Yucong Zhang

Topic

Ecologizing the Chinese Countryside: The Rural Fix for Urban Sustainability in the Lower Yangzi Delta

Department of Pacific and Asian Studies

Date & location

• Tuesday, April 30, 2024
• 1:00 P.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B007

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Andrew Marton, Department of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Jutta Gutberlet, Department of Geography, UVic (Outside Member)
• Dr. Zhongping Chen, Department of History, UVic (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Alana Boland, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Danu Stinson, Department of Psychology, UVic

Abstract

This dissertation examines the phenomenon of ecologization, the proliferating construction of ecological spaces (eco-spaces), which have emerged in densely populated rural areas of the lower Yangzi Delta mega-urban region in response to the sustainable development agenda and Chinese policies of ecological civilization. Drawn from the Chinese word shengtaihua (生态化), ecologization is used in this study to conceptualize the various ways ecology is interpreted and implemented in the Chinese context, as it challenges established discourses, practices and roles of spatial design disciplines which seek to address the goals of sustainable development and the ideologies of ecological civilization. The analysis of ecologization also provides a design perspective in understanding rural and urban transformation under strong environmental and cultural governance in China. Based on the interplay between environmental protection and urbanization, the process of ecologization is essentially a form of urbanization, modernization and civilization that radically transforms the spatial and social fabric of rural landscapes in the lower Yangzi Delta. As a national prototype for green and ecologically integrated development, ecologization in the lower Yangzi Delta may soon be widely adopted in the entire country, causing great loss of cultural landscapes, social sustainability and rurality in the Chinese countryside.

Through extensive fieldwork, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, the dissertation illustrates how the interpretation of national environmental and ideological mandates among local planning elites in China has resulted in particular processes and patterns around the development and construction of eco-spaces. Detailed analysis of the ways spatial design disciplines interpret, implement, and govern eco-spaces highlight how ecologization across rural areas of the lower Yangzi Delta has become the fix for challenges of urban sustainability.

A key finding of the research is that to fix urban sustainability statistically and aesthetically, two strategies—eco-metrics and eco-culture aesthetics —were devised by local planning elites to implement environmental and ideological tasks. Eco-metrics were achieved as top-down administrative tasks irrespective of spatial conditions, while eco-culture aesthetics composed new narratives of the rural landscapes as a continuation of culture and tradition. The evidence illustrates how ecologization is detrimental to social and environmental sustainability in rural areas. In the process, genuine social sustainability and pre-existing spatial conditions were largely disregarded, and village rationality, which maintains rurality and rural sustainability in the context of a globalized economy and rural urbanization, was lost. This outcome is inconsistent with the stated goals and rhetoric of indicator-based measurement methods of sustainable development and ecological civilization.

Another key finding highlights strong cultural assertions in ecologization deliberately intended to reinforce the Party’s ideological influence, to ensure collective social value towards ecological civilization, and to harmonize conflicts between rural and urban, and local interests and national policies. Moreover, ecologization in the lower Yangzi Delta deployed spatial design disciplines as a tool to legitimize implementation of both environmental and ideological goals in eco-spaces and the surrounding countryside. Such forward-looking outcome-based approaches and the near total disregard of authentic local historical, social and cultural processes, is part of a spatial design approach that is consistent with the Party-state’s intention to wholly restructure spatial and social forms.

The dissertation concludes by arguing that in-depth research and consideration of historical, contextual, and social processes must be undertaken to ensure spatial design disciplines can make meaningful contributions to genuine sustainability. Such sustainable planning and design should also be integrated into policy-making processes and be independent from administrative hierarchy and local power dynamics. The strategies and implications of ecologization in other parts of China, or in other cultural and political contexts could be further examined in comparative research.