Redline Dystopias: A Dialogue With a Farmer in Qicha

Abstract

For the field of national territorial planning, to identify and delimit redlines is the primary step to preserve valuable natural and cultural assets from human interventions, harmonizing human-nature and urban-rural relationships. In the reality, however, the dogmatic planning and design concepts, irrational construction standards, and unscientific and rigid management requirements that ignore the diverse localities, market rules, and stakeholders’ needs usually make the implementation outcome runs the opposite to what was wished, leading to “redline dystopias” called by the author that are damaging our homelands. This article presents a dialogue between the author and a farmer in Qicha, Hainan, to reveal how a “capital farmland dystopia,” one of the redline dystopias, comes into being, appealing for a profound re-examination and reflection in the planning and design professions.