The Role of Public–Private Partnership on Preservation-Led Projects in Urban China—A Comparative Perspective

Driven by public–private partnerships, urban historic settlements in Chinese cities are increasingly being targeted for redevelopment, especially if they are located in urban centers. Previous scholars have featured state policy-led or market-led to understand the driving force of the transformation process of the urban heritage area. However, this understanding glosses over the role of actors during transformation process, which refers to the public–private partnerships. With examples of Huishan ancient town in Wuxi and Xintiandi in Shanghai, this study proposes an analytical framework to compare how different networks of transformation process are caused the similar heritage space among heritage, tourism and commerce. Finally, by comparing the two cases, subtle differences of the two spaces also reveal the different interests and needs of different public–private partnerships. This study calls for further attention to study urban China from a comparative perspective.