R/Urban trends in Beijing. Three cases from the city's peri-urban periphery

Urban Farm DB summary

In contemporary China, where the evolution of productive land relates to specific government policies and the nation's changing spatial conditions, a paper describes urban agriculture — particularly developed in the friction zone between the ever-growing urban and threatened rural territories — through three cases in Beijing's peri-urban periphery: Liuminying, Xiedao, and Taihu. The first two, Liuminying and Xiedao, show a major concern for sustainable production and agro-tourism but a weaker embedding in their local contexts, while the Taihu project is more rooted in its locale and provides a stronger response to the site's ecological sensitivity. The paper argues the Taihu case exemplifies an alternative to China's ever-booming and seemingly randomly placed agro-tourism sites.