Yanming Lake Town, Henan. Il potenziamento dello spazio rurale nella Cina contemporanea

The contribution discusses the spatial transformations undergoing in the rural areas of inland China, based on the investigation of Yanming Lake Town in Zhongmu County, Henan. This place, considered ‘off the map’ until the last decade, is now subjected to radical changes: new infrastructures are built, new settlements are developed, and new productive activities are promoted. By investigating the current restructuring and the emerging landscape, the paper adopts the radicality of Chinese context to question some phenomena which are broadly debated in today’s rural studies. Especially, two are the main issues: what are the new relations between urban and rural areas? And how they influence the way in which rural spaces are designed?