“Urban-rural integration” in the Earthquake Zone: Sichuan’s Post-Disaster Reconstruction and the Expansion of the Chengdu Metropole

One of the more recent movements in China’s policy for periurban planning and development is the pursuit of “town and country integration (cheng xiang yi ti hua)”. The officially re-framed approach to planning suggests possibilities for the official reconsideration of developmental practice, but entrenched conditions of governance; land, environmental and developmental policy; and the planning profession itself constrain these possibilities. Perhaps no other context in China illustrates these constraints more dramatically than the reconstruction effort underway in Sichuan following the earthquake of May 12, 2008. Cultural, environmental and economic differences among settlements in the earthquake zone vary widely, and local and national leaders frequently mention the opportunity the recovery presents for innovative and sustainable development, but the “cataclysmic” nature of reconstruction investment, and the extremely rapid and construction-dominated approach to recovery has prevented planners from considering local conditions or alternative approaches. If the official earthquake response has served to propel urbanization along pre-existing trajectories, local geographical, historical and cultural conditions nevertheless assert themselves, even if informally. The uniquely dense, dispersed, and agriculturally productive Chengdu plain has already shaped a national discourse on urban-rural relations. The expansion of Chengdu’s urban region into the narrow valleys and minority ethnic settlements across the Longmen Mountains presents new and unpredictable challenges for considering how city and country are related.

地震區的”城鄉整合”：四川的災後重建和成都大都市的擴張

中國在都市邊緣地帶的規劃與發展上的最近舉措之一是追求”城鄉一體化”。這一經過了官方改造的規劃方式為正式地重新考慮發展實踐提供了可能性，但根深蒂固 的行政環境、土地與環境和發展方面的政策、規劃行業本身等都又限制了這些可能性。四川在2008年5月地震後所進行的災後重建努力形象地展示了這些侷限在 中國的狀況。地震區的居民之間的文化、環境、和經濟差別都非常巨大，而本地和國家領導人都頻繁地提到恢復重建工作為創新的和可持續性的發展提供了機會。但 重建投入的”巨變”本質，以及急速的以建築為主的恢復重建方式阻礙了規劃者考慮本土條件或其它的發展方式。雖然官方對地震的回應旨在沿著現存的軌跡推進城 市化，本土的地理、歷史和文化條件卻表述了它們自己的訴求——雖然通過的是非官方的方式。成都平原獨特的密集、廣布而興旺的農業區域對全國的城鄉關係話語 已經產生了影響。成都市區向狹窄的峽谷和龍門山地區少數民族聚居地的擴張為我們思考城市和鄉村的聯繫提出了未知的新挑戰。