ULI China Mainland hosted a webinar on the global best practices of urban regeneration. For this event, urban renewal experts from China, the United States, and Japan showcased some well-known urban regeneration practices, analyzed and summarized from multi-perspectives the factors in successful practices, and discussed the new opportunities for the development of urban regeneration in Chengdu. 

Online Sharing: Urban Regeneration as New Growth Drivers

Tom Murphy, former Mayor of Pittsburgh and ULI Senior Resident Fellow, first pointed out to the audience that the awareness of urban regeneration has been a key factor in the 21^st century competition by sharing some vivid and interesting global urban regeneration practices. Modern urban regeneration is confronted with pressure on five fronts, namely globalization, climate change, the acceleration of technological innovation, strong demand for infrastructure, and severe population problems. Against such background, “Pittsburgh went through the long, painful transformation from an industrial city to a non-industrial one and is successfully renovated with reasonable project planning and project-targeted fund-raising.” TOD, a development model of optimizing urban spaces, shaping urban forms, and improving urban functional levels, is becoming an important force in spurring urban economic development and improving urban functions.

Dr. Masabumi Ota of Tokyu Railways Comprehensive Research Institute shared the project of Shibuya TOD urban regeneration in Tokyo. He said that as a new round of urban regeneration construction is underway in Tokyo, the Shibuya-centered TOD blocks will present a brand new scene to people.

From the design perspective, Phil Kim, Managing Director of the Asia Pacific at Jerde Partnership, Inc., explicated the concept of “Spatial Evolution — Human-Centered Urban Community”. Based on the principle of “place building”, he introduced that unique solutions are hatched after carefully examining the city’s culture, economy, and population.

Online Dialogue: Chengdu Opportunities under Urban Regeneration

Urban regeneration is not only an opportunity to upgrade urban functions, but also plays an important role in building up new driving forces for urban growth. Since the size of cities is limited, the development mode of big cities has shifted from seeking incremental value to exploring the stock value and change land-use. Urban regeneration will become a new growth point of urban development.

Chen Fangyong, Secretary General of China Urban Regeneration Forum and President of Urban Upcycling Institute, said that as China enters the latter stage of urbanization, it has to think about the needs of cities after the urbanization reached saturation or even recession. From the experience of urban development in the United States and Japan, people value the livability and functional integration of cities more than other factors. The boundaries between work and life will be constantly broken, and urban and rural areas need to be increasingly seamless. People will be closer to nature, to be healed and inspired by nature. Considering that China’s urbanization is still in progress, he urged that we need to be more visionary and get prepared for future lifestyles to avoid a difficult transition to the future urban renewal.

Tian Weilong is the Chairman of Chengdu Association of Building Economy Promotion, the General Manager of the southwestern region of COFCO Property, and the General Manager of Chengdu Joy City. Tian said, “With the rapid development of urbanization and the rocketing supply of newly increased land, the major problem for China’s first- and second-tier core cities is to do well in the renewal of built-up areas. At present, China’s urban regeneration projects mainly face challenges of city planning, capital investment, planning and design. We need to learn from foreign excellent practices, approaches and ideas to improve the development and operations of our urban regeneration projects, control risks, and enhance innovation. At the same time, we need to follow the business mindsets, form a closed loop of asset management, and pay attention to the positioning, design, content operations and investment management in operating specific projects. Last but not least, in the spirits of taking into consideration the current changes of human living environment, we can add elements like ecology, technology, and health to our urban regeneration projects and adopt 5G technology.