Overview from Historical Wisdom to Modern Miracles: Experience from Chinese Urban Planning and Practices

In ancient China, the Kaogong Ji defined traditional Chinese urban form based on wooden building technology and adherence to traditional Chinese culture. Due to the might of western armies and their occupation of oriental countries in the 1800s, there was a need for serious social transformation. Furthermore, as Western culture seeped its way into the lives of the Chinese populace, so did Western theory on urban planning. Thus, western planning systems were introduced into Chinese society. However, as has always been the case throughout the long history of China, historical wisdom has been preserved throughout all sorts of modern technological miracles and social change. Emerging Chinese scholars will be discussing how Chinese urban planning and management has changed Chinese urban form throughout this book. For the contemporary Chinese city, planners learn from western planning system and apply planning theory to planning practices. The terms related to planning and design theory are hotly debated among Chinese planners, the most widely accepted being modern Western thinking, bound by traditional oriental values, through the lens of their personal opinions on Chinese urban form.