Reading extended urbanization in mountainous China: Socio-ecological transformations in Chongqing

Abstract

Research on extended urbanization has focused on deltaic and coastal contexts in Asia, yielding influential concepts like desakota, and has prioritized macroeconomic and spatial models. However, inland, mountainous territories, whose natural constraints produce unique socio-ecological dynamics, remain relatively underrepresented. This article investigates how extended urbanization unfolds in Chongqing, southwestern China. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach containing the historical review, spatial mapping, architectural typological analysis and visual ethnography, I examine three intertwined aspects of extended urbanization: sociopolitical histories, vernacular landscapes, and adapting living typologies. The findings reveal a dialectical process in which the fragmentation of landscape systems through land acquisition and industrialization precipitates a crisis of habitability, triggering the emergence of new sociospatial typologies. These adaptations, such as mixed migrant–elderly cohabitation and resilient courtyard economies, are direct responses to heightened flood vulnerability and eroded resilience. They reflect a precarious negotiation between everyday survival and the dismantling of the region’s ecological foundations. Consequently, I argue that mountainous extended urbanization is characterized by this tension between socio-ecological fragmentation and rural persistence, which involves negotiation, adaptation as well as vulnerability. This dynamic holds the key to climate adaptation planning, which must be grounded in approaches that recognize the mutual constitution of urban and rural systems and support the traditional ecological knowledge embedded in vernacular landscapes.