The research focuses on Guangzhou, which has been – together with other Pearl River Delta municipalities – a pioneer in transforming its urban environment in the last thirty years. The study’s objective is to investigate how recent strategic urban planning visions aimed to expand the metropolis southward have affected Guangzhou’s territory, promoting essential renovation projects. Chinese urban studies and the international literature have widely examined how this urban revolution has completely altered the landscape’s morphology under the influence of the global market. However, at the same time, a lack of understanding of the processes behind its formation has been identified. Through an extensive utilisation of field research, the study aims to re-frame territorial peculiarities as an experimental field of stratification of meanings, struggling between new opportunities and profound debates, capable of combining local pragmatism and comprehensive visions and negotiating its role in the multiple influences of contemporary urbanisation.
