“Metropollage”: on innovating the Shanghai metropolitan rural revitalization model

In response to the newly published “the 14th Five-year” Plan for Rural Revitalization of Shanghai Municipality, this article looks into the background and transformation of functions of rural revitalization in the Shanghai metropolis, and puts forward policy suggestions to supplement the current model of rural demolishing and reorganization, and relatively concentrated rural living. Hence the author created the concept of “Metropollage” and its development model; and analyzed the three stages of “Metropollage” development, i.e., the prelude, the enhancement and the maturation, along with their respective key characteristics and operational undertakers, among aspects discussed. This article provides theoretical thinking and exploration into the model of innovative paths for a metropolis to implement the National Rural Revitalization Strategy.


Background
With in-depth implementation of the Rural Revitalization Strategy put forward at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued the 14th Five-year Plan for Rural Revitalization of the Shanghai Municipality (hereinafter referred to as the Plan) in June 2021 (Shanghai Municipal People's Government, 2021).The Plan, based on the 14th Five-year Plan and the Long-Range Objectives of Shanghai's Economic and Social Development Through the Year 2035, will play a decisive role in guiding rural revitalization of the Shanghai metropolis.
The Plan puts forward a clear positioning for rural revitalization of the Shanghai metropolis: "Strengthening overall coordination of urban and rural areas, further promoting rural revitalization and new-town strategies, promoting equitable exchange and two-way flow of urban and rural factors, and promoting the new pattern of urban and rural integrated development".At present, "integration of urban and rural areas" is key to the nextstage development of metropolitan rural areas.In other words, the basis for innovating and repositioning the modal of rural development is to reconsider rural revitalization of the Shanghai metropolis in light of a new urban-rural relationship, aka."to theorize rural development out of the traditional paradigm".
As early as on January 4th, 2018, Secretary Li Qiang of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, when chairing a Standing Committee meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, conveyed to the audience the spirit of the Central Conference on Rural Work and called on efforts to study and implement the spirit.Secretary Li stressed the importance of "respecting Shanghai's situation when making utmost efforts to implement the rural revitalization strategy".The meeting emphasized the message that "urban-rural integration is by no means homogenizing urban and rural areas (Tan, 2018).We are committed to studying, summarizing and showcasing the architectural and cultural characteristics of Shanghai's rural areas, and making efforts to develop industries with Shanghai characteristics" (Zhang and Qi, 2018).Echoing Shanghai's pursuit of "basically becoming an excellent global city" outlined in the Master Urban Plan of Shanghai (2017Shanghai ( -2035)), we shall ponder on how to reshape the urban-rural relationship in order to develop rural industries with local characteristics in a leading global city.This means Shanghai needs to break away from the original development path and embrace an innovative modal that will not only benefit economic development and social structural change, but help build ecological resilience and avail Shanghai's cosmopolitan culture.

Transformation of functions
The Plan puts forward the main indicators of Shanghai's rural revitalization during the 14th Five-year Plan period, among which the ninth item -"completion rate of farmers signing up for relatively concentrated living" shall "be pressed ahead steadily" from 27,000 households in the base period of 2020 to the target of 50,000 households by 2022 (Shanghai Municipal People's Government, 2021).By the end of 2019, there have been 943,700 rural households and 1,570 village committees in Shanghai (Shanghai Statistics Bureau, 2020), hence 601 households per administrative village.If every administrative village manages two to three village settlements (natural villages), aka.200 to 300 households per village, Shanghai will have to demolish and merge around 200 villages.Yet many to-be-demolished villages are valuable in different aspects.They can add diversity and depth to a multifunctional future metropolis.
With farmers living in buildings, living density improved and more land is made available for construction.This is indeed an efficient way to improve land utilization.However, this approach needs to be given a second thought -a more detailed and precise approach is warranted.Some are historic villages with cultural anecdotes to be uncovered.The layout and ecological endowment of these villages are worth studying.Despite a dilapidated physical state, these villages contain huge humanistic, historical, cultural and economic value.Dismantling them would be a huge waste and should be avoided.Therefore, we shall adopt a case-bycase approach when it comes to demolishing and merging villages.We shall exercise caution and take innovative approaches to maximize the comprehensive value of these villages.
The innate rural landscape and architectural layout stemmed from the homegrown spatial relationships like the rivers and farmlands system.These spatial relations were formed and honed through a long period of rural social relationship-forming. Hence the historic and humanistic connotations were derived from the existing architectural and street juxtapositions.These are simply irreproducible.Indeed, a deep "nostalgia" is present everywhere.However, confined by current planning, architectural design skills or urgency of time, "translational moving of the original settlement to another place" often results in compliance to a centralized planning and design system.The reproduced settlement would no longer be dynamic, nimble or thought-provoking as the original ones, due to the current building or engineering standards that impose upon the copycats and the homogeneity of building stories and spaces between buildings.
Therefore, to complement the current revitalization model and to exhibit different development characteristics, we need to "fill an old bottle with new wine" -transforming older functions and injecting new functions into the villages.We can revise the village property rights policy so as to transform and improve parts or the entire village to meet diversified functional demands overflowed from an international metropolis.

Innovation of model
As indicated above, we need to decipher the reshaping of urban and rural relations from economic stages and capital expansion characteristics in metropolitan development.The inherent social, economic and cultural demands and endogenous growth power of an international metropolis have prompted factors of production to concentrate and radiate strongly, thus presenting an opportunity for the next-stage rural development in the Shanghai metropolis.In contrast to strict control of land use growth and hence the limit of spatial expansion in a metropolis, there is no limit to functional expansion of the existing space.Therefore, expansion of metropolitan functions stimulates development of the surrounding villages, hence forming an interdependent and complementary relationship between the city proper and its suburbs (including outskirts and outer suburbs).Moreover, thanks to comprehensive coverage of convenient rail transit, expressways and the Internet, etc., it's possible to establish a high-level two-way interactive flow of factors between the rural areas and the city proper of a metropolis.
In fact, the Plan fully reflected the importance of promoting urban-rural integration through two-way flow of urban and rural factors on an equal footing.The Plan defined the "development goals" of Shanghai's rural revitalization: "basically forming urban-rural integrative development with rational spatial layout and distribution, diversified functions, integrated industries, comprehensive infrastructure, amicable rural landscape, comprehensive public service facilities, orderly grassroots governance, and well-off livelihood of farmers".Moreover, the goals specify that "we shall make rural areas an integral and dynamic part of the modern and beautiful Shanghai international metropolis, and lay down the foundation for a modern countryside compatible with the development of a socialist modern international metropolis with a global impact." (Shanghai Municipal People's Government, 2021).
Therefore, this article highlights the urgency of selecting a number of metropolitan villages that have special characteristics, value and potential for development, especially those with distinct characteristics yet on the verge of demolition.We should develop new functions and unleash vast possibilities of transformation and development in these villages.In this way, we can achieve optimal comprehensive benefits in economic, social and cultural aspects, while retaining nostalgic sentiments and achieving functional transformation at the same time.As pointed out by the Plan, "as Shanghai's villages feature fused urban and suburban characteristics, it's important to maintain the rural landscape", "and highlight not only the economic value but ecological and aesthetic value of these villages while making sure the development of rural areas will strengthen the whole city's development and carry over parts of the city functions." (Shanghai Municipal People's Government, 2021).
Hence, this article puts forward the new concept of "Metropollage".It's a village from the "metropolitan countryside", yet it's more than an ordinary village.It is a general term for the type of metropolitan villages that integrate, implant and reconstruct new and specific urban industrial and economic functions into the existing structure.Hence, I have coined a new English noun "Metropollage" through combining the word "metropolis" with "village"."Metropollage" is created to facilitate conceptualization and development model innovation for villages with special characteristics and functionally linked to a city, like those rural areas in the Shanghai metropolis."Metropollage" also provides a basis for future theoretical research and field exploration of this innovative model.It will strengthen the voice of China in metropolitan countryside research in the international arena, and contribute valuable Chinese experience to this endeavor."Metropollage" typically goes through the following three stages of development: Stage I: the prelude, in which the preliminary form of "Metropollage" emerges.In this stage, a metropolitan village selectively assumes a single factor of function overflow of a metropolis, likely being tourism, cultural creative industries, health, education, research and development, etc.We call this combination "Agriculture + ", as "Agriculture + " villages begin to transform from traditional agriculture and embrace diversified industries.This stage is often driven by market forces, as various types of capitals voluntarily seek projects and environments for profitable growth.
Stage II: the enhancement.This stage is characterized by formation of enhanced agriculture of rural metropolis (not limited to monoculture) as a result of large-scale flow of urban factors into rural areas, spatial planning and infrastructural support.In this process, traditional agriculture is quickly diversified into high value-added modern technology-based rural industries.Undertakers of this stage are formulated on diversified mode of cooperation.Specialty indus-  See the three stages of model evolvement in Fig. 1 and Table 1.
"Metropollage" can fall into the following types but is not limited to them: agritourism, agri-cultural creative, agri-health, agri-nursing, agri-education, to name a few.The original villages are transformed into institutionbased villages, which feature one or more key functions (or operational undertakers), such as financial villages, R&D villages, health and nursing villages, etc.One would imagine that a global Fortune 500 company could set its Shanghai headquarter or branch not just in a five-star office building of a central business district.It can instead take over and systematically renew an entire village into their "headquarter village", and instill their own characteristics into the village.Moreover, high-end R&D institutions can build up "tech-villages" through transforming an entire village.When their R&D staff push open a window, they would enjoy a beautiful countryside view, not a concrete forest.
Likewise, nursing homes can transform parts of or an entire village into "health villages" or "nursing villages", for example, by building elevators and corridors, designing systematic barrier-free facilities and installing smart devices.In this way, senior citizens will no longer be confined to brick walls, small courtyards or narrow corridors of a typical nursing home.They will be able to enjoy their senior years by taking walks in the open air along manicured village rivers and fields.Though inheriting the original layouts, environments and structures ("old bottles"), these "metropollages" with special functions have undergone a fundamental upgrade ("new wines") in terms of its economic and social structures.Mature "Metropollages" have become micro-engines driving deeper urban-rural integration in the vast metropolitan countryside.

Conclusion
This article calls for brave innovation to the current model of rural revitalization in a metropolis, especially for an international metropolis like Shanghai, where high-level flow and integration of urban-rural factors are enabled.Indeed, "Metropollage" could offer an innovative model for rural revitalization of the Shanghai metropolis.However, to implement this model, one should bear in mind that different "Metropollages" are needed to cater for different development stages and local conditions.Moreover, in implementing a "Metropollage", one should respect the will of villagers, formulate implementation methods, perfect implementation mechanism, understand social and economic structural trends, focus on availing excellent local cultural traditions, and formulate creative planning and designs, and an efficient phased implementation schedule without haste.

Table 1
Evolvement and characteristics of the "Metropollage" model