CREATING CYBERSPACE TO EMPOWER HEALTH AND SOCIOLOGICAL RESILIENCE THOUGH INNER-CITY FRINGE COMMUNITIES’ MICROTRANSFORMATION

Rapid urbanization and aging processes present serious challenges to the urban renewal and regeneration of China major cities. The living environment and quality of life of the fringe communities located in the old inner-city urban districts have been affected by the combination of these processes. The problems faced by these fringe communities are not limited to issues related to buildings, infrastructure and supporting management, and public service facilities; but also, to the lack of “soft components” related to health, social services, and psychological well-being. The research group adopts “micro-transformation” and “big data networking” as key aspects for investigating the rejuvenation of inner-city fringe communities, especially focusing on health and social resilience issues. Firstly, this paper reviews transformation methods adopted by local governments to improve the quality of living in fringe communities, including buildings and façade restoration, pedestrian walkway systems, public hygiene enhancement, underground pipeline renovation. Simultaneously, it summarizes approaches, major achievements, and limitations of China government major efforts to provide high-speed data communication networks and smart city infrastructure, aiming to improve the living quality among the substandard communities and aging groups. Secondly, we take the relevance of health and social sustainability of the fringe communities into consideration in the process of applying “intelligent micro-transformation based on ‘5G’ platform”. The need of both fringe communities and “silver class” for soft environments socially resilient can be fulfilled through the physical environment re-fabrication and re-habitation, combined with the Cyberspace; the latter, supported by ‘5G’ big data system coping with dynamic services and social interactions requirements.
We demonstrate the above-mentioned Cyberspace system framework and report the preliminary outcomes regarding its application in a Greater Bay Area fringe community.
Taking “people-oriented” as a core urban design value, we expound the impact of ‘5G’ big data micro transformation on quality of life in fringe communities’ rejuvenation.