Rural China's Landscape and Sustainable Urbanization. An International Perspective

China’s leaders have set an urbanization target of 70% (approximately 900 million people) by 2025 and has emphasized that future urbanization will be characterized by growth in rural towns and small cities (ChengZhenHua) not by expansion of megacities (DuShiHua). As a consequence of China’s urban-focused economy, the role of agriculture has declined. Rural villages have been wiped out, and with them, thousands of years land cultivation and stewardship. Onrushing urbanization is reshaping rural China – its landscape, cultural heritage, and social structures. This paper examines these changes through the outcomes of a workshop about “Construction of Small Towns and Villages” organized by the ECNU School of Design in 2014 in China and Europe. At the workshop, proposals for “Preserving Rural Nature and Humanity Features during Urbanization” were discussed and critiqued. The paper concludes by describing how landscape architecture, and in particular Green Infrastructure, can play a key role in addressing the major challenges of Rural Chinese Urbanization.