Abstract:

Urban physical space upgrading is a natural historical process of urban development. Upgrading urban physical space is an inevitable and common practice. In Chinese cities that undergo great transition, the extent and scope of development in inner cities are gradually increasing, which have important implications for the restructuring of the socioeconomic aspects of cities. This article first presents a comprehensive summary of the theories and research on the upgrading of urban physical space within China and internationally, extracts core ideas and evaluation methods concerning the background, succession, models, and strategies for urban physical space upgrading, and summarizes the successful practices and experiences of urban physical space upgrading. Second, the article examines the prospects of research on urban physical space upgrading in China with respect to the determination and spatiotemporal organization, building assets demolition losses, upgrading model and comprehensive assessment, influencing factors, and quantitative research mechanisms. Finally, the paper argues that under the background of new urbanization and developing a resource-saving society, it is necessary to strengthen the systematic, comprehensive, dynamic, and quantitative research of Chinese urban physical space upgrading in order to provide a basis for the optimization of control policies and plans that take into consideration local conditions.

Key words: urban regeneration, physical space upgrading, spatial organization, succession trajectory, regeneration mechanism