Shanghai, China’s commercial centre, will launch a wide-ranging initiative to redevelop urban villages next year, marking one of its most ambitious citywide renewal campaigns yet.
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The project, announced at a late July meeting of the city’s legislative body as part of a three-year plan, signals a broader and more intensive push to overhaul urban villages than previous efforts.
As the nation’s financial hub and most populous city, Shanghai has the second-highest housing prices in mainland China after Shenzhen, making its real estate market an indicator of national trends.
Though light on specific details, the new campaign aligns with China’s shift from large-scale urban expansion to enhancing existing infrastructure, as highlighted in the Central Urban Work Conference last month.
Alongside the urban village initiative, launching in 2026, Shanghai aims to renovate small, thin-walled housing by 2027 and continue upgrading old residential neighbourhoods, said Wang Zhen, director of the Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Construction Management Committee, at the July 30 meeting outlining the action plan for 2026-2028.
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From 2023 to June 2025, the city renovated 39.1 million square metres of old neighbourhoods and identified 44 urban villages to be redeveloped, he was quoted as saying in an official readout.
Urban village renewal typically involves demolishing outdated structures and redeveloping them into modern residential and public facilities. It is viewed as a potential catalyst for the world’s second-largest economy, as it struggles to find new growth drivers amid a broader slowdown.