ABSTRACT
Since the mid-2010s, there has been a surge of small-scale, spatial design-based projects in central Shanghai, which we call design fix. These projects are often celebrated in media and political discussion as viable experiments capable of bringing about an alternative mode of urban regeneration. Without downplaying the improvements brought by these initiatives to neighborhood environments, and built on empirical evidence from interviews, observation and text analysis, this chapter provides a critical assessment by bringing out the limits and contradictions inherent in these practices. We maintain that these practices must be situated within the broader processes of restructuring urban built-up areas in Shanghai for higher rent to be extracted from land. Experimentalism created an enabling condition for diverse approaches to upgrade neighborhood environments whereas spatial design, often by involving formerly marginalized or excluded social groups in urban development, manufactured consensus and consent to these projects. By focusing on neighborhood environment, these small-scale, spatial design-based projects deflected attention from housing inequalities and the trade-offs with private capital.
