Urbanie & Urbanus

Issue 2025 Jan
Counter-Urbanization
Editor’s Note
The post-pandemic era, characterized by the platformization of socio-economic systems, has led to the progressive greening of cities and counterurbanization flows towards formerly rural areas. Hong Kong is no exception. Waterfront parks are emerging along dense urban areas, while significant land use changes are occurring in the once-rural New Territories to accommodate various science, technology, and innovation hubs. This progressive blending of urban and rural conditions presents unprecedented opportunities for designing innovative forms of their integration.
This issue provides an international scholarly perspective on the process of counterurbanization, with a particular focus on China and its emerging territorial transformations. It complements this contemporary understanding with reflections from a historical perspective, revisiting design principles and ideas whose invaluable lessons are now being reappreciated. The issue opens with an article by Ludovico Centis on Salottobuono’s project for the Lok Ma Chau Loop in light of the recent proposal of the San Tin Technopole. This piece discusses design exploration as a crucial form of knowledge production. The second contribution, authored by Austin Williams, broad ens the geographical scope by examining the ongoing process of counterurbanization in China through the lens of an unresolved urban-rural divide. The article offers a brilliant overview of the relationship between urban and rural in the background of recent Chinese urbanization and policymaking history. On a different note, focusing on economic integration and regional development, Andrea Palmioli’s piece reviews scholarly knowledge on counterurbanization in China and beyond, offering insights into the Yangtze River Delta Regional Plan. Similarly, by examining the urban-rural continuum, Jiahui Fan investigates commuting patterns within the Shanghai metropolitan area, highlighting a high degree of urban-rural interdependence. Migratory flows, both of people and ideas, are the focus of the article by Yifan Song and Paulina Maria Neisch, which explores platform-led spatial production in rural China. By examining the case of Mount Mogan in the Yangtze River Delta, the paper explores counterurbanization patterns associated with rural gentrification and tourism. Following these empirical explorations, the issue presents two papers offering future perspectives. Hu Yu’s work advocates for interdisciplinarity and technology-driven knowledge production to shape human-centred, harmoniously integrated habitats. Finally, Loïc Massias, by focusing on the background conditions for the prototypical development of urban green networks in the 19th century, provides crucial insights into the importance of integrating green infrastructures at an early stage of urban development.
Ongoing territorial transformations challenge our established disciplinary knowledge and conventional notions (e.g., those of urban and rural), calling for an intensive intellectual effort with theoretical and design implications. The papers collected in this issue illuminate new potential paths for further research and design endeavours. They also call for urban design to embrace interdisciplinary territorial perspectives.