The discretized city. Exploration of urban densification through morphotypological devices on the Danyang-Changzhou corridor

The twenty-first century has witnessed an urban transformation in China of unprecedented scale and speed. Driven by national policies aimed at constructing approximately 400 new cities between 2000 and 2020, this expansion has repositioned the country as a global laboratory for urban experimentation. These newly established settlements do not constitute mere expansions of existing fabric, but function as strategic nodes for the active remodelling of regional systems, facilitating a transition from industrial satellite towns toward integrated and polycentric urban regions. However, this accelerated development has revealed a fundamental tension at the heart of the Chinese urbanisation process: the often-problematic integration of global urban models with local specificities of socio-spatial, economic, and cultural nature. The resulting landscapes frequently exhibit morphological fragmentation, a lack of cohesive identity, and a misalignment between physical form and lived experience, highlighting the limitations of a purely technocratic approach to city-making. In light of this, this article argues for the need of moving beyond mere technical adjustments and proposes instead a methodological framework designed to critically mediate between global imperatives and local contexts. It posits that such an approach can be founded, in specific contexts, on an operational synthesis of morphogenetic principles and what we will name here as the “discretized city”, strategically implemented through localised urban densification devices. Inspired by Rossi's notion of “primary elements” as stable, sense-generating urban structures, these devices are conceived as catalytic interventions aimed at guiding expansion, regulating density, harmonising growth, and fostering the emergence of a local identity. To verify this hypothesis, the article presents a critical analysis and design experimentation applied to the case study of the Danyang-Changzhou corridor in Jiangsu Province. This linear system, supported by major transport infrastructures yet layered upon pre-existing agricultural patterns, serves as an emblematic case for testing the proposed methodology and evaluating its implications. The application of the methodology takes place within a learning-by-doing appraisal context, as a teaching device and a test of the original hypotheses. Within this case study, a three-phase operational strategy (Re-cognise, Re-signify, Re-configure) is applied to demonstrate how an approach guided by targeted devices could design the transformation of unstructured urban expansion into a polycentric network endowed with greater morphological cohesion and a defined identity. By examining the potential of these methodological tools, the study concludes that the central challenge of contemporary Chinese urbanisation is not technological but rather cultural and philosophical. The success of its new cities will depend not only on technical proficiency, but on their capacity to critically transcend reference models, forging a paradigm in which the promise of urbanity is realised through a conscious and contextual synthesis of the global and the local.