Emergence, Impact and Future of Mixed-Use Developments in Contemporary Urban Shanghai Evolution

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The growth of Shanghai has been one of the greatest urban transformations in History [1]. Contemporary Shanghai began to expand following the implementation of the open-door policy by Deng Xiaoping, which placed construction as one of China's three priority industrial pillars [2]. Before the 1990s, the private market scarcely existed in China, but by the late 1990s, it began to proliferate [3] culminating in the official abolition of the public-housing provision system by the Central Government in 1998 [4].

With this private homeownership, a middle class begins to emerge demanding new residential spaces and services. Given the structural urban congestion in downtown area and the newly emerged demand, the municipal government proposed, starting from the 1990s, urban developments to be opened to new areas like Pudong Development Plan of 1992 [5] and "One City Nine Towns" Plan of 1999 [6].

From an urban perspective, the development of these plans followed the model of zoning with huge Western Influence, and superblock configurations, which were very common in Asia during the post-war period [7]. As a consequence two new typologies emerged: residential gated communities and mixed-use developments, which provided these "non-places" with the necessary tertiary services as well as public space and a certain character and identity.
Mixed-use typology, refers to urban blocks of private tertiary services (shopping malls, offices, apartments, and hotels) located in strategic areas coinciding with metro stations.

Shanghai, Mixed-use, Architecture, Urban, China