China’s vast underdeveloped regions are home to numerous historically and culturally significant towns with long histories and profound cultural heritage. They serve not only as vital spatial carriers of the diverse yet unified structure of Chinese civilization, but also as repositories of highly distinctive regional cultural memories and local knowledge, forming a precious cultural legacy. However, compared to ancient towns in areas with rapid economic development, the protection and revitalization of these historic towns face even more severe challenges. Amidst the tides of modernization and urbanization, they commonly find themselves in a “dual predicament”: on one hand, their unique cultural heritage is at risk of “holistic” protection failure due to funding shortages, population outflow, and community disintegration, with rich cultural memories teetering on the brink of oblivion due to interrupted transmission; on the other hand, many regions attempt to seek solutions through tourism development, but often deviate from the local context and blindly imitate commercialized models, resulting in local knowledge being consumed and distorted by a homogenized “tourist gaze,” leading to insufficient endogenous motivations and difficulties in achieving sustainable development.

Current practices demonstrate that mere preservation of the physical space or exogenous commercial investment cannot resolve this predicament. The root cause lies in the fact that many protection and development efforts fail to deeply understand the essence of historic towns as “cultural memory fixators” and neglect the core driver of endogenous regional revitalization ^[1]. If protection remains only at the level of architectural shells, while stripping away their intrinsic cultural significance and community connections, it loses its soul; if revitalization cannot ignite the sense of identity and subjectivity of local residents, it is difficult to achieve genuine place-making.

Therefore, this study is based on this practical problem, aiming to explore a sustainable path suitable for historically and culturally significant towns in China’s underdeveloped regions. The study will introduce cultural memory theory as a core perspective, emphasizing the “thick description” and interpretation of the value depth of historic towns, and will attempt to construct an integrated methodological framework.

Preserving an ancient town involves not only safeguarding its physical entities such as buildings and streets, but also protecting the collective memory and cultural identity embedded within it. The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage particularly emphasizes the central role of communities, groups, and individuals in the preservation process ^[2], highlighting the importance of “holistic: conservation. Assmann’s “cultural memory theory” provides a profound theoretical foundation for “holistic preservation”—preservation must be comprehensive because memory is interconnected and embedded within the cultural fabric.

“Cultural memory theory” explores how social groups construct and transmit their collective memory and identity through cultural formalization. The theory distinguishes between short-term, everyday “communicative memory” and long-term, stable “cultural memory.” Cultural memory specifically refers to a society’s selective reconstruction and institutionalized transmission of its foundational and normative past through “crystallizers” such as texts, rituals, monuments, and festivals. It transcends individual lifespans, is maintained by specific institutions, and aims to address the fundamental question of “who we are,” thereby strengthening group cohesion and cultural distinctiveness. “Cultural memory” is not an exact reproduction of the past but rather a meaningful interpretation and re-production of history based on contemporary needs, serving as the most core and enduring framework for shaping cultural identity. “Local knowledge” can be seen as the specific content and manifestation of “cultural memory” within a particular region. The folk customs, dialects, handicrafts, traditional festivals, and local legends of Tuocheng Historic Town are all components of its unique cultural memory and constitute the core of its local identity.

This study focuses on the sustainable development of historically and culturally significant towns in underdeveloped regions of China, aiming to construct an integrated approach to preservation and revitalization. Relevant research theories can be synthesized into the following three levels: value recognition and preservation theory, endogenous development and methodology, and design intervention and innovative practice.

First, at the level of value recognition and preservation theory, the study emphasizes in-depth exploration of heritage value and holistic preservation. The UNESCO principle of “holistic preservation” for World Heritage sites goes beyond isolated preservation of individual structures, requiring the protection of cultural heritage along with its surrounding environment, landscape, and community fabric. This is of core guiding significance for the preservation of historically significant towns. The core value of such towns lies in their unique “local knowledge”—that is, the embodied local wisdom and cultural patterns formed through long-term adaptation to the environment. Interpreting this knowledge requires the anthropological methodology of “thick description,” which involves meticulous observation and interpretation to reveal the cultural meaning structures beneath surface phenomena. In this regard, Jan Assmann’s “cultural memory theory” (Assmann, 1995; Wang, 2007) provides a critical theoretical lens, viewing historically significant towns as vast “crystallizers of cultural memory,” where architecture, rituals, festivals, and legends collectively form a system of meaning that sustains group cultural identity ^[3][4]. Preserving such towns, in essence, means safeguarding this dynamic, reconfigurable collective memory to prevent its disruption and loss due to the impacts of modernization.

Second, at the level of development paradigms and methodology, the “theory of endogenous regional revitalization” provides a core pathway (Miyamoto,2004)^[5]. This theory critiques exogenous development models and advocates for stimulating endogenous momentum by leveraging local resources, culture, and agency to achieve revitalization. This aligns closely with the concept of “regional revitalization” originating in Japan, which emphasizes addressing population decline and vitality depletion by nurturing people, industries, and local charm. Both approaches point to an inside-out, participatory philosophy of development, requiring external interventions to respect local agency and integrate with local networks through “embedding” rather than “implanting” .

Finally, at the level of design intervention and innovative practice, design studies are transitioning from a paradigm of “creating objects” to one of “orchestrating processes.” The roles of design education and design practice are being redefined; design is no longer merely about imparting form but serves as a “social technology” and a process of“social innovation” ^[6] (Manzini, 2015), facilitating collaboration among different actors and transforming cultural resources into contemporary value. Design practices such as the “New Channel” design summer camp and the “Xinchang Project” (Ni & Zhou, 2018) demonstrate that universities and educational institutions can, through workshops and other formats, establish interdisciplinary platforms and employ “community-based design” methods ^[7] (Ji & Pan, 2012) to guide residents in collectively excavating cultural memory and transforming local knowledge into products, spaces, services, and narratives. This ultimately empowers communities and achieves endogenous regional revitalization. Practices in places such as Songyang, Zhejiang, further validate the effectiveness of this comprehensive approach, which centers on culture as the core, design as the medium, and the community as the main actor.

In summary, current research trends reflect a shift from single cultural relic preservation to multifaceted holistic preservation, from external support to endogenous development, and from expert-led approaches to social collaboration. However, systematically integrating the aforementioned theories within the specific context of underdeveloped regions in China, constructing an operational methodological chain, and deeply embedding “cultural memory theory” into the entire process of design innovation remain research gaps requiring further exploration. This is precisely the starting point and intended contribution of this study.

In the theoretical phase of this project, a desktop study was first conducted on the historical and cultural background of Tuocheng Historic Town, gathering basic historical information. Tuocheng Historic Town dates back to the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC), with a history of over 2,230 years ^[10]. Located in the southwest of Longchuan County in northeastern Guangdong Province, the town is approximately 8 kilometers from the county center (Fig. 2). Currently, Tuocheng Historic Town covers an area of 36.88 hectares and has a population of 8,700. The ancient town area includes four provincial-level cultural heritage protection units in Guangdong: Longchuan Confucian Temple (Qing Dynasty), Imperial Examination Hall (Qing Dynasty), Yue King Well (Qin Dynasty), and Nan Yue King Temple (Ming and Qing Dynasties). Additionally, there are two municipal-level cultural heritage protection units in Heyuan City: City God Temple (Ming and Qing Dynasties) and Heng Street Zhu Clan Ancestral Hall, as well as nine county-level cultural heritage protection units in Longchuan County, including Houtang Street Sima Mansion, Xingguang Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, Tuocheng Theater, Hundred-Year Street Ye Clan Ancestral Hall, Hundred-Year Street Zheng Clan Ancestral Hall, Longchuan County Chamber of Commerce, Heng Street Luo Clan Ancestral Hall, No. 11 Luo House on Heng Street, and No. 8 Luo House on Heng Street. Furthermore, there are nine historical buildings, six recommended historical buildings, and nine recommended traditional-style buildings. Among these, 18 ancient residential buildings remain ^[11].

In the practical phase, field investigations were conducted during the initial research stage. Based on the theory of “endogenous community building” and the first three field investigations, and aligned with the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the author proposed the “Tuocheng Creation Plan (TCCP)” with three core visions: talent development, community co-construction, and public participation, along with ten action plans ^[12].

As part of the author’s postdoctoral research, the project has been implemented since August 2023, adhering to the core concepts of “community building” as “building hearts (awakening cultural consciousness among local residents)” and enhancing local identity. The project continuously explores local resources in “people, culture, place, production, and landscape” and reconstructs the network of local resource relationships. To date, 15 resident field investigations and two participatory community-building workshops have been conducted. In December 2024, the phased results were submitted to the Secretariat of the UN Decade of Science for Sustainable Development (IDSSD) and officially approved on July 2, 2025. The “Tuocheng Creation Plan (TCCP)” was formally included in the first batch of the Decade of Science projects. The research and practice process to date can be divided into four key phases:

1) Project Initiation and Exploration (August–December 2023): Marked by the first field investigation and the formal proposal of the TCCP initiative.

2) In-Depth Development and Government Collaboration (January- July 2024): Gaining government attention, conducting benchmark studies, and establishing research projects.

3) Academic Output and Community Practice (July–December 2024): Hosting training camps, conducting community building, and producing academic results.

4) International Recognition (Late 2024–July 2025): Submitting the project to the UN and ultimately gaining official approval.

The project implementation process employs design intervention and innovative practices to explore and apply “local knowledge,” fostering design students’ engagement with fieldwork. It emphasizes integrating the theory of “cultural memory” into the entire design innovation process, gradually exploring a “multi-stakeholder co-creation and sharing participation mechanism” for the preservation and revitalization of Tuocheng Historic Town. This provides a reference for “endogenous” regional revitalization in underdeveloped areas. The following section presents the project’s working methods through two design practice cases.

Based on sustained resident field investigations and multi-case design practice research in Tuocheng Historic Town, this study innovatively proposes an integrated methodological framework for design practice named “Engage-Encounter-Enrich -Envision” (Fig. 6). This framework not only represents a theoretical sublimation of the aforementioned design practice projects—such as ancestral hall murals, digital preservation of ancient residences, and Su Causeway activation—but also provides a operable and replicable systematic methodology for the sustainable development of historically and culturally significant towns in underdeveloped regions of China. The core of this framework lies in constructing a cyclical process with “cultural memory” as its kernel, “design practice” as its medium, and “endogenous development” as its ultimate goal. Its four interconnected phases form a continuously evolving closed loop of value creation: