A Walk Through China’s New Model Countryside

Rural areas around the world are struggling with aging populations, rising vacancies, and environmental collapse. In my own home country of the Netherlands, the rustic countryside of my grandfather’s time is all but gone. Community structures in villages have undergone drastic change as young people leave for the cities in search of opportunity. I myself left the countryside, first to Rotterdam, and then to Shanghai in 2009.

But the countryside continues to call out to me, and the problem of how best to protect and restore rural areas has become a central focus of my research with Professor Zef Hemel, the Abe Bonnema chair on spatial redevelopment and revitalization at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).

To get a better feel for how spatial planning policies influence life on the ground, my colleagues at TU Delft and I chose walking as a research method. Walking is healthy for the body and mind; it stimulates contemplation and conversation. By walking, we free ourselves from computer screens and are better able to understand how villages are connected with one another — and where the fault lines between them lie. And we seek out local interlocutors, taking the opportunity to listen to local stories from those who know best.

That’s how I came to spend the past year exploring the countryside of the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang on foot. Although Zhejiang occupies a unique position within China with regard to both wealth and government support — it is home to some of China’s richest enterprises, and Beijing has designated it a key focus of the country’s “common prosperity” drive — I believe the successes and shortcomings of various rural programs that have been launched here can offer inspiration and lessons to other regions around the world.

To better understand how those programs are changing residents’ lives, I have walked with more than a hundred different conversation partners, each for at least half a day, if not longer. My research participants’ backgrounds vary greatly: they are farmers and scientists, artists and construction workers. Cumulatively, we covered over 1,000 kilometers and visited over 150 villages. The paths we took are often not on any printed maps. Wi-Fi is weak or absent. But with the right person, the need to look at your phone melts away.

Decades of urbanization and economic growth have improved the quality of life in China, but also caused serious damage to the environment. Urban plans were quickly drawn up and implemented, without much consideration for their long-term impact on the surrounding countryside. Sometimes, the planners and designers never even visited the affected areas.

Since 2003, China’s rural revitalization strategy has aimed to reverse the demographic drain on the countryside by creating a more attractive living environment for both current residents and potential migrant returnees. Initially, the strategy focused on “beautification”: mainly planting flowers and lush greenery, but later shifting toward efforts to repair the environmental damage of decades of unchecked development and lure urbanites to the countryside as tourists or residents.

The Netherlands is characterized by a flat, low-lying “polder” landscape. Zhejiang, on the other hand, is a mountainous province with many difficult-to-access areas. Thanks to this inaccessibility, many authentic villages can still be found, originally connected by centuries-old path systems. Due to the construction of tunnels, urban influences are now coming closer. Attracting tourists from the city seems like a magic formula for stimulating the rural economy. However, doing so without sacrificing their remote character and slow pace of living is not easy.

Large numbers of tourists and new facilities like parking lots can disrupt villages’ original character. Fostering pedestrian-oriented walking trails and embracing remoteness may offer a new model for a slow, sustainable, and healthy way of life.

Zhejiang is crisscrossed by hundreds of kilometers of footpaths, some of them recently built or restored, others all but unchanged since ancient times. Once trade or postal routes, these partly unpaved paths used to be the only connection some mountainous settlements had with the outside world. Some trails don’t even have names; they are made by farmers, who use them daily.

Many ancient paths were forgotten with the arrival of new infrastructure: asphalt, tunnels, and rails. Yet more and more ancient walking paths are now being rediscovered and become important for the local identity. All kinds of bottom-up, locally beneficial activities are emerging along these routes: farmers who sell their produce, small home-based restaurants and shops, bed and breakfasts, and cultural activities.

One of my favorite examples can be found along Maling Ancient Path, near Tonglu in western Zhejiang. The path sits parallel to a unique water system, and my walking fellows and I remarked that it not only offers relaxation, but also a connection to cultural history and nature.

Along other long distance walking paths I found nicely designed bookshops and cultural facilities, like on a mountain top or in a cave. Although these places are expensive to maintain, they also offer some job opportunities and small-scale improvements to the local environment.

Agricultural innovation also plays a key role in attracting young talents and investors to the countryside. Although this should be done with care to protect cultural heritage and ecological values from overexploitation, in some places the renewal went terribly wrong, with large-scale, out-of-context hotels, and even theme parks that erased the surrounding landscape’s original character.

More recent attempts seem to have learned some of these lessons. Indeed, I saw many young people on my trips to the countryside, not only visitors to harvest festivals or music festivals, but also migrant returnees who want to continue family businesses or start up something new. Luckily, these opportunities still exist: As opposed to the Dutch countryside, where supermarket chains have killed off small-scale local shops, in Zhejiang, even in the smallest hamlet you can find small shops or local eateries. Small-scale sport and health care facilities are also available. More importantly, villagers’ self-esteem is recovering. Increasingly, residents no longer see the countryside as a backward area, but as an equally viable and attractive option.

The examples of rural renewal I saw in Zhejiang offer hope of reconnecting people and the environment, but they cannot simply be copied by regions elsewhere. Pilot projects are good for inspiration and discovering new possibilities, but every village, every place, has its unique conditions and requires appropriate tailor-made solutions based on its unique physical, socio-cultural, economic, and ecological qualities. Moreover, beautification with paint or architecture is not enough. True involvement of local communities is crucial for long-term success.

Ultimately, the most important takeaway from my experiment is that the countryside is not a museum, but a place where people live. Walking is an enriching experience, one that can help connect outsiders with locals on a deeper level. If policymakers and planners were to free up more time for walking and talking with locals, I believe the payoffs would be immeasurable. Walking means taking the time to slow down and think. It offers new prospects for villages and rural regions. And it’s something we could all stand to do a little more of.

Editor: Wu Haiyun.

(Header image: A view of Shishe, a village along Maling Ancient Road with an art gallery, workshop, coffee and books. Courtesy of the author)