**6. Conclusions**

In the conditions of a growing urban population, the intensity of land use is an essential planning decision in promoting environmental sustainability. Chinese local governments are increasingly encouraging compact and mixed-used developments mainly to maximize land revenues and capture commercial and residential land value [101], but not yet mainly to balance economic interests and sustainability purposes. Still, the planning approach in the country is gradually and steadily shifting towards more sustainable development and a high-quality urban environment. In this process, for enhanced use of resources, the renewal of some built areas that do not perform efficiently can be considered. In this direction, the Chinese central government has promoted the regeneration and renewal of what was built before 2000, which is a massive undertaking if the whole country is considered.

This research explored the opportunity of regeneration with densification of what is already built in Suzhou to diminish the consumption of agricultural land and offer a better living environment than what was realized in the early years of massive urbanization. The research concluded that some resettlement communities could be appropriate sites for renewal. In fact, these communities in Suzhou are quickly deteriorating and offer inadequate services and poor housing conditions if the increased wealth of the population

is considered, and more so if the actions for further improving the living conditions the government is working on are successful.

This research found that the densification of the resettlement communities can significantly impact the intensification of land use in the whole of Suzhou, given the large number of such communities and their low or medium floor area ratios. The densification project should be site specific, but a general citywide plan of interventions should be drafted with priorities and phases. Densification should be promoted, especially in the resettlement communities with low FAR and good transport capacity and accessibility. The local government should encourage dense and compact development and should have explicit goals to be respected by every development project; specifically, which option of densification is feasible and most suitable for each condition must be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Urban regeneration is costly and the reconstruction itself uses resources, but it can be convenient for the local government because it concerns already urbanized areas. Therefore, it does not occupy agricultural land or consume the land development quotas that the central governments allocate to the local governments. In addition, the increased renewal density contributes to the economic sustainability of the transformation because it can generate sufficient funds for the renewal itself and the compensation of the inhabitants, similar to what has already been experimented with as an example in the renewal of the urban villages in Guangdong [102].

The goal of the transformations with densification analyzed and proposed in this research is not gentrification, profit, or revenue maximization [84,85] but another step in improving the built environment and land value appreciation, benefits that can be shared with the current inhabitants.
