Chinese Urban-Rural Continuum as framework for the Green City of the future in East Pearl River Delta

Abstract

In our consulting activity for the Huizhou Municipality (Guangdong Province, China) we proposed a strategy of development of the city of Huiyang based on the integration in the frame of its Official Masterplan of rural “landscape units” containing groups of “weilong type” Hakka fortified villages. These “landscape units” should still maintain an appreciable ratio of agricultural land to form part of the “green structure of the future”. In this way, we identify a strategy of development that at a regional scale could provide new opportunities of urban growth alternative to undifferentiated sprawl. This approach could be expressed with the slogan “rebuilding from the countryside within the city of the future” as opposed to “undifferentiated growth of the city at the expense of the countryside. We present in our paper the cases of the two minor market town of Xiang Ling and Weibu in the surroundings of Huiyang “urban-rural continuum”.