Formal and Informal Planning-Dominated Urban Village Development: A Comparative Study of Luojiazhuang and Yangjiapailou in Hangzhou, China

Abstract

Urban villages, namely villages encircled by urban environments, are unique phenomena that proliferated during China’s rapid urbanization process, as well as important development issues for many Chinese cities at present. This article focuses on two planning approaches for urban villages, dominated by the government’s uniform and formal planning and villagers’ spontaneous and informal planning practices, aiming to examine which planning approach is more conducive to urban village development. The two planning approaches for urban villages have simultaneously appeared in Hangzhou, a Chinese metropolis with a combination of high-speed economic growth, a unique geological environment, and a long cultural history, providing appropriate comparative study cases for this research. Two urban villages, Luojiazhuang and Yangjiapailou, located in plain and hilly areas in Hangzhou, respectively, and developed through the two planning approaches were selected as study cases. Primary data were collected based on field investigations, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaire surveys. The villagers’ rental income, shopkeepers’ business benefits, and tenants’ residential satisfaction were investigated to compare the development of the two urban villages. Results indicate that compared with the formal planning-dominated approach, the informal planning-dominated approach achieves continuously rising rental income, more stable business benefits, and higher residential satisfaction, better suited to urban village development. This study contributes to coordinated urban–rural interaction in the urbanization process and enriches the formality–informality debates from a spatial planning perspective.