Vol. 2025 No. 4 (2025)
Articles

New-type urbanization and the aesthetics of Jiangnan towns

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  • Da-eun Kang,
  • Elizabeth Ella,
  • Jianming Zhou
Da-eun Kang
University of Manitoba,663 Wolseley Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2N2, Canada
Elizabeth Ella
University of Manitoba,663 Wolseley Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2N2, Canada
Jianming Zhou
Suzhou University, Tianshi Zhuang Campus, No.1, Shi Zǐ Street, Gusu District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province,215006, China

Published 19-09-2025

Keywords

  • Urban aesthetics,
  • New-type urbanization,
  • Local aesthetic experience,
  • Aesthetics of Jiangnan towns

Copyright (c) 2025 Cambridge Arts and Humanities Research

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Urban aesthetics is an interdisciplinary science between aesthetics and urban studies. Its emergence is both the result of aesthetics transitioning from theory to practice and the inevitable reflection in the field of aesthetic research of the modern city's development trend from a purely functional city to a composite aesthetic city. The research on the aesthetics of Jiangnan towns integrates the theoretical achievements of Chinese and Western urban aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, and ecological aesthetics. It meets the needs of coordinated development among various types of cities in China, follows the strategic layout of new concepts and trends in modern urban development regarding ecological and humanistic environments, and widely connects with the specific aspects of local aesthetic experience in Jiangnan's characteristic cities, especially small towns (mainly in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu), including nature, history, human culture, and individuality. This research provides theoretical positioning and practical criticism of the aesthetic character of Jiangnan towns, forms an organic constraint on the economic behavior and legal system of urban construction, and constructs an aesthetic system for Jiangnan towns.

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