Cultural approach has been gradually applied to urban regeneration practices. The scholars identified the progressive, creative and entrepreneurial cultural strategy in urban regeneration, and summarised four aspects of characteristics. These approaches form the theoretical framework within which to classify diverse sets of industrial heritage precincts. A scoping study of cases of industrial heritage reuse in Shanghai was undertaken based on this progressive, creative and entrepreneurial cultural framework. The selected cases have common characteristics: inhabiting the former abandoned industrial areas and having been changed to the three cultural uses. The scoping study investigates the commencement time of the adaptive reuse, the original factory characteristics, cultural approach, current precinct type, tenants and the reuse process. By summarising Shanghai’s experience on industrial heritage reuse, this paper expanded the main characteristics of the progressive, creative and entrepreneurial cultural approaches into seven aspects, namely, architectural type, potential value, goals, main stakeholders, target audience, type of cultural programs and facilities, and cultural activities. This paper attempts to in enrich existing literature on urban regeneration and heritage conservation, and provide a reference to the industrial land regeneration practice in China.
A New Cultural Approach to Urban Regeneration: Making a Cultural Space for the Restoration of Citizenship