Rural Built Heritage Preservation and Development in Chinese Ethnic Areas : Taking Historic Villages in Tongren as Case Studies

This book discusses how rural built heritage preservation and development in the Chinese ethnic area in Tongren, China has been strongly addressed by the labeling, planning, project-making, follow-up management characterized by different patterns of stakeholders. Moreover, the rural built heritage preservation and development is an instrument of power that has been incorporated into the municipal, county and lower-level planning settings, portraying an overall top-down government-led feature. An intentional laddered development for the government’s overall strategy of resource allocation and spatial reorganization has been identified. Different patterns of stakeholders are identified.

This book discusses how different roles played by stakeholders tend to be inseparable and often overlapped thus forming ambiguous and difficulty controllable dynamics in shaping the rural built environment. In conclusion, insights have been provided based on the debates of AHD and positioning rural built heritage preservation within the public governance.