Designing Neighborhood for Communal Activities: Low-Rent Housing for Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China

Abstract

Few researchers have observed the Chinese rural-to-urban migrantshave the need to have communal activities to help them with the processof managing their spatial transition from the rural setting to the urbansetting. This study investigates planning strategies regarding low-renthousing for Chinese rural-to-urban migrants through an examination ofthe intermediary spaces combined with functions shared among suchChinese migrants in their urban settlements. Chinese migrants graduallytransfer from their home rural settlements to establish city lives andengage in urban occupations, but their sense of identity and familynetwork remain grounded in a village culture. The high level ofcommunal activities found in the spontaneous urban settlements ofrural-to-urban migrants, can be understood as one aspect of theadherence to the lifestyle of their rural settlements. This researchemploys Canter’s place model for organizing a data collection frameworkto understand the perception of high level of communal activities. As a result, this study is to show that the sharing of certain functions situatedin the transitional spaces, namely, in front of the rental room, in front ofthe rental house and between the rental houses, must be joined withfunctions that residents can share or must share with each other. Theshared functions situated in the transitional spaces actually allowcommunal activities to take root.