From August 8 to August 14, 2022, the one-week Academic Workshop on Theory and Practice of Urban Renewal was successfully held at the Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School. Forty-five participants from domestic and overseas universities, research institutions, international organizations and relevant enterprises took part in four core modules of the workshop: field visits to land consolidation and comprehensive renovation projects in Shenzhen, eight thematic lectures, group scenario simulation exercises, and a problem-oriented participatory seminar titled "Keyword Exploration of Urban Renewal".

On August 8, all workshop participants conducted field visits to two landmark local projects: the holistic village-wide land consolidation initiative of Shahu Community in Pingshan District, and the Yuanfen Weitang comprehensive renovation project in Longhua District. On the morning of August 8, Zhong Xijian, Chairman of Shenzhen Pingshan Shahu Joint Stock Cooperative Company; Lai Weisheng, Deputy Director of the Pingshan District Planning and Natural Resources Research Center; Wu Zhenghong, Director of the District Party Committee Policy Research Office; and design specialists from AECOM briefed participants on Shenzhen’s policy framework for benefit-coordinated land consolidation and practical experience from the Shahu Community project. In the afternoon of August 8, participants toured the Weitang Youth Community in Yuanfen New Village, Longhua District. Wang Jieshu, Deputy General Manager of the Community Operations Center at Shenzhen Vision Weitang Commercial Management Co., Ltd., shared insights covering the operational model of unified rental renovation in comprehensive upgrading, associated socioeconomic impacts, and the government’s role in the whole process.

Following a brief opening ceremony, Secretary-General Tian Guangming from the Guangdong Association for the Renovation of Old Towns, Old Factories and Old Villages delivered the first lecture themed Experience and Challenges of Three-Olds Renovation in Guangdong Province. Secretary-General Tian first introduced the historical backdrop, current demands, institutional framework, practical bottlenecks and renovation characteristics of Guangdong’s three-olds renovation, alongside seven typical local cases. He then elaborated on nine core experiences accumulated in the province’s renovation practice: threshold setting, planning control, diversified renovation models, benefit distribution, public supporting facility construction, contiguous redevelopment, industrial support policies, administrative approval streamlining, and whole-process project supervision. Afterwards, he outlined five major challenges and seven transformative shifts under the existing policy and market environment, delivered prospects for high-quality urban development, and analyzed key developmental priorities. To conclude, Secretary-General Tian reflected on 13 years of three-olds renovation in Guangdong and shared his outlook on upcoming institutional reforms.

The second lecture was an online presentation delivered by Professor Li Xun, Director of the Institute of China’s Coordinated Regional Development and Rural Construction, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, with the theme Theories and Path Selection of Urban Renewal. Taking Liverpool, London and Guangzhou as case references, Professor Li first outlined the evolutionary phases of urban renewal in Western countries and China, pointing out that urban renewal constitutes an integral stage of the urban life cycle and an iterative socioeconomic spatial process. Starting from the impacts of China’s fiscal decentralization, he thoroughly interpreted the economic logic of domestic urban renewal via the land rent surplus model of Chinese urban development and the land rent model of China’s spatial transformation. He then discussed binding constraints facing China’s urban renewal across resources, property rights, finance and spatial layout dimensions. In the final segment, leveraging a property right-time model for urban renewal alongside practical cases from Xiamen and Guangzhou, Professor Li forecasted future developmental trends of urban renewal.

The third lecture, titled Land Operation Issues in the Renovation of Urban Villages and Old Factories, was given by Professor Tao Ran from the School of Economics, Renmin University of China. Starting with China’s unique economic development model, Professor Tao laid out the theoretical and institutional background of domestic urban renewal, and analyzed the necessity of taking land as the core entry point to advance regeneration projects. Addressing insufficient incentives and sluggish progress in the redevelopment of inefficient industrial land, he proposed standardized mixed industrial-residential and industrial-only redevelopment schemes, together with reasonable distribution of residential land transfer revenue to owners of low-efficiency industrial plots, to expand profit margins, smooth renovation progress and attract targeted industrial investment. To resolve persistent obstacles in urban village renovation such as rocketing land acquisition costs and holdout residents, he put forward an innovative framework of "two competition mechanisms plus spatial land index reallocation". The framework introduces internal competition among land supply parties and potential demand parties, and realizes cross-spatial transfer of construction land quotas by promoting integrated redevelopment across a broader scope, so as to lift land value and cut overall urban renewal costs. In closing, Professor Tao illustrated implementation plans and expected outcomes of the above framework through four real-world case studies.

The fourth lecture focused on Legal Issues in Guangdong’s Three-Olds Renovation, presented by Lawyer Gong Junwei, Supervisor-General and Director of the Policy & Legal Special Committee of the Guangdong Three-Olds Renovation Association. Using accessible language and abundant case experience, Lawyer Gong outlined the policy and legal system, general workflow and core features of Guangdong’s three-olds renovation. From a professional legal perspective, he analyzed common disputes and corresponding solutions covering relocation compensation, land transfer, voluntary conversion of collective land to state-owned land, state-owned enterprise land development, and village-enterprise cooperation. He also delivered special interpretations on ownership disputes over historically expropriated land, urban renewal experience in Shanghai, and root causes of current market difficulties facing three-olds renovation. During the session, participants held an in-depth interactive discussion with Lawyer Gong on violations arising from collective-to-state land conversion in land acquisition, villager qualification identification disputes within rural collective economic organizations, and engineering construction issues in old town and village redevelopment.

The fifth lecture was delivered by Professor Tian Li, Professor of Urban Planning and Director of the Center for Land Use and Housing Policy, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, with the title Internal Logic and Systematic Framework of Urban Renewal Planning Formulation and Implementation: Evidence from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. After reviewing the evolution of theories and practical practices of urban renewal planning in China, Professor Tian elaborated on the tripartite relationship between government, market and society in regeneration projects. From the perspective of restructuring land development rights, she uncovered the internal logic and hierarchical architecture of urban renewal planning. By building a comparative analytical framework covering government-market-society interactions, she contrasted characteristics of planning and implementation across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and summarized external contexts, commonalities and divergent features of urban renewal practices in the four megacities. Professor Tian argued that constraints of human-land relations and urban functional positioning define the basic orientation of urban renewal strategies, while the future trajectory of regeneration hinges on macro socioeconomic trends and shifts in local fiscal capacity.

The sixth presentation, themed Urban Renewal and Research on Housing for Middle- and Low-Income Groups, was given by Professor Ye Yumin from the School of Public Administration, Renmin University of China. At the opening of the report, Professor Ye analyzed the current supply of rental housing for middle- and low-income populations in major Chinese cities. She found that although the proportion of affordable rental housing is relatively high, the share of affordable, habitable housing with satisfactory quality remains low after housing conditions are taken into account. She further conducted a comparative analysis of three mainstream urban village renewal models, warning that China’s existing regeneration approaches lack holistic long-term vision and carry risks of exacerbating a new dual urban structure. Professor Ye advocated a public-interest-oriented urban renewal pathway, which builds a three-pillar rental housing system consisting of public rental housing, collective-owned rental housing and villager-operated private rental housing to improve affordable housing access for low- and middle-income residents. She argued that this framework can comprehensively boost citizenization and lay a solid human capital foundation for China’s modernization drive. After the presentation, participating scholars held a lively exchange with Professor Ye based on their respective research fields.

The seventh lecture, titled Spatial Effects and Reflections on Urban Renewal: Evidence from Shenzhen, was delivered by Associate Professor Tong De, Research Fellow of the School of Urban Planning and Design and Executive Director of the Future City Laboratory (Shenzhen), Peking University. After defining the research connotation of spatial effects of urban renewal and sorting out the evolution timeline and policy logic of regeneration in Shenzhen, Associate Professor Tong elaborated on the vital contributions of urban villages to the city’s development. Taking Baishizhou urban renewal as a case, she used mobile signaling data to examine involuntary residential displacement triggered by large-scale regeneration, inspiring participants to reflect on inclusive renewal models that minimize disruptions to urban village tenants, as well as the unique strengths of big data in urban renewal research. She then discussed planning adjustments induced by Shenzhen’s urban renewal, further explored spatial outcomes of self-organized incremental urban village renovation via the Huanggang Village case, and revealed spatial effects of comprehensive village upgrading through the Ningmeng Apartment project in Shuiwei Village, alongside reflections on the role of informal institutions in regeneration governance. In closing, Associate Professor Tong called on all participants to stay committed to the original mission of people-centered urban renewal.

The eighth and final theoretical lecture was presented by Liu Zhi, Director of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy, with the theme International Experience and Enlightenments of Urban Renewal. Starting from the essential nature of urban renewal, the presentation illustrated the driving roles of population, land and capital, as well as the era-specific characteristics of global regeneration practices. After reviewing the historical backdrop of Western urban renewal movements, Director Liu focused on multi-stakeholder relations covering government, market, community and individuals in international cases, and shared illustrative global regeneration practices and takeaways: land value capture financing in Haussmann’s renovation of Paris; Bilbao’s industry-transformation-led urban renewal; Barcelona’s 22@ innovation district under multi-stakeholder collaborative governance; market-oriented King’s Cross Central regeneration in London; capital conflicts in Indonesia’s urban village upgrading programs; and favela improvement initiatives in Rio de Janeiro. Director Liu concluded that most dilemmas in urban renewal stem from trade-offs between competing objectives, and resolving such conflicts relies on clear prioritization of regeneration goals.

Upon the completion of eight theoretical lectures, the workshop entered its penultimate module. On the sixth day of the event, Assistant Researcher Wang Jinshuo from the Institute of Land and Urban-Rural Development, Zhejiang University led a scenario-based game using a Shenzhen urban village as the research subject, to deepen participants’ understanding of urban renewal theories and real-world operations. Participants were divided into independent groups, each assigning themselves to stakeholder roles within a village regeneration project. Teams simulated negotiation and gaming processes to draft customized renewal plans, then presented their schemes to all attendees. Two outstanding groups were awarded prizes after joint voting by participants and invited experts.

Group Presentation Session

Winning Groups Receiving Awards

The closing session of the workshop was a participatory seminar themed "Keyword Exploration of Urban Renewal". Through multiple rounds of voting by invited experts and participants, two top-five keyword lists were finalized (one ranked by experts, one by participants). The following guests shared their practical and research reflections on the selected keywords and proposed targeted solutions to core challenges: Professor Li Guicai, Director of the Future City Laboratory (Shenzhen), Peking University; Professor Yi Chengdong, Department of Urban and Real Estate Management, Central University of Finance and Economics; Miao Chunsheng, Deputy Chief Planner, Shenzhen Urban Planning, Land & Resources Research Center; Yang Yi, Deputy General Manager, Vanke Urban Renewal Division; Wang Jieshu, Deputy General Manager of Community Operations, Shenzhen Vision Weitang Commercial Management Co., Ltd.; Wang Jia, Director of the Urban Renewal Center, Shenzhen Urban Planning & Design Institute; Yao Zaoxing, Director of the Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources, Pingshan District, Shenzhen; and Liu Zhi, Director of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy. After focused, in-depth discussion, Director Liu summarized and reviewed all highlighted keywords. The seminar thoroughly discussed cutting-edge theoretical and practical issues of urban renewal, strengthened ties between industry practitioners and academia, and promoted multi-stakeholder collaboration to refine a theoretical system of urban renewal with Chinese characteristics.

After the seminar, Associate Professor Tong De presided over the workshop’s closing ceremony. A short highlight video recapped all field visits, lectures and interactive activities. Three participant representatives from universities, planning institutes and investment & development banks shared their learning takeaways and personal reflections. In the final address, Director Liu Zhi extended sincere gratitude to all invited experts, participating students and administrative staff of the co-organizers, and delivered best wishes for all attendees’ future careers and daily lives.

Written by: Mu EnyiPhotography by: Li Yunhe