The Environmental Consequences of ‘Urban Renewal’: Lessons from Two Reconstructed Urban Villages in inner-city Shenzhen

Abstract

The urban village is a unique phenomenon in China that thousands of former rural villages have been rapidly urbanized along with the surrounding built environment. The government, developers, and urban planners positioned these urban enclaves as to have terrible environmental quality and support wholesale demolition during urban renewal. Given the absence of environmental knowledge of urban villages and the evaluation of environmental impacts after reconstruction, this research examined urban heat island (UHI) and outdoor ventilation of two reconstructed urban villages in inner-city Shenzhen. Significant UHI during the day and night in the two reconstructed urban villages and strong wind conditions of some edge spaces were captured. Sky view factor, greenery planning, and the porosity of ambient environment provide directions to address the above-identified environmental problems.