ABSTRACT
Given the unprecedented rapidity and extent of urban growth occurring in China, some of the side effects include the erasure of material heritage, haphazard, uncontrolled growth, and low-density sprawl. Cities have become homogeneous through repetitive and poorly built architecture. There also seems to be an urgent need for new paradigms in the face of imminent global ecological crisis. The paradox of the endurance of architecture and its inevitable dysfunctionality and possible obsolescence creates the conditions for new adaptive models of urbanization. This chapter presents an evolutionary approach to urban development, in which change is the only constant.
