Comparative Research on Rural Redevelopment planning in the Linpan Landscape: Case Study of Sandaoyan Town, Chengdu.

Abstract

The rapid urbanization of China has greatly affected farmers, rural villages and agriculture, and exacerbated the contradictions and trade-offs that always accompany change in complex ecosystems. Conflicts between economic development, local environmental protection, and cultural landscape stewardship have caught the attention of rural planners. In the extremely populous and agriculturally productive Western Sichuan Plain, linpan – small patches of farmsteads, forest and bamboo, and irrigation channels – are an unusually dispersed settlement form. This thesis studies the effects of housing concentration in classic instances of this landscape in Sandaoyan town, Pidu District, Chengdu, Sichuan. The study uses established indicators of spatial change in the linpan landscape and describes accompanying changes in accessibility to social services and household living conditions. Combining quantitative geo-spatial information with a data set of socio-economic variables at the household level, the study tested an approach to identify environmental indicators associated with housing concentration and loss of the linpan settlement form that may be significant to household income level. Implications for future research include suggestions on designing effective questionnaire surveys and other data collection and decision making. Findings from this study may help local planners make decisions with quantitative and geographic data support.