Let Shanghai's "coexistence of new and old, and continuation of fireworks" grasp the timing and trend of urban renewal and evolution. Shanghai | Jianwu | Fireworks

Driven by industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, urban renewal in China has shifted from pursuing increment to revitalizing stock, from extensional development to connotative development, from pursuing a single goal to pursuing multiple goals, from large-scale sports oriented transformation to small-scale progressive renewal, from a single path to a differentiated path, and from extensive to refined.

As one of the important types of urban renewal, residential renewal has attracted attention from all walks of life, especially the renovation of old areas through expropriation. The Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and Government insist on making it an important livelihood project and public opinion project that is related to the well-being of the people and the long-term development of the city. With firm determination, pragmatic style, and innovative policies, they will work one after another to accelerate the modernization process of the old city, gradually improve the quality of life, public space, urban style, and regional functional quality of citizens.

"Gradual adjustment of work focus"

According to the severity, urgency, and difficulty of housing renewal, Shanghai has successively carried out the renovation of "dilapidated shantytowns and simple houses", the renovation of "buildings below the second level old neighborhood", and the renovation of "two old and one village". The focus of work has been adjusted and gradually extended.

In the early 1990s, the housing contradiction in Shanghai was prominent, with dangerous houses, shantytowns, and simple houses covering 3.65 million square meters. The 6th Party Congress of the city has set the starting point for the renovation and improvement of residential areas on the renovation of dilapidated sheds and houses with simple structures and the worst environment, and proposed the goal of completing the renovation by the year 2000. Through nearly 10 years of hard work, the renovation task has been basically completed.

At the end of 2000, in the distribution of houses below the old neighborhood, 57.0% were distributed in patches, 31.5% were in whole neighborhoods, and 11.5% were scattered. That is to say, more than 88.5% of the houses below the old neighborhood, which are concentrated in clusters and neighborhoods. As a result, the "new round of old area renovation" launched in early 2001 focused its work on "large areas of second level old buildings and below". This is what is often referred to as "mass renovation" later on.

By 2009, Shanghai had reduced the "encirclement" of the old district renovation to the most difficult, urgent, and arduous "five major bases" distributed in a continuous and patchy pattern. This is a "battlefield battle" for the renovation of old areas, with five city leaders contacting and focusing on promoting it.

By 2018, there were still about 180000 households in Shanghai still using hand-held toilets. As a result, Shanghai began the final "battle" of large-scale renovation, with the goal of basically completing the renovation within 5 years. Through hard work, the task was ultimately completed ahead of schedule by July 2022. At this point, the large-scale large-scale renovation has come to a comprehensive end.

In 2022, there will be a total of approximately 300000 scattered houses below the old neighborhood, incomplete old houses, and "urban villages" in the city that need to be renovated and renovated. Therefore, the 12th Party Congress of the city proposed an overall requirement to put the renovation of "two old villages and one village" on the agenda.

It can be seen that the decades long residential renewal work in Shanghai is a step-by-step process, constantly adjusting the focus and pace of work, and overcoming difficulties.

"The way of working is constantly evolving"

Based on its own characteristics, Shanghai has gone through different stages of residential renewal, including "comprehensive renovation", "demolishing old buildings to build new ones", "demolishing, renovating, and retaining", and "retaining, renovating, and demolishing". The work has been carried out at different times according to the situation.

In the context of immature economic and technological conditions, Shanghai was the first to adopt comprehensive renovation methods such as "building and releasing" and complete sets of renovations to solve the problem of residential congestion. However, the number of houses that can adapt to these renovation methods is very limited, and funding is also difficult, so the implementation scale is not large. The subsequent renovation of dangerous sheds was mainly carried out in the form of demolishing old buildings and building new ones.

In 2001, after the focus of the renovation work in old areas was shifted from "dangerous sheds and simple houses" to "large areas of second level old houses and below", Shanghai established the guiding ideology of "demolishing, renovating, and retaining".

In 2017, as the large-scale renovation of old areas entered the stage of tackling difficulties, Shanghai adjusted the policy of "demolishing, renovating, and retaining" to "retaining, renovating, and demolishing simultaneously", establishing the principle of "retaining must be retained, all necessary renovations must be made, and demolition should be carried out quickly" on the basis of safeguarding people's livelihoods, basic needs, and safety. It demanded that "the renovation of old areas should not be delayed or neglected, and the protection of their appearance should not be relaxed or ignored".

Overall, Shanghai has gone through a process of seeking truth from facts, adapting to the situation, and gradually advancing its urban renewal methods.

"Continuously innovating work systems"

Since the proposal of "Sunshine Relocation" in 2002, Shanghai's old renovation has adhered to the mass line, continuously improved and innovated the "open, fair, and just" system, and standardized construction has never stopped.

For example, in 2003, a series of measures and methods such as the "Five Systems" were implemented to strengthen relocation management; From 2003 to 2009, from "six disclosures" to "nine disclosures" to "ten disclosures", and later to "results also made public", transparency and credibility continued to be enhanced.

Since 2005, the service level of collection work has been improved through the joint construction of party building, gradually strengthening the "four level linkage" of party organizations at the city, district, street, and neighborhood levels in the old renovation work; Since 2006, the implementation of "separation of two fees" has separated the payment of relocation compensation fees to residents from the payment of labor fees to relocation institutions, avoiding the situation where honest people suffer losses.

Since 2007, we have been exploring the transition from "I want to change" to "I want to change", carrying out "two rounds of consultation", that is, whether or not to reform and how to reform are all considered by the people, fully respecting the opinions of residents, and exploring the entire process of people's democracy; Since 2009, lawyers have been introduced to provide legal aid, ensuring procedural fairness and compensation fairness through online signing and electronic agreements.

Moreover, the national relocation policy is revised almost every 10 years, and Shanghai has accordingly revised its detailed rules and improved specific policies based on its own characteristics, constantly catering to the needs of residents and meeting practical needs.

Especially in the 2011 version of the detailed rules, the transition from "demolition" to "expropriation" has been achieved, avoiding the previous requirement that buildings must be "destroyed" in order to be relocated. This has laid the foundation for protecting excellent historical buildings, and policies have become increasingly scientific and reasonable.

At the same time, the compensation and resettlement standards have also shifted from the "number of people" with a protective color to the "number of bricks" with market economy thinking, and then to the proposal of "number of bricks plus a set of minimum guarantees" in 2009, reflecting the basic guarantee and human care based on market value standards.

"Various policies are continuously advancing"

The renovation of old areas, as a crucial task, is a type of urban renewal that requires significant investment and difficult financial balance.

In 1992, Shanghai utilized social capital to carry out the renovation of old areas through land leasing, solving the financial difficulties that plagued the renovation and opening the way for large-scale renovation of dangerous sheds and simple houses.

In 2004, under the national policy requirements of "land reserve and net land transfer", Shanghai's large-scale old area renovation was adjusted from utilizing social funds to carrying out "land reserve" in the form of government finance or special bonds for old area renovation. Due to the huge cost, Shanghai has explored a "city to city collaboration" to gather two levels of financial resources to carry out land reserve expropriation, achieve primary land development, and then achieve basic recovery of demolition costs through "bidding, auction, and hanging".

With the passage of time, what remains from the renovation of old areas is mostly "difficult to gnaw on" bones. The call for multi-party co construction and sharing is increasing, and the requirements for rule of law, standardization, and refinement are also increasing. The requirements for the protection of historical and cultural landscapes are also higher, and the difficulty of balancing funds is greater. In this situation, Shanghai is further exploring a new mechanism of "urban cooperation and government enterprise cooperation", using functional state-owned enterprises as a link to build a platform for government enterprise cooperation, opening up the path for social entities to participate in the renovation of old areas, and actively utilizing syndicated funds and social capital.

At the same time, through a series of policy innovations such as land and finance, we will explore the integration of building and scheme bidding and site linkage under the requirements of historical building preservation and protection; Through platform coordination, explore the balance between "primary and secondary linkage" and "cross cycle, cross regional, and cross category" three crossings "; Through investment promotion and stock transfer, select market entities with brands, strength, and experience.

Overall, Shanghai's old renovation policies and mechanisms are keeping up with the times, constantly adapting to changes and requirements of the situation, and actively improving and innovating policies.

"Continuously enriching work paths"

Before 1991, the renovation of old areas in Shanghai adopted a more non expropriation approach, comprehensive renovation, physical resettlement, and residents relocating. But due to the economic and technological conditions at that time, the overall scale was not large.

From January to February 1991, then Mayor Zhu Rongji proposed through a series of research that "the renovation of old urban areas should break away from the old path of demolition and construction in situ", and established the strategic idea of "going to the outside and advancing into the Dabie Mountains". He emphasized that "the renovation of old urban areas should make full use of the benefits of differential land rent and achieve financial balance". In March of the same year, the Municipal Party Committee and Government held a meeting on residential construction work and decided to "transform dangerous houses, shantytowns, and simple houses according to the principle of relocation, and mobilize residents to move to the new area.".

Afterwards, Shanghai formed a "main line" for the renovation of old areas through large-scale expropriation.

While the large-scale expropriation path has formed the main line of old area renovation, Shanghai has also actively explored a series of non expropriation paths, carrying out renewal and renovation mainly based on the original site, original objects, and original ecology. Through complete renovation, replacement and evacuation, comprehensive improvement, environmental governance, house repair, facility improvement, spontaneous renovation, and self trading, different degrees of residential improvement have been achieved, forming multiple "sub lines" with experimental characteristics.

For example, pilot projects for the preservation and protection of excellent historical buildings, comprehensive improvements for old residential areas and housing, comprehensive environmental governance for built environments, normalized maintenance and repair of old housing, public facility construction for old housing and old residential areas, private spontaneous maintenance and renovation of old housing, and other distinctive explorations of organic renewal.

These non expropriated residential renovations mostly belong to the category of low disturbance, low investment, and improvement oriented organic renovations. On the basis of maintaining the original building structure, historical style, and social ecology, they have improved the housing conditions of indigenous people to varying degrees. Although advancing in exploration and with a relatively small overall scale, valuable experience has been accumulated, laying the foundation for exploring new models and mechanisms of urban renewal in the new situation.

Practice has fully proven that grasping the current situation, following the trend, and guiding according to the situation can help a city better determine its development positioning and direction, and through reform and innovation, overcome difficulties, and do better in practical work.

Looking at the decision-making, deployment, exploration, and practice of residential renewal work in Shanghai over the past few decades, in the early stages, the main approach was to adopt the "people moving houses and demolishing houses" model, emphasizing housing improvement and revitalization of old areas based on population dispersion; In recent times, the main focus has been on promoting the model of "people moving, houses staying", highlighting the protection of style and cultural heritage based on population dispersion.

Looking ahead to the future, we can actively explore the urban renewal model of "keeping people and houses", seeking new and old symbiosis and continuation of fireworks on the basis of moderate population dispersion, including new urban renewal paths such as repurchase and leaseback based on voluntary and quality improvement by residents.

To break through the inertia of traditional thinking and path dependence, analyze the background of the times, current characteristics, and situation requirements, clarify development goals and visions, innovate development methods and paths, and then establish regulations and systems to effectively guide and promote urban renewal actions.