Exploring Participatory Microregeneration as Sustainable Renewal of Built Heritage Community: Two Case Studies in Shanghai

Since the 1990s, Shanghai has experienced massive urban development and renewal as ways to respond to its demographic, economic, and living space needs. Previous policies have led to the demolishment of many historical communities and valuable heritage housing. The existing ones continue to face extreme threats, such as bad physical conditions and the marginalization of communities. Yet there is a recent trend that emphasizes sustainable urban renewal named microregeneration (微更新), launched by municipal and local states since 2016. One of the main approaches of the initiative was to form new urban coalitions to focus on collaborative governance that helps integrate different agents’ expertise and values for more sustainable urban developments and renewals. This paper explores two cases on how this concept has emerged. The first case is An Shan Si Cun (鞍山四村). This housing block was built in the 1950s for employees of some state-owned enterprises. The second case is Jing Lao Cun (敬老邨). This alley house neighborhood was built in 1930s for migrants who came to Shanghai. Furthermore, this paper is to explore and compare their approaches to sustainable urban renewal, which attempts to preserve these communities that represent cultural and built heritage in Shanghai. Specifically, this paper examines the challenges and accomplishments of these experiments, and discusses policy implications for future tactics of sustainable urban renewal.