Heritage conservation as a territorialised urban strategy: conservative reuse of socialist industrial heritage in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Industrial heritage conservative reuse has become a territorialised urban strategy in China’s recent urban regeneration programmes in which the local state mobilises appropriate property market participants. The spatialised interpretation of two socialist industrial heritage sites in Hangzhou reveals that industrial heritage conservation has been undertaken as property commodity development with built environment enhancement and economic rewards as priorities. Cultural values and social narratives have yet to be reconstructed to play critical roles in the territorialisation of industrial heritage. Anticipated community engagement and non-state interests’ bargaining power have been restrained by the state who exerts vigilance against social unrest that could be brought by heritage conservation.