Heritage, values and gentrification: the redevelopment of historic areas in China

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjhs20 International Journal of Heritage Studies ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjhs20 Heritage, values and gentrification: the redevelopment of historic areas in China Yujie Zhu & Plácido González Martínez To cite this article: Yujie Zhu & Plácido González Martínez (2022) Heritage, values and gentrification: the redevelopment of historic areas in China, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 28:4, 476-494, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2021.2010791 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2021.2010791 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 10 Dec 2021. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 4610 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 5 View citing articles Heritage, values and gentrification: the redevelopment of historic areas in China Yujie Zhu a and Plácido González Martínez b a Australian National University, College Arts & Social Sciences, Acton, Australia; b Tongji University, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shanghai, China ABSTRACT This paper explores the impacts of heritage-led urban redevelopment on local communities and the associated consequences of gentrification. The instrumental role of cultural heritage in urban governance presents an underdeveloped research field on gentrification. Especially in fast-developing countries like China, redevelopment is often associated with urban beautification that favours the interests of the affluent middle classes while disregarding the needs of the urban poor and migrants. This paper uses Qujiang New District in Xi’an and Taipingqiao in Shanghai as cases for examining the impacts of heritage-led redevelopment on the urban landscape and social fabric of Chinese cities. Following a qualitative approach based on built environment analysis and observation, together with in-depth, semistructured interviews, this study shows how cultural heritage becomes an effective tool for governance in the context of urban redevelopment. The values generated by cultural heritage and its associated ideas, including urban beautification, high culture and economic benefits, legitimise state-dominated spatial reconstruction and the resulting gentrification and social fragmentation. Heritage-led urban redevelopment in China produces new spaces for social interaction, where the state’s control over its citizens is reinforced. These spaces support investor and upper-high class interests of capital accumulation and leave limited room for the development of alternatives. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 8 April 2021 Accepted 21 November 2021 KEYWORDS Urban redevelopment; cultural heritage; gentrification; beautification; values; governance Introduction This paper explores the impacts of heritage-led urban redevelopment on local communities and the associated consequences of gentrification. Since the 1960s, discussions on gentrification have focused on the critique of urban policy, immigration, housing and citizenship (Dikec 2002; Purcell 2013). Particularly in Western contexts, these discussions often revolved around the dynamics of state-society relations advocating for collective and democratic management of public resources, such as art galleries and parks (Harvey 2008). This paper focuses on cultural heritage as one form of public resource. By cultural heritage, this paper not only refers to ancient sites, objects and practices, but also to dominant heritage discourses that institute practices of documentation, intervention and dissemination by scholars, practitioners and officials (Smith 2006). Amidst the wide variety of studies, we contend that the role of heritage in gentrification, as a tool for urban governance, remains critically unassessed and needs to be further addressed. CONTACT Plácido González Martínez [email protected] Tongji University, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES 2022, VOL. 28, NO. 4, 476–494 https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2021.2010791 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The study of this phenomenon in China is particularly pertinent due to the active role of the entrepreneurial state in urban redevelopment (He and Wu 2005). For this reason, we consider that the analysis of heritage and gentrification in China can, on the one hand, contribute to understanding other countries in contexts that share similar prerogatives of developmentalism. On the other hand, such study can also reveal the multiple roles adopted by the state as a unique feature of gentrification in China. China is a hotbed for urbanisation, with its heavy focus on infrastructural development, resulting in exponential renewal, growth and emergence of hundreds of cities competing to attract investment. In addition to infrastructure building, city governments have incorporated cultural heritage as an essential component in city beautification and the production of urban space by means of officially sanctioned dominant heritage discourses. According to such discourses, heritage conservators, architects and urban planners redesign the architectural and urban legacy of critical periods in their past (Zhu 2018a). When associated with urban redevelopment, this re-design favours a few powerful actors (the local state, urban elites and enterprises), promoting a dramatic transformation of historic landscapes that increases land prices, leads to gentrification and stratifies local societies (Harvey 2008; Herzfeld 2015). By studying recent experiences in Shanghai and Xi’an, this paper examines the relationship between cultural heritage and urban redevelopment in China. Choosing a central urban area in Shanghai and a suburban location in Xi’an, both determined by highly significant heritage assets, the paper aims to illustrate the official production of dominant heritage discourses and the associated shift in aesthetic, economic and political values of heritage in urban redevelopment and gentrification in China. In detail, it raises the following questions: what values are created through urban redevelopment? What impacts does such heritage-led redevelopment have on local communities? What are the roles of heritage in such processes? Many other Chinese historical cities are also active in heritage-led urban redevelopment. However, this paper limits its scope to Shanghai and Xi’an to articulate the strong links between the use of heritage and urban gentrification in greater detail. Despite their different social and political contexts, both cities show similar patterns in the social impacts of urban redevelopment. The ideas evoked by heritage, such as the discourse of ‘beautification’, are favourable to the Chinese public, enabling the government bodies to smoothly establish consensus in support of their development objectives (Zhu 2020). The paper starts with a review of heritage and gentrification with focus on the Chinese context. The second and third sections examine the processes involved in heritage-making in Xi’an and Shanghai and the associated impacts on local neighbourhoods. The fourth section discusses the values created by heritage-making in both examples and the political implications of heritage-led gentrification in urban development. Learning from both examples, the paper argues that in a context of developmentalism and state control of urban planning and cultural policies, city governments use heritage as an active tool to legitimise gentrification of historic environments. Specifically, heritage contributes to the state governmentality of urban areas by employing the discourse of ‘cultural improvement’ (Tomba 2017, 513) and ‘beautification’, and the shaping of new official paradigms of a civilised city inhabited by civilised individuals. We argue that the centralisation of control in the redevelopment of the historic environment enables a shift of values and capital absorption to a process of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey 2004, 74). This is officially supported by improving living conditions in historic areas catering to the interests of social elites, and providing the original inhabitants access to the housing market. As a result, cultural heritage has become a powerful governance strategy to reinforce state control over the production of space and the functioning of society. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES 477 Literature review Heritage, values and gentrification We use the term ‘gentrification’ to characterise the physical and social upgrading of urban areas associated with the increase of real estate prices resulting from public or private capital investment. Even if urban social change happens constantly, gentrification ultimately characterises a political-economic process that is frequently linked to dispossession and displacement. Gentrification was first used by Ruth Glass (1964) to describe the initiative of affluent individuals moving to derelict central urban areas in London, and has since become an ‘ambitiously and systematically planned’ global process (Smith 2002, 439). The extended reach of gentrification goes hand in hand with the increasingly complex classification of diverse gentrification types (residential; commercial; new-build; state-led, etc.), and the multiplicity of gentrification’s stakeholders and their interests (Zukin et al. 2009; Janoschka, Sequera, and Salinas 2014). New discussions have introduced a number of nuances to the generally malign perception of gentrification, for instance; the acknowledgement of gentrifiers’ rights (Schlichtman and Patch 2014); the role of ‘self-gentrifiers’ inadvertently beginning a process of profiteering (Herzfeld 2015); and the positive effects of gentrification in community revitalisation (Ryberg-Webster and Ashley 2018). Tomba (2017) studies gentrification using a notion of an ‘increase of value’ that is consubstantial with a heritage-focused analysis of the processes involved. As De Cesari and Dimova (2019) stated, the ‘valorization’ of historic areas implies social, aesthetic, infrastructural and economic changes brought by redevelopment, all of which can be intimately linked to the notion of heritage. According to this interpretation, the historic environment cannot be simply conceived as a neutral battlefield where the power clashes of gentrification occur. Much to the contrary, when heritagization is said to ‘promote neighbourhood improvement, social cohesion and a communal affirmed sense of place’ (Cheong and Fong 2018, 5), discussions frequently omit the inherent conflicts between the residents’ dispossession and newcomers’ reappropriation. Heritage action, therefore, actively takes sides. This was also expressed by Wang and Lau (2009, 58) when reflecting on the price paid for what is frequently called the ‘redemption’ of historic environments: becoming a sanitised amenity devoid of spontaneity and informality (Janoschka, Sequera, and Salinas 2014; Jou, Clark, and Chen 2016) to enable capital accumulation by the retail, tourism and real estate industries (Smith 2002; Ryberg- Webster and Ashley 2018). This study aims to analyse the associated, and sometimes contested, values of heritage in urban gentrification as a social, economic and political process. Considering that cultural heritage is a value-laden concept and practice (Kuutma 2013), this analysis is inevitably rooted in a value-based approach. When studying the effects and roles of heritage in gentrification and urban redevelopment, we particularly focus on various forms of value that are associated with heritage. The aesthetic, social and economic values created by heritage can shape the ways people act and think. These processes are surrounded by conflict, contestation and negotiation as different groups of people develop on their own interpretations of meanings and values. Such conflict is summarised by Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996) in the concept of dissonant heritage. This idea is useful for examining how heritage-making practices often indicate friction between groups’ values and meanings. In the urban redevelopment context, the application of top-down value systems created by authorities and planners is often misaligned with those belonging to the original residents, provoking the separation of communities from places. Therefore, the process of heritage-led gentrification commonly results in various forms of resistance and negotiation, especially from local communities (Skoll and Korstanje 2014). It should be noted that residents may also participate in the shift of values from the social, historic and cultural to the economic and political, by acting both as benefactors and instigators of gentrification (Shin 2010; Arkaraprasertkul 2018). 478 Y. ZHU AND P. GONZÁLEZ MARTÍNEZ Heritage and governance in Chinese gentrification The study of value creation in urban redevelopment in contemporary China exemplifies the complex evolution of the gentrification’s definition. Chinese gentrification refers to contexts in which gentrification not only aligns with the developmental dictates of the entrepreneurial state (Pendlebury 2013), but where urbanisation itself becomes an ‘extremely large and systematic gentrification project’ (Tomba 2017, 515). Recent debates about gentrification in China have revolved around the adequacy of these terms in describing the massive urban redevelopment of the last three decades. They resonate with discussions on the so-called ‘conceptual stretching’ of gentrification to understand social and physical urban change in non-Western contexts (Ley and Teo 2014; Ghertner 2015b; Smart and Smart 2017). Much of the discourse references the work of Ley and Teo (2014, 2020), who questioned the validity of gentrification as a notion to address issues of social inequality in urban China. These issues centre on differences in the definition of ‘space’ (types of land tenure, and the means of urban governance) and the complex power balance between the state, the market and civil society highlighted by authors like He (2019). From this perspective of state-sponsored developmentalism, the state’s involvement in fields of economy, urbanisation, culture and media allows gentrification to be portrayed as a beneficial process (Song and Zhu 2010; Liu et al. 2019). In some cases this can even lead to the term disappearing from public discourse (Ley and Teo 2014). One of the main issues addressed in this debate is an alleged social leniency towards gentrification. Authors like Wang (2011) demonstrate how the controversy around gentrification in China is muted by confluent factors such as ‘urban restructuring, rising affluence, [and] the formation of a globalised property market’. These factors are set within socioeconomic expectations of development, shared by the government, private companies and the population. These expectations are formed in the specific context of a developmental state, where ‘the goal of urbanization is gentrification’ (Tomba 2017, 508), and economic and cultural purposes of state action are deeply intertwined. Accordingly, the inherent rise of real estate value brought by redevelopment may appear as an obvious target, particularly when land leasing forms between 30% and 70% of district and municipal revenue in China (Ren 2014). The alignment of state control in cultural production and the guidance of urban planning has made heritage a political priority (Zhu and Maags 2020). In the context of China’s ‘heritage fever’ (Zhu and Maags 2020), the ‘cultural capital’ of historic environments rose to occupy the core of official discourse on ‘harmonious society’ in the Hu Jintao era (Wang and Lau 2009; Zhong 2015), and is central to ideas of ‘excellent traditional culture’ in the Xi Jinping era (Kubat 2018). Therefore, heritage has become part of state action on governmentality in China, and has come to signal the ‘moral superiority of the middle classes and their exemplary role in preserving social stability’ (Tomba 2017, 513) as a legitimation of the social cleansing of derelict historic areas. The state’s complex and multifaceted nature means its position regarding gentrification may not be coherent or fixed. However, as discussed by Cheng and Zhang (2021) in their study of Laochengnan in Nanjing, this uncertainty does not prevent decided action leading to deep social change in historic areas. In some cases, actions of resistance from either local residents or intellectual groups have ultimately altered the course of redevelopment towards conservation of the historic environment. Nevertheless, even these few cases the prevailing values of the state remain uncontested (Zhang 2017; Cheng and Zhang 2021). INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES 479 Research Methods The research uses case studies and a qualitative approach to provide an in-depth investigation of value changes in heritage-led urban redevelopment. We use a mixed-method approach of data collation and analysis that includes built environment analysis, online searches on real estate portals and in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The mixture of methods provides a complete picture of the shift of values in heritage-led urban redevelopment and their impacts on neighbourhoods. To examine heritage-led urban redevelopment and gentrification as a process, the authors have conducted multiple visits to the selected sites in between 2014–2020. 1 These fieldworks included collecting secondary sources (city maps and recent heritage and urban policies documents), site surveys and participation in various cultural activities. In the site surveys, the authors photographed the built environment to capture evidence of the presence of beautification. This evidence includes environmental and functional upgrades, such as greening, new materials, roads, residential and commercial buildings (Hwang and Sampson 2014). The combination of these visual forms contributes to the aesthetic, economic and political value analysis of historical sites, and their relationship with gentrification. To complement the field observations, both authors conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with local governmental officials, architects, urban planners, scholars and local residents. 2 Interviewees were selected for their roles in the design, planning and implementation phases of development and regeneration. Interview questions referred to the changing cultural policies and the roles of different stakeholders in designing, mediating and implementing heritageled urban redevelopment. The study also considers the voices from local affected original communities to understand the impacts on and responses from the urban redevelopment in both places. Case 1: Xi’an and the redevelopment of Qujiang The city of Xi’an, the resting place of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Terracotta Army is an important cultural centre in northwestern China. First established in 582 BCE by the Sui emperor under the name Daxing, the city has served many imperial dynasties (most significantly the Tang dynasty from the 11 th century BCE – renamed to Chang’an in Chinese: ‘eternal peace’) and been host to significant trading, commercial and pilgrimage routes since this time. During its early days under the Sui emperor (581–605), the city was divided into several sections; the Imperial City, the Palace and civilian section. This basic layout persisted across multiple dynasties and served to situate the city as a central hub along the Silk Road. These cultural aspects ultimately became an intrinsic part of the cultural heritage of the city. Today, Xi’an is considered one of China’s megacities, with over 10.2 million people as of 2019 (Xi’an Bureau of Statistics 2019). In contrast to earlier plans that focus on industry-oriented urbanisation, the recent Master Plan (2008–2020) – endorsed by the Department of Urban Planning and the Provincial Bureau of Cultural Heritage – is a network of projects designed to reconstruct the urban landscape in conjunction with the organisation of various heritage activities (Xi’an Municipality 2005). As summarised in an interview with an official from the Provincial Planning Department, the masterplan has three main aims; to promote and differentiate Xi’an as an economical and administrative centre in the northwest region, to develop the city into a new commercial centre by capitalising on tourism, cultural industry and real estate, and to highlight the city’s heritage with its rich historical traditions (personal communication, 23 March 2015). One particular area targeted for redevelopment in the city was the Qujiang New District. Located in the southern suburbs of Xi’an, the Qujiang New District is a 51 sq. km. area that was historically a cultural and leisure destination of Tang emperors and officials. Before redevelopment, Qujiang was a suburban wasteland with many urban villages, and home to a large population of migrant workers, due to low rents. Nowadays, this history has been subsumed beneath the more elite history of the emperor’s retreat. 480 Y. ZHU AND P. GONZÁLEZ MARTÍNEZ In 2000, the Qujiang New District Administration Committee started to redevelop the area based on the cultural and leisure history of the Tang dynasty. As the key stakeholder of the city redevelopment, the Qujiang Committee is one of the Xi’an municipal government’s branch offices in the district. This administration is responsible for planning, transferring and approving land rights in the area. At the same time, the Committee engages with the Qujiang Cultural Industry Investment (Group) Co. Ltd to create investment and business opportunities for the newly transferred and designated lands. In the past two decades, the Qujiang committee has undertaken several stages of redevelopment of the district. Some projects have focussed on the restoration and reconstruction of local archaeological sites, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site Wild Goose Pagoda and the Tang city wall. These sites are considered heritage, whose information and knowledge are closely reflected from local folktales and archaeological findings. Other redevelopment projects include the reconstruction of new heritage parks and public amenities, such as the Cold Cave Heritage Park and Qujiang lake (Figure 1). They are constructed to reflect an imagined imperial garden and waterways where the emperors and their families went for summer in Tang dynasty. Here, cultural heritage is simply a branding tool for district redevelopment promoted through brochures, documentaries and films. Figure 1. Satellite view of the Qujiang New District (1), the UNESCO listed Wild Goose Pagoda (2) and the Qujiang Lake (3). Source: the authors/Baidu Maps. the authors / Baidu Maps INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES 481 To build these heritage parks and its surrounding environment, in 2007 the Committee demolished several villages surrounding the core area of redevelopment. One of the villages, for instance, was Beichitou village that originally covered over 500 hectares and accommodated 1200 families, 5,300 residents. As part of the rebuilding plan, a compensation agreement was reached of 150,000 Yuan (about 225,000 US Dollars) per villager. In addition to this sum, each villager received a 35 square metre resettlement housing (anzhifang) package on the original site (personal communication, 5 November 2020). Resettlement on the original site was essential to these villagers as they have a strong sense of belonging to these places. In the meantime, the Qujiang Committee used 400 hectares of the land for real estate and green amenity surrounding the parks. They sold the land to private investors and real estate companies who took charge of the commercial redevelopment. For instance, Zhonghai (Group) Co. Ltd, one of the key investors, bought 68 hectares of the land and turned it into luxury high-rises neighbourhood. As shown in Figure 2, these newly-built luxury buildings and apartments were erected around archaeological ruins, ethnic theme parks, restaurants, bars, tea houses and high-end hotels. This development reflects a modernisation pathway and a transformation of the environment and class stratigraphy that focuses on leisure and investment. Projects such as the demolition of villages and the construction of the heritage parks reflect business collaborations between various state and private stakeholders. These include; local governments (the Qujiang Committee), local state-led companies, and external developers and real-estate investors with financial support from Chinese banks. The estimated cost of developing the parks was 140 billion yuan, which included contributions from development companies approximating 105 billion yuan, and bank loans of 12 billion yuan (Hsueh 2015). As agreed between the Committee and investors, once the external developers completed the construction of cultural and heritage parks, the Qujiang Committee granted them the land development rights to develop the surrounding area to generate revenue from real estate industry. As one of the officials from the Qujiang committee indicated: As the local government, we are responsible for the redevelopment of the area for a better built environment and infrastructure. We first retrieve the land from the original residents, of course with compensations according to our policies. Then we can transfer land property rights from rural collectives to the state. By drawing in capable developer for land lead sales in exchange for funds, we can turn these lands to cultural and commercial purposes. Some of them have been turned to public parks, museums and musical hall, and others become high-end residential areas (personal communication, 24 March 2015). Figure 2. Luxury hotel in the heritage park surrounding with high rise buildings. Source: the authors. the authors 482 Y. ZHU AND P. GONZÁLEZ MARTÍNEZ A consequence of this elaborate heritage approach is the gentrification of the New District’s residential areas and the rise in real estate values. As Hsueh (2015) has shown, the district’s average land price dramatically rose from 3 million RMB per hectare in 2002 to 90 million RMB in 2009. Consequently, Quijiang’s low-income district past is being transformed to accommodate middleupper class residents from nearby districts, including Shaanxi province. The official of the Qujiang Committee confirmed the gentrification of the urban renewal in Qujiang: Many people who came to buy the properties here were the rich. Some of them are owners of mining enterprises of Shaanxi, and they have the purchasing power. Yes, Qujiang now is a district for the rich. Every country has a district for the rich. In such a way, we aim at improving the city brand of Xi’an (personal communication, 24 March 2015). Indeed, these redevelopment programsare designed to attract new residents that can afford luxury housing and leisure activities, feeding capital into the local economy. In the meantime, the state’s successful business model has attracted more external developers to participate in these cultural and business projects. For instance, since 2011, the number of programmes that participated in the redevelopment of Qujiang new district has increased from 28 to 84 in 2018 (Xi’an Bureau of Statistics 2019). Unlike other cities in China, these redevelopment projects do not create large scale displacement. As explained by one villager at affected neighbourhoods, This is our land, and it is important that we can return to where we live for generations. Over 90 per cent of villagers returned to their original site and live in resettlement houses. While some rented out their new houses for increased rent, few villagers sold their new settlement houses and moved to other cities. As we do not have the certificates of the titles of these settlement houses, we cannot sell them through the official market, and the selling price is much lower. (Personal communication, 5 November 2020) The removal and resettlement for these villagers in the newly gentrified areas have been met with various attitudes of acceptance, complacency and resistance. While many villagers complained about the resettlement houses’ quality, others are unhappy with the compensation they received. This is particularly pertinent for those who received compensation at a lower rate during the earlier stages of development, compared to those of the later stages. However, the redevelopment of the district has still resulted in a dramatic increase in social stratification. As said by one villager, ‘the pretty park is for outsiders, not for us’. (Personal communication, 5 November 2020) This is evidenced by the transformation of the surrounding resettlement environment, which is now dominated by these resettlement neighbourhood heritage spaces or upper-middle-class built environments – a world these villagers traditionally did not encounter. Case 2: Shanghai and the redevelopment of Taipingqiao Located in the Low Yangtze River Delta, Shanghai’s history as active trading county drastically changed after the treaty of Nanjing (1842)allowed the establishment of international settlements. Heavy industrialisation, real estate and finance positioned Shanghai as one of the economic centres of the East and the most cosmopolitan city in China. This cosmopolitanism made Shanghai a node for the spread of novel political and cultural movements including the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921, and the origin of the so-called haipai (Shanghai style), which is representative of the westernisation of Chinese arts and culture. As a city subject to multiple interpretations of its recent past, the Shanghai Municipality has changed its position towards the historic environment many times to reflect the fluctuating course of events. The Master Plan of Shanghai 1983–2000 aimed to modernise the city’s obsolete historic urban environment, favouring massive redevelopment and new-built structures without any consideration for heritage. 3 The Master Plan of Shanghai 1999–2020 substantially altered this course, incorporating directives for the ‘Comprehensive Conservation of the Historic City’ which included INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES 483 seen in the slum clearances in Western Europe and the USA of the 1960s to 1980s, in which modern urban planning necessitated the removal of specific areas for while promoting specific idealised narratives (De Cesari and Herzfeld 2015). Our criticisms and discussion ultimately point to the overarching issue of the ‘right to the city’, as expressed by Lefebvre (1968), and later developed by Harvey (1989) and Smith (2002). The key question here is whose rights should be considered in the process of urban redevelopment? In some countries, administrators’ political decision-making is awarded to them by national governments as a form of democratised governance (Crook and Manor 1998). For instance, a co-management, multilevel and bottom-up strategy that considers the social value of heritage is being used in the urban redevelopment of Córdoba (Redaelli 2019). However, in countries like China, the state exerts a manifest influence on the production and beautification of historically-inspired social environments, where the presence of history is always customised to support broader developmental aims. Due to the power disparity between the dominant state and the weak civil society, governance practices should be regarded as an exercise of a ‘state-centred mode of sovereign power’ (Oakes 2019, 258). In this way, mechanisms designed to enable citizen engagement or local decision making are limited. We do not intend to celebrate the Western narrative of democracy or argue that China is an exceptional social environment and completely separate from the Western discourse. Many key problems in Chinese cases can also be found in other countries under a similar shadow of the market economy, globalisation and neo-liberalism. That is to say, all of these broader socio-political contexts facilitate the development of neoliberal ethics of individualism, which discourage collective forms of social action (Duckett 2020). As our current study has shown, heritage-led urban redevelopment does not necessarily transform urban space into a meeting point for building collective life, as proposed in Lefebvre’s idea of ‘the right to the city’. Nor does such redevelopment contribute to social equality and well-being, as claimed by official discourse. Conversely, a new wealthy, powerful class becomes the benefactor of environmental and infrastructural upgrades, with cultural heritage functioning to conceal the uncomfortable shadow of urban redevelopment. Notes 1. The first author visited Xi’an, China in June-August 2014, March 2015 and July 2017; whereas the second author performed nine site visits in Shanghai between November 2015 and January 2020. 2. In Xi’an, 17 interviewees (ten males, seven females) were selected based on their occupation: officials from different municipal government departments (Bureau of cultural heritage; Bureau of tourism; Bureau of urban planning), managers of heritage/theme parks, and residents of the affected neighbourhood. In Shanghai, 8 interviewees (five males, three females) were selected, including chief officials of the Bureau of urban planning, designers and managers of heritage areas, scholars and residents who were directly affected by the redevelopment. 3. The Shanghai Municipality’s ‘365 Plan’ enabled for the demolition of 365 hectares of derelict shikumen housing in the inner city, and the widening of streets as a solution for traffic congestion (Ren 2008). 4. Residential neighbourhood type that results of a combination of small scale pedestrian lanes and the mixed Western-Chinese housing type of the shikumen. 5. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_63a60aae0102wl6n.html. 6. The redevelopment includes a central public space called Taipingqiao Park; exclusive hotels, offices and shopping malls; an international public school; a 360-m skyscraper currently under construction; plus, the Museum of the Centennial of the Communist Party of China, just completed in 2021. 7. This approach has generated considerable controversy. The World Bank highlighted its model role blending economic development and the material conservation of architecture (Wang 2016); whereas the UNESCO has criticised how Xintiandi’s success triggered the gentrification of historic neighbourhoods (UNESCO 2016). https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245999. 8. https://xa.anjuke.com/sale/qujiangxinqu-q-xadtfry/. 9. https://wqw2010.blogspot.com/2019/07/blog-post_16.html. This report investigates the letter sent to the Qujiang New District Administration Committee by local residents of Beichitou village in protest against the displacement plans initiated by the committee. 490 Y. ZHU AND P. GONZÁLEZ MARTÍNEZ Research This paper explores the impacts of heritage-led urban redevelopment on local societies and its associated consequences of gentrification. A review of the literature on gentrification shows the motivating role that historic environments play in the process, but still lacks a deep inquire on the use of heritage as a tool for urban governance. Building upon previous research on urban heritage by the authors published in Cities (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2016.05.026; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.06.017); the International Journal of Heritage Studies (https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2017.1347886; https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2014.991935; https://doi.org/10. 1080/13527258.2018.1557235); as well as in recent books (Zhu, Y. & Maags, C. (2020). Heritage Politics in China: The Power of the Past. London: Routledge), this article aims to advance towards the characterization of the uses of heritage as a tool for urban governance. Acknowledging the importance of concepts like ‘accuracy’ and ‘beautification’ in the heritage redevelopment of urban areas in China, the authors assess the instrumental role of the regeneration of historical areas in the imposition of sanitized versions of the past and the achievement of purposes of economic growth and social cultivation in Xi’an and Shanghai. This research connects with the aims and scope of the International Journal of Heritage Studies as it specifically addresses issues like gentrification, urban regeneration, urban heritage and urban theory. It aims to contribute to current debates being held at the International Journal of Heritage Studies, and specifically on the Special Issue edited by Chiara de Cesari and Rozita Dimova in 2019 (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjhs20/25/9?nav=tocList), offering a perspective from the official purposes of gentrification. This, in our opinion, complements the view from China that Arkaraprasertul offered in that Special Issue. Being now one of the major forces that now operate in the contemporary Chinese city, heritage-led urban redevelopment is attracting rising attention and offers a controversial field of discussion suited to the interests of the readers of International Journal of Heritage Studies. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Funding Yujie Zhu received funding from an Australian National University CASS Grant. Plácido González Martínez received funding from the Eastern Scholar Program of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. Notes on contributors Yujie Zhu is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, the Australian National University, Australia. His research focuses on ethical and political issues that emerge through cultural heritage, memory, and tourism. His recent books include Heritage Tourism (Cambridge, 2021), Heritage Politics in China (Routledge, 2020, with Christina Maags) and Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China (Amsterdam, 2018). He also co-edited Notions of Heritage (Quebec, 2021); Heritage and Religion in East Asia (Routledge, 2020) and New Directions in Critical Heritage Studies (Berghahn, 2018). Plácido González Martínez is Professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University in Shanghai. He is Distinguished Professor of Shanghai Universities (2020-2023) awarded by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, and Executive Editor of the journal Built Heritage. His research focuses on architectural and urban heritage conservation, about which he has published regularly in journals like Cities; International Journal of Heritage Studies; Journal of Urbanism; Space and Polity; Journal of Urban Design; and Docomomo International Journal. 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