Balancing productive and consumption functions is a salient trend of urban development in post-industrial society. In its vigorous push for urban renewal in recent years, Shanghai has basically completed the renewal of old contiguous residential areas below Grade 2 in the city. Work is now turning to the renewal of scattered land plots, such as the connection of waterfronts along Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek and the creation of more public open spaces.

As early as 1985, the State Council approved The Reporting Outline on Shanghai's Economic Development Strategy and forwarded it to relevant departments, specifically calling for strengthening the transformation and construction of Shanghai's urban infrastructure that can adapt to the needs of leveraging multiple functions, as well as for striving to build efficient information and transportation infrastructures, high-quality work and living environments, comprehensive service facilities, and sufficient hotels and office buildings, so as to significantly change the urban outlook of Shanghai as soon as possible. 

Promoting sustainable development and delivering high-quality life has long been the striving goal and unremitting pursuit of Shanghai, which aspires to be a people's city. Emphasizing a balance between productive functions and consumption functions highlights the need to meet human needs rather than paying too much attention to the agglomeration and scale of production modes alone.

As far as international practices are concerned, urban construction in developed countries in Europe and especially the United States once went through a vigorous “movement of urban beautification". This movement originated from the thought of "urban beautification". In 1899, The Atlantic Monthly published a series of articles on "Improvement in City Life", discussing how to make cities more attractive. The relevant measures proposed included limiting the height of buildings, eliminating advertisements, cleaning streets, planting trees, improving lighting and public artworks, among others. Subsequently, Urban Improvement and Modern Public Art were published, and the idea that "cities are not built for viewing, but for living", which is still of important significance today.

For over 30 years, the "urban beautification" thinking dominated urban construction in the United States. Almost every major American city had at least one specific urban beautification project, such as magnificent museum, railway station, park, or ribbon park. Commenting on this trend, Witold Rybczynski remarked in his Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities that most American cities would have basically disappeared without the achievements of "urban beautification" from 1900 to 1930.

How to keep cities continuously attractive in the broad context of a fixed urban spatial landscape? A solution was found in the subsequent practices of urban renewal in Europe and the United States, which was to improve small urban spaces and personalized urban construction. This was clearly established in the research work of William Whyte and Jan Gehl.

William Whyte's research began with the Street Life Project established in 1970, which was mainly to observe urban public spaces. Based on his observations spanning nearly 10 years, he wrote The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, which is now regarded as a classic pamphlet on urban planning. 

Whyte believed that the ubiquitous small spaces in the city will have a huge impact on the quality of urban life. In particular, "squares that can be used for social interaction are best used". He pointed out that sunshine, trees, water, and snacks are all important. However, the key for people to be willing to carry out social interaction is highly related to those attributes of public spaces that allow them to “sit and relax at any time”, such as stools with appropriate height and length and chairs that can be freely moved.

Jan Gehl took research on "what kind of public space is more attractive" to a new height. In his Cities for People, he stressed that public spaces, walking activities, and urban space as a gathering venue for urban residents have not received the sort of attention they deserve. In fact, a better urban living environment means more and more suitable urban public spaces, which can attract people and make them willing to stay.

Take Copenhagen, a northern European city, as an example. Since the first pedestrian street was built in the 1960s, more and more streets have become spaces for pedestrian mobilities and urban life services. What's more, although pedestrian traffic accounted for the biggest share of the streets in Manhattan, the city of New York still introduced measures to encourage more diversified urban life in 2007, including adding pedestrian walkways and setting up coffee seats, and so on.

It should be said that a key path to create high-quality urban public life is to rationally allocate "urban furniture" and create spaces where people can "sit and relax at any time".

In the past 40 years, Shanghai has rapidly promoted urban development and renewal, not only realizing the extensive expansion of urban space, but also bringing the downtown area onto a path of intensive development. In the new situation, it is imperative to make urban public spaces more accessible and better used.

For example, it is necessary to specify the grading standards and facility allocation standards of different types of urban space in line with the principles of personalization, integrity and territoriality, strengthen and optimize the layout of leisure seats, bus shelters, lighting and other facilities.

Under the premise of ensuring normalized epidemic prevention and control, Shanghai needs to make its urban public spaces truly venues for people to use, and concretely implement its urban vision of "buildings can be read, streets can be strolled upon, and the city is one of warmth and care to people".



Author: Deng Zhituan, Research Professor of the Institute of Urban and Demographic Studies of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences & Deputy Director and Secretary General of the Special Committee on Urban Renewal of Shanghai Economic Association.

Source: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences