Strategies for Regeneration of Urban Villages in Hometown of Oversea-Chinese

Abstract

Hometown of Oversea-Chinese is a special phenomenon in the history of Chinese near-modern development, mainly in the east and south coast of China. At the beginning of last century, a large number of coastal residents moved overseas for living. After decades of efforts, they invested back hometown to build houses. These residence layouts consist both local traditional culture and foreign features, forming a special landscape. In recent years, economic globalization has promoted rapid urbanization, which leads massive population flowing from rural to urban areas. Cities eroded the countryside field and evacuated the rural labor force, leading to a large number of abandoned deteriorated urban villages, including the hometown of Oversea-Chinese. This paper focuses on the regeneration of urban villages in hometown of Oversea-Chinese. With the influence of global industrialization and rapid urbanization in recent decades in China, a large number of Oversea-Chinese residence groups have become empty and decayed urban villages gradually. However, they are different from urban villages in other parts of China, as they have unique cultural features and historical value, therefore research on the regeneration of this type of urban villages not only contribute to local economic development but also is closely related to the hot topic of how to maintain cultural differences under the process of globalization. We surveyed their formation process, historical and cultural characteristics and put forward some strategies of regeneration from the three aspects of society, economy and environment: explore history culture to strengthen the bond with Oversea-Chinese, develop cultural and creative industries and appropriate tourism to promote economic activities and improve the environment by government-led planning.