The Rural Villages in Periurban Suzhou. Beyond the Countryside Modernization of China

Abstract

Balancing economic growth with environmental protection has become a key priority in China, with the goal of building a “new Chinese countryside.” In Suzhou, rapid, land-consuming urbanisation has drastically reduced farmland and accelerated the decline of rural villages. While strategies for urban growth containment exist, the push for countryside modernisation often relies on outdated ideologies, leading to relocation schemes, the ageing of the rural population, and the weakening of village social structures. Based on fieldwork and questionnaires from 2011, this paper highlights the contradictory effects of these policies in peri-urban Suzhou, showing how villages are threatened both by direct urbanisation pressure and indirect socio-economic transformations. The study argues that preserving rural settlements could reduce social pressure in overcrowded urban centres and contribute to urban–rural integration. It calls for rethinking the paradigm of urban growth in Asian cities by recognising the strategic role of rural villages in sustaining human-scale environments and complex social formations.