Urban redevelopment of heritage sites and cultural sustainability: The impact of organisations on local cultural memory and identity.

Urban redevelopment of heritage sites and cultural sustainability: The impact of organisations on local cultural memory and identity.

Warwick Business School

Jiani Zhang

2025

This paper examines how urban redevelopment transforms collective memory and cultural identity in heritage communities. Based on a qualitative case study of Zhang Yuan in Shanghai, a landmark of Haipai culture, I analyse interviews with former residents and organisational actors, field observations, and secondary archival data. My findings suggest that while physical facades were preserved, the displacement of residents and the commodification of culture produced symbolic rather than lived continuity. Organisations often prioritise commercial legitimacy over authentic engagement with local heritage. I contribute to the literature on cultural sustainability and organisational studies by conceptualising cultural transformation as an unfolding process and theorising how commercial-cultural tensions reshape the intergenerational transmission of memory and identity.

Urban redevelopment, Organisational studies, Cultural sustainability, Cultural heritage, Collective memory, Modernisation