RESTORATIVE SPATIAL PLANNING PRACTICE IN RESPONSE TO ISOLATION, SEGREGATION, AND INEQUALITY

Abstract

The article points out that the urban homogenization and social atomization status may lead to corresponding social problems including isolation, segregation, and inequality, and critically reviews their intrinsic consistency with urban development stages and the correlation between mental health and urban diseases. Based on the review of ideas such as Socially Restorative Urbanism and Socially Restorative Urban Design Model, the authors summarize a Socially Restorative Urban Design Model with five planning strategies — group size reduction, place-making, nature-based restoration, walkable system construction, and responsive city establishment — to realize human-human, human-space, human-nature, human-mobility, and humandata connections through taking planning as a tool of empowerment. In addition, the article reflects on the urban problems caused by the past urbanization process in China which pursued quick achievements and examines cases that could guide the new stage of Urban Remediation and Ecological Restoration, giving the same weight to social restoration as physical space improvement and ecological restoration.

Keywords

Socially Restorative Urbanism / Socially Restorative Urban Design / Urban Regeneration / Isolation / Segregation / Inequality / Spatial Planning

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2019 Higher Education Press