Perceived Control and Liveability: Environment and behaviour interaction in two urban villages

ABSTRACT: Urban village is a very special type of neighbourhood, created in the fast urbanisation process in Chinese cities like Shenzhen in the past three decades, playing an essential role in accommodating migrant groups, including rural-urban migrant workers and the young professionals. Built by the villagers whose farmland was transformed into urban use, these high-density informal settlements have become places where the daily life of the migrant groups happens. Nowadays, along with the processes of fast urban development and upgrading of industries, urban villages located in the central urban districts are being considered as problematic neighbourhoods that need to be reconstructed. The current model is still based on large-scale redevelopment, replacing the urban villages with new urban functions. In response to such radical approach, this paper will present an alternative argument of maintaining and improving urban villages as arrival cities for migrant groups. It is based on an environmental-behaviour study in the framework of liveability. This study is based on the theory that perceived control over the built environment is an important condition for liveability (Altman 1975, Van Dorst 2011). It indicates the changing life styles inside the urban villages, as well as the way space is socially produced in two urban villages in Shenzhen: Hubei and Baishizhou. Key words: Urban village, migrant groups, liveability, Shenzhen