Land consumption and Urbanization scenarios in contemporary China: the Beijing case and its rural villages

The rapid Chinese urbanisation trends are directly linked to urban-rural interactions which significantly influence the morphogenesis of new hybrid forms of settlement at the border of megacities, as well as the degradation of historical territorial structure. This development model has in fact produced an unsustainable dual structure, by producing unstable centralities, through the artificial creation of a new core areas, designed without a consistent long-term urban vision. Once fully equipped, most of these megastructures remain uninhabited without accomplishing in any way the catalyst function attributed by the Central Government. Beijing's rural villages in the peri-urban region represent a significant case study to explores hybrid stories of city fragments and how Chinese political system determines distinctions between different socio-spatial rights and access to urban facilities for thos who lives out of the metropolitan regions.