Sustaining social networks in community design: a case study of Yangze village, China

Urban designers in China are becoming concerned about the loss of community. Traditional social networks in rural communities are being destroyed rather than sustained by the process of urbanization. Projects to renew or reconstruct villages at the edges of urban areas are simply copying the community designs of cities. This paper reviews the social research on urban design. Both social networks and spatial networks are investigated from the perspective of network science and GIS. We examine the interaction mechanism between these two networks. With the combination of network analysis and spatial analysis, we develop a new perspective on village renewal and argue that sustaining social networks is a key concern. This paper argues that a community can be created, if the community design is based on an understanding of how physical networks shape and are shaped by social networks. We also demonstrate that combination of network science and GIS is an appropriate direction for urban research, and we should foster urban-network-based studies in urban design and planning.