The Urban Micro-Renewal in Everyday Life (Part 2)

Second, give full play to the positive leading role of the renewal actions.

On the basis of meeting the living needs of residents, new designs and development concepts are integrated into the micro-renewal actions, and the construction mode and lifestyle of intensive and economical, green and low-carbon, healthy and liveable, as well as characteristic inheritance. Leading intensive and economical actions. Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced more than 40 years of rapid development of large-scale urbanization, during which the development of many cities has been characterized by random expansion and the waste of land use. The new round of urban renewal actions should be based on the principle of intensification and economy, and put more efforts in the potential exploration of the stock of land and improvement of quality and efficiency, and activate the original negative, idle, and inefficient space through micro-renewal actions to improve land use. Leading green and low carbon movements. In the context of the national implementation of ecological civilization and the major strategies of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutral", the regeneration actions should also actively lead the green and low-carbon construction and transformation of urban spaces, lead the whole process of micro-renewal construction with green and low-carbon concepts, design and build efficient low-carbon public facilities and green energy-saving buildings, and advocate low-carbon culture and low-carbon lifestyle.

Leading healthy and liveable actions. Healthy China national strategy proposed to improve people's health as the core, starting from a wide range of health influencing factors, prioritizing people's health, integrating health into all policies, and guaranteeing people's health in all aspects and cycles. Micro renewal should promote the deep integration of national fitness and national health to help the implementation of the Healthy China strategy. By actively creating public spaces to meet residents' leisure and fitness needs, providing more humanized public facilities and activity venues, promoting the generation of fitness and leisure physical activities for residents, enhancing their physical health, residents have more social spaces in the neighbourhood for entertainment, supporting and carrying social interaction behaviors, promoting residents' psychological health and harmonious neighbourhood relationships. (Figure 6, 7)

Figure 6: A popular fitness space for residents

Figure 7: A popular fitness space for residents

Presenting the heritage characteristics. The micro-renewal actions should also focus on the leadership of the characteristics and cultural heritage of urban spaces. In addition to the regulations on urban renewal, the regulations on the protection of historical relics, buildings, and landscape should be formulated. The protection and inheritance of the traditional culture and landscape of urban spaces should be combined with the renewal planning, design, and implementation, so as to lead the historical inheritance of urban characteristics, protect the spirit of the city, carry the memory of the city, and trigger the resonance of people's memories. （Figure 8, 9）

Figure 8: Inherit the local architectural characteristics of the city

Figure 9: Preserve the traditional cultural appearance of the street

Third, actively explore new sustainable renewal modes.

In urban renewal, it is necessary to change the mode of renewal and transformation which is dominated by government financial subsidies and pays one-sided attention to "large-scale", "quick-transformed", and "unified", fully combining government guidance, market operation, and public participation, and exploring a new sustainable renewal mode.

In the renewal actions, the government's role is to protect the bottom line of people's livelihood, make up for functional shortcomings, coordinate all kinds of resources, increase financial support, focus on residents' urgent problems and demands, and give priority to the construction of public service facilities, municipal infrastructure, disaster prevention and safety facilities, as well as public green areas and public activity venues. At the same time, it is also important to give full play to the role of the market. Social enterprises should be actively attracted to participate in the daily renewal operations, so as to balance the investment in renewal and renovation with long-term operation income. The urban renewal regulations of many cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, stipulate that a sound mechanism for public participation in urban renewal should be established to guarantee the public's right to know, participate, express, and supervise in urban renewal actions. At the same time, how to fully stimulate the attention, support and participation of community residents and social forces in renewal actions is also very important. It is also very significant to attract or organize training for more community residents to participate in renewal projects, to enhance their participation ability, and to accumulate practical and low-cost micro-renewal experience. It is noteworthy that everyone who contributes to and participates in the renewal will cherish the results of renewal and realize the joint planning, building, governance, and sharing of a better home, which is of great significance for the sustainable promotion of urban renewal. (Figure 10)

Figure 10: Inherit the local architectural characteristics of the city

Conclusion

Urban renewal is an inevitable stage in the process of urban development and an important focus point for comprehensively promoting the construction of new urbanization. It is an important task of China's Fourteenth Five-Year Plan period to implement urban renewal and promote the optimization of urban spatial structure and quality improvement. A scientific and in-depth understanding of the connotation of urban renewal will help to promote the implementation of urban renewal actions comprehensively and effectively. The importance of micro-renewal lies in the fact that urban renewal is about people's everyday life. It should be resident-oriented and focus on people's livelihood and well-being, adapting to and meeting people's higher level of living needs, enhancing people's happiness and sense of achievement, and truly realizing the goal of people's city built by people and built for people.

Arthor：Leng Hong, School of Architecture Harbin Institute of Technology

Source: <https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HGP8MtFL8xzCl7ruj1OQzw>

Translated by Zhang Chenxi