Introduction

Across China, the preservation and reconstruction of European-styled buildings for commercial purposes has become a trend for urban development. This has been the case especially during the past two decades. After the quasi-colonial period of more than a century (1842-1945), a few of these buildings survived heavy usage during the high communist era (1949-1978) during which they were reoccupied by workers. During the first decade of the Reform and Opening-up (gaigekaifang) era that began in the early 1980s, these buildings continued to be heavily used. Drawing inspiration from urban planning in cities such as New York, London, and Tokyo, Shanghai's local government has since the early 2000s been building the city to accommodate both modern high-rise and heritage buildings. The local government of Shanghai sees city branding as a major part of its urban development program (see Development Research Center 2014). Integral to this emerging brand is the preservation of historic buildings – what major global cities commonly share (Ren 2008). In recent years, the authority's perceptions of these buildings have changed from being dilapidated remnants of colonialism to be replaced, to “historical artifacts” worthy of preservation to be protected as the city's cultural capital (Urban Land Institute 2014). Nevertheless, both preservation and reconstruction do not come cheap. While there are many sociocultural reasons to support government-led preservation of historic structures, a compromise is often necessary.