Stay, Live and Participate

Abstract

In the past four decades, China’s reform and opening up has made the country increasingly connected to the process of globalization. And as globalization continues to evolve, more and more people and other elements are beginning to participate in this process. Therefore, a large number of foreigners, especially some individuals and small merchants (Fig.1), come to this once closed country to find job and business opportunities (Fang & Liang, 2010). Due to the needs of work and business characteristics, many of them choose to long or short live in some Chinese cities. Some foreigners-inhabited areas have begun to appear in Chinese cities like Korea town in Beijing and African enclaves in Guangzhou in the recent 20 years which lead to a certain degree of ethnic residential differentiation and social segregation (Zhao & An, 2017). In addition, their settlement and informal business are also facing the challenges from the process of urbanization. Therefore, the author will conduct a theoretical research of this phenomenon in the graduation project, and meanwhile select the African enclaves in Guangzhou as a case for empirical research. What are their living conditions and what specific challenges are they facing? How should cities protect them and improve the quality of their living environment? Therefore, the focus of this study will be exploring how to make these foreigners better stay, live and participate in local social life that based on understanding the status quo and the needs of stakeholders. Using the community and urban space they live in and emerge as the carrier, it will have a specific spatial implementation design for these urban spaces from the perspective of urban regeneration. In the end, a series of plans and designs will put together to make a new urban regeneration method that could be applied to other Chinese cities with the same problems for attracting more foreigners to settle in China and integrate well into the local social environment.