Table Of ContentCHINA: A HISTORICAL 
GEOGRAPHY OF THE URBAN
Edited by Yannan Ding, 
Maurizio Marinelli, Xiaohong Zhang
China: A Historical Geography of the Urban
Yannan Ding  •  Maurizio Marinelli 
Xiaohong Zhang
Editors
China: A Historical 
Geography of the 
Urban
Editors
Yannan Ding Maurizio Marinelli
Fudan University University of Sussex
Shanghai, P. R. China Brighton, UK
Xiaohong Zhang
Fudan University
Shanghai, P. R. China
ISBN 978-3-319-64041-9        ISBN 978-3-319-64042-6  (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64042-6
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Acknowledgments
This book grew out of two consecutive sessions titled ‘Urban Historical 
Geography  of  China’  that  we  organized  for  the  16th  International 
Conference of Historical Geographers (ICHG), held during July 5–10, 
2015, in London. A follow-up workshop was held on May 14, 2016, in 
Shanghai. We had been able to bring together a small and interdisciplin-
ary group of scholars from across the globe to work on this topic. Our 
gratitude goes to them for their contribution, patience, and flexibility 
towards this book project. We would also like to thank our editor at 
Palgrave, Joanna O’Neill, for her professional support in every step of the 
manuscript preparing work. Many thanks go to our families and friends 
for their encouragement and support that made this book possible.
This book benefited from the financial support that we received from 
the  National  Natural  Science  Foundation  of  China  (NSFC  No. 
41501153)  and  the  Ministry  of  Education  of  China  (grant  No. 
10JJD770003).
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Contents
 1   Introduction     1
Yannan Ding
Part I  Nation and City    15
 2   Shanghai Parks in the Second Half of the Nineteenth  
Century: Architectural and Cultural Exchanges Between  
the East and the West    17
Hsiu-Ling Kuo
 3   A City of Workers, a City for Workers? Remaking  
Beijing Urban Space in the Early PRC    41
Fabio Lanza
 4   Changchun Across 1949: Rebuilding a Colonial  
Capital City Under Socialism in the Early 1950s    67
Yishi Liu
vii
viii   Contents
Part II  Mediating History and Modernity    89
  5   Tunxi: Urban Sectoral Agglomeration in a Regional  
Centre of Tea Trade    91
Yi Zou and Xi Lin
  6   What’s in a Name: The “New Village” in Shanghai,  
1930–1980   115
Duan Zheng and Xiaohong Zhang
  7   A Comparison of Politics of Street Names in Taipei 
and Shanghai   137
Wenchuan Huang
Part III  Contemporary City Building   163
  8   Disneyfication or Self-Referentiality: Recent  
Conservation Efforts and Modern Planning  
History in Datong   165
Shulan Fu and Jean Hillier
  9   The Politics of Aesthetics in Tianjin Between Past  
and Present   193
Maurizio Marinelli
 10   Living in the “Past”: The Effects of a Growing  
Preservation Discourse in Contemporary Urban China   225
Philipp Demgenski
 Index   251
List of Figures
Fig. 3.1  Luo Feng, “The box factory at the Beixinqiao people’s  
commune,” in Shoudu chengshi renming gongshe suxie  
[Sketches about the urban people’s communes in the capital]  
(Beijing, Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1960)  51
Fig. 3.2  Zong Qixiang, “A view of the Erlonglu neighborhood  
industrial production,” in Shoudu chengshi renming  
gongshe suxie [Sketches about the urban people’s communes  
in the capital] (Beijing, Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1960)  55
Fig. 4.1  The 1932 Plan of the New Capital, which incorporates four 
fragmented parts of Changchun. Source: By the courtesy of the 
Planning Institute of Changchun  70
Fig. 4.2  The bird’s view of the main gate of the First Automobile Works 
(FAW) in 1957. Source: By courtesy of the FAW Archives  72
Fig. 4.3  A typical Chinese-style apartment with the corner tower  
above the roof (by the author)  76
Fig. 5.1  Rivers and mountain ranges in Huizhou  95
Fig. 5.2  The tea road from Huizhou to Guangzhou  100
Fig. 5.3  Location of tea manufacturers and supporting industries  
in Tunxi  108
Fig. 6.1  Distribution of the New Villages, 1936  121
Fig. 6.2  Distribution of the New Villages, 1986  127
ix
x   List of Figures
Fig. 8.1  City map and drawing of the final Uchida Plan in the 1930s.  
(a) City map of Datong in 1937, (b) Drawing of the final  
plan in 1939. Source: Nakajima Naoto  173
Fig. 8.2  Drawing of the master plans in (a) 1955, (b) 1985, (c) 2006.  
Source: Urban Construction Archive of Datong City  175
Fig. 8.3  Project area of two cases in Land Use Analysis of Datong  
Old City. Map Source: Shulan Fu  179
Fig. 8.4  Recent photos of the West City Wall and Huayansi.  
(a) Construction scene of the West City Wall, (b) The tourist  
square in front of Huayansi. Source: (a) Jean Hillier  
(September 29, 2016), (b) Shulan Fu (September 23, 2016)  180
Fig. 9.1  Map of Tianjin, 1912. From Madrolle’s guide books:  
Northern China, The Valley of the Blue River, Korea.  
Hachette & Company, 1912  195
Fig. 9.2  The ex-Italian concession, May 2013 (by the author)  211
Fig. 10.1  Map of Dabaodao (by Ulf Etzold)  233
Fig. 10.2  A Liyuan Courtyard in 2012 (by the author)  234
List of Tables
Table 7.1  The categories of street names in Qing Taipei  142
Table 7.2  The categories of street names in the British settlement  144
Table 7.3  The types of street names in British and  
American settlements  145
Table 7.4  The naming system of Chōs in Taipei City, 1922  148
Table 7.5  The patterns of street-naming in Taipei City after WWII  152
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