A Study on Revitalization Modes of Public House Based on the Method of 'Urban Acupuncture': A Case Study of Guangzhou City

In China, public houses are properties that belong to the local government and are usually managed by the local Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. During the 1970s and the 1980s, these houses were used to provide shelters for incoming rural surplus laborers and low-income families who moved into the cities. Over time, problems with public houses, such as unclear property rights, the absence of management regulations, and long-term disrepair, have become increasingly serious. Managing public houses is a challenge faced by Guangzhou in the process of urban renewal. This study first reviews domestic and foreign examples of revitalizing public houses and research on the theory of "Urban Acupuncture," and then carries out further fieldwork and interviews on public houses in six typical districts of Guangzhou's old city zone. These results indicate that public houses play an important role in providing housing security to tenants. Tenants of such houses have a strong sense of belonging and trust in their communities and neighborhoods. This study summarizes three revitalization modes for public houses: selling public houses after renovation, transforming the use of public houses, and using public houses as affordable housing. It also proposes a strategy that uses public houses first as affordable houses, then for functional transformation, and selling public houses as the last choice for Guangzhou. Based on empirical researches and the methods of "Urban Acupuncture," the study further proposes an analysis model of stock public houses, and four steps of the revitalization path of public houses: (1) Find the problems of public houses through urban physical examination index analysis, big data analysis, residents satisfaction analysis, and so on, and analyze their modes of revitalization based on the analysis model of stock public houses; (2) conduct a house-to-house survey on tenants of these public houses, and select public houses with good reconstruction foundations whose tenants have strong willingness to revitalize and high degrees of cooperation as "acupuncture points"; (3) take continuous, gradual measures to stimulate these "acupuncture points" and influence other tenants of public houses with the same activation modes through social networks; (4) collect feedback from tenants, adjust strategies dynamically, enhance tenants' sense of identity and community belonging to treatment results, and form a positive interaction. It has three major innovations: (1) systematically summarizing domestic and foreign public housing disposal ways and " Urban Acupuncture " theory research progress, and providing a geographic analysis perspective for the theory of "Urban Acupuncture"; (2) providing empirical supports for the three activation modes,and a Guangzhou's strategy for to revitalize public houses; (3) summarizing an analysis framework of the activation mode mechanism of stock public houses from the perspective of humanism, an analysis model of stock public houses, and four steps of the revitalization path of public houses, which are highly enforceable. It is beneficial to the theory and practice on revitalization of public houses, which can also make public houses playing their parts as catalysts in domestic urban renewal process, stimulating motivation of community revitalization, solving housing problem of the minority, and implementing the idea that "we are the cities we make."