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The Decline of the Courtyard House and the Large-Scale Redevelopment of the Old City

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A Century of Change

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

Abstract

This chapter investigates the reasons why Beijing’s redevelopment of the traditional residential districts has caused serious damage to its Old City. It is argued that the decline of the courtyard house is mainly due to the municipal government’s policy during the period of planned economy. Although the reasons why the redevelopment project has not stopped the decline but caused further damages to the Old City are complicated, this chapter shows that the most important and direct reasons are the measure of large-scale urban redevelopment adopted by real estate developers in maximizing economic profits.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The word hutong came from the Mongolian language about 700 years ago. Its original meaning in Mongolian is “water well”.

  2. 2.

    According to China’s Criteria for Housing Design, a 1–3-storey house is a low-rise, a 4–6-storey house is a medium-rise, a 7–9-storey house is a medium–high-rise, and a house of 10 storeys or above is a high-rise (MCC 2005).

  3. 3.

    According to the relevant standards for building conditions issued by China’s Ministry of Construction in 1984, a building of Classes 1–2 is in normal condition; a building of Class 3 is in slightly poor condition; a building of Class 4 is in seriously poor condition, and a building of Class 5 is in a dangerous condition (Li and Pu 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yi Wang

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  1. Yi Wang
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Correspondence to Yi Wang .

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Wang, Y. (2016). The Decline of the Courtyard House and the Large-Scale Redevelopment of the Old City. In: A Century of Change. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39633-0_4

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