Impacts of urban renewal on the place identity of local residents – a case study of Sunwenxilu traditional commercial street in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, China

This paper studies the impacts of urban renewal on local residents’ place identity by examining the changes in local residents’ place identity in Sunwenxilu, a traditional commercial street in downtown Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, China, which carried out urban renewal relatively early in modern China. Applying Breakwell’s [(2015). Risk: Social psychological perspectives. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Elsevier] identity process model and using the renewal process as a starting point, data concerning local residents’ place identity in Sunwenxilu were collected through in-depth interviews, observations, and literature analysis. The results reveal that local residents had established a strong place identity on Sunwenxilu before it changed to be a community of “incompetents” in the 1990s. In the late 1990s, Sunwenxilu was transformed into a cultural tourism pedestrian street. Right after the transformation, local residents regained their self-esteem with the improvement of the physical environment and intensification of cultural symbols, and re-established their place continuity by maintaining their collective memories. However, a failure to improve the local residents’ self-efficiency of place during the “superficial” renewal had resulted in vulnerability of the local residents’ place identity in terms of self-esteem, continuity and distinctiveness, thus causing another crisis of place identity. Obviously, the construction of place identity results from the interaction of all elements, so too much emphasis on only one element may trigger a new identity crisis.