Title:

Yanming Lake Town, Henan:
The improvement of rural China

Author:

Leonardo Ramondetti

In Contesti: Città Territori Progetti 2021, pp. 116-128

2021

Ramondetti, L. (2021). Yanming Lake Town, Henan: The improvement of rural China. Contesti: Città Territori Progetti, 2, 116-128.

DOI: 10.13128/contest-12967

The paper is part of the special issue: Ruralities edited by Antonio Di Campli and Catalina Mejía Catalina Mejía

The contribution discusses the ongoing spatial transformations in the rural areas of inland China, based on the investigation of Yanming Lake Town in Zhongmu County, Henan. This place, considered ‘off the map’ until the last decade, is now subjected to radical changes: new infrastructures are built, new settlements are developed, and new productive activities are promoted. By investigating the ongoing restructuring and the emerging landscape, the paper uses the radicality of Chinese context to question some phenomena which are broadly debated in today’s rural studies. Particularly, two are the main issues: what are the new relations between urban and rural areas, and how they influence the way in which rural spaces are designed.