Abstract
Greenway as landscaped, linear and multi-purpose component of urban planning has been increasingly used globally, especially in cities experiencing de-industrialization process. It has the potential to restructure city regions, improve spatial quality of places, and at the same time, make them greener and friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists. For creating green cities, there is no doubt that greenway could be seen as a tool of urban planning and design. However, without considering the specific demands of people who are the daily users of these greenways, this tool might not lead to truly green cities that people living in it appreciate. This paper is proposing a people-centered approach for the planning and design of greenway systems, with the aim of transforming industrial areas into livable cities, by reducing the level of pollution and energy consumption, while at the same time, facilitating the creation of citizenship for migrant workers. The context of this paper is Shenzhen (China), known as the 'world factory', which is currently in the transitional period towards becoming a 'world city'. Due to the increasing labour cost, manufactory industries are now gradually moving out of Shenzhen, from industrial districts like Dalang. Unlike the urban districts located inside the special economic zone of Shenzhen that were planned and developed officially since 1980s, Dalang represents those industrial districts located in the peri-urban area of Shenzhen, formed in the rural industrialization process in the past three decades, with mainly spontaneous development led by village collectives. The socio-spatial consequence of such development is a densely built-up urban area with productivity but lacking urbanity, accumulating a population of which 90% is young migrant workers working on the production lines. This paper will examine the daily lives of young migrant workers, their current and future demands on urban public space, cultural facilities and mobility. The results will be used as input for creating an innovative design approach to integrated greenway systems so that urban ecology, urban amenity and social equity could be gradually built up simultaneously.
Highlights
City and natureWith the world more and more urbanized, meeting human needs in the urban context is a key task of urban planning and design
With its associated recreational functions like walking, jogging, cycling, and hiking etc., urban nature space may facilitate interaction among people, and create the sense of community and identity of place. These above-mentioned social needs embedded in the demands of contacting with nature could be met with diverse urban green spaces, ranging from urban forests to pocket parks and roof gardens, and varying from derelict land with vegetation, to naturalistic and designed landscape
Looking back into history of greenway planning, there is a tendency that planning concepts would shift from formulating aethetic and recreational green corridors in the city-regional scale to creating multi-functional greenway system connecting urban nature spaces across scales
Summary
With the world more and more urbanized, meeting human needs in the urban context is a key task of urban planning and design. Greenway network planning started to include recreational functions in the city-regional levels It does not involve green spaces in the neighborhood scale, which could bring nature to the daily lives of people, create sense of community and formulate identity of place. With its associated recreational functions like walking, jogging, cycling, and hiking etc., urban nature space may facilitate interaction among people, and create the sense of community and identity of place These above-mentioned social needs embedded in the demands of contacting with nature could be met with diverse urban green spaces, ranging from urban forests to pocket parks and roof gardens, and varying from derelict land with vegetation, to naturalistic and designed landscape. This has confirmed that both needs of nature and society are essential in greenway system planning, especially in the local scale (Matsuoka and Kaplan, 2008)
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