is Immediately Wujiang Lu, Jing’an
Central District’s Exemplary Luxury Residence],” 新闻晨报
Shanghai Morning Post, March 26 , 2014 , sec. 居民区.
297 Ibid. 298 静安区规划局 Jing’an Planning Bureau,
“《静安区地铁12、13号线南京西路站及换乘通道地块修建性
详细规划》征询公众意见 [‘Detailed Plan for Construction
on the Plot for the West Nanjing Lu Stations of Subway
Lines 12 and 13 and Their Interchange Passage in the
Jing’an District’ Public Consulation],” 静安区规划局 Jing’an
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
Planning Bureau, September 22, 2008, http://www.shgtj.
gov.cn: 8 2 /gate/big 5 /www.shgt j.gov.cn/hdpt /gzcy/
ja/200809/t20080922_180774.htm. 299 Ibid. 300 Ibid.
301 The company’s Chinese name “英國瑞弗士建築咨詢有
限公司,” is a transliteration of the word “Refiners”, but
written in characters that could also suggests another En-
glish name, Raffles, which sometimes has the same pho-
netic translation. The inclusion of UK in front of the name
also suggests that it is a local company, disguised as a
foreign-affiliated one. 302 “张家花园保护与策略研究项目
进展顺利 [Zhang Gardens Conservation and Strategies Re-
327
search Project’s Progress Smooth],” 静安时报 Jing’an Daily,
December 16, 2008 , http://www.jingan.gov.cn/newscen-
ter/janews/ 200812 /t 20081216_ 68115 .htm. 303 Ibid.
304 静安区规划局 Jing’an Planning Bureau, “‘静安区地铁
12、13号线南京西路站及其换乘通道地块修建性详细规划’专
家评审会召开 [Convening of the Expert Appraisal Meeting
for ‘Detailed Plan for Construction on the Plot for the West
Nanjing Lu Stations of Subway Lines 12 and 13 and Their
Interchange Passage in the Jing’an District’],” October 10,
2008 , http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai%5 Cnode
2314% 5 Cnode 2315 % 5 Cnode 15343 % 5 Cuserobject 21 ai
301347.html. 305 Qijun Zhou 周其俊, “打造文化休闲街 静
安启动首个城市文化印记项目 [Creating Cultural Recreation
Street, Jing’an Initiates First Urban Cultural Imprint Proj-
ect],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, April 22, 2009, http://whb.
eastday.com/w/20090422 /u1a563703 .html. 306 Yan-
ping Fan 范彦萍, “上海最老游乐场将进行内部整修 [Shang-
hai’s Oldest Amusement Park Will Undergo Interior Ren-
ovation],” 青年报 Youth Daily, May 19, 2009, http://why.
eastday.com/q/20090519/u1a575816.html. 307 Cheng-
hao Lou 娄承浩, “张家花园的前世今生 [Zhang Gardens’ Past
and Present],” 上海档案信息网 Shanghai Archives, June 1,
2009, http://www.archives.sh.cn/shjy/scbq/201203 /
t20120313_5786.html. 308 Tong Kong 孔同, “‘树群夜校’原
址确认 在张园大客堂内 [‘Shuqun Night School’ original Lo-
cation Confirmed, inside the Zhang Gardens Grand Living
Room],” 新闻晚报 Evening News, July 1, 2010, http://www.
news365 .com.cn/wxpd/sh/ja/201007/t20100701_275
5100.htm. 309 Rong Yang 杨蓉, “一、中共静安区委员会,
(五)宣传工作, 启动‘静安城市文化印记’项目调研认证 [Chapter
1 Jing’an CCP Committee, Section 5 Publicity, Research
Confirmation for the Initiation of ‘Jing’an Urban Cultural
Imprint’ Project],” in 静安年鉴 2009 [Jing’an Almanac
2009] (Shanghai 上海: 上海辞书出版社 Shanghai Encyclo-
pedia Publisher, 2009), 89, http://www.jingan.gov.cn/
jagk/janj/jingannianjian2009/zgjaqwyh/xcgz/200911 /
t20091104_38189.htm. 310 Liyin Fan 范立音, “五、社区
(街道), (六)南京西路社区(街道), 建成张园大客堂 [Chapter 5
Community, Section 6, West Nanjing Lu Jiedao, Complet-
ing Zhang Gardens Living Room],” in 静安年鉴 2009
[Jing’an Almanac 2009] (Shanghai 上海: 上海辞书出版社
Shanghai Encyclopedia Publisher, 2009), 165, http://www.
jingan.gov.cn/jagk/janj/jingannianjian2009/sqjd/njxlsq-
jd/200911/t20091106_38651.htm. 311 “‘张家花园’春节后
迎客 50名人故居世博前挂牌 [’Zhang Gardens’ Welcomes
Guests after Chinese New Year’s, 50 Former Residences
of Luminaries Plaqued before World Expo],” 新闻晚报 Eve-
ning News, February 11, 2010, sec. A. 312 Ibid. 313 Zhuke
Cheng 程绪珂 and Tao Wang 王焘, “第二章营业性私园 第一
节味莼园 [Chapter 2 Commercial Private Parks, Section 1
Weichun Garden],” in 上海园林志 [Shanghai Gardens An-
nal], 上海市专志系列丛刊 (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学院
出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2000),
http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node 2 /node 2245 /node 69
854 /node 69859 /node 69907/node 69911 /userobject
1ai69551.html. 314 Ibid. 315 Yuezhi Xiong 熊月之, “张园
与晚清上海社会 一个游乐场所的兴衰与公共空间的形成 [Zhang
Gardens and the Late Qing Dynasty Shanghai Society, the
Rise and Fall of an Entertainment Space and the Forma-
tion of Public Space],” 南方周末 Southern Weekend,
April 4 , 2002 , http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/ch-yu-
328
wai/136299.htm. 316 Ibid. 317 “张园当年就是‘小小世博
会’ [Back Then Zhang Gardens Was the Small World
Expo],” 青年报 Youth Daily, March 26, 2010, http://www.
shjinganlib.net/html/main_lx1_content.asp?id=38 &fenlei_
id=136 &wz_id=3840. 318 The previous chapter elabo-
rated how popular media, especially those produced in
Hong Kong and other overseas Chinese communities and
including television shows featuring heroes such as Huo
Yuanjia and nostalgia literature, were important in rekin-
dling interest in China’s pre-Liberation modern era since
economic liberalization began in China. 319 The Gardens’
free admissions policy, and its installation of newest tech-
nology and infrastructures, was a direct reaction by the
group of Chinese merchant citizens who rejected the
many Western parks built by the International Settlement
and French Concession governments, that were specifi-
cally closed to Chinese citizens. Even though the exclusion
of Chinese from the racecourse and public parks like Fux-
ing Park and the Bund Park had often been taken out of
context in the CCP ’s account of a weak China’s subjuga-
tion by the foreign powers, thus rallying the citizens
around its own role in the nation’s salvation, their selective
entry systems nevertheless suggested that natives, as op-
posed to Westerners, were not fit for what were deemed
as civilized urban habits such as strolling in the park.
Zhang Garden’s openness to all people of all classes, on
another level, delivered the message that the people of
Shanghai were not only urban enough to participate in
the western imports of the latest amusements in the park,
but that the many traditional activities, such as tea drink-
ing, flower admiring, traditional story-telling and vernac-
ular opera listening, were as fitting to the newly formed
habits of the modern Chinese urbanite. 320 In contrast
to the number of Chinese-style gardens that were also in
existence at the same time, Xiong emphasized, Zhang
Gardens was distinct in its size, cultural hybridity, the ear-
liness of its advent, as well as its central location. 321 The
public spaces of Zhang Gardens were important breeding
grounds for the newly forming cultural conceptualization
of a Shanghainese identity at the time. The active journal-
ism and publishing enterprises, often led by the patrons
of many of the salons at Arcadia Hall and supporting this
growing Shanghainese identity, led the discourse for the
nation’s modernization. 322 Mingwu Zhu 朱珉迕, “辛亥革
命与上海 张园：革命思想的策源地 [Xinhai Revolution and
Shanghai’s Zhang Gardens: Revolutionary Idea’s Origins],”
解放日报 Liberation Daily, October 4 , 2011, http://jfdaily.
eastday.com/j/20111004 /u1a926815 .html. 323 Toshio
Kikuchi 菊池敏夫, 近代上海的百货公司与都市文化 [Modern
era Shanghai’s Department Stores and Urban Culture],
trans. Zu ’en Chen 陈祖恩 (Shanghai 上海: 上海人民出版社
Shanghai People’s Press, 2012). 324 Xiong 熊月之, “张园
与晚清上海社会 一个游乐场所的兴衰与公共空间的形成 [Zhang
Gardens and the Late Qing Dynasty Shanghai Society, the
Rise and Fall of an Entertainment Space and the Forma-
tion of Public Space].” 325 高参88 , “威海路590 弄张家花
园 [Weihai Lu Lane 590 Zhang Gardens],” 新浪博客 Sina
Blog, July 9, 2014 , http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5 d1bd-
f480102ux0 h.html. 326 “‘张家花园’春节后迎客 50名人故
居世博前挂牌 [’Zhang Gardens’ Welcomes Guests after
Chinese New Year’s, 50 Former Residences of Luminaries
 Plaqued before World Expo].” 327 Zhou 周其俊, “打造文
化休闲街 静安启动首个城市文化印记项目 [Creating Cultural
Recreation Street, Jing’an Initiates First Urban Cultural Im-
print Project].” 328 Yanping Fan 范彦萍, “延续原生态居住
部落 映像张园唤醒历史记忆 [Continuing the Original Ecol-
ogy of Residential Tribe, Image Zhangyuan Awakes His-
toric Memories],” 青年报 Youth Daily, May 12, 2010, http://
www.why.com.cn/epublish/other/node29576/node29578 /
userobject7ai222318 .html. 329 Ibid. 330 Ibid. 331 静安
区规划和土地管理局 Jing’an District Planning and Land Ad-
ministration, “静安区42号街坊（张家花园）及43号街坊东侧
地块城市设计与控详局部调整方案》规划公示并征询公众意见
[‘Urban Design and Detailed Control Plan for Partial Ad-
justment to the Block 42 (Zhang Gardens) and Eastern
Part of the Block 43 ’ Publicized and Open for Public Con-
sultation],” July 14 , 2010, http://www.jingan.gov.cn/pre-
view/jinganweb/sypd/gs/201008 /t20100803_75413.htm.
332 Ibid. 333 “地铁三线南京西路枢纽建设将有大动作,”
August 27, 2010, http://shanghai.metrofans.cn/thread-
152685 -1 -1.html. 334 Ningning Tao 陶宁宁, “张园老建筑‘
拆解’至仓库 通车后复建 [Zhang Gardens’ Old Architecture
‘Dismantled’ to Warehouse, Reconstruction after Subway
Connected],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, September
27, 2011, http://www.news365 .com.cn/wxpd/sh/shms/
201109/t20110927_3145167.htm. 335 Tong Kong 孔同,
“八旬老建筑拆解后赴嘉定‘隐居休假’ 轨交建成后将‘修旧如旧’
原地复建 [80 Year Old Architecture Dismantled Head to
Jiading For ‘hide-Away Holiday’, after Finish of Under-
ground Metro They Will Be Rebuilt on Original Site ‘reno-
vate the Old as the Old’],” 新闻晚报 Evening News, Sep-
tember 26, 2011, sec. A1. 336 Yanping Fan 范彦萍, “张园
4 栋老宅‘搬’到嘉定 [Zhang Gardens’ Four Old Residences
‘move’ to Jiading],” 青年报 Youth Daily, September 27,
2011, http://www.why.com.cn/epublish/node10336 /use-
robject7ai287360.html. 337 Kong 孔同, “八旬老建筑拆解
后赴嘉定‘隐居休假’ 轨交建成后将‘修旧如旧’原地复建 [8 Year
Old Architecture Dismantled Head to Jiading For ‘hide-
Away Holiday’, after Finish of Underground Metro They
Will Be Rebuilt on Original Site ‘renovate the Old as the
Old’].” 338 Jun Liu 刘俊, “新‘贪吃蛇’游戏—一条地铁引发的
拆迁博弈 [New ‘Greedy Snake’ Game, One Subway Line’s
Triggering of Demolition and Relocation Gamble],” 南方周
末 Southern Weekend, December 17, 2010, http://www.
infzm.com/content/53573. 339 Ibid. 340 ‘Administrativ­
ely-allocated land’ refers to land that has been allocated
by the state to institutional users, usually for free or for a
nominal price, prior to economic liberalization. 341 Since
land marketization, there is a dual land market in China.
The first is land that is bought, sold and exchanged, and
is at market price. The second is land that is state-allocat-
ed to state institutions and state-owned enterprises, and
is below the market price. See the next chapter for more
details for the policy shifts that have solidified the state-al-
located land in the dual land market, and the ensuing
conditions that in effect marketize also the state-allocated
land, through the process of subleasing by private entre-
preneurs. 342 Kui Li 李奎, “普尔斯马特9名高管涉嫌抽逃上
亿资金今日受审 [PriceSmart’s Top Management Suspected
of Siphoning and Fleeing with Hundreds of Millions in
Funds, on Trial Today],” 法制晚报 Legal Evening News, Oc-
tober 23, 2006, http://news.163.com/06/1023/14 /2U4G-
MV6E0001124 J.html. 343 “上海‘6.5 事件’ 静安区出动大批
警察突围 [Shanghai ‘6.5 Incident’ Jing’an District Dispatch-
es Large Number of Police to Break out of Encirclement],”
June 16, 2012, http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-2588088 -1.
shtml. 344 Caiyun Zeng 曾彩云, “上海政府机构发函断案被
指干预司法 [Shanghai Government Organizations Corre-
spondence to Settle Lawsuit Accused of Intervening in
Justice],” 当代商报 Modern Business News, July 19, 2013,
http://news.sohu.com/ 20130719 /n 382023186 .shtml.
345 Liu 刘俊, “新‘贪吃蛇’游戏—一条地铁引发的拆迁博弈
[New ‘Greedy Snake’ Game, One Subway Line’s Triggering
of Demolition and Relocation Gamble].” 346 Tomatito,
Taste and See, Starling, Punch and Rosa Gallica are some
of the small commerce in Zhang Plaza. 347 To give ex-
amples of the localized cosmopolitan network that have
found niche markets in the F & B scene in Shanghai, the
bar Starling was opened by Malaysian-Chinese entrepre-
neur and House of Flour (HoF) founder Brian Tan [陈绵泰]
and the French co-founder of industry magazine DRiNK
Theo Watt, together with American event manager and
barman Adam Devermann. One news report said that,
“Conceptually, Starling’s back bar shows a bias for quality
rum with an interior that nods to British colonial Malaya.
A full cocktail list is in the works but early efforts include
the ace Tom Yam Colada, Thai Punch and Galangal Club.”
Another bar, Logan’s Punch, was opened by American Lo-
gan Brouse who had also worked for clubs like M1NT and
Muse, and its interiors designed by the architects Neri and
Hu, who also designed the restaurant café Taste and See,
by Australian-Chinese entrepreneur Kang Yang Lim. The
Tomatito tapas bar was opened by Spanish chef Willy Trul-
las Moreno, the founder of El Willy restaurant on the Bund,
and also a partner of the bar El Coctel at Yongfu 47. See
“Starling Opens on Taixing Lu, Shanghai 上海泰兴路上的
Starling开张,” DRiNK Magazine | China’s Leading Bar In-
dustry Magazine, December 6, 2014 , http://www.drink-
magazine.asia/2014 /06/12 /starling-opens-on-taixing-lu-
shanghai-%E4%B8 %8 A%E6%B5%B7 %E6%B3 %B0 %E5
%85%B4%E8 %B7 %AF %E4%B8 %8 A%E7 %9A%84 star-
ling%E5%BC %80 %E5%BC %A0/. 348 Jicheng Li 李继成,
“为历史保护建筑让路 轨交南京西路站或只能‘虚拟换乘’ [To
Give Room to Historic Conservation Architecture, West
Nanjing Lu Subway Stop Perhaps Could Only Have ‘false
Interchange’],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, August 4 ,
2014 , http://sh.eastday.com/m/20140804 /u1a8261702 .
html. 349 Jie Xu 许劼, “历史地段地下建筑空间组织模式浅
析—以静安区地铁12、13号线及连通通道地块为例 [The Anal-
ysis of the Mode of Underground Construction Spatial Se-
quence in Historic Areas: A Case Study of Underground
Construction of Metro Line 12 and 13 in Jing’an District],”
Chapter 4 The Midtown of China
现代城市研究 Urban Research, no. 1 (2014): 62–69. 350 Li
李继成, “为历史保护建筑让路 轨交南京西路站或只能‘虚拟换
乘’ [To Give Room to Historic Conservation Architecture,
West Nanjing Lu Subway Stop Perhaps Could Only Have
‘false Interchange’].” 351 Wu 伍江 and Wang 王林, 历史文
化风貌区保护规划编制与管理：上海城市保护的实践 [The
establishment and management of the Historic Cultural
Features and Styles Districts Conservation Plan: Cases
from Shanghai’s Conservation]. 352 “地块公告号：
201415401 静安区南西社区111-09 地块（轨道交通12号线南
京西路站地块）基本信息 [Public Notice Number 201415401
329
Jing’an District South West Community District Plot 111–09
(Subway Line 12 West Nanjing Lu Station Site) Basic In-
formation],” 上海土地市场-土地交易 [Shanghai Land Mar-
ket—Land Exchange], October 28 , 2014 , http://www.
shtdsc.com/bin/dkxx/v/201415401. 353 Qijin Zhou 周祺
瑾, “最有上海味道的土地出让：静安黄金地块要建10 栋石库门
小楼 [Leasing of Shanghai’s Most Flavor Real Estate:
Jing’an Golden Site Will Construct 10 Shikumen Lowrise],”
澎湃新闻 Pengbai News, November 6, 2014 , http://m.the-
paper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1276114 . 354 Qijin Zhou
周祺瑾, “南京西路地块10 亿挂牌起拍 起始单价5 .3万 [West
Nanjing Lu Plot 1 Million RMB for Bid, Starting Price 53000
RMB Per Square Meter],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post,
November 7, 2014 , http://sh.house.qq.com/a/20141107/
024445_all.htm. 355 “上海静安111 – 09 地块有效申请1人
起始价10 亿元 [Shanghai Jing’an Plot 111–09 One Valid
330
Applicant, Starting Price One Billion RMB ],” November 25,
2014 , http://www.guandian.cn/article/20141127/154088 .
html. 356 The subsidiaries of the Shanghai Jing’an Sub-
way Investment Limited [上海静安地铁投资有限公司] and
the Shanghai Huzhong Real Estate Development [上海沪
中房地产联合发展总公司]. 357 Patti Waldmeir, “Discount
That China’s Salary Classes Can Stomach,” Financial Times,
June 25, 2013, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e3054f3 c-
dcc5 -11e2-b52b-00144 feab7de.html#axzz30YG6 bPqF.
358 The rendering was shown as part of Zhang Gardens’
upgrade project, and labeled ‘a renovation project of a
multi-functional mixed use area.’ See “3.4 、42号街坊张家
花园保护与更新研究 [Neighborhood 42 Zhang Gardens
Conservation and Renewal Study],” 上海静安规划网 Shang-
hai Jing’an Planning, accessed January 17, 2015, http://
www.shjagh.gov.cn/seconds/deve_plan/new3_4 .htm.
Chapter 5
The New Economies

Alternative Business Plan for Creative Incubation: Anken Green

New Local-Global Alliances: the Upgrade of Yongkang Lu
The New Economies
Anken Green, 2013
When UNESCO nominated Shanghai to become part of the City of Design network in
time for the World Expo in early 2010, it also validated the city’s ‘transition [转型],’ 1
from the decades of “manufactured in Shanghai” to “designed in Shanghai.” 2 Econ-
omists and officials in Shanghai, having learnt the vocabulary of global competitive-
ness, 3 were, and are still, preoccupied with ‘innovation’ and ‘creativity,’ attributes nec-
essary for the ‘transition’ to a knowledge-based, value-added development phase. This
chapter focuses on two recent developments, which highlight how Shanghai’s ‘transi-
tion,’ emphasized in the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo, has shifted focus from large-
scale developments to more qualitative transformations. These developments seem to
corroborate the Expo theme, “the city makes life even better [城市让生活更美好]”, offi-
cially translated as “Better City Better Life.” 4 Their development processes also show
how Shanghai, as the city that the central government chose as the ‘Dragon’s Head’ of
China’s economic liberalization and global integration, would lead the country into its
next phase of ‘transition.’ This ‘transition’ would take China from an emerging econo-
my dominated by manufacturing, to one increasingly service- and knowledge-based.
In Shanghai’s city center, four projects, Xintiandi [新天地], Tianzifang [田子坊], M 50,
and Bridge 8 [八号桥], are most often cited as the spatial manifestations of Shanghai’s
‘transition’ to the ‘Better City.’ 5 (Fig. 1) The projects of Xintiandi and Tianzifang paved
the way as the first known examples of urban renewal through the successful com-
mercial reuse of historic residential structures. They became recognized across China
as new paradigms for urban renewal and heritage conservation. Just as Xintiandi and
Tianzifang groomed China’s interest in reusing historic architecture, the Bridge 8 and
M 50 projects pioneered the reuse of undervalued former factories as ‘creative industry
clusters.’ Together with Tianzifang, Bridge 8 and M 50 paved the way for the ensuing
modes of ‘cultural-led urban regeneration.’6
This chapter presents two more recent cases of ‘culture-led urban regeneration’ and
reuse projects, the Anken Green [安垦] development and the upgrading of Yongkang
Lu [永康路]. These cases are not only representative of the heritage-creative focus that
the 2010 World Expo catalyzed in Shanghai. They also both built on the processes and
methods that the earlier projects developed. Both make use of urban loopholes, pro-
duced by the coexistence of and ambiguity between planned and market economics,
to create spatial opportunities for development. The public-private alliances in the two
projects have also evolved from their top-down and bottom-up precedents. Supporters
of Yongkang Lu’s development position it as an updated version of the combination
of Xintiandi and Tianzifang.7 The designer-developers of Anken Green see themselves
as innovating on the existing business model for ‘creative industries cluster’ develop-
ment, 8 the model that originated in the Bridge 8 project.
The economic restructuring of the mid-1990s closed down the manufacturing spac-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

es of state enterprises found in the city center, laid off the largely blue-collar workers,
and left buildings disused. At the same time, the restructuring opened up new develop-
ment opportunities. From the large-scale textile factories, flour mills, and steel factories
to the small lilong factories embedded within residential neighborhoods, the industrial
leftovers from economic transition became the opportunity for both creative producers
and enterprising developers to tap into the undervalued and overlooked built resources.
While Xintiandi was known as the top-down version of residential reuse, Tianzi­
fang would come to be popularly known as its bottom-up counterpart.9 Similarly,

337
 Bridge 8 reused former state-owned enterpris-

industrial
Bridge 8 es (SOE ) industrial buildings, becoming the
M50
八号桥 top-down complement to M50’s bottom-up
conversion of similar SOE -owned former in-
residential

dustrial buildings.10
Building Type

田子坊 新天地
Tianzifang Xintiandi In Tianzifang, returnee artists set up their
atelier spaces in vacant state-owned industri-
“bottom-up” “top-down” al real estate, taking advantage of the gaps left
Development Type
by economic reforms. Though the local street
Fig. 1 Drawing of four precedent projects for urban reuse office had initiated and facilitated the first re-
in Shanghai, 2013 use, these developments triggered further
conversions, spreading also to the residential
spaces. In M 50, contemporary artists and galleries moved from adjacent buildings that
were demolished to take over the former production spaces of a textile factory. There,
the leadership of the SOE that ran the textile factory not only tolerated but also sym-
pathized with the artists. In the context of similar neighboring sites that have under-
gone demolition, the preservation of both Tianzifang and M50 was not contingent so
much on the architectural or urban qualities of the buildings as on the political will-
power of the decision-makers in charge. In contrast, a commercial developer affiliated
with the district, was the first to convert a former factory building of the automobile
group, turning it into the Bridge 8 premises.
Program ambiguities and policy gaps created by the local state’s adaptive gover-
nance produced the opportune conditions for both state-affiliated and non-state af-
filiated actors to intervene. In turn, these actors produced spaces that resolved ineffi-
ciencies resulting from the dual market under China’s transition economy. Although
the resulting reproduction of spaces looks very much like the global palette of ‘city as
loft,’11 the institutional structures that both created and constrained the opportuni-
ties for development remain grounded in the framework of China’s transition econo-
my.12 The newer projects of Anken Green and Yongkang Lu continued to exploit these
inefficiencies of the dual market in their spatial productions. But their processes also
show an increasingly active local state that engages and participates in the develop-
ment process, also profiting from the urban loopholes.
These two more recent projects show a shift towards public-private alliances,
where the local state and its affiliates are increasingly active participants in the de-
velopment process. This contrasts with the wider range of public-private alliances in
the earlier projects.
The first case in the chapter, that of Anken Green, is a unique small-scale redevel-
opment project in the northern part of Jing’an District. Jing’an is, as shown in the pre-
vious chapter, known as the most economically ambitious district. Despite restructur-
ing, parts of Jing’an remain socially diverse, having inherited an industrial-residential
mixed area near the Suzhou River that has not been entirely en-bloc renewed. Set in
this northern industrial-residential area, the Anken Green development makes use of
the development mode first established by the Bridge 8 development, which produced
the creative clusters in former industrial buildings belonging to SOE s. Although one
of the four important precedent projects for Shanghai’s transformation, with its busi-
ness plan replicated in most ensuing industrial reuse projects, little research has actu-

338
 ally described the mechanism for Bridge 8’s development. The brief account of Bridge 8’s
development is thus included, to understand the processes and drivers for producing
projects like Anken Green. In its implementation, however, Anken Green’s localized
cosmopolitan designer-developers13 diverge from the growth-driven model of Bridge 8.
Instead, their business model for development caters to a more diversified and real
demand. The resulting spaces accommodate small creative enterprises, which cannot
otherwise afford the kinds of spaces that the original Bridge 8 model produced. The
Anken Green project thus shows how changing the priorities of the reuse model could
cultivate, rather than hinder ‘creative industries.’ The district government has since its
development shown interest in the project’s success, granting Anken Green creative in-
dustries cluster status despite it not fulfilling the outlined requirements for it. This also
foreshadows a future direction for culture-led urban regeneration in the city center.14
The second case, Yongkang Lu, is a former market street close to Huaihai Lu, one
of the main commercial thoroughfares in Shanghai. While formally closer to devel-
opments like Jing’an Villas and Tianzifang, its upgrade has taken on characteristics
from the incremental conversion and reuse of small-scale structures. The project is also
unique in its use of a development mode that has also learned from the conversion of
former SOE real estate. The district government’s active role in the development, en-
gaging the localized cosmopolitan designer-developers, and facilitating the state-affili-
ated stakeholders, makes it procedurally closer to the Xintiandi project. The district’s
shift from large-scale renewal projects to small-scale conversions also taps into the
demands of the ‘new economy’15 while exploiting the dual market.
The previous two chapters followed the development trajectory of two large neigh-
borhoods over a span of time just after economic liberalization began. This chapter
focuses on two case samples, shorter in time frame, that are representative of the in-
terests and priorities of more recent developments. They are drawn out from a larger
neighborhood sample to highlight how Shanghai’s ‘transition,’ emphasized in the lead-
up to the 2010 World Expo, has shifted focus from large-scale developments to more
qualitative transformations. These culture-led urban regeneration projects demonstrate
that the Chinese characteristics of gentrification are embedded in the local institu-
tional framework. They also show that the evolving spatial products of urban loopholes
might in turn also change the institutional constructs of the urban loopholes them-
selves. Notably, the Yongkang Lu project faced partial shutdown in 2016, following the
author’s initial research conducted from 2012 to 2014, making visible the adaptive gov-
ernance, institutional amphibiousness, and the contingencies of development processes
under transition economy that have necessitated urban loopholes.

Alternative Business Plan for

Chapter 5 The New Economies

Creative Incubation: Anken Green

Two architects started the development firm Anken in 2006 as an extension of their
design firm, Enclave. One is an Australian of Chinese ancestry from Melbourne who
moved to Shanghai from Hong Kong in the early 2000s. Prior to that, she worked in
Los Angeles with the international landscape firm EDAW, Inc. Her partner is also an

339
Fig. 2 Anken Warehouse in the northern part of the Jing’an District, 2013

architect with extensive experience with the New Urbanists, having led the inter-
national design firm HOK ’s New Urban Studio. Their combined international experi-
ences brought important insights to the spatial needs of international creative offices
in Shanghai.16 Furthermore, their involvement in the redevelopment of other well-
known projects in the heyday of the mid-2000s, Ferguson Lane,17 amongst others, also
gave them insight into the necessity of local connections in particular and the logic for
doing business in general.
As a design firm, Enclave began with locations in the vicinity of the Suzhou River,
where many industries have been located since the early 1900s. The former industrial
buildings—with high ceilings, big windows, and floor-through spaces—have the type
of ambiance that creative firms prefer. Following the restructuring of SOE s in the mid-
1990s, the former industrial buildings also offered low rents that were affordable to
young design firms who often share the large spaces, enabling the kind of collabora-
tions that economists would call ‘horizontal networking.’18 One of the most prominent
projects in the Suzhou River area was by the Taiwanese architect Deng Kunyan [登琨艳],
who had set up his atelier in an old warehouse along the river in the early 2000s. The
space that Deng upgraded was enviable amongst the creative set for its expansive
space and ambiance.19 The artist studios at Moganshan Lu, elaborated in the next chap-
ter, also set examples for how the peripheral and industrial spaces could attract a cer-
tain growing market.
While few commercial developers were interested in the empty warehouses at the
periphery of the central districts, the crash of the dot-com boom in the early 2000s also
meant there was little cash available for large new developments. Additionally, the
SARS outbreak in 2003 slowed demolition and redevelopment projects. At the same
time, in the mid-2000s, a growing number of international designers came to China in
response to its rapidly developing market, many landing in Shanghai. Work spaces for
creative needs were limited, even as demand was rising. Working from two other in-
dustrial spaces in the Jing’an District in 2004 and 2006, Enclave’s design partners, also
Anken’s founders, were drawn to the Huai’an Lu industrial building, a disused ware-

340
 M50
Anken
Anken
Gree
Greenn

Xintiandi
Xin tiandi
Yongka
Yong kang
ng Bridg
Bridge e8
Lu Tianz
Tianzif
ifang
ang

Municipal Level settled area until 1949

Historic Cultural Heritage Areas
1950-1960
历史文化风貌区
Creative Industries Cluster 1960-1980
创意产业园区
1980-1990
District Level 1980-1990
District Jurisdiction
区规划局管制

small creative entrepreneurs

Fig. 3 Map showing the location of official creative industries clusters in relation to heritage districts and small
creative entrepreneurs

house owned by a local SOE at the edge of the district close to the Suzhou River. Having
found a space for their own growing design office there, the two designers undertook
redevelopment of the entire building, calling it Anken Green.
The development of the Anken Green building was timely. (Fig. 2) The shift of Shang-
hai’s city center from manufacturing to service industries, part of the fundamental re-
structuring of the metropolis, also coincided with the growing discourse on the com-
petitiveness of global cities. The “rise of the creative class,” as promoted by Richard
Chapter 5 The New Economies

Florida in 2002, as both indicator and instigator of a post-industrial value-added econ-

omy, required the accompanying spatial provision for their accommodation.20 In No-
vember 2004, the Shanghai Creative Industries Center [上海创意产业中心] (SCIC) was
founded, with the start of its operations in the beginning of 2005. Supported by munic-
ipal Economic and Information Committee and also under the jurisdiction of the So-
cial Groups Bureau, the SCIC is a semi-governmental organization that promoted the
creative industries through the designating of municipal-level creative industries clus-
ters.21 (Fig. 3) With precedent developments like Tianzifang, M50, and Bridge 8 already

341
 in operation, the SCIC in effect promoted the mode of development for properties on
‘administratively-allocated land [划拨土地]’—a unique form of ownership tenure that is
a vestige of China’s planned economy, and thus restricted in their development on the
market—that supplied space to the programmatic demand of the creative industries.

Administratively-Allocated Land and Creative Industries

The coexistence of ‘commercial leasehold land’ and administratively-allocated land has
formed the unique situation of the dual land market in China’s transition economy. Be-
fore economic liberalization, all land was ‘administratively-allocated’ as there was no
commercial land market under the centrally planned economy. With the introduction
of the commercial land market after economic liberalization, ‘commercial leasehold
land’ came into existence. With discrepancies in procedure as well as in price, the dual
land market has been identified as the cause of an inherent inefficiency in the urban
development process.22
The laxity in procedures related to the transfer of land-use rights and land-use
change produced urban loopholes in the first decade of land marketization. The 1990s
saw the overzealous transfer of administratively-allocated land to leasehold land. These
land-use right transfers were also accompanied by rampant change in land use on
the administratively-allocated land, most of which was provisioned for industrial use,
to profit-making commercial and residential functions. Not only were these conver-
sions considered by the state to be an erosion of state assets, but the often-unsanc-
tioned land-use change also brought little direct benefit to the local government, not
to mention the surrounding residents and other occupants. This informal conversion of
administratively-allocated land not only led to inefficiencies in the parallel leased land
market,23 but also contributed to an inability to coordinate planning.24
Central government policies from the late 1990s had allowed the development of
administratively-allocated land by the SOE s, who held land-use rights, with the profits
realized used to resettle laid-off workers. These measures were necessary to ease social
instability in the 1990s, caused by massive layoffs of workers in the aftermath of SOE
reforms. SOE s that were not privatized were often expired industries that had shed
their labor force but retained only their management structure. However, because
they held the land-use rights, they could also gain compensation from the district or
municipal government should the administratively allocated land be formally acquired.
As a result of an over-conversion of administratively-allocated land, the central gov-
ernment increasingly restricted land-use changes. As a control measure against the
over-commercialization of administratively-allocated land through low-cost transfers,
the central government required formal processes for the transfer of land from ad-
ministratively-allocated to lease-hold status.25 In Shanghai, the municipality followed
with complementary policies 26 that prohibited SOE s from redeveloping the buildings
via demolition-reconstruction. SOE s could therefore only lease out their buildings for
earnings, in order to support the welfare benefits for their laid-off workers. For the di-
lapidated industrial structures—some historic architecture given heritage status in
the mid-2000s, but largely ordinary buildings built after 1949—restrictions on official
land-use change also ruled out their functional upgrade. As a result of these restric-
tions, many of the structures that remained in the possession of SOE s that were no lon-
ger operating on their premises, had little prospect for formal redevelopment or reuse.

342
Institutional Landlords Creative Clusters

Local SOEs 食品厂 Tianzifang

Local SOE Anken Green

ShangTex M50

High Street Loft

N. 10 Steel Factory 上钢十厂

Red Town

Shanghai Automobile Bridge 8

Dream Wharf

Fig. 4 Diagram of creative clusters and their institutional landlords

This was a dilemma for the municipal economists, concerned with the inefficiencies
created by the dual market.27 More challenging was how welfare benefits for the laid-
off workers of the former SOE s could be sustained.28
A solution soon emerged as a result of a shift in the country’s development ambi-
tions. In the 2005 Eleventh Five-Year Development Plan of Tourism Industries in Shanghai
[上海市旅游业发展‘十一五’规划], a part of the plan was noted for its promotion of cre-
ative industries clusters in former industrial architecture.29 It specified that permission
for land-use change was granted, provided the functional upgrade was intended for
creative industries.30 This permission was also granted on the condition that the offi-
cial land-use designation of ‘industrial’ remained on the ownership certificate.31 This
course of development for administratively-allocated land held by SOE s offered a vi-
able business plan for the informal redevelopment of the industrial structures while
avoiding the transfer of land-use rights and consequent fees that a formal development
would have required. SOE s that had retained their land-use rights were allowed to lease
out their built structures for more lucrative, non-industrial functions under the guise
of making spaces in the city center available for the creative industries.32 (Fig. 4) At the
same time, this satisfied the central government’s stipulation that developments avoid
the over-commercialization of administratively-allocated land, a subsidized state asset.
Chapter 5 The New Economies

The municipal government’s creation of the exception, based on the central govern-
ment’s prioritization of creative industries development, effectively created the urban
loophole for the authorized commercial redevelopment of otherwise off-limits adminis-
tratively-allocated land. Furthermore, in this way, the former SOE properties could still
generate revenue to pay for the SOE welfare responsibilities to its former workers. At
the same time, the redevelopment of former industry buildings for creative industries
also satisfied the call to protect increasingly valued historic buildings. This procedur-
al resolution, through the spatial production of creative industries clusters, has helped

343
 sustain the necessary social stability through funding raised in the development of
SOE properties. It has also helped to avert the erosion of state assets; a gaffe blamed
on earlier conversions.
The founding of the SCIC in 2004 made official the designation of ‘Creative Industry
Clusters.’ Between 2005 and 2006, the number of officially designated creative indus-
tries clusters in Shanghai grew from the initial 18 to 75. The first batch included Tianzi-
fang, a lilong neighborhood with small-scale industries that had already begun trans-
forming in the mid-1990s; and the Moganshan Lu area, former industrial buildings of
the defunct textile industries that had become art studios, and had been transformed
and occupied by artists since the late-1990s.33 The prototype of the business model that
would be replicated in ensuing developments was the Bridge 8 project.

The Precedent of Bridge 8: Business Plan for Industrial Reuse

In 2002, a developer from Hong Kong, Huang Zonghan [黄瀚泓], formed his own firm,
Hong Kong Lifestyle Co Ltd [时尚生活管理], after leaving the development company of
Xintiandi, Shui On [瑞安].34 As a result of his experience on the Xintiandi development,
Huang had maintained good connections with the Luwan [卢湾] District authorities
and the municipal Economic Commission, and they offered him an abandoned site
for redevelopment as a commercial site. The site had seven buildings that were for-
merly workshops of the Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation (SAIC) [上汽集团].
Although the land-use right belonged to a municipal-level SOE , it was not unusual that
the district leadership and municipal bureaucrats could be influential in steering its
development. Particularly with a site that was both visible and centrally located, its
successful development would add commercial revenue to the district coffers and give
performance credibility to the local bureaucrats.35
The developer signed a 20-year lease with the SAIC for the site and began working
with a Japanese architect to renovate the abandoned 15,000-square-meter space in ear-
ly 2004.36 Investing 70 million R MB for the renovation for office and commercial usage,
and with little change to the cluster layout, the developer opened the compound at the
end of the year, with upgraded interiors, a new façade and bridges linking the different
buildings, giving the cluster its name.37 Even though the original street number had
been “10,” the name of the cluster became “Bridge 8,” since the number “eight” was
considered auspicious, especially in southern China, where the developer was from.38
With a majority of international design firms as new tenants, the developer tapped into
a market that he saw as largely under-served. In the mid-2000s, numerous interna-
tional design firms entered the Chinese building market to participate in China’s rap-
id urban development. Like firms from other economic sectors that were also seeking
office spaces for headquarters in cities like Shanghai and Beijing, the design firms too,
found a dearth of choices at the higher end. Huang deliberately selected upmarket de-
sign firms as tenants, turning down sectors that were not considered creative. This
gave the Bridge 8 development a reputation as a culture-oriented work environment,
drawing in more similar tenants.39 The developer’s good connections to the district
government also made the commercial registration of the tenant firms, many of which
were international, easier, and this further built up the standing of the cluster.
The annual rent to the district, which the SOE pays for the right to use the admin­
istratively-allocated land it has been assigned, is usually at far below the market price.

344
When a private developer sublets a former industrial building from the SOE , the
developer usually pays above the state-subsidized rents that the SOE pays to the gov-
ernment, but below the market rate, which they lock in for as long as possible. In turn,
after a fast renovation, when the spaces are rented out at rates that are near market
rates, breaking even as early as two or three years after the initial outlay for renova-
tion, both the developer and the SOE profit.
With a short renovation time and leases granted to creative offices—at rates well
above lease rates from the tenure-holding SOE on administratively-allocated land, but
still slightly below office rentals on the market—the investment return could be re-
couped rapidly, at full occupancy. Compared to the one-off returns recouping for res-
idential developments, the difference between rising and high rental profits and low
leasing fees that are locked in for the term with the SOE generates continuous prof-
it. In 2006, for example, the average daily rent per square meter in the Tianzifang de-
velopment was still around 1.50 to 2.50 R MB , relatively affordable since the initial
investment for renovations and infrastructure had been low.40 In the same year, the
rents charged at spaces in Bridge 8 were already at 6 R MB per square meter, the same
as market rates for office rentals in the city center. However, compared to the invest-
ment of 200,000 R MB for Tianzifang, the 70 million R MB for Bridge 8 necessitated the
high rents.
This business formula for upgrading vacant former industrial areas by turning
them into revenue-generating service industries was supplemented by the financial
and non-financial benefits offered by competing districts, each eager to jump on the
bandwagon of incubating creativity. Business registration addresses, giving compa-
nies prestige, especially in Shanghai’s central districts, and limited period tax incen-
tives, were perks that district governments threw in for developers to entice them to
invest in upgrade projects. The district governments, in return, earned tax revenue
from commercial enterprises attracted to the new developments.41 Furthermore, the
granting of official designation of being a creative industries cluster by the Municipal
Economic Commission, complete with ceremonial prestige, brought an assortment of
incentives, from tax holidays to rental subsidies and expedited business registration,
all attracting creative industries to settle in the designated areas.
This deceptively simple business formula led to a proliferation of creative industries
clusters, which, in turn, also saw a parallel growth of high vacancy rates. In seeking to
maximize profits in the shortest time, developers tended to set rents too high for the
very creative industries enterprises their developments intended to attract. Unsuccess-
ful models are visible in cluster developments like High Street Loft [尚街], developed
by the Sanqiang [三枪] part of the municipal-level SOE ShangTex Group [上纺集团].42
At High Street Loft, the high turnover resulting from high rents and inadequate ame-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

nities has left the development with the feeling of dereliction.43 Even in the showcase
project of the 1933 Old Millfun, a modern-era slaughterhouse-turned creative industries
cluster that was designated an industrial monument in 2005 and since then has housed
the Shanghai Creative Industries Center itself,44 the higher-than-market-price rentals
and its spatial structure destined it to high turnovers and a steady vacancy rate. The
building, built in 1933, was one of the first mechanized slaughterhouses in the world
and its modern concrete form marks it out as a unique piece of heritage architecture for
Shanghai. Unfortunately, despite its architectural importance, the curation of tenants

345
 for its reuse has been visibly unsuccessful, as seen in its high vacancy rate. This, cou-
pled with its inflexible architectural qualities, has led to a business plan of high rentals
that has made the space a commercial flop.

Anken Green’s Approach: Creatives Attracting Creatives

Unlike most state-backed developments that capitalized on district incentives for de-
veloping creative industries clusters, Anken Green, having been founded by designers
for themselves, invested in renovations by calculating backwards from what design
offices such as their own could afford, making the development feasible from the out-
set.45 This implicit understanding, of the tastes as well as the budgets of design offic-
es, does not subscribe to the dominant and top-down logic of supply creating demand.
Rather, it follows real demand and not a projected one, aimed at maximizing reve-
nue for both the developer and the district. With desks renting at 2,000 to 2,500 R MB
per month and facilities for office infrastructure including meeting rooms and event
spaces, which also served as areas for networking with other creatives, the reason-
able price for a start-up freelancer brought many initial tenants. Office rental rates
of 4.5 to 5 R MB per square meter per day in 2013 were not only much lower than the
downtown Grade-A office rents of 12 to 15 R MB , but also many of the other creative in-
dustries clusters, which often asked for between 8 and 12 R MB , well beyond the budget
of design firms.46
In addition to cheaper rents, communal spaces and amenities were provisioned
with the designers as occupants in mind, rather than with a commercial outlook
that many developer-produced creative industries clusters favor. The restaurant on the
ground floor of Anken Green, the Warehouse Café, is also priced reasonably, so much
so that it is cited by Time Out as one of the most affordable cafés.47 With fresh ingre-
dients that highlight the environmental consciousness of the designer-owners, the
café caters to both the tenants with similar affinities and like-minded visitors. Ank-
en Green also accommodates gatherings and events that are often important parts of
the design offices’ repertoire, and is one of the many public spaces in the development
designed for spontaneous meetings, encounters, and networking between different
designers.48 On each floor, meeting rooms are placed at prime locations, rather than in
leftover spaces between desks. These simple design strategies not only created better
environments for meetings but also give Anken Green a reputation for understanding
its clientele. The recognition of the nature of public and shared spaces as crucial ele-
ments to design culture is being extended to the larger set of amenities that the Anken
designers are planning for in a site near the Anken Green. Fitness studios for spin and
yoga classes would not only benefit the creative labor that comes but also reach into
the changing community in the neighborhood.
The recent completion of a sky farm on the roof of the Anken Green building high-
lights the role new concepts play in the development of these spaces. Functions that
are welcomed by the transnational set of creative workers—many of them from places
like Brooklyn and Shoreditch, where the latest ideas about urban agriculture, low car-
bon–footprint organic vegetables, and slow food are being tested—are created to the
sensibilities of the incoming creatives, rather than the other way around. Anken’s de-
velopers could design for a real demand rather than for a projected one because they
themselves are part of it.

346
 As with Bridge 8, more than half of
the occupants at Anken Green are from
an international background. (Fig. 5) They
are either expats or locals who have been
educated abroad. The studios of Anken
Green thus serve as nodes of knowledge
exchange, filtering ideas from abroad and
localizing them. They serve as a micro-
cosm of the openness of Shanghai that at-
tracted many of the foreign talents to the
city in the first place. Despite the formal-
ly high entry cost for small studios, many
Fig. 5 The transnational creative enterprises in Anken
Warehouse, 2013 transnational start-ups are willing to set
up an enterprise in Shanghai because of
the openness to foreign ideas as well as a growing demand for sophistication.49
Also in contrast to top-down curation by most developers of these creative indus-
tries clusters, Anken’s founders saw the selection of the incoming tenants as being of
utmost importance.50 This fundamental aspect of community building and forma-
tion of an ambiance rather than simple commercial co-location is also the reason that,
unlike many other creative clusters created by SOE -backed firms only interested in
short-term returns and as a result producing an oversupply of generic spaces, Anken
Green has had good occupancy rates from its inception. When the space was nearing
completion, proposals were submitted by both multinationals and local SOE s to be-
come the ground-floor tenant of the most visible and accessible real estate of the build-
ing. Anken’s founders rejected both the international conglomerate of DHL and the
local Friendship Store, a state institution.51 Both were financially secure and well-con-
nected enterprises that would have ensured steady returns. But waiting for the right
ground-floor tenant yielded a better fit. The Danish design firm Paustian moved into
the space in 2008. Paustian decided to base its representative for international mar-
kets in Shanghai to meet both the growing demand for exclusive designed furniture
in the expanding Chinese market and the increasing utilization of production in Asia.
The 300-square-meter showroom and sales office at Anken Green serves as an exhibi-
tion space for incoming clients as well as the site from which local customizations are
designed. The furniture design showroom utilizes the high-ceilinged former industri-
al space, and showcases the types of products and services offered by the knowledge
economy and transnational creative entrepreneurships in the building.
The music agency, Massive Music, was the first tenant to take over a space at the
top of the six-story building.52 With offices in Amsterdam, London, New York, Los An-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

geles, and Shanghai, it is also representative of the kind of value chain that serves the
growth and demand of the Asian market. Their clients include large multinationals like
Nike, Audi, and Sony, who have also arrived in the expanding local market. Meetings
with representatives of creative sectors from around the world call for the kind of spa-
tial ambiance that Anken Green supplies. It would take another year and a half for the
building to be at full occupancy, but Anken’s founders emphasized that the selection of
the right tenants was more important for a longer-term commitment that would ben-
efit the community than immediate returns.53

347
 Architects, graphic designers, photographers, and theater consultants have settled
in, some in the form of studios and others starting with renting by the desk while their
business expanded. The diversity of spaces is designed with the growth of the success-
ful start-up in mind, from that of a one-person enterprise to small growing teams to
commercially established creative firms. At the same time, the design community of-
fers camaraderie and business support. Anken organizes events and gatherings, which
are conducive to networking between new and old tenants, small and large firms. Ad-
ditionally, Anken offers commercial registration for small offices: an added service for
start-ups, many of whom would otherwise work in unregistered spaces.54 Although
many of the other officially designated creative industries clusters also promise a plat-
form service for their start-up firms (part of the requirements for being a creative-indus-
tries cluster), these formal services are often charged at consultancy prices. For small
start-up firms, these added costs can too high to bear. The benefits of informal net-
working thus far surpass the fulfillment of ‘creative city’ goals on paper.

State Connections and Recognition

Most small, private developers choose not to invest in such small urban retrofit proj-
ects today because the returns are not worth the investment, unless the relationships
to the district authorities and to the SOE s landlords are excellent and assured.55 Since
the initiation of the creative industries clusters as a business plan, the return on invest-
ment has usually been around seven to eight years because of higher rents charged by
the SOE landlords. Lease terms have also been shortened to ten years, with the result
that rent hikes can be more frequent. For a small developer, the uncertainty of being
able to continue the lease also discourages a commitment to a space rather than see-
ing it as a contribution to the city.
Even though the Anken Green project on Huai’an Lu is only 6,700 square meters—
officially not qualified to be honored with the creative industries cluster designation that
requires at least 10,000 square meters56—the development has been recognized by the
municipality because of its reputation. Anken Green’s ability to attract desirable cre-
ative enterprises, large and small, and its curation of a vibrant, conversant community
have sealed its reputation as an exemplary case for the district and the municipality.
Anken Green has become a must-stop on many official tours to showcase the creative
know-how of Jing’an and Shanghai. District officials acknowledge the project’s contri-
bution to the city. They have come to consult the developers of Anken on the five-year
plan that will help shape the vision for the future of the district.57 Through a decade of
working in the Jing’an District, the Anken designer-developers have also become fa-
miliar with key decision-makers in the bureaucracy, and they cite the district as one
of the most progressive in Shanghai.58
Since economic liberalization began in the 1980s, the leaders of Jing’an District
have boldly rejuvenated the historically famed West Nanjing Lu area through land
marketization and the attraction of overseas Chinese development capital to remake
the district’s thoroughfare, turning it into an alternate central business district (CBD ).
From the Shanghai Center complex to Plaza 66, the first international hotel, high-end
commerce, and Grade-A office spaces brought in the revenue that would help develop
the other parts of the district. The fact that these much-needed functions are central-
ly located and not on the greenfield developments in Pudong showed the audacious

348
vision of a group of experimenters who gambled on a win. The district’s personnel are
under direct authority by the municipality, and the rotating leadership is made up
of ambitious, young entrepreneurs, often well connected with the outside and com-
mercial world. Given the locational advantages of Jing’an as central and accessible, a
current plan for creating a specialized fashion sector involves not only retail but also
schools and production spaces to make use of the labor force in design, marketing, and
production. Most recent involvements of well-reputed reuse architects Neri and Hu in
the renovation of a former police station and also the Zhang Gardens cluster showed
the forward thinking of the district council in integrating international concepts and
localizing them in context to compete in the global framework.
The continuing openness of both the district leadership and ministry authorities
remains extremely important in the Chinese context of discretionary decision-making
that is embedded in the planning relationships. The differing physical and socio-eco-
nomic conditions of the districts have defined territorial competition among them and
have also led to very different preferential policies in relation to creative development.
Anken’s founders, having tried to work in the different districts, describe the outlook
of the Huangpu [黄浦] District decision-makers as outdated.59 Huangpu, unlike Jing’an,
has legacy advantages. The Bund and the modern era civic district, with its large blocks
and institutional buildings built in the 1930s, are in Huangpu. The developers of An-
ken, like many others, expected these urban resources of Shanghai’s historic CBD to
be valuable for contemporary development. But because the Huangpu authorities pro-
jected immediate and high returns from targeting high-end financial services, these
aspirations remained unrealized. Despite tax incentives by all the districts to attract
creative cluster development, discrepancies remain in project realization due to differ-
ing demands and thus prioritization by the district authorities.60
Ambiguous property rights of much of the historic financial district’s building
stock in Huangpu have also created a high barrier to efficient redevelopment plans.
The Anken group’s attempts to initiate change in the historic architecture behind the
Bund have only met with some frustration.61 Municipal-level SOE s that are in perpet-
ual possession of many of the prime properties in Shanghai’s city center are holding
out on their real estate assets; resulting in many properties that are otherwise valu-
able locations in the city remaining empty.62 The dominant municipal-level SOE s were
consolidated from smaller SOE s in the SOE reforms of the 1990s.63 These entities are
often so large and fragmented that one branch holding onto property in one location
has no knowledge of other properties on another location.64 Management ineptitude
has thus thwarted innovations by small creative entrepreneurs like Anken in potential
reuse and rejuvenation projects.65
An alternate mode of cluster development such as that by the designer-entrepre-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

neurs of Anken Green, although officially recognized by the authorities, reveals the
divergence of a cosmopolitan user- and community-based approach to creative spa-
tial production from the customary processes for creative cluster formation by state-
backed developers. The importance of curation in the formation of a like-minded de-
sign network and the amenities that extend beyond the cluster enclave provokes a
rethinking of the conventional business model for creative incubation. The alibi for cre-
ative industries made possible the urban loophole for the authorized commercial rede-
velopment of otherwise off-limits administratively-allocated land. Anken abides by the

349
 business model of the creative industries cluster to exploit the inefficiencies of the dual
market. But by updating, at the same time, precedent business plans, Anken, as well
as other developers like it, could offer alternative creative hubs that actually cater to
small creative entrepreneurs. Not unlike the initiatives taken by the artists of Mogan-
shan Lu a decade earlier, which has since become packaged to become the M 50 cluster,
the designers are forming their own community that goes far beyond that of the des-
ignation of a cluster into the transformation of the city. Nevertheless, the importance
of official backing in the transformation and updating of development modes remains.

New Local-Global Alliances:

the Upgrade of Yongkang Lu
In contrast to the Anken Green development, which is an industrial warehouse, lo-
cated close to the manufacturing belt of northern Jing’an, in the former International
Settlement, Yongkang Lu was a former wet-market street in the Xuhui [徐汇] District.
It is located between the later and more modern buildings of the western end of the
former French Concessions and the earlier, denser and older building typologies clos-
er to the old Chinese city to the east. The locational overlap has facilitated its histor-
ic function as a commercial hub, where fresh produce, poultry, seafood, and various
other wet-market goods had historically been deposited and sold.
From a street lined with dried goods and sundries shops with bare minimum dé-
cor, selling everything from shoelaces to soy sauce, and providing essentials to the
residents close by, Yongkang Lu transformed into a styled and polished café and bar
street, catering to the growing number of international consumers. The transforma-
tion, which took place in the span of three years, was catalyzed by the rejuvenation
projects for the Expo in the late 2000s. It was also triggered by commercial develop-
ments in the surrounding neighborhood. The street’s transformation also reflects a
change in the social composition of the surrounding neighborhood, revealing a broad-
er shift in the demand for consumption spaces in the city and their relationships to
existing residences. The street’s upgrade came at a time when small-scale develop-
ments were starting to be increasingly emphasized by the local state. (Fig. 6) The dis-
trict government’s active participation in facilitating the development, engaging both
private investor and SOE landlords, followed its motto of “government steered, society
participates [政府引导, 社会参于].”66

Pro-Growth and Developmentalist: the Local State Actors

Xuhui District’s bureaucrats have tabled Yongkang Lu’s upgrade since the late 1990s.67
Prior to the mid-2000s, Yongkang Lu was a residential street flanked by lilong houses,
with small stores on its ground floor units. Together with its neighboring Jiashan Lu
[嘉善路], it had historically been a bustling commercial street, full of small stores pro-
viding goods and services, and hosting a wet-market that dated back to the 1930s.68 In
2006, when the district dismantled two markets from neighboring Nanchang Lu [南昌路]
to begin the construction of the International Commerce Center (ICC), a large en-bloc
project by the Hong Kong developer Sung Hung Kai Group [新鸿基], Yongkang Lu and

350
Fig. 6 The developer’s model for the development of east-west Yongkang Lu, and north-south Xiangyang Lu and
Jiashan Lu, as shown by the grey buildings lining the streets, 2013

its adjacent Jiashan Lu became an expanded wet market overnight.69 As vegetable

peddlers and fish vendors, many licensed, found their market space on Nanchang Lu
closed for the new construction, they flocked to the small street of Yongkang Lu to
continue their daily trade.70 They were joined by a number of unlicensed vendors who
have always floated through the neighborhood. The authorities did not expect the in-
formal resettlement of the wet market. They had planned for other markets in the pre-
cinct to absorb the vendors from the closed Nanchang Lu market.71 But those other
markets were too out-of-the-way for the neighborhood’s residents, and the proximity
and convenience kept the newly created Yongkang Lu market afloat with strong local
demand. Just as providing space for a new program does not necessarily make that
program automatically commercially successful, taking away a space for an old pro-
gram does not necessarily make that program disappear. Especially for the densely
populated residential neighborhoods around Yongkang Lu, one of the densest in the
precinct,72 removing the space for a local amenity only made that amenity settle in a
new un-anticipated location.
The district recognized the repercussions of removing the space of one neighbor-
hood amenity without providing for a nearby alternative. The debacle taught the dis-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

trict officials an important lesson in planning for spaces to accommodate consumer

demand.73 It also led to the construction of an indoor market at the parallel Fuxing Lu
[复兴中路] to accommodate both market vendors and neighborhood residents.74 With
the replacement market in the pipeline, Yongkang Lu’s cleanup was underway. The
cleanup of wet-market streets had, since the 1980s, given impetus to Shanghai’s neigh-
borhood transformations. In Tianzifang’s initial development, it was also the removal
of the open-air wet market on Taikang Lu that whetted the appetite of the local street
office director for a neighborhood upgrade.75 Some of the other streets in the district

351
cash that had been wet-market streets, includ-
flow ing Julu Lu [巨鹿路] and Wuyuan Lu [五原
MINIMIZE investment 路], have become the new trend streets
after full of small boutiques and cafés.76
acquisition, returns
eviction+ By 2008, the Fuxing Lu market had
renovation
been completed. It had almost 100 stalls
to accommodate the vendors of Yongkang
time
Lu.77 Rising costs for Yongkang Lu out-
MAXIMIZE
lease term door market’s upkeep by the different bu-
development reaus of the district also made its remov-
expenditure al a financial priority.78 The completion of
the indoor market coincided with com-
Fig. 7 Diagram representing the relationship between
plaints by some influential and politically
development time, lease term and returns for investment,
in projects like Anken Green and Yongkang Lu connected residents to the district author-
ities in the mid-2000s. Together, the com-
bination of rising costs, pressure by connected residents and municipal encourage-
ment for pre-Expo image upgrades pushed the district authorities to go forward with
the Yongkang Lu upgrade project. In 2009, the district selected a private development
company called the Platform Group [派丰集团] for the Yongkang Lu upgrade.
Unlike administratively-allocated land, where a single entity holds the land-use
right, ownership of the small plots on Yongkang Lu belongs to multiple leaseholders,
as is usual in a dense urban neighborhood. For an investor redeveloping an area, the
faster the development cycle, the faster the recouping of investments. This has con-
tributed to the rapidness of the upgrading itself, as shown in Bridge 8 and Anken Green,
and is representative of most projects.79 (Fig. 7) However, acquisition time, especially
in dense urban neighborhoods, has become increasingly protracted since the begin-
ning of economic liberalization. Optimism about modernization made residents and
incumbent occupants eager for change, when they were just emerging from the eras
of economic impasse and political instability in the early 1990s. But since the first de-
cade of rapid urban developments, residents and incumbent occupants have grown
weary of relocations and often demand high compensation in return for central loca-
tions. Thus, the longer acquisition time as part of the development cycle has driven up
the cost of investment.
One of the preconditions for a fast development cycle is the possibility of acquiring
either a majority ownership in an area for redevelopment or key locations that would
catalyze changes to the neighboring areas. Tianzifang’s initial number of small SOE s
served as the necessary critical mass, or ‘anchor tenants,’80 for its ensuing redevelop-
ment. This would serve as a lesson for the Yongkang Lu development. At Yongkang Lu,
the consolidation of a majority of the ground floor spaces on the street became a way to
expedite development. Because it was a former market street, three district-level SOE s,
principally in the food and beverage industries, owned a large portion of the real estate
on Yongkang Lu.81 Notably, the district owns the three SOE s.
At the urging of the district and the Tianping Street Office [天平街道] that oversaw
the jurisdiction, the officials leading the SOE s agreed to offload their real estate assets
for a lease term of 13 years.82 This would give the developers 29 of the 56 street-fac-
ing units, on the shorter, eastern portion of Yongkang Lu, between Xiangyang Lu

352
Fig. 8 The collation of existing uses and ownerships on Yongkang Lu, with the 56 units developed in the
first phase of Yongkang Li development indicated by the red rectangle, 2013

[襄阳路] and Jiashan Lu. (Fig. 8) It would also make it easier for the developers to nego-
tiate end-leases with the other tenants on the street.83 In exchange, the private devel-
opment company formed an investment alliance with the SOE s, Platform Yongkang
Incorporated [派丰永康公司] where a 70-10-10-10 division in profits was agreed upon
between the development company and the three SOE s.84 The timing was important,
as several of the key SOE decision-makers were retiring,85 and rather than actively
developing new markets, or expanding the existing business, the retiring officials of
the three SOE s were ready to utilize the existing real estate assets in their charge. Cru-
cially, these centrally located properties are, due to systemic constraints, undervalued,
and the differential to their potential market value made for a great resource. The tem-
porarily offloaded SOE real estate in turn gave the development group over 60 % of the
total ground floor space on the street, propelling the development to proceed.
In a conventional cash-flow model, an investor profits from the differential be-
tween earnings and expenditures. (Fig. 9) In the case of the development model where
the landlord is also the part of the investment alliance, the landlord earns both a per-
centage of the net earnings as well as what would have been expenditures for the in-
vestment alliance, but would be paid to the landlord as rentals. From the investment
alliance, the SOE officials would share in a part of the net profit, in addition to the rents
that the development company pays to the SOE as landlord for lease of their spaces.
(Fig. 10) The rent that the investment alliance pays to the SOE s, at 3 R MB /square meter/
day in 2010, is below market prices, but above any fees that the SOE s nominally pay
to the district for the use of the land. It would incrementally increase at 5 % annually.
Chapter 5 The New Economies

The rent that new tenants would pay the investment alliance started at 10 R MB /square
meter/day in 2010, with incremental increases of 25 % annually. In effect, the SOE s
earn 30 % of the 10 R MB minus taxes and other fees, as well as the 3 R MB . The district
earns commercial taxes and management fees. The developers take the rest. The urban
loophole created by the constraints of the dual land market, when exploited, benefits
the local state and its public and private sectors allies as privileged market players.
From a projected cash flow analysis, the total income received by the investment
alliance would come to 106.5 million R MB , of which 70 % would go to Platform and the

353
Figs. 9, 10 Diagram of cash flow for the 13 -year lease with net income (green), net expenditures (red) and cash flow (blue),
left; diagram of cash flow for SOE s with earnings from a percentage of net income (light green) and rentals (pink), right

other 30 % to the three SOE s, which receive 31.9 million R MB .86 Additionally, the rent-
al income that the investment alliance pays to the SOE s totals 30.3 million R MB .87 This
means that at the end of the 13 years, the SOE s will have received roughly 62.2 million
R MB .88 The initial investment of 2.5 million R MB by Platform will net, at the end of
the 13 years, roughly 72 million R MB .89 These numbers, in their returns, pale by com-
parison to the large-scale developments. But given that the initial investment was
minimal, 6 million R MB by the investment alliance,90 this business model appears
extremely lucrative for all the participants involved. The transaction cost lay mostly
in labor costs for old tenant evictions and new tenant recruitments, part of the over-
all operation costs of the district, the street office, and the developers. In return, the
benefits to the stakeholders were great. For the district SOE s, an otherwise underval-
ued asset in their possession became utilized. For the district, street office, and the
developers, the success of the development increased their credibility in ensuing ur-
ban developments. For the municipality, the development cleaned up what the author-
ities saw as a “dirty and chaotic [脏和乱]” area,91 in time for the projection of “Better
City Better Life.”
While the private investor contributed capital from its Hong Kong-listed compa-
ny and manpower for the development process, the district SOE s contributed other-
wise unavailable and undervalued real estate resources. The Xuhui District authori-
ties created the platform on which possible bureaucratic obstacles could be alleviated.
The wet market on Yongkang Lu belonged to the jurisdiction of the district Commerce
Commission so its closure was easy.92 The Administration for Urban Management and
Law Enforcement [城管] was on standby should disturbances arise following the dis-
mantling of the wet market. This showed a change in approach since the 2006 clo-
sure of the wet market’s former incarnation, and which in turn led to the market’s
creation on Yongkang Lu. With the district’s backing, access to the various city-level
bureaus, from those in charge of security to hygiene, further facilitated the functional
upgrade.93 Without the collaboration and backing of the different municipal agencies,

354
as smoothened by the district authority’s relationships, the street upgrade would not
have been come to fruition in such a short space of time.
More importantly, it is in the mediation of the relocation of displaced incumbent
occupants that the district and street office played a crucial role. Because the majori-
ty ownership for the developer was initially insufficient, street office authorities had
to step in to help with negotiations for the removing of other ground floor tenants.94
Furthermore, many of the shops had multiple sub-tenants who used the same space
at different times of the day, and the compensation package that the developer offered
should have taken into account the multiple rents that the primary tenant would have
collected from the sublets.95 Instead, the developer offered a compensation package
that was too low, without acknowledging the lucrative multiple uses for the same
space. The street office officials and their subsidiary resident committee, with much
more intimate knowledge of the tenants were indispensable in expediting the eviction
and thus shortening the development time cycle.
As street office officials strategized, they first gathered as much background infor-
mation on the target units, through street office informants, to identify the pressure
points for each tenant or resident. Pressure was then applied through the network of
acquaintances and friends as well as employers of family and relatives.96 In situations
where financial weak points could be found, the developer, with the help of street of-
fice officials, then dangled package deals with sufficient monetary buyouts. As expect-
ed by officials, these tenants often were willing to accept the compensation packages
to alleviate their economic troubles.97 A social affinity and empathy also existed be-
tween the largely middle-age bureaucrats and sitting tenants who were of a similar age
group and background. This was especially so with returnees who had been sent to the
countryside during the years after the Cultural Revolution but who had managed to
come back to Shanghai under the Sunshine policies of the 1990s.
In the initial eviction of Yongkang Lu’s ground floor tenants, six district level de-
partments came together to the street to inform the sitting tenants that their rent-
al term was up.98 One of the most dramatic moments was the subduing of one store
owner, a burly figure wielding a butcher knife, who openly rejected the district’s offer
by ejecting him from his butcher shop.99 It took the force of a large group of ‘munic-
ipal administrators,’ the term for law enforcement officers, under the instruction of
the district officials, to restrain and pacify the angry man. Just as the public display of
defiance and resistance was an attempt at calling wider attention to the plight of the
neighboring community, while hoping for support from fellow small entrepreneurs, so
the ability by authorities to persuade tenants to submit was an important demonstra-
tion of the authorities’ power. The term ‘nail houses’ has been used for the obstinate re-
maining residents or tenants who refused to be evicted and displaced in order that their
Chapter 5 The New Economies

houses or units be demolished or renovated for new development.100 As one of the de-
partment heads responsible for the eviction negotiations recounted later, the district’s
rich experience with “pulling out nails [拔钉子]” has made the authorities savvy about
how to deal with the most “difficult cases.”101 The units that the street office and its
neighborhood committee identified as most difficult to deal with and most likely to re-
sist were dealt with first, through a combination of negotiation, payoff and coercion.102
As the street office official explained, “once the ‘hard-to-pull-out-nails’ are removed
[最难的钉子先拔出来],” the other evictions would follow much more smoothly.103

355
 The authorities involved justified the evictions on the one hand, as the social good
they were doing by helping out especially the “families with difficulties [困难户], that
is, those suffering the greatest hardship.”104 On the other hand, the street upgrading
yielded immense benefits for the district and its affiliated SOE s both in terms of in-
come and their own public image. From a public relations perspective, the street up-
grade was presented as a success as the concerted effort had removed the lower-end
commerce that had long made Yongkang Lu “dirty and chaotic.” 105 This pro-image
development was timely for the authorities, especially in the lead-up to the Expo.

Programming for New Consumption: the Cosmopolitan Developers

Since the mid-2000s, numerous local and transnational development companies have
emerged, specializing in city center reuse projects. Of similar scale, resource and ca-
pacity, Anken included, they often compete for the same type of projects.106 However,
while the district and street office had established working relationships with some of
these developers, including the Hong Kong Lifestyle Co. that developed Bridge 8, and
the Xuhui District, the Tianping Street Office eventually chose Platform as the devel-
opers for the Yongkang Lu upgrade.
Platform is made up of two key members. One partner of Platform is a younger
American-trained Taiwanese architect who worked in New York for the architecture
firm of SOM before joining the real estate company F&T Group, which was founded by
a Taiwanese entrepreneur and headquartered in New York. The other partner of Plat-
form is an older Taiwanese-American former architect who led the Asian office of HOK
in Hong Kong in the 1990s. After arriving in Shanghai in 1999, the older partner of
Platform also worked with the F & T Group. Their shared experience in upgrading cre-
ative industry clusters in Nanjing and Hangzhou consolidated the duo’s collaboration.
Through the process of development, they had also learned the nuances of subleasing
from SOE s, redeveloping on administratively-allocated land, and negotiating mutually
beneficial packages that convinced sitting SOE landlords to profit from otherwise un-
dervalued state assets.
One of the projects that the older partner of Platform had worked on in Shanghai
was Ferguson Lane’s upgrade.107 Ferguson Lane is a prominent food and beverages
and office cluster which is a reuse project redeveloped by a Hong Kong investor in the
mid-2000s. Crucially, it belongs to the same street office jurisdiction as that of Yong-
kang Lu, and parts of the Ferguson Lane complex belong to local SOE s in the district.
Through this project, the older partner of Platform became familiar with the process of
redeveloping district assets. He also became familiar with some of the district’s cru-
cial decision makers. Because of his guanxi Platform was selected as the developer for
the Yongkang Lu development.108 While the older partner of Platform had the guanxi
crucial to getting the project, his partner brought a younger take with his experience in
market research, architecture design, and real estate management. The younger part-
ner also, crucially, had the financial backing of his family’s investments. Their com-
bined backgrounds, as overseas Chinese with global resources and local understand-
ing, made them the ready agents for capitalizing on the growing consumer demands,
within the local framework.
With the help of the district authorities, the developers leased their first 1,100 square
meters of ground floor space in March 2009 from the district SOE s. At the same time,

356
Fig. 11 Rendering for the developments of Yongkang Li, 2013

Platform solicited design ideas from local architects for the physical upgrade of Yong-
kang Lu. The Xuhui Real Estate Group [徐房集团], the district’s development group,
agreed in mid-2009 to pay for the street-facing façade of the buildings and also repave
its street and sidewalk surfaces. Platform agreed to pay for the addition of awnings, at
the unit cost of 42,000 R MB . The projected expenditure for public relations and media
coverage for the next year was also projected to be 800,000 R MB .109
From March to August 2009, Yongkang Lu’s physical upgrades were rapidly exe-
cuted. And starting in August, the developers began to look for new tenants. The dis-
trict had given Platform the authority to issue commercial licenses to its tenants and
it pushed Platform to fill the upgraded units, each around 20 to 30 square meters large,
in two months.110 The street opened on 18 October 2009 with an official launch.111 A
large red stage with ribbon cutting and a lion dance celebrated this “new Xintiandi
in Xuhui.”112 Presented with a brand new façade, the development was also branded
“Yongkang Li [永康里],” taking on the traditional term for Shanghai’s vernacular neigh-
borhood, ‘li [里]’ of ‘lilong [里弄],’ to suggest a connection with history.
Platform’s initial strategy for Yongkang Lu’s re-programming [业态调整] tried to
capitalize on the Chinese affinity for lavish nuptials through specialized bridal shops,
as part of a broader fashion district concept.113 (Fig. 11) But the rush to find tenants
yielded many inexperienced businesses. Platform had to file legal complaints against
numerous tenants who owed overdue rents due to their lack of cash flow.114
The apparel merchandizing proved commercially difficult. In the half year follow-
ing the opening of Yongkang Li, business success looked uncertain. Vanguard entre-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

preneurs in the fashion industries mentioned that the urban ambiance of the street
also did not help.115 The upgraded façades lacked the patina that they sought in loca-
tions for new shops. These experienced boutique owners also gave feedback that the
location was wrong for the target market.116 Yongkang Li was a few blocks too far from
the high street of Xuhui District, Huaihai Lu, where fashion held court. If it were even a
block closer, the locational advantages would benefit some small boutiques. Spillovers
from the brand names of the big box stores and the imminent twenty-four-hour mall
would have helped make Yongkang Lu successful.

357
Figs. 12, 13 1938 map showing the old Chinese settlements (shaded), French planning (unshaded), and Yongkang Lu (in red)
left; and the historic map from 1949 with Yongkang Lu indicated in red rectangle, right

In the blocks between Yongkang Lu and Huaihai Lu, some of the poorest and dens-
est residential neighborhoods in the ward were located.117 In these neighborhoods,
old-style lilongs mixed with new ones. From the French Concession plans of the area,
it is visible that the neighborhood around Yongkang Lu had already been settled be-
fore the Concession planning regulated the urban developments in the areas around
it. (Fig. 12, 13) These legacy conditions gave rise to the commercial hub around Jiashan
Lu and Yongkang Lu, but also contributed to what the authorities disdained as “dirty
and chaotic” urban conditions.
Additionally, a large plot bordering Huaihai Lu had been left vacant since before
the 1990s, its indeterminate future further spawning and fostering the informal de-
velopments around it. In 1996, a Hong Kong developer leased the land-use right of the
24,000-square-meter site from the Xuhui District to build a five-star hotel.118 A con-
sortium of district-affiliated development companies demolished en-bloc in 1998.119
But because the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis aggravated the developer’s cash flow prob-
lems, the demolished site remained vacant. As an interim solution, the district in-
stalled the Xiangyang Fake Market [襄阳路假货商场] on the site.120 Made up of small
stalls known for selling brand knock-offs, the success and popularity of the Fake Mar-
ket triggered a spillover effect in its surrounding blocks. Small enterprises peddling
everything from faux Louis Vuittons to pirated DVD s infiltrated the old houses and
winding lanes of the neighboring blocks, dodging authorities that routinely cracked
down on the fake goods. Only in 2008, at the same time as the decision was made on
the Yongkang Lu upgrade, was the site emptied again. Another Hong Kong real estate
giant, the Sung Hung Kai group had taken over the land lease from the district and was

358
ready to develop the site into a high-end commercial podium block, with a hotel and
office tower mixed-use compound, called the International Commerce Center (ICC).121
The catchment area around the construction site remained rundown and vibrant with
the remnant informality. Several upgrades have been proposed to formalize many of
the small shops that had been spillovers from the Fake Market. Street peddling and
mobile hawkers nevertheless still populated the surrounding streets. Because of these
legacy conditions of the area, the commercial tenants from fashion retail who did set
up shop on Yongkang Lu were of a lower caliber than the developers hoped for in the
first round of the upgrade project.122
After a sluggish and disappointing start with fashion specialization, the Plat-
form developers changed tack. For a short period, the street became home to almost
a dozen galleries as part of the cultural strategy to rejuvenate the street. District and
municipal incentives for creative industry incubation were tapped into for the sec-
ond round of development in mid-2010. However, high turnover and low commercial
success prompted the developers to re-strategize their development plan again, af-
ter two years of being a commercial flop and with a painful financial low point at the
end of 2011.
In switching to the food and beverage industry, the developers finally found suc-
cess in 2011. The success of the first venues showed that, rather than targeting local
shoppers of fashion and accessories, Yongkang Lu’s location and spaces were more
attractive to Shanghai’s internationals.123 The bar Café Stagiaire was the first to set
the tone for the street.124 Started by a partnership of five graduates from the Lucerne
School of Hospitality, the bar’s opening was well timed. The new venue was patronized
by a growing population of expatriates, especially a younger crowd that had steadily
moved to East Asia from Europe and North America, ever since the economic crisis of
2008 made employment opportunities more difficult in their home countries. Drinks
from as low as 15 R MB a pint compared to double the price in other expatriate-friendly
spaces made the street a hub for office gatherings, birthday parties and get-togethers.
In addition to happy hour drinks, outdoor seating in the small street also made the
place a unique attractor in the city.
The compactness of the east-west street, spanning only two blocks before connect-
ing at the two ends to small north-south streets, resulted in little through-traffic for the
street. (Fig. 14) The scale of the street made it ideal for outdoor seating. Other food and
beverage tenants arrived within a few months, setting up tables and stools also out-
side under the new awnings. (Fig. 15) The cafés, bars, sushi, and pasta places on Yong-
kang Lu finally took off in late 2011, following the popularity of Stagiaire, attracting a
young, largely international crowd.125
As with conversion projects under pressure of time, commercial licensing followed
Chapter 5 The New Economies

development, rather than the other way around. The informality of procedure is more
the norm than the exception in a quickly changing city that is responding to immense
market demands.126 The district, along with the municipality, appear to have little
choice but to overlook and acquiesce to commercial developments proceeding first,
without fulfilling their lengthy list of requirements. The local government’s adaptive
governance has facilitated rapid urban transformation and in many cases allowed bot-
tom-up developments to exploit the urban loopholes that adaptive governance created in
the first place.

359
Figs. 14 , 15 Perspective of the eastern part of Yongkang Lu realized, 2013, above; and elevation of one of Yongkang Lu’s
upgraded units, 2013, below

360
 Even in the district-administered Yongkang Lu redevelopment, which is not formed
by endogenous processes, the developer, given the responsibility of commercial ad-
ministration, used the techniques learned from the endogenous processes. The devel-
oper gave the commercial spaces leeway to experiment with programming over sev-
eral short lease terms. The entrepreneurs and tenants also postponed the application
for licensing until a feasible and successful enterprise could be determined. Food and
beverage venues often only get snack licenses first and then move to the beverage li-
cense while serving food, awaiting success and official food licensing when cash flows
become stable.127 Once cash flow becomes stable, then entrepreneurs may apply for
licensing for the corresponding functions. By creating a grey zone of testing time, the
district authorities gave the developer responsible for ensuring the commercial suc-
cess of the upgrade a free hand to balance the urgency to develop against ensuring the
most appropriate and profitable function. Compared to other self-generated streets
and neighborhoods, where small creative boutiques and cafés, restaurants and bars
have clustered organically, attracting more investors and customers, the curation of
a street by one development group commissioned by the district has made Yongkang
Lu’s transformation unique.

Endurance of the Old and the Future of the Centrality

Part of Yongkang Lu’s appeal to its young and transnational market audience is its
proximity to the authentic Shanghai experience. Yongkang Lu’s former self is visible
on the adjacent Jiashan Lu that remains a market street. It is part of the ongoing plan to
renew the area. On a given day, one can still get everything from live fish to shoe soles
repaired. The storefronts spill onto the sidewalk with fruits, vegetables, local snacks,
household goods, hardware supplies. The public sidewalks are dotted with changing
vendors who peddle shoelaces and nail clippers, DVD s and fake books, shaving ser-
vices, tailoring services, carpentry services, bicycle repair and more. Open games of
mahjong or Chinese chess are surrounded by onlookers in the evenings. Sometimes
the hawkers cook their meals on makeshift stoves at mealtimes. Other times a bois-
terous dinner is set up under a tree along the sidewalk. (Fig. 16, 17)
The district authorities had chosen the area for upgrade precisely because these are
the last streets in the area that still reflect the ambiance of Shanghai’s bygone days.
Until the early 2000s, many commercial spines of the city center still looked and felt
like Jiashan Lu. The visible messiness and rowdiness has been a source of mortifica-
tion for authorities, but more so because the selling of local foods and cheap goods re-
minds them of price fixing and state-subsidized commerce under the planned econ-
omy. The stalls can still sell goods at affordable prices because of their low rents. The
rents remain below market price in central locations because most remain under dis-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

trict management and have not undergone upgrades. Once units are upgraded, replac-
ing old spaces with new programs, such as cafés, bars or sushi restaurants that cater
to an upper-middle class and expatriate consumer market, their rents multiply ten-fold.
For the authorities and enterprising entrepreneurs, the profits from upgrades make
the effort of acquisition and redevelopment worth the earnings from the rent-gap that
still exists in large parts of Shanghai’s city center. For the local residents, however, the
stores of Jiashan Lu are the few remaining ones still selling everyday goods at afford-
able prices. In most central locations, this is no longer the case.

361
Figs. 16, 17 The adjacent streets of Xiangyang Lu with local commerce and public life, 2013

The renovation of the first portion of Yongkang Lu visibly cleaned up much of the
street life, the sale of everyday goods and the small-scale productions from carpentry
to tailoring that had taken place before. Ironically, it is precisely these aspects of pub-
lic space appropriation and spaces of encounters that are a source of fascination for a
number of expatriate inhabitants who choose to settle in the area. The liveliness that
the expatriates came to view as the authenticity of a Chinese, even East Asian, urban-
ism is combined with the convenience of being able to procure amenities within the
distance of the block, from a framing job to a quick hemline alteration.
In a development that is a few blocks to the south on Jiashan Lu, an Australian-
Shanghainese designer duo chose a local wet-market lane to create a live-work and
ground floor commerce courtyard called the Jiashan Market [嘉善老市]. The appeal of
the local street life that had remained in that former wet-market lane has made the
development popular and commercially successful. A Dutch architect whose atelier is
a block down from Yongkang Lu on Jiashan Lu also observed that if the same setup of
the al fresco Yongkang Lu had taken place on the ground floor of new town high-rises
or in the plaza of the new malls, the same attraction just would not be there.128 Even if
it is the program that was the main attractor, the urban setting was still important to
attracting the customers who come because “it still feels Chinese here.”129 As a cultur-
al geographer and expert of North American gentrification processes, David Ley, once
wrote of as a key component of the learning process of foreign cultures, “cosmopoli-
tans are cultural consumers who embrace difference (by using it).”130
Ironically, the vibrancy and convenience that appeal to the cosmopolitan inhab-
itants as urban qualities resulted from the decades of densification in Shanghai that
the locals associate with privacy deprivation and infrastructure dilapidation. Behind
the upgraded façades and reprogrammed street front of Yongkang Lu, the older archi-
tecture types that required extensive infrastructural upgrading still house residents
living in overcrowded conditions, and with only recently acquired plumbing facilities
that remain shared.
In the second and third phase of the development expansion, Platform’s develop-
ers could not rely on the majority state-owned real estate as they had in the first phase
of development. Although the developers acquired more than 2,000 square meters of
SOE -owned units on Jiashan Lu, they needed to continue negotiations with local resi-
dents who were ‘usage right’ owners of the other properties, if the upgrade was to en-
compass the entire street.131 At a compensation fee of 50,000 R MB /square meter for

362
an individual unit, ranging from 6 to 35 square meters, the development would take
12 years to break even at rentals of 12 R MB /square meter/day, not accounting for ini-
tial renovations investments.132 Each house along the street might be subdivided into
as many as twelve units. This meant that, in order to acquire the house as a unit, the
developer would have to negotiate with twelve different ‘use right’ owners, leading to
a delay in negotiation time for acquisition of the units. Another strategy would be to
pay the ‘use right’ owners five years rent up front for their units. This way the ‘use right’
owners still retained the ownership of their units and could be compensated should
a demolition occur. Both strategies were slow and difficult in implementation.133 But
the old way of life would continue.
The developers deemed a densification at the block scale, with an increase in allow-
able built volume, economically necessary to make the development feasible.134 Plat-
form engaged teams led by friends at the local universities, including Fudan, Tong-
ji, and Jiaotong Universities for extensive urban analyses of the neighborhood. The
teams studied the area’s building types, commercial programming, and transport net-
works.135 International teams from the University of Southern California also did field-
work in the area and gave potential ideas for the area’s development. They proposed
concepts of office insertions with higher density to offset the initial costs of restoring
the neighboring houses. Ideas presentations were made to district officials and mu-
nicipal planning officials in hopes of changing the allowable density in the area, zoned
as part of the conservation area. But, thus far, priorities have been elsewhere. Without
the possibility to partially densify, only a new development with the projected rental
of 50 to 60 R MB /square meter/day would be as profitable as in the first phase.
Two blocks to the north of Yongkang Lu, the International Commerce Center (ICC),
in which its IAPM mall would highlight the western end of commercial Huaihai Lu,
was completed in late 2011. It is a large-scale, mixed-use development with commer-
cial, high-end residential as well as Grade-A office spaces that replaced a large block of
lilong houses, similar to the houses in the blocks to the north and south of Yongkang
Lu. Its retail rentals come close to the 50 R MB that would have made the upgrade along
the rest of Yongkang Lu and Jiashan Lu profitable. But its scale and commercial posi-
tioning would not be possible to replicate in the building types of Yongkang Lu and
Jiashan Lu. The new development was set to pivot the area, and authorities expected
it to trigger upgrades along Xiangyang Lu, cleaning up more of the “dirty and chaotic”
areas. The influx of white-collar workers from multi-national companies, with more
than 250 people per floor in its two 30-odd floor towers, have indeed spilled into the
neighborhood for their midday lunches. But the overall effects on the old lilong houses
and their feasible upgrade seem minimal.
From wet markets and traditional street foods to globalized consumption habitats,
Chapter 5 The New Economies

the coexistence for both sides of development is spatially manifested in the transition-
al economy. In the spatial policies made, the question of whether the former, often of-
fering lower-cost but unique and culturally specific products that also bear the marker
of history and local traditions, would survive the onslaught of upgrades that are part
of economic growth. Leftover spaces have played an important role in the economic
survival of culture-embedded services and goods, commercial traditions that are erod-
ed when rapid physical transformations dissolve the fertile grounds on which they
thrived. Institutional structures under China’s economic transition played the double

363

Fig. 18 Worker bricking up the street-facing facade on
Yongkang Lu following the expulsion of commercial
enterprises, 2016
the illegality of many of the small enterprises and the conservation of historic fengmao
the main reasons for the heavy-handed approach. As already anticipated, the only cer-
tainty remains the uncertainty.
role of expediting these intangible cultural ar-
tifacts’ demise but also sometimes cushioning
their complete erasure due to inherent contra-
dictions. At Yongkang Lu, the commercialized
spaces were only able to transform the street
with the support of the district government
and the district SOE s. The ensuing difficulty,
in acquiring the complex and fragmented res-
idential spaces, has exacerbated the spatial
conflicts between socially polarizing groups.
They have also served as the bulwark against
rapid development and preserved the sem-
blance of local identity and social diversity.
When leadership change and intensifica-
tion of heritageisation led to the shutdown of
Yongkang Lu’s small entrepreneurs in 2016,136
the precarious equilibrium between old and
new shifted again. District authorities imple-
mented the reversion of street-front shops to
facades that looked residential, (Fig. 18) with

The New Economies

At the end of the second decade of accelerated economic liberalization, urban quality,
rather than development quantity, which led the growth of the first decade, was in-
creasingly emphasized. The “Better City” shifted emphasis from the ‘hardware’ of eco-
nomic progress, though still important as a performance indicator,137 to the ‘software’
of urban prosperity. The urban image projects in the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo, as
represented by Yongkang Lu and Anken Green, showed that financial investment and
market understanding in the international context were not enough to be successful
in China. More important are the informal and personal connections, or guanxi, to the
decision-makers of the local state. Developments in China’s transition economy neces-
sitated not only capital and international know-how but also personal access to the lo-
cal institutions. Despite two decades of marketization, these local institutions remain
in the city center and occupy spatially prominent positions. Cosmopolitan agents, thus
working within local institutional frameworks, have been obliged to entrepreneurial-
ly innovate development processes and reformulate possible public-private coalitions.
Both the Anken Green and Yongkang Lu developments show that pro-growth co-
alitions and urban regimes that are developmentalist persist, 138 albeit innovating
through entrepreneurial forms and mediated by cosmopolitan actors. Both cases ex-
ploited urban loopholes created by the dual land market and the policy exceptions cre-
ated by the local state to alleviate inefficiencies resulting from central government

364
decrees. Both consequently also formed ‘new economies’ as a hybrid of market and
planned economy elements.
Post-industrialization and the emergence of knowledge-based sectors, especially
in the late 1990s in developed capitalist societies, generated the ‘new economies’ of
the West.139 In contrast, the new economies of transitioning urban China are the re-
sult of both post-industrialization and marketization. The local state aspires to a val-
ue-added service and knowledge-based economy based on creative industries, in em-
ulation of that in the West. In Shanghai, enterprising and transnationally networked
entrepreneurs expedite the knowledge flow, facilitating the rapid transformation of
the city center areas with new economies. At the same time, the new economies in Chi-
nese cities are executed within the local institutional frameworks, governed by the
fluid rules of the adaptive and developmental state. In this way, the new economies of
urban China take from the new economies of late capitalism in the post-industrial de-
veloped economies in their products. These ‘new’ new economies are firmly grounded
in the institutional framework of transition China, and form an upgraded ‘planned
economy 2.0.’140 In the ‘planned economy 2.0’ the urban loophole occupies a crucial
function, by mediating the spatial production between planned economy constraints
and market demands.
As shown in the Anken Green case, representative of developments on SOE prop-
erties, the convenient and opportune urban loophole for creative industries clusters was
invoked to get around central government constraints on the commercialization of
administratively-allocated land. The promotion of creativity, as part of China’s shift
from progress to prosperity, led by cities like Shanghai that aspire to become knowl-
edge and service economies, has become the exceptional circumstance for bypass-
ing the restriction. At the same time, however, Anken’s developers diverged from the
growth-driven model set by Bridge 8, by showing how adjustments to the dominant
business model could be just as productive and lucrative in finding its niche market.
On the other hand, the development of Yongkang Lu, which local officials and plan-
ners promoted as taking from the best of Tianzifang and Xintiandi, capitalized on the
undervalued real estate by local SOE s. Using business plans developed also from the
earlier SOE reuse models, as exemplified by the Bridge 8 project, the private-public co-
alition applied it to the urban scale of the street. The local state as a privileged market
player, allied with private developers tasked with the project upgrade, exploited the
urban loophole created by the dual land market. The development group also appropri-
ated techniques of bottom-up conversion projects, by creating the urban loopholes for
program adjustments. Under the development pressures of the district, its sweeping
and uniform upgrade process distinguished its outcome from the products of endog-
enous processes. Without lifting the existing density requirements, the upgrade proj-
Chapter 5 The New Economies

ect would not be able to feasibly extend farther. The difficulty of rapid development in
residential areas thus serves as the buffer against the erosion of cultural traditions in
the last parts of a rapidly upgraded city center. The juxtaposition of the new economies
against the old, although not frictionless, seems to sustain a precarious socio-eco-
nomic diversity worth tending.
Shanghai’s municipal bureaucrats seem well aware of the inefficiencies of the dual
market and its challenges to urban planning. In May 2015, the municipal government
issued a new Urban Renewal Enactment Act.141 Though vague, the new Act proposed

365
 making the functional conversions on administratively-allocated land possible, within
the oversight of the municipal planning bureau. If implemented, the proposal would in
effect stop the need for the existing urban loopholes made possible by the recognition
of creative industries cluster. It shows that the local government is increasingly valuing
efficiency in the face of sprawling urban growth.
In a context where institutional transparency, impartiality and certainty are state
priorities, urban loopholes that do arise would be closed with permanence. In a context
where institutional opacity, state partiality in the market, and uncertainty is an im-
portant part of the governing tactic, urban loopholes will persist. The closing of one set
of urban loopholes means that it is opportune for another set to be discovered, tested
and exploited. In the growing restrictions set by the different levels of the state, the
internalization of earlier and more straightforward urban loopholes would only lead to
more sophisticated means to realize privileged profit. As long as the legacy ownership
by local state-affiliated stakeholders persists, as upheld and privileged by CCP ideolo-
gy, new urban loopholes will take place. It remains to be seen what new spatial oppor-
tunities will arise, and what newer new economies will emerge from the plug-ins for
‘planned economy 2.0.’

1 The term ‘transition’ as used by the Chinese govern-
ment, refers to the economic imperative to shift to a more
knowledge-based economy, where a higher percentage
of GDP comes from non-manufacturing sectors. Current-
ly the secondary sector accounts for nearly 50 % of the
GDP for Shanghai municipality. In this sense, the ‘urban
transition’ used by Chinese government literature is fun-
damentally different from the ‘urban transition’ that many
English-language scholars use to refer to the urban man-
ifestations of China’s economic transition from planned
to market economics. See for example the term highlight-
ed in a recent publication from the Shanghai Urban Plan-
ning Institute, Shanghai Urban Planning and Land Re-
sources Administration 上海市规划和国土资源管理局 and
Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute
上海市城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning and
Design Institute, eds., 转型上海 规划战略 [Shanghai in
Transition, Urban Planning Strategy] (Shanghai 上海: 同
济大学出版社 Tongji University Press, 2012). 2 Xiejun
Chen 陈燮君, “世博是创意的摇篮 [The World Expo Is the
Cradle of Creativity],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post,
May 9, 2010, http://pinglun.eastday.com/p/20100509/
u1a5193473.html. 3 Michael E. Porter, On Competition,
Harvard Business Review Book Series (Boston: Harvard
Business School, 2008). 4 The 2010 World Expo not only
showcased Shanghai’s accomplishments in becoming the
“Better City,” but it also played the catalyst for further cre-
ative development. Official plans show that reuse projects
will cover large swathes of former industrial sites along
the Huangpu River. The Expo site itself, if its conversion
proceeds as planned, will become the largest creative in-
dustries cluster in the world. 5 The four projects have
been studied as representative cases for Shanghai’s neigh-
borhood transformation, heritage architecture reuse, and
commercial upgrade. Even in discussions with the author-
ities of the Shanghai Urban Planning Bureau, they suggest-
ed the four projects as pioneers for Shanghai’s current
developments. For the number of research projects that
have helped establish the canonical status of these four
projects, see Xiaowei 罗小未 Luo, “上海新天地广场—旧城改
造的一种模式 [Shanghai Xintiandi Plaza—a model for the
revitalization of the old city],” 时代建筑 Time+Architecture,
no. 04 (2001): 24–29; Tianshu Pan, “Historical Memory,
Community-Building and Place-Making in Neighborhood
Shanghai,” in Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing
Society, Economy and Space, ed. Laurence J. C Ma and
Fulong Wu (New York: Routledge, 2005), 122–37; Albert
Wing Tai Wai, “Place Promotion and Iconography in
Shanghai’s Xintiandi,” Habitat International, Urbanization
in China, A Special Issue, 30, no. 2 (June 2006): 245–60,
doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2004.02.002; Kori Rutcosky, “Adap­
tive Reuse as Sustainable Architecture in Contemporary
Shanghai” (Master’s Thesis for Asian Studies, Lund Univer-
sity, 2007 ); You-Ren Yang and Chih-hui Chang, “An Urban
Regeneration Regime in China: A Case Study of Urban
Redevelopment in Shanghai’s Taipingqiao Area,” Urban
Studies 44 , no. 9 (August 1, 2007 ): 1809–26, doi:10.1080/
00420980701507787; Pan Lu, “The Remaking of Shang-
hai Local Spaces,” Spacesofidentity.net 8 , no. 1 (July 8 ,
2008), http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/soi/article/
view/17740; Xuefei Ren, “Forward to the Past: Historical
Preservation in Globalizing Shanghai,” City & Community 7,

366
 no. 1 (March 1, 2008): 23–43 , doi:10.1111/j.1540 -6040. eds., City as Loft: Adaptive Reuse as a Resource for Sus-
2007.00239.x; Nanxi Su, “Art Factories in Shanghai: Urban tainable Urban Development (Zürich: GTA Verlag, 2012).
Regeneration Experience of Post-Industrial Districts” 12 Former industrial properties of SOE s exist on admin-
(Master’s Thesis, National University of Singapore (NUS ), istratively-allocated land, which is the planned economy
2008); Wan-Lin Tsai, “The Redevelopment and Preserva- left over in the dual land market. In the wake of SOE -re-
tion of Historic Lilong Housing in Shanghai” (Master’s The- forms in the 1990 s, many industrial properties were con-
sis for Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania, verted to commercial usage, leading to what the central
2008); Hiroyuki Shinohara, “Mutations of Tianzifang, government saw as the erosion of state assets. In the mid-
Taikang Road, Shanghai,” in The 4th International Confer- 2000 s, the central government tightened the land-use
ence of the International Forum of Urbanism (IFoU ) (The conversion on administratively-allocated land. By this
New Urban Question—Urbanism beyond Neoliberalism, time, many of the procedural gaps that the rapid econom-
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2009), http://newurban- ic transition wrought in the 1990 s also were closed. With
question.ifou.org/proceedings/index.html; Sheng Zhong, the more stringent constraints on the commercial conver-
“From Fabrics to Fine Arts: Urban Restructuring and the sion of administratively-allocated land on which the for-
Formation of an Art District in Shanghai,” Critical Planning, mer industrial real estate existed in the dual land market,
no. 16 (2009): 118–37; Chunbin Guo 郭淳彬, “旧城居住区自 it also rendered reuse legally difficult. The central govern-
发性改造问题研究—以田子坊为例 [Study of Organic Conver- ment’s growing emphasis on creative industries and
sions in Old City Residential Neighborhoods—case study Shanghai’s ambition for ‘transition’ to knowledge indus-
of Tianzifang],” in 转型与重构 — 2011中国城市规划年会论文 tries at this time, however, became an opportunity. The
集 (转型与重构— 2011中国城市规划年会, Nanjing 南京: 中国 conception of alternate business plans for feasible func-
城市规划学会、南京市政府, 2011), 13. 6 ‘Culture-led urban tional change on former industrial buildings took on the
regeneration’ is a term used to describe the use of cultur- creative industries trend. The creation of the creative in-
al industries, including the creative industries, to redevel- dustries label made an exception to the constraints on
op undervalued areas in the city. Even though the term the function changes on administratively-allocated land
wasn’t officially used until the mid-2000 s, earlier critics and made it legally permissible to convert buildings to
such as Rosalyn Deutsche already criticized the use of cul- new uses for creative industries. 13 The ‘localized cos-
tural developments as the urban strategy in New York. mopolitan’ is an actor in the urban development process
The use of culture in urban regeneration is also affiliated in Shanghai, who has an international background while
with the rhetoric of the ‘creative class’ as promoted by at the same time enjoying access to the local deci-
Richard Florida as an indicator of a society’s transition to sion-makers and having knowledge of the local processes
a knowledge-based service-dominated economy. See and mechanisms. The ‘localized cosmopolitans’ are more
Graeme Evans, “Measure for Measure: Evaluating the Evi- adept at detecting and exploiting the urban loopholes
dence of Culture’s Contribution to Regeneration,” Urban created by the state’s adaptive governance. The concept
Studies 42, no. 5–6 (May 1, 2005): 959–83, doi:10.1080/ of the ‘localized cosmopolitan’ was elaborated in previous
00420980500107102; Rosalyn Deutsche, “Uneven Devel- chapters. 14 As was shown in the previous two chapters,
opment: Public Art in New York City,” October 47 (Decem- local governments have been actively upgrading and de-
ber 1, 1988): 3 – 52 , doi:10.2307/778979. 7 Interviews veloping city center areas for capital accumulation. New
with local architects, 2012. 8 Interview with the Anken developments are largely pegged to the highest interna-
developers, 2013. 9 The district initiative for the Xintian- tional standards and prices, even though most local oc-
di project, financed and developed by the Hong Kong de- cupants would be priced out of the developments. The
veloper Shui On Land as part of the larger Taipingqiao Anken Green development, also aiming at a target clien-
area’s urban renewal, seemed to contrast with Tianzi- tele of transnational service economy workers, responds
fang’s incremental initiatives by small entrepreneurs that to the diversity of demands on the ground in Shang-
converted and upgraded the residential block into a com- hai. 15 The term ‘new economy’ was used, especially in
mercially vibrant area. The previous chapter elaborated the late 1990 s, for the new knowledge-based sectors that
that the popular representation of the Tianzifang devel- are associated with the economic transition from a pro-
opment privileges this narrative of the bottom-up reuse. duction-based to service-based economy. In its usage in
The local street office played an important role in starting this chapter, ‘new economy’ alludes to this and represents
the area’s transformation. 10 Similarly, M50 ’s conversion the aspirations of the local government authorities for the
has been attributed to the successful initiatives of the art- city to similarly develop a value-added service economy.
ists and galleries. Its bottom-up conversion of disused in- The upgrades and pursuit of creative industries are all in
Chapter 5 The New Economies

dustrial buildings became recognized after its occupants the same vein. At the same time, it also represents the
became increasingly renowned. The cluster has since giv- small entrepreneurs who are transnationally networked,
en the city a notable identity for its contemporary art de- who are responsible for the knowledge flows that have so
velopment. A closer analysis of the spatial transformations rapidly transformed Shanghai’s city center areas, but have
to the development of a ‘contemporary arts ecology’ in done so within the local frameworks. In this sense, the
Shanghai will be analyzed in the next chapter. In contrast, economy is ‘new.’ It neither comes purely from the late
a commercial developer upgraded Bridge 8 . Its conver- capitalism of the post-industrial developed economies.
sion of former state-owned enterprise buildings formal- Nor is it the old one from the planned economics. Rather
ized the template for ensuing developments of former it is a combination or hybrid of them. It is, in this sense, a
SOE buildings. 11 Martina Baum and Kees Christiaanse, ‘new’ form of economy. 16 Interview with the Anken de-

367
velopers, 2013. The official creative industries cluster of
1933, for example, charged 12RMB /sqm/d, in 2013. 17 The
development of Ferguson Lane was elaborated in the
chapter “The Cultural Street.” It will be notable also that
the developers of Yongkang Lu also were part of the Fer-
guson Lane development. 18 Economists have studied
the relationship of ‘horizontal networks’ and innovation.
It is part of the larger body of literature on the relation-
ships between networking, its spillover effects, knowledge
flows and the new economies. See Knut Koschatzky, Mar-
ianne Kulicke, and Andrea Zenker, Innovation Networks:
Concepts and Challenges in the European Perspective
(Springer Science & Business Media, 2012). 19 The au-
thor, before starting this research project, had visited the
atelier space of Deng Kunyan in 2004 . 20 Richard L. Flor-
ida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Trans-
forming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life
(New York: Basic Books, 2004). 21 It wasn’t until the So-
cial Groups Bureau was created in 2008 that the SCIC
would become a subsidiary of this Bureau. 22 The cre-
ation of a land lease system for commercial land while
maintaining the administrative allocation of land to state
institutes and enterprise would be the crux of numerous
challenges to urban planning of Chinese cities under tran-
sition. As Hsing You-tien wrote about the paradox, “com-
modification without privatization” would lay the founda-
tion of numerous contestations. For further analysis of the
development of the land market, see Anthony Gar-On Yeh
and Fulong Wu, “The New Land Development Process and
Urban Development in Chinese Cities,” International Jour-
nal of Urban and Regional Research 20, no. 2 (1996):
330–353, doi:10.1111/j.1468 -2427.1996.tb00319.x; Jiem-
ing Zhu, “Urban Development under Ambiguous Property
Rights: A Case of China’s Transition Economy,” Interna-
tional Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26, no. 1
(2002): 41–57, doi:10.1111/1468 -2427.00362; You-tien
Hsing, “Global Capital and Local Land in China’s Urban
Real Estate Development,” in Globalization and the Chi-
nese City, ed. Fulong Wu, vol. 7, Routledge Contemporary
China Series (New York: Routledge, 2006), 167–89.
23 Zhu, “Urban Development under Ambiguous Property
Rights.” 24 Yeh, “Dual Land Market and Internal Spatial
Structure of Chinese Cities.” 25 国务院 State Council, 中
华人民共和国土地管理法实施条例 [Regulation for the Im-
plementation of the Land Administration Law of the
PRC], vol. 国务院令 (1998) 第256 号, 1999, http://www.
people.com.cn/item/faguiku/jjf/T1070.html; Ministry of
Land Resources of the PRC 国土资源部, 招标拍卖挂牌出让
国有土地使用权规定 [Regulation on Lease of State-Owned
Land by Bidding, Auction and Listing-for-Sale], vol. 国土
资源部发(2002)11号, 2002, http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/
content/2003/content_62586.htm; 国土资源部 Ministry of
Land Resources of the PRC , 关于继续开展经营性土地使用
权招标拍卖挂牌出让情况执法检查工作的通知 [Notice of the
Continuation of Law Enforcement Inspection Work of
Commercial Land Use Rights by Bidding and Auction],
vol. 国土资源部发〔2004〕71号, 2004 , http://wenku.baidu.
com/view/a54 aa6087cd184254 b353561. 26 上海市城市
规划管理局 Shanghai Urban Planning Administration, 加强
中心城内改变土地使用性质规划管理的暂行规定 [Provisional
Regulations on the Planning Control of Change in Land-
368
Use in the Central City (Shanghai)], vol. 沪规法〔2004〕
355号, 2004 , http://www.law110.com/law/32 /shanghai/
law11020062231212 .htm. 27 Wuwei Li 厉无畏 and Hui-
min Wang 王慧敏, “创意产业：一种发展模式的创新 [Cre-
ative Industries: An Innovation in Development Model],”
文汇报 Wenhui News, March 12, 2007, http://theory.peo-
ple.com.cn/GB /49154 /49155/5460519.html. 28 Shang-
hai is one of the most socialist of places in the provision
of social welfare, of course only to its hukou holders. In
this sense, more efficiently using former SOE properties
is necessary to sustain the welfare system. For the welfare
provisions for laid-off workers after the 1990 s SOE re-
structuring, see Grace O. M. Lee and Malcolm Warner, “The
Shanghai Re-Employment Model: From Local Experiment
to Nation-Wide Labour Market Policy,” The China Quar-
terly, no. 177 (March 1, 2004): 174 – 89. 29 The 2006
Plan mentions the creative industries: “relying on the ef-
fects of fashion industry park, media and cultural park and
other creative industries clusters, the use of the media
culture, creative design, historic buildings and other re-
sources, to construct of a number of creative, cultural and
leisure tourism areas with historical heritage, knowl-
edge-intensity, cultural diversity, vitality, aesthetical
strength [依托时尚产业园，传媒文化园等创意产业集聚效
应，利用传媒文化，创意设计，历史建筑等资源，建设一批具
有历史底蕴，知识密集，文化多元，充满活力，观赏性强的创
意文化休闲旅游区].” See “上海市旅游业发展‘十一五’规划
[Plan for the Development of Tourism Industry during the
‘Eleventh Five Year Plan’ in Shanghai],” 2006, http://wen-
ku.baidu.com/view/0083665f804 d2b160 b4 ec0a9.html.“
上海市旅游业发展‘十一五’规划 [Plan for the Development
of Tourism Industry during the ‘Eleventh Five Year Plan’ in
Shanghai].” 2005, p 40. http://wenku.baidu.com/view/
0083665f804d2b160b4ec0a9.html. 30 Zilai Tang, “The
Renewal of Allocated Industrial Land in the Perspective
of Property Right System: The Case of Hongkou District,
Shanghai,” in Institutions of Land Rights and Sustainable
Asian Urbanization (National University of Singapore,
2013). 31 Ibid. 32 In the ‘three non-changes and five
changes [三不变五变]‘ policy issued by the Shanghai Cre-
ative Industries Center in 2005, there is to be no change
to building structure, meaning no development by dem-
olition-reconstruction; there is no change to ownership,
meaning the SOE retains its perpetual leasehold on the
administratively-allocated land; and there is no change
to land-use status, meaning officially land-use remains in-
dustrial, while the status of ‘creative industries’ is a unique
ambiguity between service and manufacturing that allows
commercialization to be condoned and encouraged.
33 The development of this area around Moganshan Lu
is elaborated in the following chapter, “The Contemporary
Art Ecologies.” 34 Ibid. 35 For local bureaucrats, perfor-
mance indicators such as image projects and projects that
add additional revenue to the district are important to
their career advancements. See Fayong Shi, “Local Pro-Im-
age Coalition And Urban Governance in China,” in Con-
temporary China Research Papers No 1 (Hong Kong Shue
Yan University: Hong Kong Shue Yan University, 2010).
36 Chenghua Tang 唐骋华, “城市之美之时尚地标：八号桥，
面朝喧嚣创意转身 [City Beautiful’s Landmark: Bridge 8 ,
Creative Transformation toward Urban Bustle],” 生活周刊
Life Weekly, January 25, 2010, http://www.why.com.cn/
epublish/other/node29576/node29578 /userobject7ai20
9295.html. 37 Ibid. 38 This instance of number change
shows the influx of influences in urban developments un-
der the transition economy. The naming of sites with
names that evoked the Republican era, as described in
the last two chapters, shows the influence of overseas
Chinese returnees. Their nostalgia for ‘old Shanghai’ from
before 1949, as reflected in the names, magnifies the
commercial developments from the ideologically different
built environment of the post-Liberation era. Similarly, the
influence of pre-modern superstitions, in these number-
ing conventions, also shows the contrast to Shanghai’s
modernity, which in its urbanity and Westernization, had
rejected many of these geomancy-based decisions. 39 “
黄瀚泓：做商业地产像导演电影 [Huang Zonghan: Commer-
cial Real Estate Is like Directing a Movie],” 长江商报 Chang-
jiang Times, May 20, 2009, http://bj.house.sina.com.cn/
biz/hd/2009 -05 -20/15273770.html. 40 The total invest-
ment for renovations and infrastructure was around
200,000 RMB , which came from the deposits from rent-
ers. See the previous chapter on Tianzifang’s develop-
ment. 41 2008 also saw the release of a central govern-
ment directive on encouraging the development of
service industries, which was followed by a municipal di-
rective on the development of a modern service industry
in Shanghai. See Shanghai Economic Council 上海市经委
and Shanghai Propaganda Bureau 上海市委宣传部, 上海市
加快创意产业发展的指导意见 [Guiding Advice on Acceler-
ating Creative Industries Development], vol. 沪经规(2008)
452 号, 2008 , http://www.sheitc.gov.cn/0105020804 /
656508 .htm. 42 ShangTex traces its roots to the textile
industries of Shanghai that were largely private compa-
nies until nationalization following Liberation. One of the
most important industries in Shanghai, the sector folded
when economic liberalization accelerated. The number of
workers laid off during the SOE reforms show the disin-
tegration of the industry. See Chi-Wen Jevons Lee, “Finan-
cial Restructuring of State Owned Enterprises in China:
The Case of Shanghai Sunve Pharmaceutical Corporation,”
Accounting, Organizations and Society 26, no. 7–8 (Octo-
ber 2001): 673–89, doi:10.1016/S0361-3682(00)00007-6.
Nevertheless, under the same reforms, the ShangTex
Group restructured and corporatized in 1995. The com-
pany today is number three in the country for “Top 100
Enterprises in China Textile and Garment Industry” and
the top one for “ the Exportation of China Textile and Gar-
ment Industry,” according to its website. The firm’s most
noted creative industries clusters are M50 and High
Street Loft and it claims a total of 42, 12 of which are rec-
ognized by the SCIC and 3 more of which are recognized
by the municipal Publicity Department. M50 used to be
the grounds of a spinning factory and High Street Loft was
part of a production site for Sanqiang. 43 Entrepreneurs
who had collaborated on the public relations promotion
for the project shared their misgivings about the busi-
ness-orientation and decision-making capacity for creativ-
ity in the project. Interviews 2012. The building continues
to be headquarters of the Shanghai Creative Industries
Center (SCIC ). 44 Until the mid-2000 s, the building was
owned by the municipal level SOE Shanghai Great Wall
Biochemical Pharmaceutical Factory, and used as a stor-
age facility. 45 Interview with the Anken developers,
2013. 46 The official creative cluster of 1933, for example,
charged 12RMB /square meter/day, in 2013. 47 “Best Al
Fresco Cafes,” Time Out Shanghai, no. 33 (May 5, 2011):
32–33 . 48 Interview with the Anken developers, 2013 .
49 In Shanghai, many more small design firms are run by
expatriates who came to China in the mid-2000 s, even if
competition with the large design institutes is increasing-
ly dominating the design landscape and the cost of start-
ing a business is expensive: 1 million RMB of registered
capital to start a business in China. In Hong Kong or Sin-
gapore, for example, the initial cost to start a business is
much lower and procedurally much easier. But few small
creative studios are transnational, because of higher ex-
penditures, thus there is a limited creative ecology of oth-
er creatives as well as the locationally dependent market
breadth. 50 Interview with the Anken developers, 2013.
51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Interview with the small
entrepreneurs of Anken Green, 2013 , 2014 . 55 Ibid.
56 Shanghai Economic Council 上海市经委 and Shanghai
Propaganda Bureau 上海市委宣传部, 上海市加快创意产业
发展的指导意见 [Guiding Advice on Accelerating Creative
Industries Development]. 57 Interview with the Anken
developers, 2013 . 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Usually 40 %
portion of the tax goes to the district, and the other 60 %
goes to the central government. For the startup period of
two to three years, the return of the 40 % by the district
as a tax break back to the leasee was offered to attract
developers to develop creative clusters. In an interview
with another local developer who worked on several re-
use projects in Xuhui District, some of which have been
designated ‘Creative Industry Clusters’, the comparison of
Xuhui to Huangpu was made to prove the point of neces-
sary curation. Huangpu District offers incentives to attract
the right kind of tenants, but Xuhui being a smarter dis-
trict ends up with the higher-classed ones. The comment
seems to indicate either the demand sophistication of the
district leadership or inherent structural advantages of
each of the areas. 61 Ibid. 62 The SOE leadership often
set up local companies that run the properties, waiting to
be compensated at market price should the district gov-
ernment want to requisition the state-allocated land. This
holdout is not much different from the expectations of
the local residents holding onto the use-rights of their
residences should redevelopment come with compensa-
tion, even if they no longer live in their original abodes.
According to a conversation with an investor from the Bei-
jing office of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, bud-
get hotel chains, such as the omni-present, are often re-
developed on these state-allocated lands that cannot
Chapter 5 The New Economies
undergo redevelopment via demolition and reconstruc-
tion. 63 The dominant SOE agglomerates are Shang Tex
Group [上纺集团], Shanghai Paper Group [上海包装造纸集
团], Shanghai Electric Group [上海电汽集团], Bailian Group
[百联集团] (including N. 1 Department store, Wing-on
[永安], Hualian [华联集团]), and Shanghai Automobile In-
dustries Group [上海汽车集团]. 64 One of the projects in
the former civic district behind the Bund that Anken has
redeveloped belongs to the Bailian Group. When they ap-
proached another branch of Bailian regarding the rede-
369
 velopment of another building that belonged to the group,
it became apparent that different parts of the same con-
glomerate were not only not in communication but also
worked differently. That the modern era building was
clearly disused, as many in the area were, was of little
concern to the decision-maker in charge. And that Anken
would be interested in developing the building also
evoked little interest from the bureaucrat. It became clear
that the decision-making process, even for the same SOE ,
was dependent on the personnel in authority. Interview
with the Anken developers, 2013. 65 For the deficiencies
of many of the SOE s, see also Xuefeng Lu, “Governance
of Shanghai State-Owned Enterprises: Deficiencies and
Recommendations,” International Journal of Law and
Management 51, no. 3 (May 15, 2009): 169–78 , doi:10.11
08 /17542430910959245. 66 Interview with a Xuhui Dis-
trict street office official, 2012. 67 Ibid. 68 The author’s
grandmother, who moved to the safety of the French Con-
cession at the onset of war in the 1930 s, like many from
the region, had first lived on the corner of what is now
Jiashan Lu and Yongkang Lu. Also see Yihua Xiao 萧一华
and Xuhui District Annal Editing Committee 徐汇区志编纂
委员会, “第四章名特商店 第一节大型商场 [Chapter 4 Fa-
mous Shops Section 1 Large Markets],” in 徐汇区志 [Xuhui
District Annals], vol. 21 Commerce [第二十一篇商业], 32
vols. (Shanghai 上海, 1997 ), http://www.shtong.gov.cn/
node2 /node4 /node2249/xuhui/node38422 /node3846
8 /node63510/userobject1ai23633.html. 69 Haiyan Wang
王海燕, “集贸市场拆迁 马路菜场‘现身’ [Market Removed,
Roadside Wetmarket ‘Appears’],” 解放日报 Liberation Dai-
ly, July 13, 2006, http://old.jfdaily.com/gb/node2 /node17/
node167/node89864 /node89875/userobject1ai1401036.
html. 70 Yiqiong Gu 顾一琼 and Zhen Shao 邵珍, “永康路:
老菜场拆除，新菜场未建，无人给说法‘正规菜贩’无奈占路打
游击 [Yongkang Lu: Old Wet Market Removed, New Wet
Market Not Built, No One Gives Reason, ‘Registered Veg-
etable Sellers’ Have No Choice but to Take over Road and
Play Guerilla Warfare],” 文汇报 Wenhui News, July 14 ,
2006, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006 -07-14 /0753945
6083s.shtml. 71 Interview with a Xuhui District street of-
fice official, 2012 . 72 Earlier experiences with the dis-
mantling of the neighboring Jiashan Lu [嘉善路] wet mar-
ket had not been entirely effective. Residents found the
newly established market at Nanchang Lu [南昌路] to be
too far and inconvenient. And the small sellers still
returned to the lane in Jiashan Lu to peddle their goods.
These small sellers are still there as of 2014 . Ibid.
73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 The nationwide initiative of the
‘Shopping Basket Project [菜篮子工程]’ had incentivized
the building of infrastructure for wet-market vendors and
relocating outdoor wet markets, which had occupied
streets during the day, indoors. Until the late mid-2000 s,
numerous streets in residential neighborhoods served as
daily wet markets, where everything from poultry to fish
could be bought. Yongkang Lu, even though it had not
been a market street, became one by virtue of the de-
struction of a nearby one. The implications of marketiza-
tion on the wet markets, both as an urban public space
provision by the district and as a provider of produce is
not yet fully examined. See G. William Skinner, “Vegetable
Supply and Marketing in Chinese Cities,” The China Quar-
370
terly 76 (1978): 733–93, doi:10.1017/S0305741000049572;
Arieh Goldman, “Supermarkets in China: The Case of
Shanghai,” The International Review of Retail, Distribu-
tion and Consumer Research 10, no. 1 (2000): 1–21,
doi:10.1080/095939600342370; Qian Forrest Zhang and
Zi Pan, “The Transformation of Urban Vegetable Retail in
China: Wet Markets, Supermarkets and Informal Markets
in Shanghai,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 43 , no. 3
(2013): 497–518 , doi:10.1080/00472336.2013 .782224 .
76 The architecture firm Neri and Hu had worked on the
upgrade of Julu Lu. Wuyuan Lu has also transformed to
a street with trendy bars, boutiques and restaurants.
77 Interview with a Xuhui District street office official,
2012 . 78 Ibid. 79 This speed of development would
have an impact on the architectural design itself. 80 The
‘anchor tenant(s)’ is one of the primary tenants in a de-
velopment project that would be the primary draw(s) for
customers. The anchor tenant, usually in a retail mall,
makes the development economically viable for the in-
vestor and other tenants to develop the project. 81 The
three SOE s included the Xuhui Non-stapels Food Co. [徐
汇副食品有限公司], New Xuhui Group [新徐汇集团] and the
New Road Group [新路达], a subsidiary of the Bailian
Group since 2004 . The New Xuhui Group and the Xuhui
Non-staples Food Co. belong to the Xuhui District govern-
ment. The Xuhui District government had a 49 % owner-
ship of the New Road Group when it started. 82 Inter-
view with district street office official, 2012 . 83 Ibid.
84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 The author did a cash flow analysis
for the 13 year lease term, based on the parameters for
rental income per square meter, expenditures, taxes, man-
agement fees, leasing fees, etc. which the developer sha
red. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 The District Yearbook
announced the 6 million RMB initial investment and that
the “model of collaboration between local and interna-
tional investment for the management of a commercial
street is a first for the city (of Shanghai) [中外合资管理商
业街的模式在全市尚属首创].” It is also notable that the
Yongkang Lu project is filed under the chapter for “State
Owned Assets Oversight and Management” and its sub-
section on the New Xuhui Group. See Note 119 for the
formation of the New Xuhui Group. See Xiufeng Zhou 周
秀芬, “十七、国有(集体)资产监督管理 (十二)上海新徐汇(集
团)有限公司 [Chapter 17 State Owned Assets Oversight
and Management Section 12 New Xuhui Group],” in 徐汇
年鉴（2010) Yearbook of Xuhui 2010 (Shanghai 上海: 上
海辞书出版社 Shanghai Encyclopedia Publisher, 2010), 97,
http://daj.xh.sh.cn: 8082 /xhdainfoplat/platformData/
infoplat/pub/xhda_ 152 /docs/ 201102 /d_ 88633 .html.
91 The use of the phrase, “dirty and chaotic,” for Yong-
kang Lu was repeated in interviews with district officials,
as propagated by the popular media. Interview with dis-
trict street office official, 2012. See also Kai Yu 俞凯, “永康
里打造第二个新天地 ‘最脏乱街区’消失 [Yongkang Li Be-
comes Second Xintiandi, ‘the Dirtiest Neighborhood’ dis-
appears],” 东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, October 19,
2009, http://2010.qq.com/a/20091019/000024 .htm.
92 Interview with district street office official, 2012 .
93 Ibid. 94 The street office officials cite the inexperi-
ence of the developers in requiring the street office offi-
cials to step in. Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid.
99 Ibid. 100 The term ‘nail house’ comes from the image
of the remaining structures standing in the midst of a
demolition site. It also refers to the difficulty of the nail’s
adherence to the ground, requiring the removal of its ‘nail
residents.’ For the resistance and similarly increasing sav-
vy techniques of the ‘nail residents,’ see Qin Shao, Shang-
hai Gone: Domicide and Defiance in a Chinese Megacity,
State and Society in East Asia (Lanham: Rowman & Little-
field Publishers, Inc, 2012). 101 Interview with district
street office official, 2012. 102 Ibid. 103 The author, hav-
ing encountered also the other side of the resistance and
witnessed the savvy of the ‘nail occupants,’ notes that the
street office official, who uttered the remark in a heavily
Shanghainese-accented bureaucrat-speak, represents the
counterweight. The cunning of both sides does not justi-
fy the reality of the eviction processes, but nevertheless
gives a dimension of complexity to the multiple interests
involved. In the conventional representation of Western
media, the eviction process is often simplified. On the oth-
er hand, in the Chinese media, the relocation process is
also represented from the official side. Ibid. 104 Ibid.
105 Ibid. 106 The author had interviewed a few of the
other developers of similar scale and inclination. These
developers developed projects like Surpass Court [永嘉庭],
Yongfu Lu N. 47, Anfu Lu N. 305, and many are also pur-
suing the impending upgrades to Wulumuqi Lu [乌鲁木齐
路]. 107 The development of Ferguson Lane [武康庭] was
detailed in the chapter “The Cultural Street.” It is a com-
pound that includes a former neighborhood SOE produc-
tion building, a garden-style house that had housed many
families, and an adjacent tower that had been the hospi-
tal of real estate bureau, and which had been converted
to the guesthouse of the real estate bureau in the 1990 s.
A Hong Kong developer bought the leases for the build-
ings and converted them into a food and beverage (F & B )
hub with office spaces. 108 Interview with developer of
Platform, 2012. In conversation with them about another
project, about to take place on Wulumuqi Lu [乌鲁木齐路],
which has a similar structure and program to Yongkang
Lu, the developers mentioned an important contact at the
street office who had made their bid for its redevelop-
ment possible. But due to news of his transfer, the out-
come of the development remained uncertain. It is clear
that having access to crucial decision makers, who are
also often mobile in the hierarchies of the local state bu-
reaucracies, is what makes development projects possible.
This confirms the discretionary decision-making of the lo-
cal state, that is part of the adaptive governance, lubri-
cating and facilitating China’s urban transition. As elabo-
rated in previous chapters, ‘guanxi [关系]’ denotes
connections and relationships that facilitate business and
other dealings in the East Asian context. 109 Platform
Group, “永康路时尚街项目实施控制流程 [Yongkang Lu Yong­
kang Fashion & Lifestyle Street Project Implementation
Control Flow Process]” (Shanghai, November 5, 2009).
110 Ibid. 111 Xiufeng Zhou 周秀芬, “Illustrations,” in 徐汇
年鉴（2010) Yearbook of Xuhui 2010 (Shanghai 上海: 上
海辞书出版社 Shanghai Encyclopedia Publisher, 2010), 11,
http://daj.xh.sh.cn: 8082 /xhdainfoplat/platformData/
infoplat/pub/xhda_ 152 /docs/ 201102 /d_ 88633 .html.
112 Yao Ye 叶尧 and Song Ye 叶松, “永康里意在打造徐汇区
新天地 [Yongkang Li Wants to Become Xuhui’s Xintiandi],”
上海商报 Shanghai Business Daily, October 26 , 2009,
http://biz.xinmin.cn/rehouse/2009/10/26/2801273.html.
113 Interview with developer of Platform, 2012. 114 Ibid.
115 Ibid. 116 Interviews with small entrepreneurs in the
fashion industry, 2012. 117 Jiang Wu 伍江 and Lin Wang
王林, 历史文化风貌区保护规划编制与管理：上海城市保护的
实践 [The establishment and management of the Histor-
ic Cultural Features and Styles Districts Conservation
Plan: Cases from Shanghai’s Conservation] (Shanghai 上
海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji University Press, 2007 ), 72–74 .
118 The Hong Kong development company called Maxdo
Group [万都集团], led by businessman Chung Kin-kwok [
钟健国] leased the Huaihai Lu Plot Number 3 or Xuhui Dis-
trict Plot Number 28 . 119 The Xuhui District Office for
Residences [徐汇区住宅办], China Enterprise [中华企业],
Shanghai Jiushi Corporation [上海久事], and what is now
called the Shanghai International Group (SIG ) [上海国际
集团], but formerly called 上投房产 formed a company
New Shanghai International Commercial City Develop-
ment Company [新上海国际商城发展有限公司]. The New
Shanghai International was responsible for the demolition
and relocation of the Huaihai Lu Plot Number 3 site. See
Huiqun Cai 柴会群, “襄阳路钻石地块使用权归属之谜 [The
Mystery of the Ownership of Xiangyang Lu’s Diamond-
Valued Plot’s Land-Use Right],” 南方周末 Southern Week-
end, February 16, 2006, http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/
20060216/1517554180.shtml. The China Enterprise, foun­
ded in 1954 , is one of the first real estate companies es-
tablished after the founding of the PRC and became pub-
licly listed in 1993. Shanghai Jiushi was established in
1987. SIG was established in 1991. All are connected to
high level government entities. 120 The relationship of
the Xiangyang Fake Market to Shanghai’s new economies
begins in its former incarnation. Before there was the
Xiangyang Market, one of the first street markets with pri-
vate entrepreneurs selling early, sometimes smuggled
fashion imports was the Huating Lu [华亭路] Market that
opened in 1984 . Even though it brought imports in from
south China in proximity to Hong Kong, it also triggered
many talented and skilled local entrepreneurs to develop
small businesses, challenging the monopoly of state en-
terprises in the state-planned economy. Until its closure
in August 2000, the Huating Lu market, initially dubbed
“Little Hong Kong” but later taking off on its own, was the
first free market for proud local creative entrepreneurs.
After the Huating Market closed many of the stalls moved
to the Xiangyang Market. See Xiangyi Kong 孔祥毅, “第三
章上海市区名特市场 第七节华亭服装市场 [Chapter 3 Shang-
hai City and District’s Special Markets, Section 7 Huating
Apparels Market],” in 上海工商行政管理志 [Shanghai Indus-
Chapter 5 The New Economies
trial and Commerical Management Annals], vol. 第八篇集
贸市场管理 [Volume 8 Market Management] (Shanghai 上
海: 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai Academy of Social Sci-
ences Press, 1997 ), http://shtong.gov.cn/node2 /node
2245/node69674 /node69686/node69724 /node69852 /
userobject1ai69429.html; Mingyan Zhu 朱敏彦, “独具特色
的服装街—华亭路 [Unique fashion street—Huating Lu],” in
上海名街志 [Annals of Shanghai’s Famous Streets], 上海特
色志丛书 (Shanghai 上海: 上海社会科学院出版社 Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2004), http://www.
371
shtong.gov.cn/node 2 /node 71994 /node 71995 /node 71
999/node72013 /userobject1ai77406 .html. 121 Lijun Ji-
ang 姜丽钧 and Ningning Tao 陶宁宁, “淮海路变局：APM 商
场试营业 [Huaihai Lu Changes: APM Mall Tests Operating],”
东方早报 Oriental Morning Post, August 6, 2013, sec. 大都
会 [Metropolis], http://epaper.dfdaily.com/dfzb/html/2013 -
08 /06 /content_800810.htm; “新鸿基加速落子上海 淮海路
将诞生首个摩尔 [Sun Hung Kai Accelerate Seeding in
Shanghai, Huaihai Lu Will Give Birth to First Mall],” January
11, 2006, http://news.yipu.com.cn/cre/sydckfkx/170880.
html. 122 Interview with developer of Platform, 2012.
123 Places like Huaihai Lu and West Nanjing Lu had a
reputation for their high-end fashion. The younger, local
trendsetters gravitated towards places like Xinle Lu, Julu
Lu, Anfu Lu, and even more hidden places like Jing’an Vil-
las. The ambiance that is desired for the cool kids just was
not there on Yongkang Lu. The spatial legacy also contrib-
utes to the commercial programming for reuse proj-
ects. 124 Interview with developer of Platform, 2012 .
125 Ibid. 126 Interview with small entrepreneurs, 2012.
127 Ibid. 128 Interview with architect, 2014 . 129 Ibid.
130 David Ley, “Transnational Spaces and Everyday Lives,”
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29,
no. 2 (June 1, 2004): 151–64 . 131 ‘Usage right’ housing
and ‘ownership right’ housing form the dual housing mar-
ket in city center areas of Chinese cities, as explained in
chapters 2 and 3. Since housing marketization, ‘commod-
ity housing’ is housing sold on the housing market. But in
historic areas of cities, state management of housing has
barred the units from being sold on the ‘commodity hous-
ing’ market. Rather their ‘use rights’ could be traded, but
limited to local hukou holders. 132 The calculations are
based on the numbers provided by the developers in
2012. 133 In implementation, the building type was not
amenable to reprogramming. Residences along the up-
graded Yongkang Lu remain unpopular. And the program-
ming of office spaces above the restaurants and bars has
not been very successful either. 134 Interview with Plat-
form developers, 2012. 135 A consortium of local archi-
tects who led studios at the local universities conducted
design studios to study the Yongkang Lu development.
Several master’s theses from Tongji University, for exam-
ple, studied the Yongkang Lu case as a way for city center
redevelopment. 136 Minyi Jin 金旻矣, “徐汇区区长鲍炳章:
永康路酒吧街将调整业态 [Xuhui District Mayor Bao: Yong-
kang Lu Bar Street Will Be Programmatically Adjusted],”
新民晚报 New Citizen Evening News, July 11, 2016, http://
sh.eastday.com/m/20160711/u1ai9519022 .html; Wenjie
Xiao 肖文杰 et al., “最上海”的街区面临整改，发生了什
么？[The Most Shanghainese Neighborhood Is Facing
Adjustment, What Happened?],” 第一财经周刊 CBN Week-
ly, August 13 , 2016, http://www.wxrw123 .com/cf/2016
372
0813 /2293010_2 .html. 137 The municipality targeted
more than 400 kilometers of new subway lines and 150 -
odd subway stations to be launched for the opening of
the first World Expo to take place in a developing country,
which would put Shanghai’s subway by quantity at the
world’s number one, even before New York or London.
108 kilometers of new subway lines and 60 new under-
ground stations opened in time for the more than 74 mil-
lion visitors. See Shanghai Metro 上海地铁, “光辉的历程—写
在上海轨道交通400 公里网络建成之际 [Glorious Progress:
On the Realization of 400 Kilometers of Rail Transport
Network in Shanghai],” May 2010, http://www.shmetro.
com/node52 /node76/node129/201005/con103927.htm;
Yicui Yin 殷一璀, “中国2010 年上海世界博览会 [2010 World
Expo in Shanghai, China],” in 上海年鉴 2011 [Shanghai Al-
manac 2011] (Shanghai 上海: 《上海年鉴》编辑部 Shang-
hai Almanac Press, 2011), http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/
shanghai/node 2314 /node 24 651 /node 2927 7/node
29280/u21ai578099.html. 138 Tingwei Zhang, “Urban
Development and a Socialist Pro-Growth Coalition in
Shanghai,” Urban Affairs Review 37, no. 4 (March 1, 2002):
475–99, doi:10.1177/10780870222185432. 139 Theories
of ‘new economies’ of the developed industrialized econ-
omies of the West also overlap with those of the ‘creative
class,’ and ‘competitiveness.’ See, for example, Robert
J. Gordon, “Does the ‘New Economy’ Measure up to the
Great Inventions of the Past?,” Working Paper (National
Bureau of Economic Research, August 2000), http://www.
nber.org/papers/w7833; David B. Audretsch and A. Roy
Thurik, “What’s New about the New Economy? Sources of
Growth in the Managed and Entrepreneurial Economies,”
Industrial and Corporate Change 10, no. 1 (March 1, 2001):
267–315 , doi:10.1093 /icc/10.1.267; Thomas A. Hutton,
“The New Economy of the Inner City,” Cities 21, no. 2
(April 2004): 89–108 , doi:10.1016 /j.cities.2004 .01.002 .
140 The analogy of ‘planned economy 2.0 ’ is made to the
terms ‘xx 1.0,’ ‘xx 2.0,’ etc. which have been used since
the emergence of upgrades to existing software. Win-
dows 1.0 is the predecessor to Windows 2.0, which is an
upgraded version of the previous version. In this manner,
‘planned economy 2.0,’ as used by the author, denotes the
way planned economy institutions have been upgraded
to accommodate market elements and integrate interna-
tional procedures. But the planned economy institutions,
namely that of party-state rule and the state-directed
economy, remain. 141 Hanlu Zhao 赵翰露, “《城市更新实
施办法》即将施行，上海进入‘内涵增长’时代 [‘Urban Renew-
al Enactment Act’ will Be Implemented, Shanghai Enters
‘content Growth’ era],” 解放日报 Liberation Daily, April 29,
2015 , http://www.jfdaily.com/minsheng/bwyc/201504 /
t20150429_1464546.html.
 1976 1989 1992 1996

Shenzhen as SEZ
Mao Zedong passes away

Rising Inflation

Tian’anmen Incident

Shanghai becomes
Dragon’s Head
Jiang Zeming becomes
General Secretary of the CCP

SOE restructuring
Deng Xiaoping
passes away
Asia Economic Crisis
Hong Kong Handover

Jinmao Tower opens

Pudong Airport opens

APEC in Shanghai
“Changes Every Year, Transformations “Build
Every Three Years” Preser
LAND REFORM AND DEVOLUTION OF AUTHORITY
1982 People’s Congress Standing State Council issues (1991) 中华 State Council 1994 State Council issues (1998) N. 256 中华人民共和国土地管理法
Article 10 of the Committee issues (1987/1/1) 人民共和国城镇国有土地使用权出 (1993) 城市房地产管理法 Urban Real 实施条例 [Regulations for the Implementation of the
Constitution states N.27 土地管理法 [Land 让和转让暂行条例 [Provisional Provisional Land Estate Admin Law control Land Administration Law of the PRC] grants property right
"urban land is owned Administration Act] Regulation on Granting and Value Increment of urban land to local government, but central government takes
by the state only" and state owns all urban land and Transferring Land-use Rights Tax on land speculation
small percent of land leasing premium
"not allowed to be collectives own rural land on State-owned Land in Cities State-owned
bought, sold or and Towns] Land Act Land Admin Bureau issues (1998) N. 8 国有企业改革中划拨土
transferred" 1988 Constitution amended to separate land 土地增值税 地使用权管理暂行规定 [Provisional Regulations on the
ownership from land use rights; the non-gratuitous Sh government promotes Property Right Administration of Allocated Land in
1979 transfer of land use rights came into effect 两级政府三级管理 the Reform of State Owned Enterprises] allows SOEs to
Ministry of Urban and Rural Standing Commit tee issues (1989) N.23 中华人 use state-allocated land occupied for real estate development, with
Construction and Environment Shanghai implements (1996/6/2) profits generated to compensate laid-off workers Shanghai i
民共和国城市规划法 [City Planning Law of the
Protection formed 修改《上海市
PRC] gives the local state the power to issue land use 上海市基准地价 [Basic prices of Urban
Bureau of Urban Planning formed to Amending
organize and approve masterplans and building permits, and enforce development control Land in Shanghai] rates defined for 12 land
through the urban plan classes corresp to 3 use types (mixed, residential Rights in S
Shanghai issues (1987/11/27) N.42 and industrial), but largely reflects 外销商品房 rights for com
上海市土地使用有偿转让办法 [Measures 1992
of Shanghai Municipality on the
Compensatory Transfer of Land Use
first land lease to foreigner in
Shanghai SLUM CLEARANCE AND REDEVELOPMENT
Rights] Shanghai issues（1992/3/13） Tax sharing reform Shanghai issues (1996/4/22) N. 18 关 Shanghai issues (1998/8/2) N. 33关于 365 Plan Shanghai is
Shanghai issues (1986/10/30) N.113 关于棚户简屋改造规划和实施情况的 deprives local 于加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造若干 加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造实施办 completed N. 68 关于鼓
上海市中外合资经营企业土地使用管理办法 报告 [Report Regarding Slum government of 意见 [Some Views Regarding 法 [Accelerating of City Center 365 Ha 轮旧区改造的
[Measures Concerning Land Use Housing Upgrade Plan and Accelerating of City Center Slum Slum Upgrade Implementation] Encouraging
Implementation] revenue Upgrade] authorizes district governments reduces land leasing fee, subsidies to demolished Move back,
Administration for Sino-Foreign Joint Equity round of pilo
the approval right for applications of private developers $40-$110/sm
Enterprises in Shanghai] Shanghai issues (1993/12） reduces landle
redevelopment proposals from private demolished
365 Plan - demolition of 365 Ha aimed developers who qualify
for 2000 Shanghai issues (1997/3/17) N. 20 关
Shanghai issues（1982） 于执行〈加快本市中心城区危棚简屋改造若
上海旧区七年住宅改建基地布局规划 State Council issues (1991) N.78 干意见〉中有关问题的实施意见
[Shanghai Old District Seven 城市房屋拆迁管理条例
Year Housing Renovation Site Shanghai issues (1998/9/4) N. 53 关于加快 State Counc
[Regulations for the Management 管理条例 [R
Layout Plan] demolition of 540 本市中心城区危棚简屋改造的有关财税问题
of Urban Housing Demolition Housing De
Ha, 161000 families displaced and Relocation] [Regarding accelerating city center Slum
Upgrade-related Tax Issues] than residents

HOUSING MARKETIZATION
State Council State Council issues 1991 Shanghai pilots 公积金 State Council issues (1994) N.43 State Council issues (1998/7/3) N.23 关于进一步深 Shanghai iss
issues (1984) N. (1988) N.11 关于在 Housing Provident Fund 关于深化城镇住房制度改革的决定 化城镇住房制度改革加快住房建设的通知 [Notice 111 上海市城
140 关于扩大城 全国城镇分期分批准 (HPF) [Decision regarding Deepening of regarding the deepening of the Urban Housing [Detailed Re
市住宅补贴出售 行住房制度改革实施 Urban Housing Reform] supply System Reform and the acceleration of Residential Managemen
试点的通知 方案[Implementation 8th Five Year Plan (1991-1995) and demand side programs Construction] prohibits danwei from building or buying Demolition
[Regarding the Plan for a Gradual new housing units for employees Implementa
Pilot Sites for the Housing System 关于全面进行城镇住房制度改革的意见 danwei has to convert housing fund into monetary
broadening of Reform in Cities and [Urban Housing Reform Resolution] subsidies so employees can buy homes on market Shanghai iss
National HPF 公积金 184 上海市房
sale of housing Towns] begins sale of
subsidies in public housing at 除直管公房等
Large Cities]] discounted prices
1992 Shanghai establishes [Some Regu
Housing Reform Office Shanghai issues (1998) Doc N. 19 关于促进本市住宅产 Compensatio
10 Year Reform 房改办 Shanghai issues (1994) Doc N. 19 业的健康发展的若干意见 [Some views regarding Directly Man
Shanghai issues Strategy to promoting the healthy development of the residential the like]
(1984) 上海市出售
关于出售公房的暂行办法 industry in Shanghai]
encourages home
[Provisional Measures Regarding Sale
商品住宅管理办法( purchase, financing of Publicly-owned housing] Shanghai issues (1999/1/19) Doc N.
试行）[Measures and restructure rents 4 上海市公有住房差价交换试行办法
for the management Shanghai issues (1994) Doc N. 34 [Pilot measures for the exchange of
of Commodity Cutoff for working
period counting 关于出售公有住房的实施细则 Shanghai public housing with pricing
Housing Sales] 3 [Regulations Regarding difference] city center units allowed to be
types of funding for towards housing Implementation of Sale of purchased with ownership rights 25% increa
housing: Publicly-owned housing] 70% increa
1. state, 2. SOE, 3. 1987 Shanghai pilots
developer sale of 2000sm of
State Council issues housing
(1980/3/5) N.61 关于用侨汇 starts district level
Cheap Rental Housing (CRH) require
购买和建设住宅的暂行办法 developments small units Foreigners
[Provisional Regulations
Regarding using Overseas
Chinese Remittance to
purchase and construct
housing] 1987/9 侨汇商品住宅建设回忆 OVERSEAS CHINESE AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT
State Council issues opened 19 sites, 450000sm, 5000units Shanghai issues (1993/12/28) 上海 Shanghai issues (1995/8/28) 上 Shanghai issues (1999/12/01) Shanghai is
(1983) N.152 关于引进国 1988/3 上海市外商投资房产企业商品 市利用外资开发经营内销商品住宅暂海市利用外资开发经营内销商品 N.42 关于内销商品住房种类归并 (implement
外人才工作的暂行规定 住宅出售管理办法 [Administrative 行规定 [Provisional Regulation 住宅规定 [Regulation regarding 的若干规定 [Some Regulations 外销商品住
[Provisional regulations re Measures of Shanghai Municipality regarding using Foreign Investmentusing Foreign Investment for the Regarding the consolidation of [Some Com
the importation of Foreign Governing the Sale of Commercial for the development and development and management the Types Commodity Housing consolidati
Talent for work] Housing by Foreign Investment management of commodity of commodity housing sold to for Local Market] housing ma
1979 Law of Joint Ventures of Real State Enterprises] accelerates housing sold to the national the national market]
market] landlease for 70 years to (2001/9/1)
the PRC begins FDI overseas investment
foreign developers in the city center erased from
1986 上海市沿街 Shanghai issues (1994) N.43 上海 State Council issues (1996) N.152 卖的合同文
Shanghai issues (1990/3) 关于发展本市侨汇，外汇商
公有营业用房管理 品房的意见 [Thoughts regarding development of 市引进国外专家暂行办法 [Interim 外国人在中国就业管理规定
暂行办法 commodity housing for overseas remittances] forbids Procedures of Shanghai Municipality [Provisions on the Employment of
[Provisional selling of commodity housing for overseas Chinese to on the Intake of Experts From
Foreigners in China]
measures local enterprises Abroad]
regarding the
management of
street-front
MONUMENT PROTECTION
publicly owned Shanghai (1989) N.62 Shanghai (1993) Shanghai (1994) N.8 1997 Shanghai (1999) N.57 +162
commercial units] issues 59 locations N.47 amend +2 +175 Locations declared 上海市历史文化名城保护 Locations declared 优秀历史建筑
declared 优秀近代建筑 (became 61) 优秀 优秀历史建筑 规划 [Shanghai Historic
近代历史建筑 Cultural City Protection 1999.03 Shanghai Municipal
Plan] Planning Bureau publishes 上海市
State Council lists State National 建设部、文 历史文化名城保护规划[Conservation
(1982/2/8) 24 cities
as 国家历史文化名 Council 化部 issues
(1986/12/ (1988/11/10) 关于重
GDP 121.1bio RMB Plan for Shanghai Historic Cultural
城 National Historic Renowned City]
Cultural Renowned 08) 关于请 点调查保护优秀近代 1999.03 上海市历史文化名城保护
Cities Shanghai issues (1991/12/05) Shanghai issues (1994/10/08)
公布第二 建筑物的通知 与发展关系基础研究 [The Basic
上海市优秀近代建筑保护管理 N.1101上海市房产管理局关于重申
批国家历 [Notice regarding Research on the Relationship of
State Council issues 史文化名 Key Investigations 办法 [Measures for the 加强对本市优秀近代建筑保护管理 Conservation and Development in
(1982/11/19) conservation and management 的通知
城名单报 into Protecting Shanghai Historic Cultural Prominent
中华人民共和国文物 告的通知 Excellent of Shanghai’s Excellent City]
保护法 [PRC Law for [Notice Modern-era Modern-era Architecture] 1997 publication of 上
Shanghai issues (1999/9/8) N.0678
the Protection of regarding Building] 海百年建筑史
Shanghai City Planning 关于本市历史建筑与街区保护改造
Cultural Relics] the 1840-1949［A history
Bureau, Tongji University, 试点的实施意见的通知 [Notice
announce-1988 publication of Shanghai Museum produce of Shanghai’s hundred regarding the recommendations for
ment of 上海近代建筑史稿 (1991/7) 上海历史文化名城保 years of architecture the implementation of the historic
the 1840-1949] by Wu architecture and neighborhood
[History Of 护规划 [Conservation Plan for
second list Shanghai Jiang conservation and upgrade pilot
Shanghai Historic Cultural

31,100mio RMB GDP 121,100mio

projects]
of Modern-Era Renowned City] proposes 11
National Architecture areas for conservation
Historic Manuscript]
Cultural by Chen Congzhou
Re-
nowned
43RMB GDPP 2,500RMB GDPP 1999 publication of 上
海近代建筑风格
[Shanghai Modern-era
9,380RM
Cities]
lists Architecture Style]
by Zheng Shiling

5,000,000inhab 10,000,000inhab 12,900,00

Shanghai
as one of
38
 2002 2004 2008 2010
China joins WTO
( 11 Dec 2001)

Hu Jintao becomes
General Secretary of the CCP

Macroeconomic measures to cool

rising prices
Policy to tighten control over
land

Beijing hosts Olympics

World Financial Crisis

Hongqiao T2 opens

World Expo in Shanghai

Xi Jinping becomes
General Secretary of the CCP
ding New is Development, “Better City Better Life”
rving Old is also Development”
36000 RMB/sm hsg
Land Admin Bureau issues N. 11 Land Admin Bureau issues N. 71 (2004) 关于继续开 2007 城市房地产管理法 [Urban
(2002) 招标拍卖挂牌出让国有建设土 展经营性土地使用权招标拍卖挂牌出让情况执法检查工作的 Real Estate Admin Law] Central Government
地使用权规定[Regulations on Lease 通知 [Notice on continuing on Inspection of and
Supervision over law enforcement for the Lease of Land and Resource Administration
of State-owned Land by Bidding, (2012) Doc. N. 53 闲置土地处置办
Auction and Market-allocated Land-use Right by Bidding, prohibits SOEs from real estate
Listing-for-Sale] requires all land for Auction and Listing-for-Sale] sets 31 August 2004 as development 法 [Regulation to handle unused Shanghai Municipal
deadline for all cities to ban negotiated conveyance for land]
business purposes (commercial, tourism, Development and
entertainment, commodity housing) to commercial development
Reform Commission
transfer publically after 1 July 2002 either State Council issues N. 28 (2004) 关于深化改革严格土
through tender, auction or quotation issues (2014/4/11)
地管理的决定 [Decision on Deepening Reform and
N.37
issues Doc N. 101 (2001)
市土地使用权出让办法》的决定 [Decision on
ever to reiterate the orders of n. 11 and n. 71 decrees
Strengthening Land Administration] strictest land policy
GDP 1’690bio RMB 关于推进上海市轨道
交通场站及周边土地
the Methods of Granting Land Use Shanghai Planning Dept issues N. 355 (2004) 加强中
心城内改变土地使用性质规划管理的暂行规定[Provisional 综合开发利用的实施
Shanghai]ensures that the granting of land-use
mmercial land is acquired via public bidding Regulations on the Planning Control of Change in 意见（暂行） []
Land-use in the Central City (Shanghai)] any
redevelopment and expansion projects on the land of existing
public facilities, including culture, education, health, sports etc, State Council issues N. 17 (2008/10) 上海市人民政府机
and the land of secondary industry like factories, warehouses 构改革方案 [Plan for the organizational reform of the
ssues (2001/02/09) Doc etc., should be strictly controlled accordance with the approved Shanghai Municipal Government] forms 上海市规划与国
鼓励动迁居民回搬推进新一 plans 土资源管理局 Shanghai Municipal Planning and Land
的试行办法 [Regarding Resources Administration as result of municipal reform and
g Displaced Residents to consolidated land resource management with urban planning
pushing forward new
lot for urban upgrade]
ease for selected developers
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Central Government issues Ministry of Housing issues (2011)
Cheap Rental Housing [Push Forward Social Security
cil re-issues (2001) Doc N.305 城市房屋拆迁 (2004) [Ways to provide cheap rental Guarantee Plan 2009-2011 Housing Construction in a Large State Council issues (2013/9) N. 35
Regulations for the Management of Urban housing for the poorest urban Scale] raises the ratio of urban 关于加快发展养老服务业的若干意见
emolition and Relocation] based on area rather residents] households covered by affordable housing [Some views regarding accelerating
s to about 20 per cent by 2015 elderly care service industries]

sues (2001/10/29) Doc N. State Council issues (2003/8/12) N. 18 State Council issues (2005/5/9) N. 26 关于做好稳定住房价格工作意见的通知 State Council issues (2010/4/17) N. 10 关于坚决遏制部分 Shanghai issues (2014/6/17) N. 关于
城市房屋拆迁管理实施细则 关于促进房地产市场持续健康发展的通 [Opinion on Doing a Good Job of Stabilizing House Prices] imposes a tax on 城市房价过快上涨的通知 [Circular on Steadfastly 开展老年人住房反向抵押养老保险试点
egulations for the 知 [On Promoting the Continuous and housing transactions at 5.5% of sale price on non-ordinary housing to curb housing Preventing Rapid Housing Price Inflation in Some Cities] 的指导意见 [Views regarding pilot and
nt of Urban Housing Healthy Development of the Real speculation State Council issues (2006/6/30) N.37 关于调整住房供应 a ban on mortgages for third home purchase steering elderly housing reverse
and Displacement Estate Markets] stipulates ordinary 结构稳定住房价格意见 [Opinions on Adjusting House State Council issues (2008/12/20) N.131 关于促进房地产 mortage]
ation] market housing should dominate housing Supply Structure and Stabilizing House Price] 市场健康发展的若干意见 [Several Opinions on Promoting
supply ‘for the majority of households to the Healthy Development of the Real Estate Market]
sues (2001/11/09) Doc N. buy or to rent’ Ministry of Construction issues (2006/11/27) N.171 关于规
房屋土地资源管理局关于拆 范房地产市场外资准入和管理的意见 [Opinions on
等房屋补偿款的若干规定 Regulating Access of Foreign Capital into the Real Estate
Market] stricter regulations for real estsate operations
State Council issues (2011/1/27) N. 1
ulations Regarding 关于进一步做好房地产市场调控工作有
ion for the Demolition of Ministry of Commerce issues (2007/5/23) N.50 关于进一
步加强、规范外商直接投资房地产业审批和监管的通知 关问题的通知 [Circular on Relevant
naged Public Housing and Issues to Further the Control of the
[Notice on Further Strengthening and Regulating the
Examination, Approval and Supervision of Foreign Direct Real Estate Market] purchase restrictions
Investment in Real Estate Industry] requires local were imposed for units beyond first home
governments to have better supervision of foreign investment in
real estate market

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
ase in housing price in Chinese cities Shanghai Urban Planning Dept issues (2008) Doc N.
ase in Shanghai (2001-2004) 866 关于促进节约集约利用工业用地加快发展现代服
务业的若干意见 [The Directives on Accelerating the
Development of Modern Service Industry and the
Promotion of Intensive Utilization of Industrial
Land]
allowed to buy Foreigners no longer allowed to buy
2008 Shanghai establishes
上海市外国专家局 Shanghai Administration of
Foreign Experts Affairs
ssues (2001/6/15) N.22 Ministry of Commerce issues (2007/3/6) N.25 关于
2007年吸收外商投资工作指导性意见 [Guidance on State Council establishes
tation 8/1) 关于本市内 Absorption of Foreign Investment in China 2007] (2012/09/05) N.53 外国人在中国永
住房并轨的若干意见 encourace investments in inland markets as well as in high-tech 久居留享有相关待遇的办法
mments regarding the industries, strict limitations on foreign investment in real estate [Foreigners’ Permanent Residence in
ion of commodity market China]
arkets]
CREATIVE ECONOMIES
‘W’, ‘N’
2004/11/6 上海创意产业中 75 sites given Creative Sh Economic Council issues (2008/6/13) N. 452 上海 Sh Economic Council issues (2011/9/2
m 商品房买
心 Shanghai Creative Center plaque 市加快创意产业发展的指导意见 [Guiding advice on 8) N. 51 关于推进上海规划产业区块外产业结构调整
文本 accelerating Creative Industries Development]
Industries Center (SCIC) 转型的指导意见 [Guiding advice on promoting
founded 上海市创意产业集聚区认定管理办法（试行） industrial structure reform and transition of
[Confirmation and Management of Shanghai industrial districts outside of planning in Shanghai]
Creative Industries Clusters (pilot)]

HERITAGE CONSERVATION
Shanghai approves (2003/11) 12 历+282 Locations declared
史文化风貌区 Historical Cultural 优秀历史建筑
Features and Styles Areas
Pudong included in Historical
declared = 27 sq km
and Cultural Area +12 sq km
Shanghai implements (2003/01)上 Shanghai issues (2005/11) 中心城
海市历史文化风貌区和优秀历史建 风貌保护道路规划管理办法
筑保护条例 [Regulations of Shanghai determines (2006) 144 风貌保护道
Municipality on the Conservation of 路 Historical Cultural Features and
the Districts with Historical Cultural Styles Streets and 64 永不拓宽的道路
Features and Styles And The Excellent Never-to-be-widened streets （一类
Historical Buildings] 风貌保护道路）
(2004)上海市衡山路复兴路历史文 Shanghai issues (2007/9/17) N.30 Fig. 19 Timeline of the policies implementations juxtaposed
化风貌区保护规划[Hengshan Lu 关于本市风貌保护道路（街巷）规
Fuxing Lu Historic Cultural Features 划管理若干意见的通知 [Notice of against the development projects and agents (drawn by
and Styles District Conservation Plan] Some Suggestions on the
Shanghai issues (2004/9/11) N.31
Administration of Planning Work for author, based on plans from officially surveyed plans, Google
Preservation-of-Historical-Look
关于进一步加强本市历史文化风貌
区和优秀历史建筑保护的通知
Streets (Alleys/Lanes)] Earth, and fieldwork)
National 建设部 issues

477,100mio RMB GDP 915,400mio RMB GDP

(2004/03/06) 关于加强对
城市优秀近现代建筑规划
o RMB GDP 保护工作的指导意见

36,217RMB GDPP 67,492RMB GDPP

[Views and directions for
strengthening of thePlanning
MB GDPP and Protection of Excellent
Modern-era Building in the

4,300,000floating population
City]

00inhab 13,000,000inhab registered

Chapter 6
The Contemporary Art Ecologies

From Contestation to Appropriation: the Transformation of M50

“Made in China”: New Museums and the Business of Art
Uncertainty and Regeneration
Art and Architecture Catalyze Development
Contemporary Art Ecologies
Figs. 1 – 4 The P. S. Art, upper left; the Long Museum, upper right; the Rockbund development, lower left; the Himalayas
Museum, lower right
The opening of the Power Station of Art (P. S. Art) [当代艺术博物馆] on Chinese Nation-
al Day, 1 October 2012, to host the 9th Shanghai Biennale of Contemporary Art, epito-
mized not only the economic re-globalization of Shanghai since marketization began
in the early 1990s, but also its growing cultural ambitions. The city’s cultural chief
proclaimed that the new museum, the first publicly held museum of contemporary art
in China, would position Shanghai as the hub of contemporary art in East Asia.1 The
new museum, P. S. Art, would be comparable to the Tate Modern of London, amongst
others.2 (Fig. 1)
The openings of the Long Museum [龙美術館] (Fig. 2) and YUZ Museum [余德耀
美術館] in Shanghai’s West Bund Cultural Corridor [西岸文化走廊], an eight-kilome-
ter southern extension to the World Expo site—buildings designed by internation-
ally renowned architect Sou Fujimoto, amongst others—the conversion of the post-
Expo site itself into the largest creative industry cluster in the world, the openings of
the Rockbund Museum [外滩美术馆]—designed by architect David Chipperfield—as
part of the Bund redevelopment project, (Fig. 3) the Himalayas Art Museum [喜馬拉
雅美術館] designed by architect Arata Isozaki, (Fig. 4) and more new city center spac-
es dedicated to contemporary art consumption, such as at the K 11 Arts Mall, confirm
what both the Western and local media have hailed as China’s “museum boom.” 3
This spate of openings seemed to contradict, at the same time, the concurrent shut-
down of the art warehouse Weihai Lu 696 and the demolition of artist Ai Weiwei
[艾未未]’s studio. Together, the events underline that the Chinese state’s cultural ambi-
tions in service of economic growth are selective. This is nowhere more visible than in
the active appropriation and commercialization of contemporary arts spaces that val-
idate the urban growth regime, and the destruction of other contemporary arts spaces
that do not advance the local pro-growth coalition’s interests.4
The following cases of spatial development in Shanghai over the two decades since
economic liberalization began reveal how the reshaping of urban spaces for contem-
porary art increasingly serves state control. Through the spatial productions, they
show how the urban loophole, a concept that has been examined at the scale of the
neighborhood in the previous chapters, is also relevant for understanding the target-
ed spatial developments of selected sectors at the scale of the metropolitan area.5 Chi-
na’s developmental state is increasingly promoting a ‘contemporary art ecology,’ 6 as
one of the economic sectors for representing the Chinese transition economy’s glob-
al integration. Even though economic liberalization and global integration seemed to
signify to the outside world an accompanying loosening of political restraints, grow-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

ing state control that is at once “dictatorial, opportunistic, and merciless” 7 under-
lines the authoritarian resilience of what David Harvey has termed ‘neoliberalism with
Chinese characteristics.’ 8 The increase of top-down measures is capitalizing on the
growing value of culture as market currency. Their impingement on artistic autono-
my, has also, in turn, provoked increasingly subtle and evolving bottom-up modes of
resistance.
In the global competition to attract creative talent, government white papers and
urban plans are incubating cultural industries and clustering creative hubs. The push
for transition from a predominantly manufacturing-based to knowledge-based and
value-added economies is complemented by an increasing emphasis on cultural pro-
duction.9 Cultural development is promoted by economists and appropriated by state

381
 authorities as an important catalyst of the economic transition from modernization to
internationalization. Not only is cultural development an indicator for economic prog-
ress, it, more importantly, also bolsters the country’s global image. Culture, in addition
to politics and economics, is seen as essential to China’s soft power ascent.10 The en-
dorsement and development of contemporary art ecologies is a crucial part of the grow-
ing local urban pro-image coalition.11 It is also part of the greater national aspiration for
China’s re-ascendance in the international cultural sphere.12
As a recent Artprice.com report shows, the demand side of the global art market
has shifted markedly eastward. One of the subheadings for the report ran: “New York/
London gives way to Beijing/Hong Kong.”13 Almost 50 % of global contemporary art
consumption is taking place in Asia. In 2011 30 % of global art sales took place in Chi-
na, up from 9 % in 2008.14 Seven of the ten largest auction houses in the world by sales
revenue are in China.15 The Chinese art market, as an exclusive market of apex com-
modities,16 shows both the increasing numbers of elite consumers and the growing
demand sophistication of the affluent consumers.17 On the supply side, production of
contemporary art has increasingly come from China since the 2000s.18 As a country
whose transition from a closed, centrally planned economy to one whose growth and
global integration has astounded the world, China’s production of the apex commodi-
ties with international market cachet also represents its global integration.
Already showcasing glistening new cities and the domination of manufactured
goods production, the cultivation of a contemporary arts ecology would exemplify the
successful transition to the next phase of China’s economic development, from ‘prog-
ress to prosperity.’19 To the next generation of policy makers, urban policies prioritiz-
ing the growth of contemporary art are crucial to this latest and most urgent of image
projects and its ability to generate even more business opportunities.
The word ‘ecology’ has been used in policy-speak to suggest the necessity of an
all-encompassing framework for developing the cultural industries.20 ‘Ecology’ de-
notes the value chain of contemporary art, from the production to consumption, in its
spatial and programmatic terms.21 The use of ‘ecology’ at the same time aligns with
the naturally embedded connotations of ‘sustainability,’ suggesting a more natural,
organic, and thus ‘sustainable’ version of the economic term of the ‘value chain.’ The
usage of ‘ecology’ also implies a social dimension in addition to the economic one,
imparting a holistic tinge to what would otherwise be growth-pursuing economics.22
Discussions have hovered over how to cultivate a contemporary art ecology specif-
ically within the Asian context, evolving from the discourse on creative ‘incubation,’
where top-down efforts steer the growth of ‘habitats’ for fostering creativity.23 In the
case of contemporary art, the necessary material and immaterial conditions needed
to foster collection, exhibition, criticism, and education, and the business plans for
the financial sustenance of art institutions are challenges still faced by developing
economies.
The cases elaborated in the following chapter trace the spatial developments of
Shanghai’s contemporary art ecologies. Like other sectors that fundamentally trans-
formed when China underwent economic transition and global integration, the spatial
developments of the contemporary art ecologies reflected the growing global influence,
on one hand, and the local and central state’s intensifying involvement in the sector,
on the other. Like other sectors, artists and art entrepreneurs exploited the urban loop-

382
holes that complemented the local state’s adaptive governance in the first decade of eco-
nomic transition. The first section, “From Contestation to Appropriation: the Transfor-
mation of M 50,” follows the development of the arts hub known today as M 50. Artists
and art entrepreneurs seized on the spatial opportunities resulting from the program-
matic and regulatory gaps of the economic transition and established spatial habitats
for contemporary art production, exhibition, and consumption there. They also assert-
ed their artistic autonomy in the grey zone left by rapid urban development, resisting
what they saw as political appropriation under transition economy. From its vanguard
origins as the ‘red houses [紅房子]’ along the Suzhou River, the area that was the site of
artistic resistance has since been groomed by the local state into a creative industries
cluster, a Triple-A tourist destination, as well as party elite training ground.
The second section, “‘Made in China’: New Museums and the Business of Art,” shows
how as international integration progressed and the growth of Chinese contemporary
art became a niche sector in the global market in the mid-2000s, the spatial produc-
tions for contemporary art also increasingly assimilated within market logic. As spa-
tial productions for contemporary art became increasingly prevalent as an instrument
of local urban regimes, contemporary artists, especially in Shanghai, responded to the
growing state developmentalism by aligning with private sector practices. The con-
flict between private sector commercial appropriation and artistic autonomy, which
is prevalent in market economies with benign state governance, evolved in the Chi-
nese context to one of necessary coexistence. Alignment with the private sector and
granting commercial appropriation is not only a means for artists to maintain finan-
cial independence. Alignment with the private sector is also the only mode of eluding
encroachment by the authoritarian and predatory state.
This chapter’s third section, “Uncertainty and Regeneration,” outlines the construc-
tion to destruction cycle for Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s studio, also ‘red houses [紅房
子],’ concurrent with the eviction of Weihai Lu 696’s artists. Despite the growing em-
phasis on the cultural industries in preparation for the Expo, the two events revealed
the party-state’s selectivity of spatial developments to advance its agendas. The inter-
nationally recognized but locally controversial artist Ai’s construction of his studio in
the suburbs of Shanghai in Jiading [嘉定] District, on the invitation of the local state
leadership, epitomized Ai’s subversion of the developmental state’s appropriation by
participating in it. Ai’s resistance of the central government injunction against him
and the consequent process for the destruction of the newly erected studio exposed
and confirmed the institutional plasticity and volatility of China’s party-state gover-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

nance.24 The resolution of Ai’s contestation in the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo, set
in Shanghai, lead to the political rise of the local state leader who both initiated and
terminated the spatial production of Ai’s ‘red houses.’
The fourth section, “Art and Architecture Catalyze Development,” follows the sub-
sequent spatial productions of the same local state leader, who rose from Jiading to
lead the elite central district of Xuhui [徐汇], where the new cultural district of West
Bund was already underway. The planning and opening of new cultural institutions
in West Bund, which began under the auspices of a former Shanghai leader Xi Jinping,
realizes the pro-growth aspirations for the district, for the city, and for the nation.
The establishment of cultural districts, like that of special economic zones for
industrial production or technological development in the first decade of economic

383
 transition, tested the potentials for the next steps of China’s global integration. Special
economic zones and other locales of exemptions were intended, in their establish-
ment, to close the gap to global standards and procedures, while preserving the exist-
ing system of transitioning economy and incomplete marketization, in the territories
that surround the zones.
Nationally, Shanghai competes with Beijing as China’s arts hub. Shanghai also
competes with Hong Kong and Singapore in East Asia as a regional hub for the larger
‘art ecology.’25 Shanghai’s locational advantages, in its proximity to both the cultural
producers and to the rising crop of art patrons from the affluent coastal region around
Shanghai, are offset by its confinement to the Chinese socialist market system, still
largely detached from the international economic structures.26
The construction of the art districts and cultural corridors, with prioritized func-
tions for the cultural industries, form the state-deployed urban loopholes of exceptions
that have become increasingly prevalent at the end of the second decade of economic
transition. In the context of a deferred transition from planned to market economics,
where the state itself has been exempted and shielded from encroachments of market
logic,27 the urban loopholes produce exempted spaces for continued global integration,
coexisting within surrounding spaces obligated to conform to the frameworks of tran-
sition economy.

From Contestation to Appropriation:

the Transformation of M50
Reuse of former industrial quarters by artists as studios and for exhibitions is a well-
known phenomenon in Western cities.28 The form it takes on in China is not only re-
lated to de-industrialization, but also to a fundamental restructuring of the centrally
planned socialist units of production. The nation-founding of the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) in 1949 began the rule of the vast country by the Chinese Communist Par-
ty (CCP), the one-party authoritarian regime that premised its first three decades of
reign on Soviet-styled centrally planned economy isolated from the world. Under cen-
tral planning, all units of production were state-owned and factories occupied central
locations in cities, since under central planning real estate values did not exist. Cities
were also rendered spaces solely for industrial production rather than places for con-
sumption under Communist ideology.29 It was not until the end of the 1970s that the
new leadership under Deng Xiaoping initiated economic liberalization, reconnecting
China to the world economically, socially, and politically.
When economic liberalization accelerated in the early 1990s, the central govern-
ment implemented drastic reforms to state-owned enterprises (SOE s). Many restruc-
tured SOE s abandoned their loss-making production in the face of market competition
and vacated their industrial spaces in inner-city areas.30 In Shanghai, the municipal-
ity also recognized the spatial inefficiencies and programmatic chaos left by planned
economy production sites. In the fundamental spatial restructuring that accompanied
the central government’s imperative for Shanghai to grow, the municipality pushed
out many of the centrally located manufacturing sites.31

384
Figs. 5, 6 The ‘red houses’ on Suzhou River, left; and the visitors to the Counter Biennale, 2000, right

Artists Reusing the ‘Red Houses’

As a result of relocation of manufacturing sites from city center to the periphery, many
of the industrial buildings became vacant. The high-ceilinged, light-filtered, and open-
plan structures of the former industrial buildings were appealing to many of the
emerging artists and designers, who were the first to appreciate the then-underval-
ued warehouses and factory buildings. In addition to the spatial qualities the industri-
al spaces were also cheap to rent. In 1996, a municipal project to clean up the Suzhou
River dramatically upgraded the polluted river, which had been an industrial dump-
ing ground for the numerous manufacturing sites located around it in the preceding
decades.32 The area around the Suzhou River was Shanghai’s area of industrial pro-
duction since modernity. A Taiwanese architect, Deng Kunyan [登琨艳], set up his ate-
lier in an old former grain warehouse along the river. The space that he upgraded was
envied by the creative set for its expansive space and ambiance.33 Soon, other artists
and designers moved into former factories and warehouses and converted them into
studio and exhibition spaces.
Ding Yi [丁义], the Shanghainese abstract artist who was one of the first artists to
move into the area.34 He was followed by friends, including the Swiss gallerist Lorenz
Helbling, whose ShanghArt [香格納] gallery opened in 1996 and had been located in
the former French Concession. Li Liang [李梁], the Shanghainese artist and gallerist,
who returned from his decade-long stint in Australia also opened the Eastlink Gallery
[东廊艺术] in 1999. West Suzhou River Lu’s Numbers 1131 and 1133 quickly became early
hubs for the contemporary art set. The two red-bricked buildings were warehouses be-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

longing to the Shanghai No. 2 Rice Mill and Shanghai Fodder Mill [上海饲料], and were
disused after economic reform.35 Because of their color, they have been called Suzhou
River’s ‘red houses.’ (Fig. 5)
Like many of the city center processes of spatial reuse described in the previous
chapters, the artists’ appropriation of the warehouse spaces used urban loopholes that
resulted from the regulatory and programmatic gaps and were prevalent in the first
decade of economic transition. The local state’s adaptive governance allowed the bot-
tom-up processes to exploit the urban loopholes, which, in turn, compensated for the
spatial inefficiencies resulting from rapid transition. In the ‘red houses,’ the studios
and galleries held salons, vernissages, and events that were still largely unknown to
a Shanghai which had been culturally dormant since China’s isolation from the world

385
 in the 1950s. Away from the valuable real estate of new special economic and technol-
ogy zones, and also peripheral from the city center’s density, the happenings that took
place in the ‘red houses’ represented a kind of freedom for questioning, doubting, re-
sisting, and experimenting that was echoed in their spatial activation. (Fig. 6) The art-
ist studios and galleries gathering like-minded sensibilities also questioned, in their
spatial reuse, the then prevalent mode of seeing old buildings as disposable.
The Chinese art scene, coming out from the aftermaths of the Tian’anmen Pro-
tests in 1989, was characterized by the art historian and critic Wu Hung [巫鸿] as dis-
carding an ideologically driven discourse of social and political change in favor of a
pragmatist approach in the context of China’s accelerated economic transition.36 The
shift was dramatic. Under Communism, painters trained in the style of socialist re-
alism and imitated Soviet painters. Art, like other cultural productions, served the
political purpose of mobilizing the masses.37 In the early eras of China’s economic
reform, the 1980s generation of artists, though still constrained by the system of la-
bor and resource allocation under planned economy, held great hopes for the coun-
try’s re-opening to the world and its potential for political change.38 Exhibitions from
foreign museums and new translations of books from the West that first entered the
country excited young Chinese artists in places like Shanghai. With the influx of new
information in the 1980s, the young artists began looking to outside sources for inspi-
ration, including Chinese painters who had trained in the West before Liberation in
the 1930s.39 After the Tian’anmen Protests, however, a growing cynicism towards the
possibilities of fundamental political change grounded and shaped the Chinese art-
ists’ conceptual maturation. Ding Yi explained in an interview, “even though the pas-
sion for cultural progress was wounded in the process [尽管对于当代文化推进的热情收
到了伤害], … 1989 was a turning point for Chinese contemporary culture [1989年是中国
当代文化的一个转折].”40
Until the 1990s, art production and exhibitions were subsumed by state art insti-
tutions. Artists, like all other citizens, were assigned roles in the planned economy hi-
erarchy and were bound to their danwei, or work units, in the system of production.
If there was a value chain for artistic production, it was in service of the state and
ideologically bound to the CCP. It was only in the mid-1990s that commercial galler-
ies started to appear in cities like Shanghai. Helbling’s ShanghArt Gallery, housed ini-
tially in the ‘red houses’ by the Suzhou River, was one of the first private institutions
for art in the city. Private galleries, mostly still foreign-owned, were able to support
artists outside the dominant system of state art institutions, financially and concep-
tually. They provided the artistic community with an alternate ecology that, more im-
portantly, gave them conceptual freedom and artistic autonomy not inhibited by the
state hierarchy.

Shanghai’s International Biennale and The Uncooperative Approach

It was not only the artists who grew world-wise and became more globally attuned.
The state-sponsored art ecology was also maturing. The inaugural Shanghai Biennale
[上海双年展] was established in 1996 in the Shanghai Art Museum [上海美术馆], housed
in the former clubhouse of the concession-era race course, which had been trans-
formed into People’s Square since Liberation. The 1996 edition of the Shanghai Bien-
nale, with the theme of “Open Space [开放的空间],” and two years later in 1998, with

386
the theme of “Inheritance and Exploration [融合与拓展],”41 though mostly of paintings
by local artists, already harbored ambitions for establishing itself as an international
affair. The classically trained ink painter, then director of Shanghai Art Museum and
initiator of the Biennale, Fang Zengxian [方增先], announced: “China should have its
own international-level art exhibitions, in order to realize reciprocal and equal selec-
tions and exchanges with real meaning; these are the noble ideals for art and also the
inevitable route for history [中国应该有自己的国际级美术展览。以实现真正意义的双向
选择和平等交流。这是艺术的高尚理想，也是历史的必由之路].”42
It was in 2000, with the invitation of curator Hou Hanru [侯瀚如] that the Shanghai
Biennale became what Hou asserted as the “first state-sponsored exhibition to host in-
ternational artists and curators.”43 Hou’s earlier collaboration on the international ex-
hibition Cities on the Move was one of the first to highlight the emergence of East Asia to
the world.44 Cities on the Move, co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist, made Hou the first
Chinese curator of international renown in the contemporary art world.
Hou’s appointment as the curator of the 2000 Shanghai Biennale was a strategic
move for the event’s growing international image. Art historian Charles Merewether
contextualized the 2000 Shanghai Biennale within the trajectory of economic liberal-
ization: “the move signaled the government’s engagement with a new policy of stra-
tegic cultural diplomacy.”45 The Biennale was a carefully curated affair. Works were
by established artists. The works were also apolitical and free of sexual content. “We
did not choose works we judged pornographic or with political messages. We also
took into consideration the artist’s fame and influence,” said Li Xu [李旭], one of the
three curators of the 2000 Shanghai Biennale who also helped found the first Shang-
hai Biennale.46
The English title for the 2000 Biennale was Shanghai Spirit. In the Chinese version
of the title, On the Sea, Shanghai [海上.上海 ], the play of words with the name of Shang-
hai and its connotation of openness and cosmopolitanism,47 referred to the historic
commercial spirit of the city that was undergoing revival under economic transition.48
What had been important were not only the Biennale’s international affiliations, with
66 artists from 18 countries, but also the changing content of the Biennale. The first
two Biennales were exhibitions that presented mostly paintings, in line with the state
authorities’ prevailing understanding of what art was. The engagement of Hou and his
invitation of internationally renowned artists such as William Kentridge from South
Africa, Pipilotti Rist from Switzerland, and Miyajima Tatsuo from Japan, validated to
the state authorities the avant-garde media of contemporary art that were not only
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

confined to that of painting.49 Videos and installation art, until then very little seen in
Shanghai, became part of the vocabulary of the state-sponsored art institution.
If the Biennale could be read as a turning point for the post-socialist authoritar-
ian developmental state, appropriating culture to vindicate economic liberalization
sans political change, then the violent reaction of a select group of Chinese contem-
porary artists marked a similar turning point for contestation. Curated by the Bei-
jing-based artist Ai Weiwei and art critic and curator Feng Boyi [冯博一], an exhibition,
held at the same time as the official Biennale, called itself F*ck Off. The Chinese ver-
sion of the name for the exhibition F*ck Off was The Way Not to Cooperate [不合作方式 ]
or The Uncooperative Approach.50 Hosted by the gallery Eastlink, the exhibition, in its
statement and its title, openly and irreverently rejected what the artists considered

387
 the post-socialist authoritarian develop-
mental state’s appropriation of contempo-
rary art as a tool to showcase the state’s
open-mindedness to the world. Though Ai
rejected questions of deliberately holding
The Uncooperative Approach at the same
time as the Shanghai Biennale, 51 their
concurrence nevertheless suggested that
the participants of the exhibition rejected
the Biennale and saw the Biennale as rep-
resentative of the state encroachment on
art. The developmental state, which has
shown itself to be acquiescent to capital
despite maintaining the political status
quo, was in its new espousal of contem-
porary art, encroaching on the autonomy
of the artists as intellectuals.
When asked with whom the F*ck Off
exhibition organizers did not cooperate,
Ai declared, “we do not cooperate with
anyone; we do not cooperate with any-
thing. This is a challenge to all powers,
authorities and the system. It is small yet
not to be ignored, like a nail in the eye, a
Fig. 7 The First Intellectual, by Yang Fudong, 2000 thorn in the flesh, a little grain of sand
in the shoe, reflecting a valuable cultural
spirit [与谁都不合作, 与什么事都不合作。是对所有权力和权威, 所有的体系的挑战。它像是
眼中钉、肉中刺、鞋里的一粒小沙子, 虽然小, 却不能被忽视, 体现了一种可贵的文化精神].”52
His co-curator Feng affirmed “not cooperating with the mainstream in contemporary
China, not cooperating with the establishment in today’s art world, not cooperating
with Western standards [与中国当代的主流时尚不合作，与艺术界已经形成的格局不合作，
与西方的标准不合作].”53
A summary of the 2000 Biennale in the magazine Art World [艺术世界] reported that
the event was an “eye opener for the crowd of onlookers [让围观的人群大开了眼界].”54
One artist known for his performances, Zhu Ming [朱冥], floated down the Suzhou Riv-
er in a large plastic bubble, wearing only a diaper. The piece, titled Float [漂浮], had been
shown previously in Nagoya and Berlin. In Shanghai, it was a novelty. Another, by the
now famous Yang Fudong [杨福东], who was largely unknown at the time, was his pho-
tographic series, The First Intellectual [中国第一个知识份子] from 2000, removed by the
Cultural Inspection Bureau for its “pornographic” content.55 The piece showed a young
man in a torn suit and loosened tie in the middle of a road, standing in front of the then
newly finished Jinmao Tower in the Lujiazui Financial District, which was visibly un-
der construction in Pudong. The young man’s head is covered in blood. He is holding
a brick, looking like he has either been struck already or was ready to strike. (Fig. 7)
Even though it is clear that the image is neither sexual in nature nor aberrant in
form, the authorities read its imagery as the kind of overt critique barred under the

388
Fig. 8 Plans for development in the Moganshan Lu 50 area, 2002

party-state. They deemed its blatant association of the economically propelled state-
endorsed urban development in Shanghai—represented by the gleaming high-ris-
es against the backdrop of a vast construction site in Pudong—with violence and
injury—represented by the blood-stained young man who looks like he has either
struck himself or was struck by a force outside the frame—not suitable for public
viewing.
The Uncooperative Approach attracted throngs of visitors to the ‘red houses’ along
Suzhou River. Since 1996, the Shanghai municipal government was planning for the
upgrade of the riverside areas. The Uncooperative Approach exhibition and its happen-
ings persuaded the municipal officials, as well as the central government to push for-
ward further cleanups. In April 2001, the central government issued a statute against
performance art and exhibitions that showed extreme content.56 A municipal official,
reacting to Zhu Ming’s piece, criticized the artists as disruptive and unruly. Relating
the provocation and disobedience exhibited at The Uncooperative Approach to the lo-
cation of the abandoned former industrial quartier, the official warned: “some of the
pieces performed around the warehouses were too out of order … the remoteness of the
warehouse area doesn’t mean that anybody could freely run amok [一些在仓库周围上演
的作品太出格了 … 老仓库偏僻的地理位置并不意味着可以任由一些人胡作非为],” forebod-
ing imminent changes.57

From the ‘Red Houses’ to M50

Plans for redevelopment in the Suzhou River area were already underway. The 2000
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

neo-noir film Suzhou River [苏州河] by Lou Ye [娄烨] was famously set to the backdrop
of the river,58 with the lingering warehouses awaiting their impending demolition
insinuating that the area was already, as film critic Zhang Zhen analyzed, “a reser-
voir of urban memory.”59 As dumping ground of industries for decades, the Suzhou
River underwent rehabilitation in the mid-1990s, sponsored by the Asia Development
Bank.60 Municipal plans to upgrade the entire area show rapidly erected large swaths
of high-rise residences.61 (Fig. 8) The municipality had almost discarded earlier plans
for a 200-hundred-meter green space around the river due to corruption and greed.
The plans for the green space were only restored after public protests led by the local
artist Han Yuqi [韩妤齐], in collaboration with the professor Zhang Song [张松] from
Tongji University.62

389
 In 2002, the demolitions of the ‘red houses’ were impending.63 After the continu-
ing flattening of surrounding warehouses, artists and galleries flocked into the last
bastion of available space at Moganshan Lu 50. The buildings had originally served
as warehouse for cotton in 1933. They then became part of a yarn factory and cotton
mill before becoming a state-owned textiles factory in 1966. With the SOE reforms of
the mid-1990s, the factories along the Suzhou River that had made Shanghai a nation-
al hub for textile production were shut down.64 In 2000, the management of the SOE
for Moganshan Lu 50 leased one of its spaces to the artist Xue Song [薛松]. He moved
into the third floor of Building 7, where a 250-square-meter space became his studio.
At the time, other small manufacturing, including for fashion and printing, continued
to occupy other spaces in the compound, making up more than 60-some enterpris-
es in what was then called Chunming Industrial Park [春明工业园区].65 Initially Xue
signed only a two-year lease with the SOE landlord of Chunming Woolen Mill [春明
粗纺厂] as the future of the premises remained uncertain. Within three months, more
than a dozen artists moved in, despite continued rumors of demolition.66 The galler-
ies ShanghArt and Eastlink also both moved to new spaces at Moganshan Lu 50. The
leadership of the Chunming Woolen Mill, which became part of the municipal-level
SOE ShangTex [上海纺织集团], was accepting of the artists and galleries as new ten-
ants. The leadership saw the artists, some of whom also had jobs as instructors in art
schools, as of the intellectual class rather than blue-collar businesses that had previ-
ously occupied the premises.67
By the mid-2000s, the convergence of interests by cultural heritage conservation-
ists and creative-industry-promoting economists became formalized in the state rec-
ognition of the cultural rehabilitation of industrial buildings. As the areas around Su-
zhou River were developed with pencil tower condos and office buildings, academics
led by Professor Ruan Yisan [阮仪三] of Tongji University formed the National Research
Center for Historic Cultural Sites [历史文化名城研究中心] in 2003.68 The Center was cre-
ated by the concerned academics in direct reaction to the en-masse demolition and re-
development that had been prevalent in Shanghai’s urban transformation. The Center,
in contradiction to the statutory plan already approved by the municipal planning bu-
reau that showed new developments along the river, produced an alternate masterplan
for the Suzhou River area. Notably, the alternate masterplan kept Moganshan Lu 50.69
As a reputable state-affiliated research institution with high-level connections, it or-
ganized a number of public forums, with the support of national ministries as well as
municipal officials, and raised awareness of the Moganshan Lu area along the Suzhou
River as a potential neighborhood for cultural production. At the same time, Shangh­
Art, which had initially rented the space as its warehouse, also moved its gallery to
Moganshan Lu 50, becoming its anchor tenant. With the presence of ShanghArt, the
Center for Historical Cultural Sites made a convincing case for the conservation and
conversion of the area. (Fig. 9)
The rising interest in conserving industrial heritage found a great complement
in the municipal economists who were also advocates for creative industries at the
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. As elaborated in the previous chapter, the urban
loophole of the ‘creative industries clusters’ became the mechanism for formalizing
commercial redevelopment of otherwise off-limits administratively-allocated land.70
With the establishment of the Shanghai Creative Industry Center (SCIC) in 2004, under

390
Fig. 9 The former industrial area along the Suzhou River as viewed from Moganshan Lu number 50, 2007

the auspices of the municipal Economic Council, reusing former industrial structures
on administratively-allocated land found a business model: with the creative industries
conferment, a zoning change could be made on industrial land that facilitates the re-
use of industrial heritage into commercial spaces. In 2005, the SCIC officially desig-
nated the compound at Moganshan Lu 50 as a ‘creative industries clusters.’ Prior to
this, the SOE officials who allowed the artists to rent their spaces were doing it large-
ly “under the table.”71
With the bestowment of the ‘creative industries cluster’ title, newspapers reported
that Moganshan Lu 50 was on its way to become the new Soho of Shanghai.72 In the
proposal made by the National Research Center for Historic Cultural Sites, the name
“M 50” was also bestowed on the compound of Moganshan Lu 50.73 M50 became the
easily pronounceable and visually identifiable branding that has come to represent the
compound in the tourist brochures and cultural newspapers. The initial ambiance of
a bottom-up artist quarter with diverse and dilapidated structures has also given way
to a formalized area with a visible, almost aggressive, branding strategy. New paving
on the ground and repainted and restored buildings package the branded M 50. Tagged
with yellow plaques delineating their historic uses, M 50’s buildings, some of which
were built as late as the late 1980s and all of which have survived en-masse demoli-
tion, have come to represent Shanghai’s increasingly scarce and hence precious indus-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

trial heritage. A tourist information center, several cafés, and small stores have been
inserted to accommodate the inflow of visitors. As the surrounding area continues to
be marked for ongoing demolition and development, creative activities are confined
to the demarcated M 50 area.
M 50 remains occupied by artists, despite discernible signs of commercialization
and sanitization today. With rising rents and upgraded spaces, however, younger art-
ists could ill afford a studio. The studios that remain belong to the now established,
globally known Chinese contemporary artists, including the likes of Ding Yi and
Zhang Enli [张恩利]. Younger artists who are just starting out seek out an entry into
M 50 to help establish their professional credibility. It is not only the rising rents that
have made M 50 it increasingly difficult for younger artists to access. The SOE land-

391
 lord of M 50 has also become selective in the choice of new tenants. As the SOE leader
confirmed, “our prices are quite flexible. Having money does not mean that one could
get a lease. Not having money does not mean that one could not get a lease. We value
the qualifications of the artists and organization, not only money. We hope to build a
platform, attracting those well-known, talented, and creative personnel and organi-
zations with potential [有钱不一定租得到，没钱不一定租不起。我们看重艺术家和机构的
资质，而不只是有没有钱。我们希望能建一个平台，吸引那些有名望有实力有潜力的创意人士
和机构].”74 One well-known new tenant who was not part of the original tenants was
Gu Wenda [顾文达],75 an established conceptual artist who also has a studio in Brook-
lyn. Xue Song, the first artist to move into Moganshan Lu 50 before it became M 50,
noted also a change in the SOE landlord from state-enterprise bureaucrats into savvy
market-oriented businesspeople: “when I came to rent the spaces, they still followed
the classical SOE work style, talking in the bureaucrat style, inefficient in doing things,
but now they are very business-minded and service-oriented [我来租房子的时候，他
们还是当时典型的国企作风，说话哼哼哈哈，办事效率低，而现在他们已经很有商业头脑和服
务意识了].”76
Along with highlighting the cultural businesses that are able to afford the ten-fold
rent increase commanded by industrial heritage, one sign designates M 50 as a Tri-
ple-A tourist destination. Another plaque indicates that M 50 is also one of the on-site
teaching bases [现场教学基地] of the Pudong Leadership Academy [浦东干部学院], one
of the most important training grounds for top CCP leaders. (Fig. 10) Although not as
insidious as the infiltration and apprehension of known political enemies, the decision
to embed a CCP training ground in M 50 could be made out to be not entirely with-
out deliberation. Since economic liberalization accelerated, the CCP has grappled with
the predicament of implementing capitalistic practices within the continuity of the
party-state political ideology of Communism. Legitimized by the country’s dramati-
cally raised living standards through the
economic success of marketization with-
out letting go of single-party rule, the im-
perative for the latest crop of CCP leaders,
in order to retain their political hegemony,
is to continue to keep up with new ideas
brought by the penetration of global capi-
tal and its new economies.77 The political
need for exposure to the kinds of global-
ized hubs, which M50 represents, in order
to hone an image of openness and cultur-
al understanding to project to the outside
world, made it crucial to place one of the
on-site teaching bases of the Leadership
Academy in what was once a marginal
site of cultural dissent. The fundamental
political intransigence of China’s econom-
ic transition, decoupling economic liber-
Fig. 10 Plaques at the entrance of the M50 Creative Industries alization from a political one under the
Cluster, 2012 continued rule of the CCP,78 formed the

392
basis of the artists’ dissent in 2000’s The Uncooperative Approach near M 50 along the
Suzhou River. Even though the CCP training academy’s embedment in M 50 could be
understood to represent the ultimate form of political appropriation, the presence of
the Academy also assures the place of its economic and physical survival.
Resistance to the kind of globalization and commodification, embodied by the
counter-Biennale of The Uncooperative Approach in 2000, has since been eroded. Dem-
olition of the industrial urban fabric along the Suzhou River, which was the place for
bottom-up cultural productions and an alternate sphere of artistic autonomy, and the
confinement of ‘creative industries’ to the demarcated space of M 50 and its appropri-
ation physicalize the developmental state’s containment of resistance and autonomy.
The site along Suzhou River, which was an initial battleground of resistance to appro-
priation, succumbed to usurpation by the developmental state in the name of its phys-
ical preservation.
As recounted in the previous chapter, the model of producing the newly fashion-
able ‘creative industry clusters’ has since been replicated throughout Shanghai. Ensu-
ing projects in the mid-2000s pursued a strategy of creative development reusing SOE
structures, many of them former industrial production sites, vacated and left behind
by marketization and global competition. The local developmental state and its affili-
ates have learned to deploy the bottom-up urban loophole, which first realized the reuse
of former industrial spaces.
The project of Shanghai Redtown [红坊] Development Corporation, a district-affil-
iated entity, took on the M 50 model of adaptive reuse of industrial area for contem-
porary art in 2005. Redeveloping the site of a former Number 10 Steel Factory, the
project centered around a new Shanghai Sculpture Space. As the website of the Corpo-
ration declares, Redtown “focuses on cultural asset investment and management.”79
Although not commonplace, the installation of public spaces for contemporary art in-
creasingly became a way for a development to distinguish itself from other projects
and become more competitive under transition economy.
Interestingly, the third-generation leadership of ShangTex was taking arts manage-
ment courses at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in the early 2010s.80 Giv-
en the numerous but unknown number of properties that the consolidated municipal-
level SOE ShangTex still occupies in Shanghai’s city center and nearby suburbs, and
the number of laid-off workers that the social welfare system inherited from the era of
planned economy and still is responsible for, it certainly makes sense. The ShangTex
leader is widely consulted in the expertise of converting industrial structures into cre-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

ative spaces, and has already expanded the M 50 franchise to a suburban site of Taopu
[桃浦].81 M50 Taopu, as the art cluster which has also reused a larger former textile site
is branded, offered low rents to known artists like Yang Fudong and Yang Zhenzhong
[杨振中] when it opened in 2010. With even larger spaces than at M 50 and undisturbed
by the foot traffic at the now centrally located M50, many artists hope that the outpost
of M 50 Taopu will remain affordable.82 Together with the artists’ studios, ShanghArt
also opened a larger warehouse there, showcasing large-scale pieces that would dwarf
even its high-ceilinged space at M 50.
At the same time, the adjacent sites that have also been largely undeveloped in
the decade since the influx of the artists are recently moving along. In the early 2010s,
the London-based studio of designer Thomas Heatherwick, which was known for the

393
 spectacular British pavilion at the 2010
World Expo in Shanghai, has been called
on to propose a new masterplan along
the Suzhou River on the sites next to M 50.
(Fig. 11) The studio’s visions show a ris-
ing carpet of dense mid- to high-rises that
culminate in a canyon with its overgrown
green backside facing the M 50. With the
development of the West Bund Cultural
Corridor following the World Expo, gal-
Fig. 11 Proposal for the development next to M50 by leries like ShanghArt and artists includ-
Heatherwick Studio, 2015 ing Ding Yi have also set up spaces in the
state-incentivized West Bund locales, in
proximity to numerous new museums and art institutions opening there.83 The fu-
ture of M 50 clearly looks to be shifting.

“Made in China”: New Museums and

the Business of Art
As the city returned from being a place of production under planned economy to a
place for consumption under state-controlled market economy, a crop of privately
funded museums of contemporary art sprang up in the mid-2000s. The Duolun Muse-
um of Modern Art (MoMA ) [多伦现代美术馆], the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA )
[当代艺术馆], and the Zendai Art Museum [证大现代艺术馆] all took on positions of pub-
lic institutions while being privately funded. Duolun opened in 2004 and is considered
a privately run state institution because it is approved at the district government lev-
el.84 The MoCA opened in 2005. Zendai, which would later become the Himalaya Art
Museum, opened also in 2005 as a privately funded institution of the Zendai Group, a
real estate and financial group. The art fair Shanghai Contemporary also began in 2007.
It was, for a period, under consideration for potential purchase by Art Basel.85
At the 2000 Shanghai Biennale, art critic Wu Hung, in his talk about the develop-
ment of the museum in the West, contended that the Western model for the museum
has become increasingly commodified. Wu saw the commodification of the muse-
um as a consequence of the neoliberalization of Western society, where commercial
worth superseded the cultural value of an artwork, rendering the artwork’s cultur-
al importance dependent on the market. This was so much so that Wu declared that
nascent “Chinese museums should not follow the Western model.”86 Wu added, how-
ever, “but what model they (the Chinese museums) should follow I cannot say; it is
still a dream.”87
The establishment of the company MadeIn by conceptual artist Xu Zhen [徐震] in
2009, one of the original artists still operating out of M50, seemed to be making works
that commented on the possibilities of a new Chinese economic model for contempo-
rary art. The name of the company, MadeIn [没顶公司], is a spoof on the phrase ‘Made in
China,’ synonymous with China’s global economic growth and manufacturing prow-

394
ess.88 ‘Made in China’ represented the success of the country’s rapid economic growth,
which relied on an export-based model of development. At the same time, the phrase
also suggested inertia for the country’s economic transition. In the decades since rap-
id transition began, the country seemed stuck in producing for the world, rather than
transitioning to a more innovation and knowledge-based economy that would bring
added value to the manufacturing base of economic growth.89 Xu’s word play in the
naming of his art company is a deliberate commentary on the relationship between
commerce and cultural production.
Xu adopted roles in other parts of the contemporary art value chain, blurring the
boundaries of production, promotion, support, and curation. Xu’s title as the CEO of
MadeIn mimics the corporate structures prevalent for economic efficiency. At the same
time, the formation of MadeIn company also mocks contemporary art’s inability to de-
tach itself from the market economy, and alludes to the phenomena of commercially
successful artists structuring their studios like assembly lines for the production of
cultural goods for exchange on the market.
The theme of market economy and the interaction between the art and the consum-
er had always been present in Xu’s works. In 1996, Xu insinuated his work into the ex-
hibition Let’s Talk About Money—1st International Fax Art Exhibition [让我们谈谈钱 首届
国际传真艺术展].90 The Let’s Talk about Money show exhibited faxes from solicited art-
ists. Xu showed his originals, rather than a facsimile, commenting on reproducibility
in the contemporary art market.91 The Art for Sale Exhibit of 1999, which Xu co-curat-
ed with Yang Zhenzhong and Alexander Brandt, was an illustrious lead-up to The Un-
cooperative Approach in 2000. Located in Shanghai Square [上海广场], the commercial
podium of a 36-story office tower development finished in 1999,92 the exhibition took
place in a supermarket in the mall, giving the exhibition also its Chinese name, Super-
market Art Exhibit [超市艺术展]. The contents of the Art for Sale Exhibit were all for sale.
The exhibit elicited shock from a local reporter who covered the event.93 Despite being
shut down only three days after its opening, with agreement between the artists and
the supermarket owner, the exhibition achieved its intended effect of putting contem-
porary art into the direct access of the public. The use of a commercial space inside a
then newly-developed shopping mall for the exhibition of contemporary art would set
an example that would be capitalized on a decade. The advantageous role that contem-
porary art could play in the development of commercial spaces in the city center would
only slowly evolve with the growing importance of culture to economic development.
The trajectory of the art business also led to a venture called BizArt [比翼], which
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

developed from flirtations with the notion of art as a business in the Art for Sale Exhib-
it. Xu, together with Sinologist and curator Davide Quadrio, founded the experimental
art space located at Moganshan Lu 50 in the early 2000s. As a non-profit space, they
intended the project to showcase the first stage of many younger artists’ works. They
also intended the space to complement the commercial galleries such as neighboring
ShanghArt.94 At the same time, design work done for other artists and galleries finan-
cially supported the space of BizArt without having to resort to state support, which
was avidly avoided.95 The duo professed that BizArt’s goal is to “bring business clos-
er to art and being able to sustain the art activities without compromise.”96 For the
artists, the support of the private sector secured their financial independence. This
financial independence, importantly, defended their artistic autonomy against state

395
 encroachment and interference. In a local framework in which the propaganda bureau
is disguised as the cultural ministry, wariness of the intrusive party-state already be-
came second nature to many intellectuals. The pressures to secure their place in the
contemporary market economy became the new struggle for contemporary artists, in
a political economy of marketization within state control.97
MadeIn focuses, according to the company website, on the “inner structure of the
art system, seeking to expand its working field beyond the mere accumulation of ex-
periences or individual subsistence, and opening a new direction.” 98 The between-
the-lines vagueness that pervades Chinese expressions, intended to bypass censors,
continues to be part of the ongoing ‘language game’ that simultaneously imitates
and, often undetectably, mocks the vacuousness of pronouncements by the presid-
ing regime.99
By the time private art museums like Minsheng [民生现代美术馆] and the Rock-
bund Art Museums opened in 2010, coinciding with the opening of the World Expo
in Shanghai, a palette of established first-generation Chinese contemporary artists
with global reach were being exhibited in and pivotal to the establishment of the new
spaces for contemporary art in China. With names like Cai Guoqiang [蔡国强] and
Zhang Huan [张洹], the new Chinese vanguards were adept at courting the interna-
tional art arena by evoking sensational specificities of Chineseness, while bypassing
the sensitivities in the country and still fostering a local following. Cai’s opening show
for the Rockbund Museum featured the inventions of Chinese peasants, taking note of
an overlooked populace and their contemporary plight.100 The pieces seemed to be a
social commentary of a well-known phenomenon in the transforming country, that of
rural-urban migration to feed the rapid economic developments of the nation. Zhang
Huan’s building-scale Confucius statue overpowering the exhibition hall and accom-
panying pieces in the Rockbund, on the other hand, also referenced the hierarchical
structure of Chinese society.101 Although alluding to the slogan of ‘harmoniousness,’
which the central government has been using since the 2000s, the piece featuring
the historical sage was also subtle enough to not result in confrontations with state
authorities.
Both fit well into the architectural re-adaption of the former Royal Asiatic Society
(R AS ) building as a contemporary art institution. The Rockbund Art Museum (R AM )
is the cultural highlight of the larger redevelopment project Rockbund [外滩源] on the
north Bund, an area that housed a number of Western-style civic buildings remain-
ing from Shanghai’s Concession era.102 The British contemporary star architect David
Chipperfield transformed the former R AS building, one of the Concession-era master-
pieces, into the Rockbund Art Museum. The development is a joint venture between
the U.S.-based Japanese developers the Rockefeller Group, Shenzhen-based Sinolink
Holdings and the Shanghai New Huangpu Group [新黄浦集团], a development group
of Shanghai’s Huangpu District. The Rockefeller Group, the developer of the Rockefel-
ler Center commercial complex in New York City, is a unit of Japan-listed Mitsubishi
Estate Company.103 The municipal government approved the project in 2003 and des-
ignated it as a priority project assigned to the New Huangpu Group. The mid-2000s
was a time when investment in Chinese real estate development was rapidly accel-
erating with high returns. Together with Sinolink, the Rockefeller Group formed the
Rockefeller Fund in 2006 to raise money for investment in the Rockbund project.104

396
The initiation of the area’s development with a new art museum designed by a world-
famous architect was not only strategic in raising the profile of the area. The art muse-
um also insured high real estate prices for high-end projects neighboring a respected
cultural institution. The art museum, though not necessarily creating the urban loop-
hole for development, was nevertheless an important part of the instruments used
to promote and legitimize the area’s upgrade and the eviction of incumbent tenants.
As already elaborated in the previous chapters, transnational know-how and cap-
ital fled Mainland China after 1949. When economic liberalization first began in the
1980s and then accelerated in the 1990s, the first sources of foreign direct investments
for Shanghai came from the Chinese diaspora, from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan,
who invested in manufacturing facilities, initiated real estate development projects,
and facilitated transnational investments. It was not until the mid- to late 2000s that
the transnational reconnections would move beyond the immediately commercial
realms and also move into the cultural developments.
Exemplary of diasporic investment facilitating the rapid global re-integration of
Shanghai, the third-generation Hong Kong tycoon Adrian Cheng’s development of
the K 11 Art Mall showed new ways the public spaces specific to the contemporary
East Asian city could showcase contemporary art.105 In the podium of the commer-
cial complex New World Tower on a prominent stretch of Huaihai Lu [淮海路], one of
the most important commercial thoroughfares in Shanghai, a 2010 renovation allocat-
ed an entire floor—3,000 square meters of valuable real estate in the mall—for con-
temporary art exhibition. K 11’s Art Foundation, based in Hong Kong and initiated by
Cheng, sponsors young artists and promotes its collection as “art for the masses.”106 In
Hong Kong’s K 11 Art Mall, the first of the art malls, spaces between commercial venues
were allocated for public art exhibitions and events. It is in the Shanghai K 11, howev-
er, where the significant spatial contribution for contemporary art exhibition seems to
realize the foundation’s aspirations for public outreach.
In Shanghai, local authorities are increasingly demanding that private commercial
developers provision public amenities, such as public infrastructures and open spaces.
This makes art a key component for facilitating obtaining permission for real estate
development. Permissions for commercial development, which may be difficult to get
from the increasingly stringent local authorities, could be expedited if spaces, such as
that for art exhibition or education, are part of the development plan.
Even though the art spaces seemed to be financially as well as culturally motivat-
ed, the Shanghai curator Leo Xu [许宇]’s initiative for the inaugural exhibition in the
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

Shanghai K 11, Shanghai Surprise [上海惊奇], made a statement about the cultural sig-
nificance of such a privately sponsored public space. The exhibition was nuanced, cen-
tering on the specificities of Shanghai and the local artists of the region. (Fig. 12) In
collaboration with ShanghArt, which represents many of the artists shown, the 2013
exhibition highlighted the works of artists who were representative of the contempo-
rary arts development of Shanghai.
Distinct from Beijing, Shanghai’s catchment area in the Yangtze Delta region has
always cultivated a subtlety in critique that differs fundamentally from the in-your-
face polemics of Beijing.107 In Beijing, known as the center of the Chinese cultural
scene, the capital city’s domination of the propaganda apparatus and control of the me-
dia industries, along with the provision of cheap spaces, have made places like 798 and

397
Fig. 12 Inaugural exhibition “Shanghai Surprise” at the K11 Art Space, 2013
 Caochangdi [操场地] into significant hubs for contemporary art. In contrast, Shanghai’s
artists, aside from those clustering in the M 50s, are more scattered in the periphery,
where the realities of real estate prices in the city center have pushed them. The differ-
ing way of dealing with the contemporary market economy and the subtler responses
to the state control distinguish the artists of the region.108 Shanghai Surprise’s collec-
tion of artists from this specific lineage and its setting in the K 11 show the crucial sup-
port of the region’s private sector.
A 2011 exhibition at the Minsheng Museum was significant in retracing the two
decades of developments in Chinese contemporary video art, demonstrating a new
awareness and attention to more recent art historical lineages. The K 11 exhibition, sim-
ilarly, was held in conjunction with a lecture series that included many stakeholders
in the Shanghai contemporary arts scene, including discussions with the develop-
ers for M 50 and Red Town, as well as artists and curators. An important component
of the K 11 inaugural exhibition was a physical archive of contemporary art from the
Shanghai catchment area since the 1990s. The non-profit art group Artlinkart, collab-
orators on the archive, highlighted the difficulty of establishing a physical archive in
the quickly changing cities of China.109 In the face of an imminent uncertainty that
renders permanence, both physical and procedural, difficult to sustain, even the dig-
ital archive project that Artlinkart undertook remains at the discretion of transition
economy’s adaptive governance. The only certainty is the perpetual obsolescence and
erosion of sites by the development processes, processes accommodated and abetted
by the pro-growth state.110

Uncertainty and Regeneration

The unpredictable and ever-changing nature of the physical environment of the con-
temporary city was an underlying theme in many artworks. Xiao Hong [肖红]’s paint-
ing of red bricks, in the Shanghai Surprise exhibition at K 11, (Fig. 13) recalls the red
brick that caused the uproar for the then-unknown Yang Fudong at The Uncooperative
Approach in 2000. The red bricks also hark back to the dismantled ‘red houses’ of Mo-
ganshan Lu. The red bricks, more importantly, are a reminder of another prominent ex-
ample of persistent uncertainty: the construction and then destruction of Ai Weiwei’s
red-bricked studio in 2010.
Ten years after the closing of The Uncooperative Approach and the formalization of
M 50, the developmental state’s desire for prestige, represented by an international
cultural celebrity such as Ai, was being contradicted by the authoritarian state’s de-
mand for his artistic and intellectual containment. The site of Ai’s red-bricked studio,
his ‘red house,’ amidst the vineyards of Dayu Village in Jiading District, a northwest
suburb of Shanghai, became the interface for an ideological battle over what Ai had
deemed, in The Uncooperative Approach, a “precious cultural spirit.”111 The irreverence
of The Uncooperative Approach in 2000 exemplified Ai’s first encounter with Shang-
hai in his resistance to what he saw as cultural vulgarization, commodification, and
the state’s encroachment on artistic autonomy. His second encounter in 2010 would
be the prelude to an evolving negotiation of art with politics in the artists’ claims to
autonomy.

400
 Ai received a 2008 invitation to set up
his studio by the district leadership of Ji-
ading District northwest of Shanghai. The
deputy party secretary of Jiading who in-
vited Ai had previously been the deputy
mayor of the district of Qingpu [青浦], an-
other suburb of Shanghai. In Qingpu, the
deputy party secretary had been instru-
mental in initiating an unprecedented
deployment of avant-garde architectural
designs and cultural engagement to spear-
head its real estate growth.112 In Jiading, Fig. 13 Xiao Hong’s Red Brick, 2011, shown at the “Shanghai
the deputy party secretary continued his Surprise” exhibition, 2013

efforts in encouraging design to engage

urban development and promote culture. As part of the initiative in Dayu, renowned
artists and architects were invited to develop a new creative cluster in the vineyards,
and Ai, an internationally renowned Chinese artist, was on the top of the list.
As the Jiading developments were underway, the aftermath of the Sichuan Earth-
quake was unfolding. It was two days before the earthquake took place in May 2008
that the deputy party secretary from Shanghai arrived in Beijing to personally invite
Ai to build his studio in Shanghai. Collapsed schoolhouses in Sichuan triggered a fu-
ror over the local government corruption that resulted in their shoddy construction,
causing the deaths of children. The tragedy of Sichuan became the subject of a project
by Ai in 2008.
Even though Ai had repeatedly expressed his disdain of the materialism and pe-
tite-bourgeois outlook represented by the Shanghai113 he accepted the Jiading offer,
to the surprise of many. Nevertheless, Ai discussed his acceptance of the offer and the
impending construction in an August 2008 interview with interest.114 Ai’s acceptance
of the Shanghai offer was juxtaposed against his about-face toward the concurrent
festivities of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Even though his collaboration with the
Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron had produced the design for the Chinese Nation-
al Stadium, popularly known as the ‘Bird’s Nest,’ for the summer of 2008, Ai turned his
back on the project in rejection of the Olympics as what he criticized as the authoritar-
ian state’s image project.115 At the same time, Ai’s probes into the state’s responsibil-
ity for the unfolding tragedy of Sichuan Earthquake irritated many important official
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

nerves.116
In later summer 2010, Jiading’s local authorities told Ai’s representatives in Shang-
hai that the studio building they finished must be torn down.117 In negotiations with
local authorities following the announcement of the request for demolition, the word
“karma [缘分]” repeatedly came up as a hint at the fate of the place rather than direct
confrontation regarding the responsibility for the demolition.118 The extensive negoti-
ation transcripts as recorded and disseminated by Ai and his representatives could be
a study on the processes of land procurement, land use change, and building permis-
sions under economic transition.119 Despite apologies from the local authorities, in-
cluding from deputy party secretary himself, who had actively courted Ai to settle in
Shanghai but receded when demolition negotiations began, it seemed that higher-ups

401
 from the central government were determined to remove Ai’s studio from Jiading. Ai’s
dialogues with the local officials, which he recorded and uploaded online, and which
were quickly taken down from the cyber commons,120 directly exposed the urban loop-
holes that had become a ritual of adaptive governance. Like the script for a performance
piece, the progression from invitation, negotiation, construction to eviction from the
‘red house’ Ai built also confirmed the discretionary authority of the party-state that
was at once opportunistic and ruthless.
The day before it was announced that the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize would be award-
ed to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo [刘晓波], another intellectual under house ar-
rest,121 Jiading’s authorities publicly announced, on 9 October, that Ai’s Shanghai stu-
dio was to be demolished.122 After a further bout of arbitrations, Ai conceded, tweeting
an invitation to a party to celebrate the end of the ‘red house’ on 7 November 2010, and
ordered river crabs for the occasion. The word hexie [河蟹], Chinese for ‘river crab,’ is
homonymous with hexie [和谐], the word for ‘harmoniousness.’ The state has used the
slogan ‘Harmonious Society [和谐社会]’ to brand the stance of the state, encapsulating
the leadership’s vision for governance. The Chinese masses have also used the same
word as the euphemism for censorship in China.123 This play on language, thus, was
a direct and unambiguous affront to authority. With almost one thousand RSVP s, Ai
was prohibited from attending the farewell party, the first incidence of his confinement
by authorities. In turn, many who attended were asked to ‘drink tea [喝茶],’ which is
another euphemism for police questioning.
In a less storied incident, the studio of the artist Ding Yi, whose occupation of the
original ‘red houses’ on Moganshan Lu initiated the art factories on the Suzhou River,
was also demolished along with that of Ai’s studio on 11 January 2011.124 (Fig. 14) Soon
thereafter, the arrest of Ai beginning of April 2011 would cause an international out-
cry and lead to a series of international exhibitions of Ai’s work to rally for his libera-
tion.125 The arrest caused many local artists and intellectuals to accuse Ai of manipu-
lating events in order to pull off his biggest performance piece to date.126 Hong Kong
artists’ protests of Ai’s imprisonment, on the other hand, would use the namesake of
The Uncooperative Approach to express what Ai uttered at the 2000s show: “This is chal-
lenge to all powers, authorities and system. It is small yet not to be ignored, like a nail
in the eye, a thorn in the flesh, a little grain of sand in the shoe—it reflects a valuable
cultural spirit.”127
On 12 January 2011, the day after extensive international news coverage of the de-
struction of Ai’s ‘red house,’ The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Whither
696 Weihai Lu?” portending a similar erasure by demolition in Shanghai’s city center,
second-guessing the government’s real reasons.128 Since the plaques of the SCIC offi-
cially began gracing the entrance of the Moganshan Lu 50 in the mid-2000s, marking
its formal recognition, an industrial compound on Weihai Lu, in relative proximity to
the bustle of Shanghai’s commercial drag of West Nanjing Lu, was similarly initiated
by artists. Just as the first pioneers of Chinese contemporary art gave way to the rising
generation of younger avant-gardes, so M 50 seemed to be giving way to the new locale
of experimentation in the spaces of Weihai Lu 696.
It was in 2006 that the then CCP party secretary of Shanghai Chen Liangyu [陈良宇]
was accused of corruption by the Politburo in Beijing as part of a political purge to dash
the rise of the Shanghai-based clique in central government politics and their grab for

402
Fig. 14 Demolitions of Ai Weiwei’s studio in Jiading, 2010

political autonomy for Shanghai from the central government.129 Accusations were
lodged against Chen to stem his growing power, which was premised on Shanghai’s
commercial success and its consequent autonomy. Weihai Lu 696 was under Chen’s ju-
risdiction, and due to his fall, the premises became accessible to reuse. Under the less
controlling charge of the district’s social security bureau, cheap rentals in the other-
wise defunct buildings that had belonged to Shanghai Number Five Components Fac-
tory [上海元件五厂], led to the clustering of young artists and gallerists.130 The factory
compound at Weihai Lu 696, ironically, had been the recipient of federal subsidies in
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

the 1980s to develop and advance the then nationally emphasized high-tech sector.131
In the 1990s SOE restructuring and the shift to joint ventures rather than local SOE s
to develop high-tech sectors in the newly built centrally granted zones in Zhangjiang,
Weihai Lu 696 became industrial real estate that awaited reuse.
Thus, it was the central government’s retrieval of autonomy from the Shanghai
in mid-2000 that serendipitously and ironically coincided with the nurturing of the
younger generation of artists. The political shifts between center and localities had cre-
ated the urban loophole that made possible Weihai Lu 696’s bottom-up appropriation.
For half a decade, the network of studios in the lanes of former Number 5 Components
Factory, at the center of which is an old British building reputed to have once served
as an opium warehouse, was Shanghai’s city center site of art making and exhibition,

403
 and a hub of transnational creative types. As the number of official creative clusters
rose in the city center along with rising rental prices, Weihai Lu 696 became one of the
few havens for creative production that remained outside the formality of official pre-
scription. With low rents, organic structure, and an informal atmosphere, the Weihai
Lu 696 of 2010 recalled what the ‘red houses’ around Moganshan Lu 50 had been like
a decade earlier. After finissages to Weihai Lu 696’s closure in May 2010, artists relo-
cated. It remains to be seen, however, what new forms the ‘red houses’ will take under
the perpetually transitioning economy.

Art and Architecture Catalyze Development

On National Day 2012, the 9th Shanghai Biennale, entitled “Reactivation [重新发电],”
opened in the newly renovated P.S. Art. One year later, preparations for the inaugural
West Bund Biennale for Architecture and Contemporary Art [西岸建筑与当代艺术双年展]
were underway. This new Biennale was a central piece for the development of the
eight-kilometer-long Xuhui Binjiang [徐汇滨江] corridor, now known as West Bund to
its non-Chinese speaking audience, located along the Huangpu River in the southern
and more suburban part of the Xuhui District. The West Bund Biennale’s chief curator
was Yungho Chang [张永和], the highly respected Chinese architect who had opened
the first private practice in China and who was also the dean of the MIT School of
Architecture. With its board members including many prominent local design power-
brokers from Tongji, the Biennale for Architecture and Contemporary Art opened with
great fanfare in October 2013. Lectures, seminars, concerts, art performances, and oth-
er events took over old industrial structures strewn along the riverside sites. Tempo-
rary pavilions, newly designed by the network of invited international architects, and
renovations of old infrastructure complemented the newly constructed boardwalks
and waterfront public space.132
The Biennale was the brainchild of the former deputy party secretary of Jiading
who has since become the district party secretary of the city center district of Xuhui.
In Jiading, the abundance of modern architecture built under his patronage made the
area a pilgrimage site for both national and international design-visitors. In Qingpu,
the district party secretary began the construction of an arts district, where favorites
such as the architects Sou Fujimoto and Zhu Xiaofeng [祝晓峰] were included to con-
tribute designs. When the district party secretary rose to lead one of the wealthiest
and most powerful city center districts in Shanghai, Xuhui, he had already become
known amongst Shanghai’s select inner circles as someone who could raise the price
of the land in the districts he comes to lead.
Before the district party secretary joined in 2012, Xuhui District had already been
successful in securing of the famous American animation studio DreamWorks’ set-
up of a new animation hub in the new development of West Bund.133 Xi Jinping, who
had been the party secretary of Shanghai municipality, continues to grace the many
glossy publicity pamphlets for having been responsible for signing on DreamWorks
in Shanghai.134 The coalition of investors from DreamWorks, Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai
Fong Group and the Shanghai arm of CMC Capital Partners were designated to turn a
four-acre site along the Huangpu River into a new media and entertainment cluster for

404
Fig. 15 Landuse plan and proposed key projects along the West Bund of Xuhui District, 2013

Shanghai. The district-backed development corporation, The West Bund Development

Group [上海西岸开发集团], was established in 2012 to oversee the developments of West
Bund.135 (Fig. 15)
After district party secretary joined Xuhui, he spearheaded the development of
the Xuhui portion of the riverside into a cultural hub to catalyze its ensuing real es-
tate developments. “Letting culture lead, using cultural industries, getting culture to
light up Xuhui Binjiang’s development, pushing forward the area’s sectorial develop-
ment [用文化引领、用文化产业、用文化来点燃徐汇滨江的发展，进而推动滨江的产业发展]”
became the repeated motto for the Xuhui District’s development strategy.136 On the
banks of Huangpu River in the Xuhui District, the palpable competition for cultural
spaces that had taken hold of the country, its cities, and ambitious districts in Shang-
hai was causing ripples.
The West Bund Biennale was one of key parts of the publicity campaign for making
the West Bund Shanghai’s own ‘Rive Gauche’ or ‘South Bank.’137 The West Bund Bien-
nale of 2013 was the prelude to a series of openings by a number of cultural institu-
tions. Discussions have been ongoing with Shanghai’s prominent art collectors on pos-
sibilities of collaborations for the establishment of private museums in Xuhui. One of
the most publicized new institutions to open in the West Bund was the Long Museum
in 2014. The Chinese collector Liu Yiqian [刘益谦], known for his record-breaking bid
of what would be known as the Ming-dynasty ‘chicken cup’ at a Sotheby’s auction in
2014,138 and his wife Wang Wei [王薇], had been investing in and assembling an as-
sortment of Chinese classical, Republican-era, Revolutionary-era, and post-socialist
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

contemporary art, which they aspired to put on the cultural map through their new
private museum, the Long Museum. In December 2012, the collector couple opened
the first branch of their museum in Pudong. Xuhui and its West Bund Development
Group offered the art collector couple Liu and Wang a piece of prime real estate in West
Bund in return for the establishment of their private art museum also in Xuhui. Even
though Liu and Wang is the owner of the Long Museum’s contents, the district-owned
West Bund Development Group are the clients for the museum’s new building on the
West Bund, designed by the Shanghai-based architecture studio Atelier Deshaus [大舍
建筑], led by Liu Yichun [柳亦春] and Chen Yifeng [陈屹峰]. Only when the building was
completed would the district Development Group lease the use of the building to the
operators of the Long Museum, the art collectors, for a pre-determined sum. Because

405
 the client for the building of the museum is the district development company, but the
design is for the users, who are the museum operators—in this case the collector cou-
ple Liu and Wang—the architect occupies a precarious position between the client, the
district, and the future user, the museum operator, against the backdrop of the newest
urban loophole created to facilitate culture-led urban developments.139
The exhibition spaces in the West Bund Long Museum are organized around what
the architects describe as flanged ‘vault umbrellas’ that reference the industrial histo-
ry of the West Bund site, which was an important logistics interchange for coal trans-
port and processing in Shanghai until the mid-2000s.140 The architects’ design sensi-
tivity to both the context and the program for both contemporary and classic art is
juxtaposed against the collector and museum owners’ concern for the museum’s pro-
grammatic and commercial viability.141 The museum’s capacity to sustain the space
beyond the first successful shows would map out how the cultural project would con-
tinue, also as an important role model for future cultural spaces to come.
Along with the Long Museum, the Shanghai-based Chinese-Indonesian art collec-
tor Budi Tek [余德耀] opened the YUZ Museum, a private art museum of international
caliber on the West Bund. The YUZ Foundation, devoted to philanthropy and to Tek’s
world-class art collection, which also showcased in Jakarta, laid out the framework
for their West Bund private museum’s curation strategy. The West Bund Development
Group engaged the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, who has often been commis-
sioned by the district party secretary, to renovate a red former airplane hangar that
had been given by the district as the site for the new YUZ Museum.142 (Fig. 16) The
Longhua Airport, once East Asia’s largest airport in the 1930s, was located in what has
been demarcated as the West Bund area, and was, before Shanghai’s spatial restructur-
ing in the 1990s, an important part of the industrial and logistic hub for Shanghai. Tek
has long been a collector of contemporary art and the YUZ Foundation had previously
been actively engaged with esteemed critic of Chinese contemporary art Wu Hung as

Fig. 16 Rendering for the design of the YUZ Museum by Sou Fujimoto, 2013

406
well as one of the first collectors of contemporary Chinese art Uli Sigg.143 The carefully
curated opening shows at the YUZ Museum featured both internationally renowned
as well as Chinese vanguards in contemporary art.
The two museums that opened in 2014 seemed to manifest the broader trend of
museum boom in the country. In Shanghai alone, the powerful and autonomous dis-
tricts have vied for cultural sites in their intra-metropolitan competition. Jing’an Dis-
trict, though land scarce with its small size, has also been aggressively developing new
cultural projects. Its Neri-and-Hu designed Design Commune that converted a red-
bricked former police station, built during the Concession era, into a hub for its design
products, as well as home to an industrial-chic restaurant by an internationally well-
known chef, had been one of its many successes. The Jing’an Sculpture Park commis-
sioned many international artists to produce works for the large public space. Togeth-
er with the promotion of large-scale public art installations at the Kerry Center, these
projects all attested to the ambitions of Jing’an’s open-minded bureaucrats.144 Simi-
larly, Huangpu [黄浦] District, with its spacious windfall in land from the World Expo
2010, pushed ahead to rush out the P. S. Art. The Tate Modern look-alike was a reincar-
nation of a former power station that had been the Future Cities pavilion during the
Expo. Hastily finished for National Day 2012, and coinciding with the opening of the
9th Shanghai Biennale, the P. S. Art had hoped to be a new pivot for developments in
the area. Even with the moving of different urban bureaucracies to occupy the neigh-
boring sites,145 however, the area’s physical disconnect from bustling parts of the city
center remains.
With its riverbank site of the West Bund south of the Expo area, Xuhui also steadi-
ly developed its public spaces as part of the attraction for the area. A series of summer
music festivals on West Bund’s vacant sites put the area on the map for its target of
young creative users. Landscaped waterfront parks have brought many visitors from
around the city to its new recreation infrastructures. At the same time the culture-led
developments continue. In September 2014, the district launched the West Bund Art
and Design Fair [西岸艺术设计博览会],146 engaging the contemporary artist and for-
mer director of the Minsheng Museum Zhou Tiehai [周铁海] as the artistic director and
opening with a handful of selected leading international galleries.147 The area around
the former airplane factory building in which the inaugural West Bund Art and Design
Fair took place was part of a masterplan for a cultural cluster, which Atelier Deshaus
proposed. In this cultural cluster a selective group of art galleries, artist studios, and
architecture studios opened, promoted by the municipal urban planning bureau’s De-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

sign and Promotion Center for Urban Public Space (SUSAS ) [城市公共空间促进中心] and
with rent-free leases as incentives from the district authorities. Amongst the artists
and galleries who set up spaces in the West Bund were Ding Yi and the gallery Shangh­
Art, both also based in M 50. Atelier Deshaus and several other architecture studios
also set up in the creative district of West Bund. Possibilities for studios and galleries
from M 50 to expand into the West Bund area seem to confirm its rising stature also
in the cultural production networks.148 The advantages of the site location along the
river as well as its proximity to the high-end neighborhoods of Xuhui District, which
has developed also a cluster of galleries in the former Concession-era buildings, have
made the West Bund a realistic competitor to the former Expo site’s conversion into
the largest creative cluster in the world.149

407
 Structures commissioned for the inaugural West Bund Biennale became more per-
manent institutions, including the Shanghai Center of Photography (SCoP) [上海摄
影艺术中心], which opened in May 2015,150 and the impending openings of the West
Bund Art Museum [西岸美术馆] designed by David Chipperfield, the otherwise yet
unannounced Star Art Museum [星美术馆],151 and the Tank Shanghai [油罐艺术中心],
which reuses old oil tanks along the Huangpu river as an art institution. The promi-
nent Shanghainese collector of contemporary art Qiao Zhibing [乔志兵] and backer of
Tank Shanghai also opened an exhibition space for his collection, Qiao Space [乔空间]
in the cultural cluster of the West Bund. Seeming to confirm the West Bund’s pull as a
cultural hub,152 the well-known Hong-Kong-based gallery Edouard Malingue opened
a space in West Bund in 2016, adding another notch to Shanghai’s art belt. At the same
time, new luxury housing developments are already steadily underway, flanking the
views from the cultural icons along the West Bund and capitalizing on the culture in
the vicinity.
Even though central government designations remain important and the be-
queathing of special economic status has encouraged the intra-regional competition
also for sites for tax-free art storage, Xuhui District’s ability and connections to attract
the right resources for its development would trump the interregional competition to
attract international investment. Beijing’s politically backed auction houses and joint
ventures have already been active in the setting up of an art freeport near the capital’s
airport.153 A few months after Beijing’s announcement at the end of March 2013 for its
tax-free zone for cultural products, Xuhui District also made its own announcement for
the opening of a tax-free art storage space.154 Even though the conventional location
in Shanghai for tax-free status is Waigaoqiao, which is the central-government-desig-
nated location for a special economic zone,155 the personal networks brought by the
art collectors, as well as other stakeholders, helped attract the international Le Free-
port Group’s attention to Xuhui District’s West Bund. Because of its proximity to the
YUZ and Long Museums, and the district’s longer-term plans for Biennales, Art Fairs,
exhibits, and more art-related events, Le Freeport’s choice of the Xuhui site was prag-
matic, following the eastward shift for contemporary art and other valuables. Le Free-
port Group’s inaugural East Asian art storage space, which opened in Singapore in 2010,
was more than two and half times as large as the one in Geneva. Its planned space for
the Shanghai would be twice as large as the one in Singapore,156 demonstrating the
shifting market potential.
The delivery of cultural spaces is not only a visible legacy but also a key perfor-
mance indicator for any rising politician. The cultural patron and district party sec-
retary’s sojourn in Xuhui also was not too long. In 2013, he rose again to become the
party secretary of the Pudong District, where a number of newer initiatives also began.

Contemporary Art Ecologies

State-sponsored gentrification, in the form of endorsing, quarantining, and subsidiz-
ing designated cultural districts, deviates glaringly from the shutdowns of unsanc-
tioned art spaces. The demolition of Ai Weiwei’s studio and the shutdown of Weihai Lu
696 epitomized the flipside of the top-down effort to grow a ‘contemporary arts ecol-

408
ogy.’ Their destructions could, on the one hand, be read as a kind of performance in
service of the larger spatial production system that is still largely ambiguous in frame-
work, uncertain in outlook, and discretionary in procedure. On the other hand, what
remains certain is the political adaptability of hegemony. After the fallout from these
disturbances settled, the art and architecture patron-cum-leader who had first invited
Ai and then executed the demolition of his studio, rose in political rank to take charge
of the developments of a central district. Ongoing construction of new spaces contin-
ues to occur under state patronage, most notably in the ongoing culture-led develop-
ments in the eight-kilometer long West Bund Cultural Corridor.
Shanghai, as China’s chosen ‘Dragon’s Head’ had led the experimentation with ex-
emptions since economic liberalization accelerated. Its urban spatial productions were
role models for other Chinese cities, first leading the way for rapid urban renewal and
then, in the second decade of transition, setting new paradigms for heritage conserva-
tion and creative incubation.157 Contemporary art as both apex commodity as well as
vessel of cultural value helps create urban loopholes of exceptions for expediting spatial
production in the second decade of economic transition.
Contemporary art and the spatial production are image projects that advance the
local growth coalitions’ interests. For the local state authorities, cultural centers are
showcase image projects that also justify infrastructure developments, network con-
nections and public space provisions. For the developers affiliated with the local state,
cultural projects front economic interests and deliver a philanthropic guise needed for
positive publicity to both appease the bureaucrats and allure the market audience. Cul-
tural institutions enhance a neighborhood and also increase value for the surrounding
real estate. And they present a global image to the outside world.
For the artists looking to maintain both their intellectual autonomy and finan-
cial independence, there lies a precarious balance between averting state suppres-
sion of socio-political commentary and succumbing to market pressures. Artist Yang
Zhenzhong [杨振中]’s 2010 piece Red Venus Sitting in a Corner continues the ‘language
game’ that toes the fine line between permissible and disqualified. The collapsed red
star, a clear reference to the Communist star that adorns the People’s Liberation Army
lapels as well as military gateways, (Fig. 17) poses nuanced questions about institu-
tional frameworks and the fundamental role of the contemporary art ecology under
the party-state. It not only fulfills, according to the press office, the artist’s urge “to
emphasize with an irreverent attitude the many contradictions and derangements
of society, aberrations which can only be dealt with by playing with them, turning
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies

them into seemingly innocent games or funny scene.”158 The piece shows the artist’s
keen awareness of the urban loopholes of exceptions that exploit contemporary art
as one of the developmental state’s main alibis. Its feature in a 2013 solo show of the
OCT Contemporary Art Terminal in Shanghai, a well-curated space that is central to
the larger real estate project of one of the earliest and influential central-government-
level SOE developers, illustrates the persistence and necessity for ambiguous links be-
tween contemporary art’s critique of the post-socialist authoritarian developmental
state and its dependence on the developmental growth regime in the face of authori-
tarian resilience.

409
Fig. 17 Yang Zhenzhong’s Red Venus, 2010

410
1 Jialu Shen 沈嘉禄, “美术场馆，艺术的‘种子基地’：专访
上海市文化广播影视管理局艺术总监滕俊杰 [Art Museums,
Seeding Ground of Art: Interview with Shanghai Municipal
Culture Media and Entertainment Management Bureau
Executive],” 新民周刊 New Citizen Weekly, October 1, 2012,
http://www.xinminweekly.com.cn/News/Content/ 1194 .
2 The choice of the name Power Station of Art, shortened
as P. S. Art was inspired by New York’s contemporary art
institution P. S. 1 . The name ‘P. S. 1 ’ stands for ‘Public
School 1,’ which was the original use of the building that
has been converted into the art institution. Interview with
the deputy director of P. S. Art Li Xu [李旭], 2012. This kind
of name or brand ‘borrowing’ is a prevalent phenomenon
of China’s rapid development and transition. See, for ex-
ample, Julie Weed, “Welcome to the Haiyatt. In China, It’s
Not the Hotel It Sounds Like.,” The New York Times,
April 28 , 2014 , http://www.nytimes.com/2014 /04 /29/
business/international/sound-alike-hotels-in-china-borrow-
western-brands-prestige.html. 3 Holland Cotter, “A Pros-
perous China Goes on a Museum Building Spree,” The
New York Times, March 20, 2013 , http://www.nytimes.
com/ 2013 / 03 / 21 /arts/artsspecial/a-prosperous-china-
goes-on-a-museum-building-spree.html; “Mad about Mu-
seums,” The Economist, accessed August 15, 2015, http://
www.economist.com/news/special-report/ 21591710 -
china-building-thousands-new-museums-how-will-it-fill-
them-mad-about-museums. 4 Theorists use ‘urban re-
gime theory’ to describe state and private sector collusion
in urban development. The term ‘local growth coalitions’
is based on the concept of city as ‘growth machine.’ ‘Lo-
cal growth coalitions’ describes the developmental local
state’s collusion with private resources in pursuit of eco-
nomic growth. See elaboration of the concepts in relation
to the urban loophole in the introduction chapter. 5 The
scale of spatial opportunity as generated by the urban
loophole is neither confined in size, nor to its scope of
functions. Through this chapter, a mode of inquiry based,
economically, on the framework of an industrial sector,
rather than, spatially, on a neighborhood, also shows the
spatial production processes that mediate the market and
planned elements in China’s transition economy. 6 The
term of ‘contemporary art ecology’ is used to describe the
socio-economic and cultural value chains associated with
the contemporary art market. The contemporary art mar-
ket is a unique sector of a globalized cultural industry. It
is a specialized market sector that is at the apex of ad-
vanced capitalism. The Chinese state’s approval and pro-
motion of the sector suggests closer integration with the
global market, on the one hand. At the same time, the
scale of Chinese integration has also distorted the market
interactions. See, for example, Abigail R. Esman, “China’s
$13 Billion Art Fraud—And What It Means For You,” Forbes,
August 13, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailes-
man/2012 /08 /13 /chinas-13 -billion-art-fraud-and-what-
it-means-for-you/. 7 Political scientists Elizabeth Perry
and Sebastian Heilmann ascribed these fundamental
characteristics of CCP ’s distinctive guerrilla-styled poli-
cy-making to the Chinese party-state’s ‘authoritarian re-
silience’ (see next note). See Sebastian Heilmann and Eliz-
abeth J. Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy
Style and Adaptive Governance in China,” in Mao’s Invisi-
ble Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Gover-
nance in China, ed. Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth
J. Perry, Harvard Contemporary China Series 17 (Cam-
bridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2011), 13. 8 ‘Author-
itarian resilience,’ according to political scientists Wang
Zhengxu and Ern Ser Tan, “combined one-party authori-
tarianism with successful economic development, which
seems to sustain the legitimacy of the political system.”
See Zhengxu Wang and Ern Ser Tan, “The Conundrum of
Authoritarian Resiliency: Hybrid Regimes and Non-Dem-
ocratic Regimes in East Asia,” Asian Barometer Working
Paper Series, no. 65 (2012), http://www.asianbarometer.
org/newenglish/publications/workingpapers/no.65 .pdf.
The coexistence and survival of both authoritarianism and
economic liberalization is what has been noted by theo-
rists like Harvey in his term ‘neoliberalism with Chinese
characteristics.’ See David Harvey, “Chapter 5 Neoliberal-
ism ‘with Chinese Characteristics,’” in A Brief History of
Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005),
120–51. 9 The terms ‘value-added’ and ‘knowledge-
based industries’ have been used by economists for the
tertiary industries, indicators for advanced, post-industri-
al economies with successful transition service economies.
In developing economies that have strong central states,
policy makers believe that provisioning spaces for these
value-added knowledge industries would expedite their
development and often practice it. See, for example, Mi-
chael E. Porter, On Competition, Harvard Business Review
Book Series (Boston: Harvard Business School, 2008).
10 A Communist party delegate said in an interview:
“powerful foreign nations wish to use culture as a weapon
against other nations, and for this reason we must work
hard to raise our country’s soft power.” See Murray Whyte,
“How China Is Using Art (and Artists) to Sell Itself to the
World,” The Toronto Star, December 12 , 2009, http://
www.thestar.com/news/insight/2009/12 /12 /how_china_
is_using_art_and_artists_to_sell_itself_to_the_world.html;
Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft
Power Is Transforming the World (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne
University Press, 2007 ). 11 The term ‘pro-image coalition’
incorporates the importance of image-projects to the
Chinese party cadre’s political advancement in the local
developmental state. Political scientist Cai Yongshun
explained that the local state agents engage in image-
building projects, which extend beyond resource alloca-
tion and predation, due to the political structure of the
party-state. The concept of the ‘pro-image coalition’ also
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies
develops urban analyst Zhu Jieming’s concept of China’s
transition urbanism’s ‘local growth coalitions,’ which is
based on urban economist Harvey Molotch’s concept of
city as ‘growth machine.’ See Molotch, “The City as a
Growth Machine”; Zhu, “Local Growth Coalition”; Yong-
shun Cai, “Irresponsible State: Local Cadres and Im-
age-Building in China,” Journal of Communist Studies
and Transition Politics 20, no. 4 (2004): 20–41; Fayong
Shi, “Local Pro-Image Coalition And Urban Governance in
China,” in Contemporary China Research Papers No 1
(Hong Kong Shue Yan University: Hong Kong Shue
Yan University, 2010). 12 President Xi Jinpin first men-
tioned the ‘Chinese Dream [中国梦]’ at an exhibition cel-
ebrating the Communist Party. The ‘Chinese Dream’ is
411
 one of “a rich and powerful nation, a revived nationality,
a well-off people.” The term has come to stand for the
re-assertion of China as an international economic as well
as cultural power. China’s premier historic position in the
world prior to its defeat by Western powers during the
modern-era is a predominant cultural narrative for the
country. It is important in shaping the slogan of the ‘Chi-
nese Dream’ of Xi’s tenure. While mimicking it, it also di-
rectly challenges the ‘American Dream,’ which has come
to represent America’s economic and cultural hegemony.
See, for example, Thomas L. Friedman, “China Needs Its
Own Dream,” The New York Times, October 2 , 2012 ,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012 /10/03 /opinion/friedman-
china-needs-its-own-dream.html; Ian Johnson, “Old Dreams
for a New China,” NYR blog, October 15, 2013, http://www.
nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/ 2013 /oct/15 /china-dream-
posters/; “Chasing the Chinese Dream,” The Economist,
May 4 , 2013, http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/
21577063 -chinas-new-leader-has-been-quick-consolidate-
his-power-what-does-he-now-want-his. Xi, emphasizing
the role that the arts plays in service of the Chinese Dream
on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of CCP ’s rule over
China, held a conference with the prominent representa-
tives of China’s artistic community in mid-October 2014 .
See “China Voice: Boom of Arts, a Must for Chinese Dream,”
Xinhua, October 16, 2014 , http://news.xinhuanet.com/en-
glish/china/2014 -10/16/c_133721891.htm. 13 Art Stage
Singapore, “The Emergence of an Open and Decentralised
Asian Art Market in 2012,” 2013. 14 “From Picasso to Qi
Baishi,” The Economist, September 29, 2012, http://www.
economist.com/node/ 21563742 . 15 Russell Flannery,
“Big Chinese Auction House Looks To Open Office In New
York,” Forbes, May 5, 2011, http://www.forbes.com/sites/
russellflannery/2011/05 /05 /big-chinese-auction-house-
looks-to-open-office-in-new-york/. 16 The term ‘apex
commodity’ is used by the author here to denote art as a
commodity item that, because of its financial value at the
high end of the spectrum, is often considered the ‘apex’
of the market hierarchy. 17 Art is also a ‘luxury good,’ not
a ‘necessity good.’ It is dependent on a growing economy
and affluent buyers, who are increasingly mobile on the
global market. Cultural economists have correlated eco-
nomic growth, disposable income (of the affluent espe-
cially), and lagging equity returns, as determinants of art
prices. See, for example, Benjamin R. Mandel, “Art as an
Investment and Conspicuous Consumption Good,” The
American Economic Review 99, no. 4 (September 1,
2009): 1653–63; William N. Goetzmann, Luc Renneboog,
and Christophe Spaenjers, “Art and Money,” American
Economic Review 101, no. 3 (2011): 222–26, doi:10.1257/
aer.101.3 .222 . 18 Three of the ten most expensive art-
works sold at auctions were by Chinese artists in 2011. Jia
Guo, “What Drives the Chinese Art Market? The Case of
Elegant Bribery” (Columbia University Business School,
2011). 19 Political economist Henry George in his book
Progress and Poverty for economic development used
the term ‘progress’ for its positive contribution to poverty
alleviation in the industrialization of America. See Henry
George, Progress and Poverty: An Enquiry into the Cause
of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with
Increase of Wealth: The Remedy (New York: H. George & Co,
412
1879). The term ‘prosperity’ has been used to denote
post-industrialization, as used by, for example, Paul Krug-
man in his book Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense
and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995). The concept
of ‘prosperity’ as applied to China is whether it will con-
tinue to grow at a sustained rate. And whether the ‘Chi-
nese model’ of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ or
‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics’ would contin-
ue to be successful. See, for example, “Pedalling Prosper-
ity,” The Economist, May 26, 2012, http://www.economist.
com/node/21555762; “The Paradox of Prosperity,” The
Economist, January 28, 2012, http://www.economist.com/
node/21543537. The term ‘from progress to prosperity’
has come to represent the aspiration to transition from
the industrialization to post-industrialization, from a de-
veloping economy to a developed economy. 20 The term
‘contemporary art ecology’ has also been actively used by
other developmental states. Singapore, for example, in
the development of the Gilman Barracks art galleries clus-
ter, as sponsored by its Economic Development Board
(EDB ), opened with a conference discussing the ‘contem-
porary art ecology.’ The discussions revolved around the
value chains and a business plan to sustain them so that
the initial state subsidies would eventually fade out. The
‘elephant in the room’ in many of the developmental
states’ discussions on developing the contemporary arts
is the economic growth that is generated. “Emerging Ecol-
ogies: Discussing Art in Asia” (Gilman Barracks, Singapore,
September 15, 2012). 21 Zhengqing Jiang 姜澄清, 中国艺
术生态论纲 [Discussion of Chinese Art Ecology] (甘肃 Gan-
su: 甘肃人民美术出版社 Gansu People’s Art Publisher,
2009). 22 Samwai Lam, “Art Ecological Chain,” A.m. Post,
May 2013 . 23 Feng Jin 金锋, “怎样理解上海的艺术生态
[How to understand Shanghai’s Art Ecology],” 艺术国际
Art International, August 16, 2008 , http://review.artintern.
net/html.php?id=2584. 24 Perry and Heilmann described
the institutional plasticity and volatility as attributes of the
Chinese party-state, which embraces uncertainty as gov-
ernance stratagem, to reap the most from the opportuni-
ties emerging from the uncertainties. See Heilmann and
Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and
Adaptive Governance in China.” 25 The world’s premier
art fair Art Basel opened to Art Basel Miami to tap into
the North American market. In the expansion into the
growing East Asian market, Shanghai had been consid-
ered a potential location, both because of its hinterland
of cultural producers and also because of the rising crop
of art patrons from the affluent coastal region around
Shanghai. Partly due to political uncertainty and the cen-
sorship of politically themed art by the cultural bureau,
Shanghai Contemporary, the art fair under consideration
of purchase by Art Basel, was not chosen. Similarly con-
siderations were given as to whether Uli Sigg, one of the
first and comprehensive collectors of Chinese contempo-
rary art, would donate his collection to an institution in
Mainland China. But due to considerations of censorship
and political uncertainty, his collection was donated to
Hong Kong. From interviews, January 2012. In both cases,
Hong Kong benefited. Art Basel Hong Kong began in 2011.
And the M+ Museum, which will house the Sigg collection,
is under construction in the West Kowloon Cultural Dis-
trict. 26 Global cities like New York, London, Singapore
are, for example, where financial public offerings are ex-
ecuted in the stock markets. Shanghai, despite having
been the ‘Dragon’s Head,’ remains behind inside the con-
fines of the Chinese transition economy. 27 The defer-
ment of complete marketization has been described with
great insight by Cao Lan, a novelist and international legal
scholar. See Lan Cao, “Chinese Privatization: Between Plan
and Market,” Law and Contemporary Problems 63 (Au-
tumn 2000): 13–62. The consequences of state control of
and intervention in the market and its economic distor-
tions are visible, for example, in the central government
propping up of the stock market after the crash in China.
See, for example, “China’s Botched Stockmarket Rescue,”
The Economist, July 30, 2015, http://www.economist.com/
blogs/economist-explains/2015/07/economist-explains-22.
28 See, for example, Sharon Zukin, “Gentrification: Cul-
ture and Capital in the Urban Core,” Annual Review of
Sociology 13 (January 1, 1987 ): 129–47; Martina Baum and
Kees Christiaanse, eds., City as Loft: Adaptive Reuse as a
Resource for Sustainable Urban Development (Zürich:
GTA Verlag, 2012). 29 Under Communist central planning
the city was depleted of all commerce other than the bare
necessities controlled by the state. All resources were di-
rected toward industrial production to achieve economic
autonomy cut off from the world economy. 30 For more
detailed analysis of the impacts of SOE reforms, see Yingyi
Qian, “Enterprise Reform in China: Agency Problems and
Political Control,” Economics of Transition 4 , no. 2 (1996):
427–447, doi:10.1111/j.1468 -0351.1996.tb00181.x; Xiaobo
Hu, “The State, Enterprises, and Society in Post-Deng Chi-
na: Impact of the New Round of SOE Reform,” Asian Sur-
vey 40, no. 4 (July 1, 2000): 641–57, doi:10.2307/3021186;
Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, and Yang Yao, “Impact and
Significance of State-Owned Enterprise Restructuring in
China,” The China Journal, no. 55 (January 1, 2006):
35–63, doi:10.2307/20066119. 31 For a detailed analysis
of the spatial redistribution of manufacturing sites, see
Sun Sheng Han, “Shanghai between State and Market in
Urban Transformation,” Urban Studies 37, no. 11 (October 1,
2000): 2091–2112 , doi:10.1080/713707226. 32 Shang-
hai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute 上海市
城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design
Institute, ed., 循迹启新- 上海城市规划演进 [Follow the
tracks and initiate the new: Evolution of Shanghai’s Ur-
ban Planning] (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji Uni-
versity Press, 2007 ), 153. 33 The author, before starting
this research project, had visited the atelier space of Deng
Kunyan in 2004 . 34 “明天,苏州河不再苏荷 [Tomorrow
Suzhou River Will No Longer Be Soho],” 新上海人 New
Shanghainese, June 5, 2002 . 35 Sheng Zhong, “From
Fabrics to Fine Arts: Urban Restructuring and the Forma-
tion of an Art District in Shanghai,” Critical Planning, no. 16
(2009): 118 –37. 36 Hung Wu, “A Case of Being ‘Contem-
porary’: Conditions, Spheres and Narratives of Contempo-
rary Chinese Art,” in Contemporary Art in Asia: A Critical
Reader, ed. Melissa Chiu and Benjamin Genocchio (Cam-
bridge, MA : MIT Press, 2011), 391–414 . 37 Mao declared
that culture must “become a part of the whole revolution-
ary machinery, so it can act as a powerful weapon in unit-
ing and educating the people while attacking and annihi-
lating the enemy, and help the people achieve solidarity
in their struggle against the enemy.” See Bonnie S. Mc-
Dougall, “Mao Zedong’s ‘Talks at the Yan’an Conference
on Literature and Art’: A Translation of the 1943 Text with
Commentary,” in Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies,
vol. 39 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The Uni-
versity of Michigan, 1980), 58 . 38 Ding Yi recounted the
1980 s as a time when the generation born after 1949
were first exposed to the outside world. He called it “the
first liberation of thinking in China since 1949 [从49 年以
来中国的第一次思想解放].” He emphasized the hovering
uncertainty that had traumatized the generation: “before
the 1980 s, you have no way of predicting your future [在
八十年代之前，你没有办法预测自己的未来].” See Yi Ding
丁义, Ding Yi Interview, interview by Zijian Wen 翁子健, No-
vember 26, 2008 , Materials of the future: Documenting
Contemporary Chinese Art From 1980–1990, http://www.
china1980 s.org/en/interview_detail.aspx?interview_id=27.
39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 It is interesting to note that the En-
glish-Chinese translations of titles are not always one-to-
one. The second Shanghai Biennale, from 1998 , for exam-
ple, has the English title of “Inheritance and Exploration.”
Its Chinese title translates more directly to “Merging and
Expanding [融合与拓展].” “1996 ~2012 上海双年展时间简史
[ Shanghai Biennale 1996 –2012, a Concise Timeline],” 艺
术世界 Art World, 2014 , http://www.yishushijie.com/mag-
azines/content-3994.aspx. 42 Ibid. The Shanghai Art Mu-
seum, under Fang, had hosted one of the earliest perfor-
mance pieces The Last Supper [最后的晚餐], which was
shut down two hours after its opening. The 1993 Gilbert
and George Exhibition and the 1998 exhibition of Seven
Japanese Contemporary Artists curated by Toshio Shimizu
both showed that, despite its reputation as a state insti-
tution, the Shanghai Art Museum’s direction under Fang
in the mid-1990 s had opened the museum to many new
and international exchanges. See, for example, Rebecca
Catching, “Why Care about the Shanghai Biennale?,” Ran-
dian 燃点, December 15, 2010, http://www.randian-online.
com/np_feature/why-care-about-the-shanghai-biennale/.
43 Hanru Hou, “Shanghai, a Naked City: Curatorial Notes,
Shanghai Biennale 2000,” in On the Mid-Ground (Hong
Kong: Timezone 8 Ltd, 2002), 230–45. 44 Douglas Fogle,
“Cities on the Move,” Flash Art, 1998, http://147.123.148.222 /
interno.php?pagina=articolo_det&id_art=382&det=ok&ti-
tle=CITIES-ON-THE-MOVE ; Andrew Gellatly, “Cities on the
Move,” Frieze Magazine, October 1999, http://www.frieze.
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies
com/issue/review/cities_on_the_move/. 45 Charles Me­
rewether, “The Freedom of Irreverence,” Art Asia Pacific,
no. 53 (June 2007 ), http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/
53/TheFreedomOfIrreverenceAiWeiwei.no. 53 (June 2007
46 “News Digest: Radical Art Blooms,” The China, January 5,
2011, thechina.biz/china-economy/radical-art-blooms/.
47 The name Shanghai [上海], when broken into the char-
acters, means ‘up [上]’ to the ‘sea [海].’ The word for
Shanghai style takes from the ‘sea [海],’ pronounced ‘hai.’
‘Shanghai style’ thus is called ‘haipai [海派],’ or literally
‘style [派]’ of ‘hai [海].’ In China there is an ongoing rivalry
of haipai, or Shanghai style, which represents China’s em-
brasure of modernity and Western influences, against jing-
pai, or Beijing style [京派], which represents attachment
413
to traditional Chinese culture. This cultural rivalry would
be a thread also in the counter Biennale led by many Bei-
jing artists who reviled Shanghai’s commercialism and
Western-leaning outlook. The name for the 2000 Biennale,
called On the Sea, Shanghai [海上.上海], was a direct play
on the words that connote haipai, which has connotations
especially of Shanghai’s modern era commercial and cul-
tural cosmopolitanism. For the modern era development
of the haipai culture, see, for example also, Marie-Claire
Bergère, “Haipai and the Ideal of Modernity,” in Shanghai:
China’s Gateway to Modernity (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 2009), 242–86; Xudong Zhang, “Shanghai Im-
age: Critical Iconography, Minor Literature, and the
Un-Making of a Modern Chinese Mythology,” New Literary
History 33, no. 1 (January 1, 2002): 137–69. 48 Scholar
of Chinese contemporary culture and film Robin Visser
had written, “the one constant of haipai culture is its prag-
matic engagement in commerce, with consumerism pro-
viding the sociological link between old Shanghai and its
post-socialist revival.” See Robin Visser, “Consuming the
Postsocialist City, Shanghai Identity in Art, Film, and Fic-
tion,” in Cities Surround the Countryside: Urban Aesthet-
ics in Post-Socialist China (Durham: Duke University Press,
2010), 179. 49 David Barrett, “Shanghai Biennale 2000,”
Eyestorm, November 2000, http://www.royaljellyfactory.
com/davidbarrett/articles/eyestorm/eye-shanghai-intro.
htm. 50 The curator and critic Feng Boyi, in an interview
from October 2000, contextualizes the exhibition in the
transition of art from a state of purity that has been erod-
ed by packaging and yield. See “2000–11–4日 不合作方式
[’Fuck Off’],” 艺术档案 www.artda.cn, April 2, 2008, http://
www.artda.cn/www/14 /2008 -04 /309.html. 51 To the
question of whether he considered The Uncooperative
Approach a satellite exhibition to the Shanghai Biennale,
Ai retorted that the exhibition’s relationship to other
events and movements could not be confined to such a
narrow view: “if one must say that this exhibition has to
do with so-and-so, then this exhibition has to do with any
cultural movements, and all movements after the May
Fourth movements. One should not limit the understand-
ing of this exhibition in such a narrow spatial time frame-
work [非要说这次展览跟谁有关，那么他和任何文化运动，和
五四以后的所有文化运动都有关。不能把这个展览放在一个特
别小的范围和狭隘的时空背景中去理解].” “2000–11–4日 不
合作方式 [’Fuck Off’],” 艺术档案 Www.artda.cn, April 2 ,
2008 , http://www.artda.cn/www/14 /2008 -04 /309.html.
52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 “形形色色外围展 ［Assortment of
Peripheral Exhibitions],” 艺术世界 Art World, January
2001. 55 Chuan Zhao 赵川, “Fuck Off: An Uncooperative
Approach,” trans. Hsuan-ying Chen, Broadsheet, Novem-
ber 6, 2010, http://www.randian-online.com/np_review/
fuck-off-an-uncooperative-approach/. 56 文化部 Cultural
Bureau, 文化部关于坚决制止以“艺术”的名义表演或展示血腥
残暴淫秽场面的通知 [Notice by the Cultural Bureau Re-
garding Firmly Banning Performances Made in the Name
of “Art” or Exhibitions Showing Violence and Sexual Con-
tent, 2001, http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/cn_law/2004 -
06 /28 /content_49708 .htm. 57 See Jie Wang 王捷 and
Wenjie Zhu 朱文洁, “苏州河仓库艺术变迁 [Suzhou River Art
Factory’s Transformation],” 东方企业家 [Asian Business
Leaders], February 9, 2003, http://business.sohu.com/02 /
414
99/article206219902.shtml. 58 Ye 娄烨 Lou, Suzhou Riv-
er 苏州河, Drama, Romance, (2001). 59 Zhen Zhang, ed.,
“Urban Dreamscape, Phantom Sisters, and the Identity of
an Emergent Art Cinema,” in The Urban Generation: Chi-
nese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First
Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007 ), 344–88 .
60 “Suzhou Creek Rehabilitation Project,” Text, Asian De-
velopment Bank, (May 31, 1999), http://www.adb.org/
projects/documents/suzhou-creek-rehabilitation-project-0.
61 Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute
上海市城市规划设计研究院 Shanghai Urban Planning and
Design Institute, 循迹启新-上海城市规划演进 [Follow the
tracks and initiate the new: Evolution of Shanghai’s Ur-
ban Planning]. 62 The artist and the architecture profes-
sor also collaborated on a book. Yuqi Han 韩妤齐 and Song
Zhang 张松, 東方的塞納左岸：蘇州河沿岸的藝術倉庫 [Left
Bank of the Seine of the East: The Art Warehouses of
Suzhou Creek] (上海 Shanghai: 上海古籍出版社 Shanghai
Classical Press, 2004), http://www.aaa.org.hk/Collection/
Details/11050. 63 “明天,苏州河不再苏荷 [Tomorrow Su-
zhou River Will No Longer Be Soho].” 64 The textile in-
dustries of Shanghai were important contributors to the
national economy since Liberation. All were privately
owned factories before 1949. They were nationalized fol-
lowing Liberation. When economic liberalization acceler-
ated and SOE reforms were implemented in the 1990 s,
the sector in Shanghai disintegrated. Large number of its
blue-collar workers were laid off during the SOE reforms.
See Chi-Wen Jevons Lee, “Financial Restructuring of State
Owned Enterprises in China: The Case of Shanghai Sunve
Pharmaceutical Corporation,” Accounting, Organizations
and Society 26 , no. 7–8 (October 2001): 673–89,
doi:10.1016/S0361-3682(00)00007-6. Following reforms,
the former SOE s that weren’t privatized were restructured
and corporatized. 65 “莫干山路 画家聚集处 [Moganshan
Lu Artist Cluster],” 上海一周 Shanghai Week, September
2002, http://enjoy.eastday.com/epublish/gb/paper253/1/
class025300003 /hwz893216 .htm. 66 Ibid. 67 Under
planned economy, artists were largely engaged as teach-
ers in state institutions for art. Teaching, along with art
production for the state, was the only means of livelihood
for artists, as there was no art market for financially sup-
porting artists and their productions. Under economic
transition, many artists remained in the state institutions.
To many in Chinese society, including the SOE landlord of
Moganshan Lu 50, the profession of teaching remains
highly respected and is associated with the intellectual
class. Thus, compared to the small manufacturing that
took place in places like Moganshan Lu 50, the artists, who
were also teachers, were welcome because of their social
class. Weidong Jin 金伟东 and Alexia Dehaene, “从M50到
新桃浦 [From M50 to New Taopu]” (“上海惊奇”展览系列讲
座 [“Shanghai Surprise” Exhibition Lecture Series], K11,
Shanghai, March 3 , 2013). 68 Zhong, “From Fabrics to
Fine Arts: Urban Restructuring and the Formation of an
Art District in Shanghai.” 69 Ibid. 70 ‘Administratively-al-
located land’ refers to land that has been allocated by the
state to institutional users, usually for free or for a nomi-
nal price. The previous chapters have elaborated on how
the coexistence of administratively-allocated land with
lease-hold land has created the dual land market under
transition economy. 71 Zhong, “From Fabrics to Fine Arts:
Urban Restructuring and the Formation of an Art District
in Shanghai.” 72 Jing Lou 娄靖, “上海‘苏荷’前途未卜 [Shang­
hai’s SoHo: Hanging in the Balance],” 人民日报 People’s
Daily, August 17, 2004 . 73 Zhong, “From Fabrics to Fine
Arts: Urban Restructuring and the Formation of an Art Dis-
trict in Shanghai.” 74 Feng Xie 谢岚, “莫干山路50 号‘变形
记’ [Moganshan Lu 50 ‘Transformation’],” 新闻晨报 Shang-
hai Morning Post, August 14 , 2005, http://old.jfdaily.com/
gb/node2 /node4085/node4141/node44005/userobject
1ai1027783 .html. 75 Ibid. 76 Feng Xie 谢岚, “热闹点挺
好，但最好别太吵 [Popular is good, but not too rowdy],”
新闻晨报 Shanghai Morning Post, August 14, 2005, http://
old.jfdaily.com/gb/node 2 /node 4085 /node 4141 /node
44005/userobject1ai1027782 .html. 77 The party-state is
appropriating the language and processes learned since
economic transition necessitated global integration. Con-
temporary art, often considered a developed economy
cultural phenomenon, needs special training. For the
CCP ’s new techniques of training its cadres for the glob-
ally connected world, see, for example, “The Party and the
Media, Learning to Spin,” The Economist, February 8 ,
2014 , http://www.economist.com/news/china/21595925 -
communist-party-training-school-functionaries-learn-
how-handle-more-aggressive-news. For an analysis of the
Chinese party-state’s manipulation of contemporary ad-
vertising, evolving from the ideological origins in the cen-
trally planned economy, see also, for example, Geremie
R. Barmé, “CCPTM and ADCULT PRC ,” The China Journal,
no. 41 (January 1, 1999): 1–23, doi:10.2307/2667585. See
also Murong Xuecun, “The New Face of Chinese Propa-
ganda,” New York Times, December 22 , 2013 . 78 As
elaborated in the previous chapters, the decoupling of
political reform from economic reform had confounded
Western political scientists who anticipated that the de-
velopment of a market economy would lead to political
democracy. 79 http://www.redtownsh.com/ 80 Interview
2012 . ShangTex [上海纺织集团], the corporatized SOE ,
which arose out of the decline of the textile industries in
the economic restructuring of the late-1990 s is the um-
brella organization above the Chunming Woolen Mill. The
head of Chunming holds the titles of Chairman of Shang-
hai M50 Creative Industry Development Co., LTD , Market-
ing Director of Shanghai Textile Fashion Industry Devel-
opment co., LTD . And was the factory Director of Shanghai
Chunming Woolen Mill, President of M50 Creative Industry
Park, Executive Director of Shanghai Wuling Creative In-
dustry Development Co., LTD . 81 Jin 金伟东 and Dehaene,
“从M50到新桃浦 [From M50 to New Taopu].” 82 “New Kid
on Art Block: Taopu M50,” Shanghai Daily, January 1, 2012,
http://www.gg-art.com/news/read.php?newsid= 87129.
83 Shane McIansland et al., eds., Ding Yi: What’s Left to
Appear [丁乙：何所示] Exhibition Catalogue (Shanghai 上
海: 上海世纪出版社 Shanghai Century Press, 2015), http://
eprints.soas.ac.uk/20140/1 /Ding %20Yi %20 Catalogue_
complete.pdf. 84 Shanghai municipality is subdivided
into a number of districts that wield power that would be
equivalent to that of municipalities in other cities. Thus,
the approval by the district in Shanghai is important to
confer legitimacy to the museum. This aspect of the com-
plexity of the Chinese bureaucracy was recently highlight-
ed in “The nomenklatura—Vertical meets horizontal—Who
really holds the power in China?” (2012, December 1) The
Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/
news/china/21567427-who-really-holds-power-china-
vertical-meets-horizontal. 85 Art Basel purchased the
Hong Kong Art Fair to become its Asian hub of Art Basel
Hong Kong. Hong Kong remains the exceptional location
in China as a Special Administrative Region. Publications
banned in China are published in Hong Kong, for example.
And despite increasing control by the central government,
freedom of speech and for assembly and protest has re-
mained the precious asset that has become even more
emphasized in Hong Kong. Many of the institutions estab-
lished before its return to China in 1997 remain. Compared
to the opaque, repressive and irregular political system of
China that is still largely outside of the writ of internation-
al regulations, Hong Kong’s relatively transparent rule-
of-law and global financial integration provides a stabili-
ty and confidence that is unique in China. 86 Barrett,
“Shanghai Biennale 2000.” 87 Ibid. 88 Barbara Pollack,
“Risky Business,” March 29, 2012 , http://www.artnews.
com/2012 /03/29/risky-business/. 89 “The Problem with
Made in China,” The Economist, January 11, 2007, http://
www.economist.com/node/8515811. 90 Philippe Pirotte,
“Belief of Conscious,” accessed April 20, 2014 , http://
www.madeincompany.com/en_bk/article-show.asp?­
kid=28 &id=10. 91 Ibid. 92 The Shanghai Square is part
of the developments along Middle Huaihai Lu [淮海中路],
which includes also the K11 tower, Shui-on Plaza, among
others. Located also just north of the Xintiandi site, it was
part of Luwan District’s strategic growth in the 1990 s. The
buildings, as urban scholar Zhu Jieming and his col-
leagues assessed, represent the foreign investment, most-
ly from Hong Kong, engaged in large scale real estate
development. See Jieming Zhu, Loo-Lee Sim, and Xing-
Quan Zhang, “Global Real Estate Investments and Local
Cultural Capital in the Making of Shanghai’s New Office
Locations,” Habitat International 30, no. 3 (September
2006): 462–81, doi:10.1016 /j.habitatint.2004 .12 .003 .z
93 Jialu Shen 沈嘉禄, “‘超市艺术“刺激? 恶心?［”Art in Su-
permarket’ Exciting? Disgusting?］,” 新民周刊 New Citizen
Weekly, 1999. 94 Davide Quadrio [大豆] commented on
why BizArt is like a training center for artists starting out:
“for an artist to go right away to a commercial gallery is
not good for his career. But I don’t try to produce artists
for the art market, rather for the cultural market.” Rebec-
ca Catching, “For Art’s Sake, BizArt’s Non-Commercial Ap-
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies
proach to Culture,” June 2006, http://www.artlinkart.com/
en/space/txt/fbcbyv. 95 Ibid. 96 “BizArt,” Artfactories,
September 24 , 2004 , http://www.artfactories.net/Bi-
zArt-Shanghai,78 .html. 97 Since economic liberalization
began, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese
party-state appropriates market practices and integrates
with the world where it is economically beneficial. But the
state retains political control in the continuity of its rule.
Contemporary art is useful to represent to the outside
world China’s global integration. The kind of public and
institutional financial support for artists that is present in
developed capitalist countries is missing. This lack indi-
cates both the rapidness of economic transition and the
nascency of the contemporary arts developments. The
415
 social and political commentary and critique that are of-
ten part of the intellectual engagement of contemporary
artists also poses a threat to the party-state governance
practices. Thus, in this context, the processes of art pro-
duction, despite products that may look like works from
developed market economy countries, remain beholden
to the local context. 98 Retrieved from http://www.
madeincompany.com 99 Subtleties in language have
been deployed as resistance and critique against the gov-
ernment in China. See Astrid Nordin and Lisa Richaud,
“Subverting Official Language and Discourse in China? Type
River Crab for Harmony,” China Information 28 , no. 1
(March 1, 2014): 47–67, doi:10.1177/0920203X14524687.
100 Don J. Cohn, “Shanghai Expo Cai Guo Qiang And The
Chinese Dreamship,” ArtAsiaPacific, June 2010, http://art­
asiapacific.com/Magazine/68 /ShanghaiExpoCaiGuoQiang
AndTheChineseDreamship. 101 Alexandra A. Seno, “Chi-
na’s Zhang Turns Ash Into Spectacle,” Wall Street Journal,
October 22, 2011, sec. Life and Style, http://www.wsj.com/
news/articles/SB 100014240529702036331045766
25312822080454 . 102 Shanghai as a city rose to impor-
tance after China was forced to cede a number of import-
ant and strategic ports to the alliance of foreign forces
who defeated the weakened last Chinese ruling dynasty,
the Qing, in the First Opium War. The urban areas ceded
to foreign sovereignty came to be called Concessions and
were special economic zones—outside of the jurisdiction
of Chinese sovereignty they took on functions that met
the financial needs of foreign powers entering the vast
Chinese market. It was in the Concessions where the cir-
culation of early 20 th century global capital produced
Western-styled financial and civic buildings. Even though
the Concessions were regarded by the CCP as represent-
ing the kind of foreign domination when it came to pow-
er in 1949, their urban form, with modern street layouts
and building types, became increasingly important to
Shanghai’s re-globalization as economic liberalization ac-
celerated. 103 Jonathan Li, “Sinolink to Raise $500 Mil-
lion For Chinese Real-Estate Fund,” Wall Street Journal,
March 1, 2006, sec. News, http://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB114115583871385627. 104 Ibid. 105 The concept that
the Asian collective is distinct from a Western one in its
public spaces was originally proposed by the theorists of
the post-war generation like the Japanese architect Fumi-
hiko Maki and his colleagues. Architects like Tay Kheng
Soon and William Lim took up these concepts and realized
design proposals for the Asian collective space. The shop-
ping center type became recognized as a form for public
space in Asia, as much as the market square or parks were
in the West. 106 See the website of K11 Art Founda-
tion for its motto. http://www.k11artfoundation.org/en/.
107 The region around Shanghai has historically been the
hub of commercial affluence and literati culture, and is
known for its less direct manner of communication that
avoids confrontation, even if provocative. This cultural leg-
acy has made the expression of critiques embedded and
circuitous rather than explicit. Since modernity, Shanghai
is formed by the demographic influx from the region. This
inherited legacy of the subtlety of critique is reflected not
only in the distinct sorts of “language games” that are
played by the artists working in Shanghai and the region,
416
but also in the visual metaphors that push the boundaries
of censors while seeming to retreat from the forbidden.
Xu Zheng’s MadeIn and Art Biz, for example, are not an
explicit critique of commercialization, whereas Ai Weiwei’s
F*ck off is direct and confrontational. Both Zhang Huan
and Cai Guoqiang’s pieces at Rockbund address crucial
issues in China’s political economy, from social hegemony
to rural development, but neither could be caught as
confrontational. The Shanghai catchment area thus
denotes the region that both accommodates and attracts
these similarly pragmatic sensibilities. It is for this reason
that Ai regards Shanghai as commercial. But it is this
pragmatism of working with the restraints of censor-
ship that brought about pieces that are extremely inter-
esting in the between-the-line subtleties in critique that
are multiple in meaning and nuanced in expression.
108 The Uncooperative Approach could be read as ex-
emplary of the direct confrontation led by Beijing-based
artists to authority. Some of the Shanghai-based artists
that were part of the show have become established and
their pieces are included in the K11 show. 109 The orga-
nizer spoke with enthusiasm about one of the premier
institutions of research and criticism for Asian contempo-
rary art, the Asia Art Archive (AAA ), located in Hong Kong,
and envied its context, as a relatively more stable institu-
tional framework that also makes possible a more certain
future for an archive of contemporary art development in
East Asia. 110 So, Alvin Y., and Yin-wah Chu. 2012. “The
Transition from Neoliberalism to State Neoliberalism in
China at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century.” In Devel-
opmental Politics in Transition, edited by Chang Kyung-
Sup, Ben Fine, and Linda Weiss, 166–87. Palgrave
Macmillan. 111 “2000–11–4日 不合作方式 [’Fuck Off’].”
112 The district party secretary was well known as a
staunch patron of innovative design and world-recog-
nized Chinese contemporary art. He had nurtured a crop
of young architects with projects in Qingpu and Jiading
through his patronage when he had served as their lead-
ers. Examples of the projects that the district party secre-
tary developed in the suburban districts of Qingpu and
Jiading have been featured. See, for example, Yuyang Liu
刘宇扬, Xiangning Li 李翔宁, and Harry den Hartog, eds.,
公共外延 上海青浦与嘉定的当代建筑实践 [Edge of Public
Contemporary Architecture in Shanghai’s Qingpu and
Jiading New Towns], 2011 Hong Kong and Shenzhen Bi-
City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, 2011. 113 Ai has
repeatedly commented on the hollow materialism of
Shanghai, which he disdains in his blogs and interviews.
It is also distaste for the more indirect, ambiguous and
negotiating approach of the artists from around Shanghai,
as distinct from that of the Beijing artists, of whom Ai is
a prominent member known for his outspoken and ex-
plicit provocation. 114 In the interview held by Zhang Yu
with Ai Weiwei, the discussion was about the architectur-
al development of the space for a studio. See 建筑是生活
的自然流露—艾未未上海嘉定大裕村工作室设计访谈 [An in-
terview with Ai Weiwei about his workshop Dayu village,
Jiading in Shanghai], interview by Yu Zhang 张彧 and Wei-
wei Ai 艾未未, August 18 , 2008 , http://aiwwstudy.appspot.
com/20001.html. 115 Flora Zhang, “China’s Olympic
Crossroads: Bird’s Nest Designer Ai Weiwei on Beijing’s
‘Pretend Smile,’” Rings Blog, 1217861255, http://beijing
2008 .blogs.nytimes.com/2008 /08 /04 /chinas-olympic-
crossroads-birds-nest-designer-ai-weiwei-on-beijings-
pretend-smile/. 116 Ai Weiwei’s exhibition at Haus der
Kunst in Munich in 2009 had covered the façade of the
building with children’s schoolbags, forming a pattern in
Chinese characters quoting a mother describing her dead
child: “she had lived in this world happily for seven years
[她在这个世界上开心地生活了七年].” It was also during his
stay in Munich that he underwent surgery for a brain hem-
orrhage. The brain hemorrhage was caused by police bru-
tality in reaction to Ai’s research for the Sichuan Earth-
quake Names Project and his testifying in defense of two
activists researching government corruption in contribu-
tion to the collapse of schoolhouses during the Sichuan
earthquake of 2008 . See Katherine Grube, “Ai Weiwei
Challenges China’s Government Over Earthquake,” Art­
AsiaPacific, August 2009, http://artasiapacific.com/Mag-
azine/ 64 /AiWeiweiChallengesChinasGovernmentOver-
Earthquake; Katherine Grube, “Ai Continues Activism
Against China Government Responds,” ArtAsiaPacific,
October 2009, http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/65 /
BeijingAiContinuesActivismAgainstChinaGovernment
Responds. 117 See “艾未未上海马陆工作室建拆纪要 [Ai
Weiwei Shanghai Malu Studio Construction Demolition
Timeline],” accessed April 3, 2012, http://aiwwstudy.app
spot.com/14001.html. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 120 “艾未未上
海马陆工作室建拆纪要 [Ai Weiwei Shanghai Malu Studio
Construction Demolition Timeline].” 121 Andrew Jacobs
and Jonathan Ansfield, “Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Chi-
nese Dissident Liu Xiaobo,” The New York Times, Octo-
ber 8 , 2010, sec. World, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/
10/09/world/09 nobel.html. 122 See “艾未未上海马陆工
作室建拆纪要 [Ai Weiwei Shanghai Malu Studio Construc-
tion Demolition Timeline].” 123 Nordin and Richaud,
“Subverting Official Language and Discourse in China?”
124 The media response to the event was overwhelming.
See, for example, Evan Osnos, “Ai Weiwei and the Art of
Demolition—The New Yorker,” The New Yorker, January
12 , 2011, http://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/
ai-weiwei-and-the-art-of-demolition; Edward Wong, “Chi-
nese Government Tears Down Studio of Ai Weiwei,” The
New York Times, January 12, 2011, http://www.nytimes.
com/2011/01/13/world/asia/13china.html; “China Artist Ai
Weiwei’s Shanghai Studio Demolished,” BBC News, Jan-
uary 12, 2011, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pa-
cific-12174873. 125 Shows featuring Ai Weiwei’s works
opened in Bregenz, Austria, and Winterthur, Switzerland
in July 2011, and in fall 2011 in London, New York, and
Taipei. 126 From discussions with several local intellec-
tuals and artists in China, they mention that Ai was the
only one with such stature who could push the boundar-
ies of the party-state authority. Thus, they see his provo-
cations as deliberate, and part of a broader publicity
project. 127 See “2000–11–4日 不合作方式 [’Fuck Off’].”
128 Movius, Lisa. (2011, January 11) “Whither 696 Weihai
Lu?” Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.
com/scene/2011/01/11/whither-696-weihai-lu/ 129 Da-
vid Barboza, “Former Party Boss in China Gets 18 Years,”
The New York Times, April 12, 2008 , sec. International /
Asia Pacific, http://www.nytimes.com/2008 /04 /12 /world/
asia/12 shanghai.html. 130 For more detailed develop-
ment of the Jing’an Villas areas, see the chapter “The Mid-
town of China.” 131 Simon, Denis Fred, and Detlef Rehn.
1987. “Innovation in China’s Semiconductor Components
Industry: The Case of Shanghai.” Research Policy 16 (5):
259–77. doi:10.1016/0048 -7333(87 )90010 -2. 132 Inter-
views 2013. This was a common complaint amongst young
designers who still lack the financial resources to be pre-
sented at a Biennale. Unlike Biennales in the developed
countries, where designers are selected to present their
work and often given a stipend for their contribution, Chi-
nese designers without the right connections could pay
their way into part of a show. 133 Yingqiong Qiu 裘颖琼,
“东方梦工厂今日落户上海徐汇 ‘梦中心’园区2016 年诞生 [Ori-
ental Dreamworks Settles in Shanghai Xuhui Today,
‘Dreamworks Center’ Cluster Will Be Realized in 2016],” 东
方早报 Oriental Morning Post, August 7, 2012 , http://
finance.sina.com.cn/roll/20120807/152712782142 .shtml.
134 See, for example, “西岸传媒港 城市设计进入最终成果
评选.” 2013. 西岸, January. 135 Interview with represen-
tative of the Shanghai West Bund Development Group
[上海西岸开发集团], 2013. 136 “Preface,” 西岸 West Bund,
January 2013. 137 In the opening words to the new pub-
lication dedicated to the West Bund development, called
West Bund [西岸], the district party secretary notably
compared the Binjiang development to that of Paris’ Rive
Gauche and London’s South Bank, areas known for their
cultural life, in Paris’ case, and their contemporary art in-
stitutions, in London’s case. See Ibid. The naming of the
area of Xuhui Binjiang also went through several iterations
before arriving at the English name of West Bund. From
the author’s interview with the representative of the West
Bund Development Group, a previous iteration of the
name of the development area in 2012 had been a liter-
al translation of the Chinese name of ‘西岸’ as ‘West Bank,’
which because of its use already in Israel-Palestine, had
problematic suggestions. 138 For reportage of the rise
of Liu and Wang as art collectors, see, for example, Iona
Whittaker, “Liu Yiqian Acquires Antique ‘Chicken Cup’ for
USD 36 Million,” April 11, 2014 , http://www.randian-online.
com/np_market/liu-yiqian-acquires-antique-chicken-cup-
for-usd36 -million/; Donghuan Xu, “‘Uncultured’ Multi-Bil-
lionaire Is China’s Biggest Fine-Art Collector,” South China
Morning Post, April 22 , 2014 , http://www.scmp.com/
news/china/article/1494278 /uncultured-multibillionaire-
chinas-biggest-fine-art-collector; Frederik Balfour, “The
Expensive Antics of China’s Gaudiest Billionaire,” Bloom­
Chapter 6 The Contemporary Art Ecologies
berg, April 16, 2015, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/ 2015 - 04 - 17/the-expensive-antics-of-china-s-
gaudiest-billionaire. 139 Under this business model that
is prevalent in the spatial production for cultural spaces
under the institutional framework of the transition econ-
omy, the architect bears the extraneous responsibility.
Even though the programmatic needs for the museum
building were already determined because of the knowl-
edge of the art collection belonging to the user, the ar-
chitect must still equilibrate the wishes of the client and
that of the user. Discussion with the architects, 2016. Of-
ten under the institutional framework of China’s transition
economy, because of political leadership changes, agree-
ments made under one leader would often undergo revi-
417
 sions under another ensuing leader, leading to potentials
for conflicts, as is the case for the Long Museum.
140 Yichun Liu 柳亦春, “原始与当代 龙当代美术馆的设计思
考 [Primitive and contemporary, the design concept for
the Long Contemporary Art Museum],” 西岸 West Bund,
no. 1 (January 2013): 26–31. 141 In a brief conversation
at the Long Museum in 2014 , Wang Wei, the director of
the Long Museum, expressed concern for the commercial
sustainability of the museum. Her ideas for family pack-
ages for visitors, and opening new cafés and educational
programs, were all commercial concepts for the muse-
um. 142 Interview with the YUZ Foundation representa-
tives, 2013. 143 Hong Wu 巫鸿, ed., 2011巴厘岛对话，当
代艺术的知识生产 [2011 Bali Conversations: Knowledge
Production in Contemporary Art] (Guangzhou 广州: 岭南
美术出版社 Lingnan Art Press, 2012). 144 See Chapter 4 ,
“The Midtown of China,” for the developmental ambitions
for the Jing’an District and how culture has increasingly
played a role in the commercial projects developed since
the mid-2000 s. Jing’an’s networks with international con-
sultants have also tried to create the buzz around its con-
cepts for a media and fashion hub in the city center.
145 The Shanghai Urban Planning Institute, for example,
moved one of its institutes into a building in the former
Expo site. Nevertheless, the number of people is still lack-
ing. 146 Dekuan Deng, “Westbund Art & Design Fair
Opens in September,” Randian 燃点, June 27, 2014 , http://
www.randian-online.com/np_news/westbund-art-design/;
Jun Zhang 张骏, “西岸艺术设计博览会9月举行 [West Bund
Art Fair Opens in September],” 解放日报 Liberation Daily,
July 2, 2014 , sec. 09－文化 Culture. 147 The West Bund
Art and Design Fair hosted 20 top galleries to cover the
8 ,000 square-meter space. It was clearly a subsidized af-
fair that was part of the attempt to attract international
investment in the form of contemporary art in the area.
148 Interviews with gallerists from M50, 2015. 149 “西
岸的发展与城市关系－孙继伟与李湘宁对谈 [The relation-
ship between West Bund Development and the City—
Dialogue between Sun Jiwei and Li Xiangning].,” in 进程
418
西岸 2013建筑与当代艺术双年展 West Bund 2013 A Bien-
nale of Architecture and Contemporary Art, vol. 1: Archi-
tecture, 2 vols. (Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社 Tongji Uni-
versity Press, 2013), 21–25. Shanghai 上海: 同济大学出版社
Tongji University Press. 150 Xiaolin Liu, “Reframing the
Art of Photography,” Shanghai Daily, November 13, 2016,
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sunday/art/Reframing-
the-art-of-photography/shdaily.shtml. 151 Shu Shu 舒抒,
“‘南拓北联’文化空间成片 [Opening South Connecting North,
Cultural Spaces Becomes Area ],” 解放日报 Liberation Dai-
ly, August 24 , 2016, sec. 2, http://newspaper.jfdaily.com/
jfrb/html/2016 -08 /24 /content_212980.htm. 152 Justin
Bergman, “An Arts Explosion Takes Shanghai,” Novem-
ber 18 , 2015, https://cn.nytstyle.com/culture/20151110/t
10 shanghai-cultured/en-us/. 153 Jason Chow, “Chinese
Create Tax-Free Zone for Art,” Wall Street Journal, March
24 , 2013, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014
24127887323854904578261171833355606 . 154 Ibid.
155 Gu, Huiyan 顾慧妍. 2013. “上海：全国首家艺术品保税
区崛起 [Shanghai: First Art Freeport Zone in the Nation to
Start].” 投资有道 Investment Way. April 9. http://news.
99 ys.com/news/2013 /0409/9_124592 _1.shtml. 156 In-
terestingly, Hong Kong, as the tax-free zone, for which Art
Basel’s acquisition of an Asian location was prioritized,
was out of the running as a site for setting up a Freeport
art storage space, because of Hong Kong’s uncompetitive
property tax. On the other hand, Singapore and Shang-
hai’s state subsidies, in the form of property tax free lo-
cations, make up for other locational disadvantages. In-
terview with the Singapore Freeport’s personnel, 2013.
157 Shanghai’s selection as the ‘Dragon’s Head’ in 1992,
like that of Shenzhen in the 1980 s, could be thought of
as urban loopholes of exceptions on the national scale.
They allowed for ‘exemptions’ of marketization in a
planned economy to occur in the larger territory without
forgoing continuity in political economy. 158 http://www.
randian-online.com/np_event/trespassing-yang-zhen-
zhongs-solo-show/
Chapter 7
Outlook

Cases from Shanghai and Urban Loopholes

Shifts in the Urban Loopholes under Economic Transition
The Urban Loopholes as Equilibrators and Learning From the Urban Loophole
 “Paris was the capital of the 19th century. New York was of the 20th century. Shanghai
will perhaps be the capital of the 21st century?”

There are several reasons to understand the rapid changes that have transformed Chi-
nese cities. In our globalized world, where international architects from developed
economies often descend on the rapidly developing countries, planning villages the
size of small European cities at speeds that far outpace the industrialization and
urbanization of the West, specificities of context are crucial for architects to under-
stand. The astronomical economic rise of China, with the country’s growing political
clout on the world stage, also compels the unraveling of the logic of its tickings.
The focus from the Western media has highlighted the social polarization, labor
contestations, corruption, pollution and food scandals that seemed to be symptomatic
of China’s rapid rise. Social scientists and political theorists have sought to define the
patterns and pathways for the developments in Chinese cities. The concepts of adap-
tive governance and amphibious institutions, among others, which political theorists
define based on vocabulary developed from both Western experiences and the local
institutional context, help clarify the Chinese party-state’s political resilience under
economic transition. The predominant conceptual frameworks for understanding Chi-
na’s urban transition, however, remain embedded in the logic of Western institutional
structures. Planning scholars identified “the experimental, incremental and pragmat-
ic path that is unpredictable in the short-term,”1 which shapes China’s contemporary
planning institutions. They cogently explained that “whereas marketization creates an
ungovernable tendency, it also provides the opportunity for the state to innovate with-
in its system and consequently to solve institutional constraints.”2 Yet they stop short
of offering a conceptual framework for spatial production specific to these conditions
that predominate many parts of the developing world. The question seems to be, how
can we understand those “experimental,” “incremental,” “pragmatic” and “unpredict-
able” developments as the norm rather than the exception?
The existence of city center areas in Shanghai, where an equilibrium of complex
drivers created diverse and globally integrated neighborhoods while embedded in ves-
tiges of planned economy, begs a different reference point. What is China doing right
under its transition economy? Is it possible, for example, that Shanghai’s incremen-
tal, adaptive and small-scaled developments in its city center neighborhoods, which
have defied and prospered under homogenizing and segregating forces—forces that
have uncompromisingly restructured large parts of the cities after accelerated liber-
alization—could reveal a different framework for thinking about cities under rapid
transition?
As illustrated by the cases in this book, the concept of the urban loophole propos-
es a framework specific to the often illiberal and rapidly changing developing po-
litical economies of the non-West in order to understand their spatial productions.
Specifically, the urban loophole, as theoretical framework, elucidates how the city
center neighborhoods in Shanghai, which have come to represent the city’s global
integration, survived and thrived in the context of rapid economic transition. De-
spite the look of deliberate curation and globalized ambiance in these neighborhoods,
their spatial productions are unplanned, and are inextricable from the institutional
frameworks of China’s political economy. The cases analyzed in this book untangle

424
 the processes and pathways for these urban spatial productions that seem exception-
al by Western standards, yet are the norm in many parts of the rapidly developing
political economies of the non-West. They reveal how the urban loopholes, which me-
diate between planned and market economics in the Chinese context, not only facili-
tated development but also enabled the resilience of a developmental autocracy under
economic transition.3 More pertinently, the framework of the urban loophole offers a
method of thinking about and understanding spatial production in cities under tran-
sition, which is taking place at unprecedented scales and speeds in many parts of the
developing world today.

Cases from Shanghai and Urban Loopholes

The chapters in the section, “Preservation via Inhabitation,” follow the evolution of one
neighborhood through two lenses, bringing heritage conservation and housing mar-
ketization together. Chapter 2, “The Residential Neighborhood,” shows how diaspora
capital began to reconfigure the city center neighborhood in the 1980s and influenced
the nascent institutions of commodity housing in the 1990s. The consequent demo-
graphic changes and changing consumption demands spurred bottom-up street-front
commercial developments in the early 2000s. These bottom-up developments exploit-
ed urban loopholes of gaps and ambiguities in the first decade of economic transition,
facilitating the localization of global knowledge flows with the tacit consent of the
local state. Exploiting the undervalued but centrally located historic buildings, state
institutions and small entrepreneurs incrementally transformed historical buildings
into pioneers of heritage reuse projects catering to the creative class. While the street-
front developments cultivated a global trend quarter vibe, the same historic buildings
remain mired in the residual institutions of the planned economy. Since the 1990s, the
dual housing market, created by the coexistence of privately owned commodity, or
‘ownership right’ housing, with publicly managed ‘use-right’ housing, was the basis
for many of the bottom-up urban loopholes in the city center neighborhood. The dual
housing market, in which the majority of the historic housing is publicly managed
‘use-right’ housing that remains embedded in the residual institutions of the planned
economy, also protracts the wicked problem of Chinese urbanism, notably where the
residents are trapped between development and conservation.
A closer look at the neighborhood transformations show that the global-looking
spaces visible in the city center neighborhood are products of entrepreneurial prow-
ess, the local state’s adaptive governance, the dual markets of the transition econo-
my, as well as the spatial legacies of modern era planning and architecture. Set in the
same neighborhood as analyzed in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 traces the academic, popular
and state recognition of modern era planning and architecture since the 1980s and
the development of heritage conservation in Shanghai, culminating in the designa-
Chapter 7 Outlook

tion of Wukang Lu as “The Cultural Street,” in the mid-2000s. While mass media, facil-
itated by linkages to the diaspora, revived popular interest in Shanghai’s modern era
history, academics and bureaucrats garnered concepts and practices for heritage and
conservation established in the West, localizing these concepts and practices in their
call to conserve Shanghai’s modern era historic and cultural fengmao. The municipal

425
 establishment of the heritage conservation plan in the mid-2000s defined Shanghai’s
conservation districts, the largest of which includes the city center neighborhood an-
alyzed in Chapter 2 and its centerpiece, Wukang Lu. The conservation plan restricted
demolition and densification in the conservation districts, driving up the real estate
value of historic buildings that are largely publicly managed. The conservation plan,
in essence, preserved the residual institutions of the planned economy, affirming the
state ownership of historic buildings in the modern era neighborhood, as elaborat-
ed in Chapter 2. Making possible the urban loophole of exceptions in the second de-
cade of economic transition, the conservation plan helps advance the interests of the
increasingly involved developmental local state. The local state increasingly engag-
es academic proponents of heritage conservation, absolving them of their criticality
through their employment, and exploits their historic knowledge to justify measures
for socio-economic upgrades. The conservation-based upgrade and selective commer-
cialization of Wukang Lu exemplifies the inevitable effect of its designation as ‘Cultur-
al Street.’ Local state crackdowns on small entrepreneurs and the demolition of small
enterprises in the name of heritage conservation since 2016—all following the comple-
tion of the research for this book—also illustrate the consequences of the urban loop-
hole of exceptions. In the local institutional frameworks of a developing and authori-
tarian transition economy, the local state deploys the conservation plan, wrought from
urban practices appropriated from developed and liberal Western political economies,
in order to justify discretionary authority.
Shanghai’s conservation plan, nevertheless, halted the erosion of socio-econom-
ic diversity by the more prevalent en-bloc redevelopments that rapidly homogenize
neighborhoods, despite its undertone of encouraging incremental and premeditated
gentrification. The spatial coexistence of Communist-era elites alongside new entre-
preneurs, of transnational creatives next to migrant restaurateurs, at the time of this
writing, manifests a precarious and precious socio-spatial diversity under transition
economy.
Whereas the first section, “Preservation via Inhabitation,” looked at the same area
through different lenses in order to reconceptualize the overlap of conservation and
housing, the second section, “Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics,” analyzes
three different areas undergoing transformation in three chapters. The three chapters
show how gentrification, as a phenomenon that sociologists defined from economi-
cally developed and liberal Western political economies, inflects in a developing and
authoritarian transition economy. Despite the physical products that look similar to
those from gentrification in the West, the cases show how unique institutional frame-
works dictate the processes of urban transformation.
In Chapter 4, “The Midtown of China,” the historic lilong compound of Jing’an Vil-
las underwent a bottom-up upgrade since the mid-2000s but was harshly shut down
in 2014. At first, Jing’an Villas’ transnational entrepreneurs reproduced spaces and
products in the image of global creative hubs, fulfilling the demands for consumption
and creative production spaces that were also seemingly in line with the global aspi-
rations of the local state. Retracing the pathway of development for the larger West
Nanjing Lu corridor, which the local state and its affiliates dubbed as the ‘Midtown
of China,’ shows the broader economic interest of the local state-led pro-growth co-
alition. The political context of local state competition also precludes non-state-affil-

426
iated bottom-up developments, leading to the shutdown of Jing’an Villas’ bottom-up
developments.
In contrast to the transformation of Jing’an Villas by non-state-affiliated entrepre-
neurs, the upgrade of Yongkang Lu and the development of the Anken Green hub, ana-
lyzed in the chapter “The New Economies,” offer development modes that engage and
promote, rather than contradict the interests of the local state. By adding revenue and
imageability to the local state through their spatial products, Yongkang Lu’s upgrade
and the Anken Green project exemplify the procedural legitimacy necessary for spa-
tial innovation. The Anken Green project highlights the urban loophole of exception,
namely that of the designation of creative industries clusters, which the municipali-
ty created to commercialize the planned economy legacy of administratively-allocated
land. In the Yongkang Lu upgrade, the direct financial engagement of the local state
and its affiliated state institutions solidified its development prospects. It is the deci-
sive role of the local state and its affiliated state institutions that ultimately endors-
es or overturns spatial productions. As reflected in selective shutdowns on Yongkang
Lu that took place in 2016, following the completion of the research for this book, dis-
cretionary politics and adaptive governance confirm the limitations of urban loopholes.
Chapter 6, “The Contemporary Art Ecologies,” offers a larger-scale or macro per-
spective for the converging interests of cultural diplomacy, real estate development
and political advancement. The cases from Shanghai show that the central party-state
remains the final and ultimate decision maker in the changing constellations of inter-
ests and alliances, even within the different layers of the state itself. The urban loop-
holes, contingent on the dual market under economic transition, overlapped with the
nationally prioritized and municipally incentivized creativity impetus. When the spa-
tial productions resulting from the urban loopholes threatened to destabilize the larg-
er political structure, the central state swiftly supersedes lower levels of the state and
close the urban loopholes.
As the chapters in the section, “Gentrification with Chinese Characteristics,” show,
the interests of the state are not singular. The local state equilibrates intra-metropoli-
tan competition, central government decrees, local business and political interests of
its affiliates, and the increasingly important public reception, especially compounded
by the vocal virtual commons of the Chinese internet. Within this changing dynamics
of urban transition, the urban loophole has also increasingly become an instrument of
the involved local state as privileged market player.
The adaptive governance and institutional plasticity, to which political theorists
attribute the Chinese party-state’s resilience in face of managing its diverse, complex
and challenging constituencies under economic transition,4 create the urban loopholes
that continue to evolve and mediate incongruities in China’s urban systems. In the
cases from Shanghai, where economic transition overlaps with developing economy
under an authoritarian state, urban loopholes equilibrate conflicting top-down versus
bottom-up interests to adapt market demands to legacy planned institutions. The ur-
Chapter 7 Outlook

ban loopholes facilitate the bottom-up interests in evading but at the same time abid-
ing by the continuously self-interested but also laissez-faire-until-motivated adaptive
local state. The urban loopholes also mediate the global aspirations within the local
frameworks, reconciling market demands in planned frameworks.

427
Shifts in the Urban Loopholes under
Economic Transition
Just as institutional frameworks evolve with economic transition, so the changing
phases of economic liberalization are also reflected in the shifts of urban loopholes. In
the first phase of accelerated liberalization, transition regulations were lax in control
in favor of productivity growth and opportunities rife for changes that were often eco-
nomically motivated. The Chinese central government strategy of keeping planned
institutions while introducing market mechanisms incrementally, so as to avoid the
abrupt privatization typified by IMF -instigation in post-socialist Eastern Europe, re-
sulted in the establishment of multiple parallel markets and institutions open to trial
and error. Fiscal independence of local governments pushed their entrepreneurial ca-
pacity in order to sustain development and therefore growth. As a consequence, insti-
tutional and procedural porosity together with prioritized economic growth and profit
made possible numerous urban loopholes resulting from gaps and ambiguities in regu-
lations. The rapid sprouting of new structures on large demolished plots in the city cen-
ter, the hasty erection of apartments amidst existing neighborhoods, the commercial
conversions of formerly residential and institutional buildings, and even the empty
plots and buildings that prominently occupy central areas were produced, in one way
or another, through the gaps offered by transition institutions that allowed an unprec-
edented freedom to develop in the name of progress.
As shown in Chapters 2 and 4, the lease of urban land through negotiation rather
than through open auction, the conversion of administratively-allocated land to com-
mercial usage, the continued supply of housing by the state-owned enterprises, the
demolition of old housing districts—even if they were not all of the unsalvageable
quality, but of adequate size and location for development—and the construction of
profitable high-end commodity housing instead of an even spread of mid-range units
emerged from the urban loopholes. Small conversions of street spaces, reuse of exist-
ing housing and the introduction of new programs into existing spaces took advantage
of the urban loopholes and inserted themselves spatially and economically into exist-
ing openings. Small-scaled enterprises as much as large ones, private as well as state-
affiliated, facilitated rapid transition to the market economy, while helping establish
ensuing modes of developments.
Whereas large-scale interventions were often top-down visions by local state au-
thorities, creating supply before demand to catalyze a growing market in key sectors
that are representative and indicators for growth, small-scale creations responded to
the rapidly evolving demands on the ground. These small-scale projects developed
overlooked, and thus unplanned, sectors that were nevertheless important to the over-
all urban life of the city. The central government’s strategy of “letting go of the small
and keeping track of the big” during the SOE reforms, to focus on keeping the key sec-
tors under its thumb, in effect acquiesced to the private sectors’ takeover of the “small.”
So long as there was no destabilization of the broader reforms, restrictions were am-
biguous. At the time, local states were too busy with economic growth, vying for
selection as nationally or municipally allocated development zones, competing with

428
other areas for a piece of higher-level strategic plans, and meeting performance tar-
gets, to interfere except where necessary. Local authorities condoned the small stores
and restaurants that first opened without license, and their retrofits that initially took
place without permits. When the small businesses became successful, the process-
es for permissions formalized and procedures standardized. Similarly, local-govern-
ment-issued policies serve as confirmation of processes that have been deemed pro-
ductive and contributive after they first have been developed.
By the mid-2000s, the central government started to react to what it saw as dilu-
tion of state assets, growing social discontent as a result of local government indiscre-
tions, and what loomed as a speculation-driven economic bubble. A series of legisla-
tions tightened the procedural ambiguities that accelerated much of the development
of the first decades of economic liberalization. The closing of the most conspicuous of
the urban loopholes that resulted from the omissions and absences of regulations in the
early transition period, mandating transparency in the land market, and re-centraliz-
ing bureaucratic structures and hierarchical management systems, stabilized the vola-
tility of rapid change in the urban system. For many coastal cities, the rapid transition
had also decelerated and become more evenly kilted after the first decade of economic
transition and urban restructuring.
The procedural tightening that aimed to buttress against a potential economic
meltdown, however, resulted in further ingenuity on the ground to counter the top-
down one-for-all restrictions. Central government policies implemented to recentral-
ize authority also reinforced the dual markets, which was crucial to the incremental
strategy for transition. As a consequence, administratively-allocated land and publicly
managed housing became the sites for new sets of urban loopholes. Rather than urban
loopholes that form from absences and omissions, as in the initial phase of transition,
urban loopholes increasingly form based on exceptional circumstances in the matur-
ing market.
Reuse of former institutional buildings on administratively-allocated land has been
able to use the convenient and timely urban loophole for creative industries clusters,
promoted for a time by the competitive municipal and district governments. The na-
tional promotion of service-sector development gave the local states the exception of
creative industries clusters to bypass the central government restriction on the com-
mercialization of administratively-allocated land, elaborated in Chapter 5. Enterpris-
ing developers and designers could thus develop otherwise undervalued and under­
utilized spaces in the city, through the urban loophole based on creative industries
clusters. The utilization of otherwise inefficient land-use in city center areas, in turn,
benefits the local government as well as the surrounding urban neighborhood. The suc-
cess of M50, Tianzifang and Ferguson Lane, which tested the reuse of former institu-
tional buildings, showed both the viability and the possibility of collaborations with
the local institutional structures. From the precedent development of Bridge 8, ensu-
ing projects followed a formalized development path. The projects at Yongkang Lu and
Chapter 7 Outlook

Anken Green, shown in Chapter 5, continue to exploit these urban loopholes of excep-
tions, while updating new public-private alliances. The passing on of urban loopholes
as opportunities for subsequent developments reflects both the agent-driven learning
process for the development procedures as well as the evolving participation of the
local state in development.

429
 Heritage conservation and cultural developments, increasingly emphasized in the
second decade of transition, have also created urban loopholes of exceptions that ad-
vance the local state’s interests. Heritage designation for neighborhoods had the dual
effect of solidifying the public hold on city center real estate, left by legacy owner-
ship ambiguities, and of being used as a means to expedite the gentrification process,
shown in Chapter 3. Conservation has, in effect, trapped the incumbent residents in-
side the vestiges of planned economy housing structures by thwarting their access
to housing commodification through demolition and relocation. It has also raised the
‘rent gap’ and magnified the socio-economic differential of the market and planned
economies under transition.
Even though state management has limited the supply of privatized historic houses,
leading to growing demand pushing up those that are commodified to higher values, it
has, in the interim, also kept the rents of valuable city center locations affordable. The
state institution of what appears to be economic inefficiencies has the unexpected re-
sult of ensuring more diversity and freedom for endogenous processes, for the time be-
ing. The recent shutdowns at Jing’an Villas, Yongkang Lu and Wuyuan Lu, which took
place since the completion of the research for this book, moreover show that this diver-
sity and freedom is uncertain and temporary. The local state, in land-scarce and eco-
nomically ambitious districts such as Jing’an, is particularly interested in harnessing
the currently undervalued profits from these areas, both from their historic architec-
ture and from their central locations. Despite the local state’s ultimate decision making
capacity, the multiplicity of conflicting interests have keep the homogenization at bay.
The momentary lapse of Jing’an Villas and its adjacent Weihai 696 to endogenous pro-
cesses show that contemporary publicity tactics could be effective in mass motivation,
having swayed and delayed the homogenizing developments. The state’s increasing-
ly sophisticated deployment and control of media also show the counter strategies in
maintaining its authority in the face of the diversifying and skeptical public.

The Urban Loopholes as Equilibrators and

Learning From the Urban Loophole
Under conditions of institutional transparency and stability, the state acts in the in-
terest of the public, through regulation, incentivization, advocacy and community en-
ablement. Because the autocratic state in China has shown itself to be at times active-
ly predatory under the conditions of rapid transition, the urban loophole has facilitated
entrepreneurial innovation through the simultaneous evasion of and acceptance of
the party-state control. Since the party-state is the ultimate decision maker, regulator,
and participant in the market all in one, abiding by, rather than contradicting, local
institutional rituals is fundamental to the economic and political survival of non-state
affiliated actors. But beyond this baseline rule, staying under-the-radar rather than
being conspicuously in line of interests would be the safest bet for non-state actors to
achieve the local state’s acquiescence. Prioritizing profit and image-ability rather than
values in the local competition for political performance, smaller scale developments
could evade while still observing the tacit but discretionary rules on the ground. As

430
long as there is no overt infringement on the party-state’s interests, a laissez-faire state
continues under transition. The urban loophole, made possible by the state’s adaptive
governance, closes as soon as alternative plans are prioritized. The developments and
shutdowns shown in the cases of this book are examples of the urban loophole, as a
window of opportunity under circumstances of ambiguity, which is time-limited. It
is in the embrasure of uncertainty that the state, as privileged player in the market,
could reap the most benefits.
The small developers cultivated guanxi relationships with the local authorities to
gain acceptance and credibility in their projects’ contributions. The pragmatic appro-
priation of their know-how and capital, together with the state’s procedural authoriza-
tions, have been able to more rapidly meet the also rapidly changing market demands,
because of their small scale. It is also in the aggregation of multiple flexibilities that
cities like Shanghai are able to so rapidly catch up in their global re-integration. Cen-
tral government sanction was fundamental to the city’s initial take-off. But different
levels of rigid and cumbersome institutions would have slackened if not hindered the
overall dynamism of progress to prosperity.
Despite the economic inefficiencies and to a lesser extent political insecurity of an
incomplete economic transition, the coexistence of the planned and market economies
in the Chinese case has ensured the cohabitation of social differences in an otherwise
spatially homogenizing and socially polarizing trend of state-led neoliberalization. The
diversification of actors and development processes has also made the neighborhoods
with open networks, small-scaled structures, and endogenous processes competitive
in the metropolitan competition of centralities. Had the urban loophole been tightly
closed, these areas would never have had the chance to offer the possibilities and po-
tentials of the kind of neighborhood diversity that appear so effortlessly constructed.
It is precisely in the amphibiousness of the institutional structures that design, if clearly
comprehending the existing framework, could also have instrumentality.
The mechanism of the urban loopholes shows unconventional, non-Western tech-
niques to urban spatial production that should not be dismissed as anomalies, diver-
gences or externalities. The Chinese local state’s simultaneously proactive and eva-
sive tactics for managing sudden change and uncertainty may not apply in developed
political economies where relative stability has made these tactics redundant. For rap-
idly changing and developing political economies and their cities, the flexibility of the
state, especially an assertively authoritarian one, to accommodate innovation in spa-
tial production would not only effect its resilience. It would also promote the interests
of its constituents, to the simultaneous benefit of the state.
Although the neighborhoods, such as the ones seen in Shanghai, are only adapt-
able as far as the local state, at whose behest their development is contingent, is resil-
ient, they have remained socially vibrant and culturally productive centralities that
have since taken on unique roles in the livability of the metropolis. The transforma-
tions of these central neighborhoods in Shanghai not only offer alternatives to the
Chapter 7 Outlook

demolition-and-densification mode of development, prevalent in most developing

economies. The processes gleaned from their transformation processes documented
in this book could also be important in rethinking the antidote to the Chinese cit-
ies’ growing socio-spatial segregation. As socio-spatial segregation increasingly mani­
fests the country’s social polarization and functional homogenization, the growing

431
 cost of externalities of rapid development processes compels a re-evaluation of ex-
isting modes of understanding and evaluating urban development transformation.5
For other Chinese cities and cities in the developing world run by strong states that
increasingly venerate and emulate the Chinese mode for development, the urban loop-
holes show how the state, despite being dominant, could devolve authority in its own
interest, which at the same time allows the endogenous processes conducive to devel-
opment and economic growth to flourish. This institutional porosity in condoning an
equilibrating counterweight allows the urban loopholes to ensure incremental and het-
erogeneous development, and can create a kind of internal competition to offset the
homogenizing tendencies of a strong state. They are necessary to compensate for the
otherwise ideologically rigid validations for the dominance of the strong state. What
could possibly be lessons learned from the processes and procedures of the urban loop-
holes found in developing and transitioning economies that could motivate the stable
but much more slowly growing economies of the developed capitalist worlds? Creative
reuse projects, where a degree of flexibility would have to emerge from the develop-
ment, rather than be prescribed preceding it, could be one way in which developed
cities could incorporate the logic garnered from the urban loopholes of transitioning
economies. At the same time, the degree of state subsidization of economic inefficien-
cies, or whether in service of overall public interest, would make possible the spatially
proximate social diversity that market economies would through market efficiencies
erode. In China, the state subsidization of economic inefficiencies, in the form of the
dual markets in the transition economy, is intended for political control, and social sta-
bility and popular sentiments, although ineffective but still influential, are part of the
political legitimacy of the party-state. In cities like New York and London, where an
undersupply of housing accompanied by continued economic growth have pushed up
impossibly expensive rents, and even rent control, where dereliction and location have
not managed to carve out affordable areas, combined flexibility and statism would
benefit the creative communities that would most desire and perhaps deserve them.

1 Daniel B. Abramson, “The Dialectics of Urban Planning tive Governance in China,” in Mao’s Invisible Hand: The
in China,” in China’s Emerging Cities: The Making of New Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China,
Urbanism, ed. Fulong Wu, Routledge Contemporary Chi- ed. Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard
na Series 26 (New York: Routledge, 2007 ), 66. 2 Fulong Contemporary China Series 17 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
Wu, “China’s Changing Urban Governance in the Transi- University Press, 2011), 3 – 4 . 5 As the latest issuance of
tion Towards a More Market-Oriented Economy,” Urban an urban renewal plan on the 1st of May 2015 announced,
Studies 39, no. 7 (June 1, 2002): 1090, doi: 10.1080/00 Shanghai municipality is outlining a series of concepts
420980220135491. 3 The political theorist Minxin Pei to intensify its city center resources. See Hanlu Zhao
refers to China’s political economy as a ‘developmental 赵翰露, “《城市更新实施办法》即将施行, 上海进入‘内涵增
autocracy’ to show its long-term limits. The author uses 长’时代 [‘Urban Renewal Enactment Act’ will Be Imple-
the term here to show how the urban loopholes have, mented, Shanghai Enters ‘content Growth’ era],” 解放日报
in the short term, facilitated developments despite what Liberation Daily, April 29, 2015, http://www.jfdaily.com/
Pei refers to as China’s “trapped transition.” Minxin Pei, minsheng/bwyc/201504 /t20150429_1464546.html. This
China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmen- decree shows that the government authorities are keen-
tal Autocracy (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, ly aware of the unsustainable sprawl conditions resulting
2006), 206. 4 Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, from rapid growth and the need to reexamine existing
“Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and Adap- city center developments.

432
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to many people whom I have had the chance to meet, get to know, and
learn from, for this project. Discussions with and thoughts from some of the foremost
experts on and on Shanghai’s urbanism, Professors Zhu Jieming, Tang Zilai, Wang Lin,
Zhang Song, Lü Yongyi, Hou Li, Liu Gang, Liu Yuyang, and many others sharpened
the research with their feedbacks. Friends and research colleagues, Stephen Cairns,
Kah-Wee Lee, Gregory Bracken, Daan Roggeveen, Pascal Berger, Cole Roskam, Max
Hirsh, Mechtild Widrich, Koon Wee, Darren Zhou, Huang Zhengli, Katja Hellkötter,
Wang Jun, Wang Lan, Ding Junfeng, and many others, have given me platforms to
share my work-in-progress and drafts along the way. Friends on the ground in Shang-
hai, and some who have since been off the ground, too, Lyla Sulaiman, Steven Chen,
Ellen Chen, Tiger Lin, Kenan Liu, Zou Jie, Zhang Xu, Robert Chen, Gavin Lu, Jiahua
Lu, Xu Yunfang, Wang Yingzhe, Tang Lingjie, Jacob Dryer, Wu Yilei, Eva Xiong, Katya
Knyazeva, Andres Batista, Frank Krueger, Wang Fang, Neville Mars, Erika Lanselle,
Chiyan Chan, Huimin Tzeng, I-Shin Chow, Susanne Seitinger, and many more, have
been so generous in connecting me to the right people and showing me the right places.
I am most grateful to my editor Katie McGunagle for her careful editing of the book
and to Michelle Teo for her detailed and efficient proofreading of all the words on all
the pages in the final stretch of the dissertation. Nadia Sbaihi and Josh Roberts were
also invaluable in their editing of parts of the book. I am utmostly indebted to Cressica
Brazier for her untiring and sharp editing and reading of numerous early drafts. My for-
mer team, colleagues, and friends at the Future Cities Laboratory of the Singapore ETH
Centre, Anna Gasco, Iris Belle, Ting Chen, and Sonja Berthold, have been supportive
along the research journey. My assistant in Shanghai, Zou Jie, has been tremendous in
her help in Shanghai’s archival research. My students, Justin Yeung, Cherry Xia, and
Desmond Choi, were crucial in refining the graphics of the supporting images in the
last stretch of production. My family and friends, despite not always understanding
what I was looking for, went out of their way and made the most important and diffi-
cult connections and resources possible.
The resources of the Future Cities Laboratory of the Singapore-ETH Centre have
been more than generous, without which this project would not have been possible.
The generosity of the Chair of Architecture at the ETHZ specifically has made the pub-
lication of this book possible. I am also grateful for the support of the Wheelwright Fel-
lowship from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, which was crucial
to building the initial set of concepts for this larger project.

I would like to thank the editor for the publisher, Andreas Müller, for his patience,
understanding and comments. Thank you to my second reader Professor Marc Angélil
for his astute and meticulous feedbacks, pushing me to refining the overall result. Of
course, foremost, to my advisor and mentor Professor Kees Christiaanse, for the un-
Acknowledgments

tiring readings, inputs and criticism along the way that have made this book possible.

This work is dedicated to my parents and grandparents.

435
About the Author
Ying Zhou is an architect currently based in Hong Kong, where she is an Assistant Pro-
fessor at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interest on contemporary urban de-
velopments, the growth of cultural industries and new economies in East Asian cities,
global linkages, and architectural knowledge exchange developed from her work with
Professor Kees Christiaanse at the Future Cities Laboratory of the Singapore-ETH Cen-
tre and with Herzog & de Meuron at the ETH Studio Basel. Born in Shanghai, Ying holds
a B.S.E. in Architecture and Engineering from Princeton University, an M. Arch. from
the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a Ph.D. from the ETH Zürich.
She was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Stuttgart. Ying has practiced and taught
in New York City, Shanghai, Detroit, Boston, Basel, and Hong Kong.

About the Author

437
Illustration Credits
Preface
Fig. 1 Photo collage by the author
Fig. 2 Photos by Daniel Stockhammer and Nicola Wild,
2009
Fig. 3 Photos by the author, 2011 – 2012
Chapter 1
Fig. 1 Google Earth
Fig. 2 http://sh.eastday.com/m/20170217/
u1ai10346508 p2 .html
Fig. 3 Map from The Geography of Contemporary
China, 1990, redrawn by the author
Fig. 4 Photos from the Shanghai Urban Planning
Bureau exhibition, 2011
Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Diagrams drawn by the author
Fig. 11 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans, Google Earth, and
fieldwork data
Figs. 12, 13, 14 Diagrams drawn by the author,
based on fieldwork data and research
pages 66 – 67 photo by the author, 2012
pages 70 – 71 photo by the author, 2011
Chapter 2
Fig. 1 Photo by Ruard Absaroka, 2009
Fig. 2 Photos by the author, 2013
Fig. 3 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and Google Earth
Fig. 4 Google Earth
Fig. 5 Photos by the author, 2011
Fig. 6 http://china.usc.edu/talking-points-july-15 -1971 -
nixon-and-zhou-shake-world
Fig. 7 Google Earth
Fig. 8 Photo from New and trans-century architecture
in Shanghai [跨世纪的上海建筑], 1995
Figs. 9, 10 Diagrams drawn by the author
Fig. 11 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 12 Plan from http://esf.sh.fang.com
Fig. 13 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and historic maps
Fig. 14 Photo by the author, 2011
Fig. 15 Diagram by the author, 2014
Fig. 16 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and fieldwork data
438
Fig. 17 Photo by author of archival map
Fig. 18 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and historic maps
Figs. 19, 20 Plans redrawn by author and Justin Yeung,
from Shanghai Lilong Residences [上海里弄民居],
1993
Figs. 21 Plans redrawn by the author and Cherry Xia,
from Shanghai Lilong Residences [上海里弄民居],
1993
Fig. 22 Commercial Atlas of Shanghai [上海市商用地图册]
1949
Fig. 23 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and fieldwork data
Fig. 24 Diagram drawn by the author, based on
fieldwork data and research
Fig. 25 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 26 https://www.tax.sh.gov.cn/
Fig. 27 Photos and map by the author, 2012
Fig. 28 Photo by the author, 2011
Figs. 29, 30 Maps drawn by the author, based on
plans drawn from officially surveyed plans and
fieldwork data
Fig. 31 Photo by the author, 2012
Fig. 32 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 33 Diagram drawn by the author, based on
fieldwork data and research
Fig. 34 Photo by the author, 2011
Fig. 35 Photo by the author, 2016
Fig. 36 Photos by the author, 2012 and 2013
pages 140 – 141 photo by the author, 2011
Chapter 3
Fig. 1 Photo by the author, 2012
Fig. 2 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 3 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 4 Photo by the author, 2012
Fig. 5 http://www.essential-architecture.com/CHINA /
BUND/SH-BU .htm
Fig. 6 http://www.bjweekly.com/
Fig. 7 https://www.hpcbristol.net/visual/ro-s044
Fig. 8 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Figs. 9, 10 Plans from Debates and Compromises:
Conservation and Development of the Northern
Old Hongkou in Shanghai by Feng Luan and
Yiyun Wang, 2009
Fig. 11, 12, 13, 14 Photos by the author, 2012
Figs. 15, 16 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Fig. 17 Redrawn by author from Shanghai Municipal
Statistics Book, 2006
Fig. 18 Changning District Government
Figs. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 Photos by the author, 2016
Figs. 24 , 25 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 26 Le Passage Fuxing
Fig. 27 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and historic map
Figs. 28 , 29 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 30 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and historic map
Fig. 31 Photo by the author, 2012
Fig. 32 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_
a9 f8 c06001011t7 v.html
Figs. 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 Photos by the author, 2011
Figs. 37, 38 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 39 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and fieldwork data
Fig. 40 Photo by the author, 2011
Fig. 41 Lyon Institut d’Asie Orientale,
http://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Preview/
dbImage_ID-175_No-1.jpeg
Fig. 42 Shanghai Municipal Archives
Fig. 43 Shanghai Municipal Archives
Fig. 44 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Fig. 45 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_
816414 ab0100 rn36 .html
Fig. 46 Photo by the author, 2011
Fig. 47 Photo from Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explorations
in Historic Research and Conservation Planning
for a Conserved Fengmao Street [上海武康路 风貌
保护道路的历史研究与保护规划探索], by Yongjie Sha
et al., 2009
Fig. 48 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 49 Photo from Shanghai Wukang Lu, Explorations
in Historic Research and Conservation Planning
for a Conserved Fengmao Street [上海武康路 风貌
保护道路的历史研究与保护规划探索], by Yongjie Sha
et al., 2009
Figs. 50, 51 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 52 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 53 Photo by the author, 2014
Figs. 54 , 55 Photo by the author, 2016
Fig. 55 Map drawn by the author, based on plans drawn
from officially surveyed plans and fieldwork data
pages 230 – 231 photo by the author, 2014
pages 232 – 233 photo by the author, 2011
Chapter 4
Fig. 1 http://www.shanghaidaily.com/Metro/society/
Illegal-stores-structures-pulled-down-inside-
historic-Jingan-Villa-/shdaily.shtml
Fig. 2 http://wap.maimaigongkong.com/
24 -0 -77787-1.html
Fig. 3 http://sh.edushi.com/
Figs. 4 , 5 Photos from New and trans-century
architecture in Shanghai [跨世纪的上海建筑 ], 1995
Fig. 6 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Fig. 7 From “上海中心城区生产性服务业多中心空间结构
研究 [Research on the “Polycentric” Spatial
Structure of Shanghai Producer Service Industry]”
by Wufu Ma, 2009
Fig. 8 From Making Shanghai’s International-graded
City Center—‘Jing’an Nanjing Lu Development Plan’
International Consultancy Report [打造上海世界级
城市的都心], 2002
Fig. 9 Map redrawn by the author, based on plans
from Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 10 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Fig. 11 Lyon Institut d’Asie Orientale, http://www.
virtualshanghai.net/Photos/Images?ID=1837
Fig. 12 Plans from Urban Construction Administration
System and its Impact on Public Space in Modern
Shanghai [上海近代城市建设管理制度及其对公共
空间的影响] by Qian Sun, 2006
Fig. 13 Plan from Shanghai Lilong Residences
[上海里弄民居], 1993
Fig. 14 Café Chabrol
Fig. 15 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 16 Plan drawn by the author, based on officially
surveyed plans and fieldwork data, 2012 – 2013
Fig. 17 Photo by the author, 2012
Fig. 18 Photos by the author, 2012 , with plans from
Shanghai Lilong Residences [上海里弄民居], 1993
Figs. 19, 20, 21, 22 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 23 Photo by the author, 2014
Fig. 24 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 25 Film cover
Figs. 26 , 27 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 28 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6 ca6 d-
ca60101c79 h.html
Figs. 29, 30 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 31 http://www.kankanews.
com/a/2014-09-14/0015541183.shtml
Illustration Credits
Figs. 32 , 33 , 34 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 35 Photo by the author, 2012
Fig. 36 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
439
 Fig. 37 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Fig. 38 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 39 Photo by Beizhi Zhou, 2017
Fig. 40 http://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Preview/
dbImage_ID-34141_No-01.jpeg
Fig. 41 http://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Preview/
dbImage_ID-34142 _No-01.jpeg
Fig. 42 http://www.fotoe.com/www_bak/mgallery/
image_detail.php?Id=10157223
Figs. 43 , 44 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
Fig. 45 http://www.shanghaiwow.com/index.php/
en/2014 /08 /Bar-Buzz-Logan-s-Punch
Figs. 46 , 47 Jing’an District Planning Bureau
pages 332 – 333 photo by the author, 2012
page 336 photo by the author, 2013
Chapter 5
Fig. 1 Diagram drawn by the author
Fig. 2 Photo by the author, 2013
Fig. 3 Map drawn by the author, based on officially
surveyed plans and fieldwork data, 2012 – 2013
Fig. 4 Diagram drawn by the author
Figs. 5, 6 Photos by the author, 2013
Fig. 7 Diagram by the author, based on fieldwork data
Fig. 8 Platform Yongkang
Figs. 9, 10 Diagrams by the author, based on fieldwork
data
440
Fig. 11 Platform Yongkang
Fig. 12 Commercial Atlas of Shanghai [上海市商用地图册]
1949
Fig. 13 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Figs. 14, 15, 16, 17 Photos by the author, 2013
Fig. 18 Photo by the author, 2016
pages 376 – 377 photo by the author, 2013
Chapter 6
Fig. 1 PS Art
Fig. 2 Long Museum
Fig. 3 Rockbund
Fig. 4 Himalayas Museum
Figs. 5, 6 Randian, 2010
Fig 7 Yang Fudong
Fig. 8 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau
Fig. 9 Photo by the author, 2007
Fig. 10 Photos by the author, 2012
Fig. 11 Heatherwick Studio
Figs. 12, 13 Photos by the author, 2013
Fig. 14 Ai Weiwei
Fig. 15 West Bund Development Group
Fig. 16 West Bund Development Group
Fig. 17 Yang Zhenzhong
pages 420 – 421 photo by the author, 2011
Index of Persons, Institutions, and Firms
A Chen, Ben 155
Abramson, Daniel B. 27 Chen Congzhou 153, 154, 159
Administration for Cultural Relics 158, 206 Chen Danyan 162, 163, 175, 199
Administration for Industry and Commerce Chen Guichun 157
281, 283, 285, 286 Chen Kaige 147
Administration for Urban Management and Chen Liangyu 402, 403
Law Enforcement 354
Chen Yifei 85, 273, 274
Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs 119
Chen Yifeng 405
Ai Weiwei 6, 381, 383, 387, 400, 403, 408
Chen Yuanqin 189, 190, 191
Ambassy Club 93, 173
Chen Zaochun 172
Amoka 122
Cheng Naishan 162
Ang Lee 147, 198, 256, 288
Cheng, Adrian 397
Art Basel 394
Chiang Ching-kuo 93
Asia Development Bank 23, 389
Chiang Kai-shek 93, 258, 259
Atelier Deshaus 405, 407
China Industrial Bank 189
Audi 347
China Knit and Textiles Factory 189
China Realty Company 259
B
China Shipbuilding Group 293
Ba Jin 145, 193
Chinese Communist Party (CCP ) 24, 48, 80, 107, 131,
Baker and Spice 122 146, 147, 149, 150 – 153, 160, 166, 189 – 193, 211, 245,
Barmé, Geremie 48 247, 249, 259, 261, 293 f., 303, 305, 308 , 366, 384,
Baxter 74 386, 392, 393, 402

Biennale for Architecture and Contemporary Art Chipperfield, David 381, 396, 408
see Shanghai Biennale Chirac, Bernadette 175
Biennale for Art and Architecture Chow Yun-fat 153
see Shanghai Biennale Christiaanse, Kees 14 – 15
BizArt 395 Christiensen, John 122
Bo Qin 28 Chunming Woolen Mill 390
Brandt, Alexander 395 Citic Group 247
Budi Tek 406 CMC Capital Partners 404
Building Relocation Technology Research Center, Cody, Jeffrey W. 155
Tongji University 291
Coffee Tree 183
Commerce and Industry Bureau 282
C
Committee for Conservation 166
Index of Persons, Institutions, and Firms

Café Stagiaire 359

Committee for Cultural Management 166
Cai Guoqiang 396
Communist Youth League 281
Cai Yuanpei 258, 305
Conseil d’Administration Municipale 98, 199, 201
Castells, Manuel 49
Construction Ministry of the PRC 154
Catie Lo 208, 209
Cornell University 155
Center for the Conservation of Shanghai’s Historic
Architecture 206 Cultural Inspection Bureau 338

Central Academy of Fine Arts 393 Cultural Management Bureau 157, 166

Chabrol, Claude 238, 261 Cultural Relics Department at the Shanghai Museum 155

Chang, Eileen 198, 256

441
 D Foucault, Michel 46 – 47
Dapuqiao Street Office 273 Franck’s 183
Davies, Brooke, and Gran Architects 293 Friedmann, John 27, 252
Deng Kunyan 340, 385 Friendship Store 347
Deng Xiaoping 7, 14, 22, 25, 80, 243, 245, 384 Fudan University 172, 363
Denny House Milk Tea 271, 283 Fujimoto, Sou 381, 404, 406
Department for Culture 152 Future Cities Laboratory of the ETH Zürich,
Department of National Development 153 Singapore 14, 435

Department of Urban and Rural Development and

Environment Protection 152 G
Design and Promotion Center for Urban Public Gao Yang 276
Space (SUSAS ) 407 Gezi Café 261
DHL 347 Golden Taiyuen Group 299
Ding Xueliang 26, 29 Gonghui Hospital 308
Ding Yi 385, 386, 391, 394, 402, 407 Gu Wenda 392
Disney, Walt 8 Gucci 174, 247
District Bureau for Land Resources, Jing’an 247
Douban 263 H
Dow Jones 247 Hahn, Emily 189
DreamWorks 404 Haihua Tannery 274
DTZ 171, 249 Han Yuqi 389
Duolun Museum of Modern Art 394 Hang Lung Properties 247
Dutch Items Shanghai 184 Hannerz, Ulf 124
Hanting 310
E Harvard Business School 253
Eastlink Gallery 385, 387, 390 Harvey, David 49, 210 – 211, 381
Economic Council 248, 252, 253, 275, 276, 391 He Guoyun 189
EDAW , Inc 339 Heatherwick, Thomas 393
Edouard Malingue (Gallery) 408 Heilmann, Sebastian 26, 30, 35, 212
Element Fresh 184 Heisenberg, Werner 36
Enclave 339, 340 Helbling, Lorenz 385
English as Second Language (ESL ) Education Herzog & de Meuron 14, 401
Center 122
Hessler, Peter 49
Er Dongqiang 273, 274
Himalaya Art Museum 394
Estée Lauder 74
HKR Development Group 252
ETH Studio Basel 14
HKR International Limited 287, 290
Ho, Stanley 92, 173
F
HOK 340, 356
F & T Group 356
Hong Kong Lifestyle Co Ltd 344, 356
Fan, Robert 189
Hong Kong Textiles 207
Fang Zengxian 387
Hou Hanru 387
FedEx 74
Hou Li 27
Feng Boyi 387
Housing Ministry 166
Ferguson 183
Housing Provident Fund 90, 112, 115
Florida, Richard 341
Hsing You-tien 29
Forbes Jing’an Nanjing Lu Forum 253
Huang Yongyu 274

442
Huang Zonghan 344 Leighton Textiles 207
Hudec, László 308 Leung, Henry 207
Huicheng Group 84 – 85 Ley, David 362
Huntington, Samuel P. 36 Li Jilan 189
Huo Yuanjia 153, 305 Li Ka-shing 74, 172
Hutchinson Whampoa 74, 98, 247, 287 Li Liang 385
Li Wuwei 275
I Li Xu 387
Institute for Architecture Research 154 Link, Perry 48
International Concession’s Municipal Council 306 Liu Xiaobo 402
Ipluso 208 – 209 Liu Xuedong 310 – 311
Isetan 247 Liu Yichun 405
Isozaki, Arata 381 Liu Yiqian 405, 406
Liu, industrialist 190
J Lo, Vincent 173
Jacobs, Jane 165 Lolo Love 128
Jameson, Fredric 244 Long Museum 380, 381, 405 – 406, 408
Jianchen Fragrance Factory 274 Lou Chenghao 170, 302
Jiang Zemin 193, 245 Lou Ye 389
Jiaotong University 183, 363 Louis Vuitton 247, 358
Jing’an Architecture Ornament Company 308 Lu Bingjie 158
Jing’an City Commercial and Trade Corporation 247 Lu Hanchao 107, 258, 265
Jing’an Cultural and Historic Museum 304, 306 Lucerne School of Hospitality 359
Jing’an District Planning Bureau 256, 261, 288, 290, Luo Xiaowei 154, 157, 164, 202
299
Jing’an Exchange Group 302 M
Jing’an Jingdi Company 311 Ma Liang 271
Jing’an Real Estate Group 255, 302, 308, 311, 313 MacFarquhar, Roderick 48
John Portman and Associates 174, 175, 244, 245 MadeIn 394 – 396
Johnson, Ian 165 Mao Zedong 7, 14, 22, 149, 151, 193, 303
Jones Lasalle 171 Massive Music 347
Merewether, Charles 387
K Merton, Robert 37
Kaisiling Cake Shop 257 Ministry of Land Resource 166
Kangfu Textiles 274 Ministry of National Cultural Relics 153
Kaplan, Abraham 37 Minli Middle School 291 – 295, 308
Index of Persons, Institutions, and Firms

Kentridge, William 387 Minsheng Art Museum 396, 400, 407

Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF ) Architects 247 Mitsubishi Estate Company 396
Kong Xiangxi 259 Miyajima Tatsuo 387
Koolhaas, Rem 18 Mou-ching Cha, Victor 290
Mr. Willis 122 – 123
L Municipal Administration for Labor Resources
Lan Kwai Fong Group 404 and Social Security Bureau 119
Lao Wu 261, 265 Municipal Bureau for Housing and Land Resource
Le Freeport Group 408 Management 172

Leaf, Michael 27, 29

443
 Municipal Economic Council 248, 252, 253, 275, R
276, 391 Real Estate Bureau, Shanghai 157
Murphy, Henry K. 155 Ren Xuefei 164
Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA ) 394 Riegl, Alois 159
Rist, Pipilotti 387
N Rockbund Art Museum 381, 396
National Research Center for Historic Cultural Sites Rockefeller Group 396
390, 391
Ruan Yisan 164, 275, 390
Neri and Hu Architects 181, 260, 349, 407
New Huangpu Group 396
S
New World 287, 305, 397
Sassen, Saskia 252
Nike 262, 347
Schneider, Romy 8
Nixon, Richard 82 – 83, 174
Service des Travaux Publics 203
Nuoheng Holdings 310
Sha Yongjie 202
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences 390
O
ShanghArt Gallery 385, 386, 390, 393 – 395, 397, 407
Obrist, Hans Ulrich 387
Shanghai Art Museum 387
OCT Contemporary Art Terminal 409
Shanghai Automobile Group (SAG ) 108
Osnos, Evan 6, 49
Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation (SAIC ) 344
Shanghai Biennale 76, 381, 386 – 388, 394, 404, 405,
P 407, 408
Palmer and Turner Architects 10, 300 Shanghai Bureau for Quality Assurance 89
Pan Shiyi 295 Shanghai Center of Photography (SCoP ) 408
Pan Su 258, 259 Shanghai Components Factory Number Five 282, 403
Paulaner Brewhouse 163 Shanghai Computer Research Institute 108
Paustian 347 Shanghai Construction Bureau 88
Pei, I. M. 10, 154 Shanghai Contemporary 394
People’s Liberation Army (PLA ) 192, 193, 409 Shanghai Creative Industries Center 252, 276, 341, 345
Perry, Elizabeth 26, 27, 30, 35, 48, 212 Shanghai Drama Arts Center 89, 122
Petite Jasmine 209 Shanghai Electric 309, 310, 311
Platform Group 352, 354, 356 – 357, 359, Shanghai Film Group 124
362 – 363
Shanghai Flower and Trees Company 208
Platform Yongkang Incorporated 353
Shanghai Food Processing Machinery Factory 274
Powell, Colin 291
Shanghai Haodu Real Estate Development and
PriceSmart 310 Management Limited 285
Public Works Commission 258 Shanghai Housing Bureau 170
Pudong Leadership Academy 392 Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau 155, 159, 161
Pye, Lucian 18 Shanghai Municipal Planning Institute 161
Shanghai No. 2 Rice Mill and Shanghai Fodder Mill 385
Q Shanghai Nuclear Power Office 192
Quadrio, Davide 395 Shanghai Number Five Components Factory
Qiao Zhibing 408 see Shanghai Components Factory Number Five
Qinghua University 152, 155 Shanghai People’s Art Theater 122
Qiu Weiqing 291 Shanghai Port Authority 89
Qiu Xinshan 291 Shanghai Port Real Estate 89
Shanghai Redtown Development Corporation 393

444
Shanghai Semi-Conductor Parts Number Four
Factory 311
Shanghai Subway Line 13 Development Limited 311
Shanghai Tang 163, 177
Shanghai Tractor Factory 108
Shanghai Urban Development Group 84
Shanghai Watch Accessory Factory 274
Shanghai Writers’ Association 193
Shanghai Xiandai Architecture Design Group 170
Shanghai Youth Drama Group 122
ShangTex Group 343, 345, 390, 393
Shenya Development Company 88
Shenya Real Estate Company 88
Shikumen Proprietors Administrative Committee
275, 279, 280
Shin Muramatsu 155
Tianzifang Investment Consultancy Limited 279
Tianzifang Management Committee 279, 280
Tianzifang Shikumen Proprietors Administrative
Committee 275, 279, 280
Tokyo University 155
Tongji Architecture Design Institute 312
Tongji University 85, 154, 155, 157, 160, 161, 164, 165,
169, 186, 202, 255, 275, 284, 285, 289, 291, 299,
300, 301, 312, 363, 389, 390, 404
U
UK Refiners Architectural Consulting 301
University of Hong Kong 253
University of Southern California 363
W

Shu Haolun 288 Wagas group 122, 123, 184, 289

Shui On 163, 164, 173, 287, 344 Wang Anyi 162, 163

Sigg, Uli 407 Wang Jun 165

Siming Bank 288 Wang Kemin 306

Sinmay Zau 189 Wang Lin 277, 278

Sinolink Holdings 396 Wang Wei 405, 406

Smith, Neil 126 Wang Xingzheng 173, 174, 175, 176, 177

SOM 175, 356 Wang Yachen 276

Song Luxia 189 Wang, Vera 10

Sony 347 Weibo 263, 287

Soong, Madame (Soong Ching-ling) 93 West Bund Art Museum 408

Sotheby’s 405 West Bund Development Group 405, 406

Star Art Museum 408 West Samoa Southern Investment 186

Starbucks 163, 289 Westgate Corporation 247

State Council of the PRC 23, 82, 83, 87, 90, 119, 151, Wheelock 248, 287
152, 159, 243, 246, 301 Wieden + Kennedy 263
Staw, Barry M. 37 William the Beekeeper 128
Sugar and Spice 123 Willis, Craig 123
Sun Sheng Han 28 Wong, Nina 92
Sun Yat-sen 93, 305 Wood, Ben 164
Sung Hung Kai 287, 290, 350, 358 World Bank 23
Index of Persons, Institutions, and Firms

Sutton, Robert I. 37 World Expo 2010 33, 47, 48, 124, 127, 149, 198, 203,
Swire Group 247, 254, 288 240, 253, 254, 261, 280, 295, 296, 303, 304, 305,
306, 314, 337, 339, 364, 381, 383, 394, 396, 407
Swire Properties 247
World Primary School 145, 150, 206 – 210
World Trade Organization (WTO ) 91, 187
T
Wu Changshuo 158
Taikang Lu Art Street Administrative Committee
274, 275, 279 Wu Fulong 48, 49

Tank Shanghai 408 Wu Hung 386, 394, 406

Tianping Street Office 352, 356 Wu Jiang 154, 157, 158, 159, 160, 164, 165, 169, 199,
202, 205, 212, 284

445
 Wu Meiseng 273, 274, 275, 276, 279 Yueyang Hospital 293, 294
Wukang Lu Tourism Information Center 145, 189, 207 Yun, Jackie 122
Yungho Chang 404
X Yunshui Communications Technologies Limited 311
Xi Jinping 383, 404 YUZ Foundation 406
Xiao Hong 400 YUZ Museum 381, 406, 407
Xinlelu 128
Xiong Yuezhi 304 Z
Xu Jilin 177 Zendai Art Museum 394
Xu, Leo 397 Zendai Group 394
Xu Zhen 394, 395 Zhang Boju 258
Xue Shunsheng 170 Zhang Enli 391
Xue Song 390, 392 Zhang Gardens Company 310
Xuhui District Old Houses Art Center 145, 189, 207 Zhang Huan 396
Xuhui Real Estate Group 84, 85, 88, 186, 187, 357 Zhang Shuhe 303
Zhang Song 285, 389
Y Zhang Tanru 258
Y+ 181 Zhang Zhen 389
Yang Fudong 388, 393, 400 Zheng Rongfa 273, 274, 275, 278
Yang Zhenzhong 393, 395, 409, 410 Zheng Shiling 160, 202, 206, 255
Yang’s Shenjian Buns 289 Zhou Enlai 82, 192
Yenn Wong 257 Zhou Tiehai 407
Yin, Robert 37 Zhou Xiangyun 293
Ying Zhou 14, 15 Zhou Xinliang 275
Yongfoo Elite 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 185 Zhou Zuomin 189
Yongle Group 124 Zhu Jieming 29, 49, 87
Yongming Bottletop Factory 274 Zhu Ming 388, 389
Yo-Yo Ma 10 Zhu Rongji 245
Yu Youren 258 Zhu Xiaofeng 404
Yu Zhensheng 261

446
Graphic design: Jenna Gesse
Layout and typesetting: Kathleen Bernsdorf
Production: Heike Strempel
Copy Editor: Katie Anne McGunagle
Editor for the Publisher: Andreas Müller

This publication is made possible with the support of the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL ) of the
Singapore-ETH Centre’s publication fund.

Paper: Hello Fat matt, 115 g/m²

Printing: Beltz Bad Langensalza GmbH

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the German National Library

The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material
is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind
of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.

This publication is also available as an e-book (ISBN PDF 978-3-0356-0890-8)

© 2017 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel

P.O. Box 44 , 4009 Basel, Switzerland
Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin /Boston

Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF ∞

Printed in Germany

ISBN 978-3-0356-1104-5

987654321 www.birkhauser.com