As a development form of the creative industry, the Artist Village is a high concern of the Chinese government, and it has achieved rapid developments in China in recent years. However, many Artist Villages come to an untimely end a short period after their birth and fail to realize sustainable development. In this study, an empirical analysis on 80 Artist Villages in China was carried out. A field investigation and research on eight Artist Villages was implemented. Attention was paid to thoroughly analyze three typical Artist Villages of Guangzhou Xiaozhou Artist Village, Chongqing Gujianshan Artist Village and Beijing Songzhuang Artist Village. It has been found from studies that the development of Artist Villages in China has experienced initiation, development and maturity stages. The development of Artist Villages in China generally has many problems, such as an insufficient endogenous impetus, the excessive intervention of government, market capital “squeezing out” the original artists, and so on. This paper proposed a sustainable development model for Artist Villages during urbanization in China based on the findings and conclusions of this study. This study not only enriches research contents in this field, but can also provide meaningful references for the sustainable development of Artist Villages in China.@en

Contemporary Chinese artist villages (CCAVs) have been developing rapidly and have become an important locus for developing cultural and creative industries, providing a strong pathway for China to achieve high-quality development and promote new urbanization. However, in practice, there are still many CCAVs that struggle with sustainable development. At present, the academic research on CCAVs mainly focuses on demonstrating the role of artist villages in promoting development in economic, social, artistic, and other fields without forming a systematic, sustainable development model or targeted policy recommendations. Therefore, the CCAV must be taken as a research object, and the influencing factors and mechanisms of its development must be analyzed through systematic quantitative research to provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable development (SD) of CCAVs. This paper identifies the factors influencing the sustainable development of CCAVs through grounded theory and expert interviews and creates a list of 21 influencing factors. Based on internal and external considerations, these influencing factors can be divided into the following four categories: artists, government, company/capital, and outside environment. This paper constructs a mechanism model for the SD of CCAVs with the help of a structural equation model, which is a quantitative analysis tool based on empirical research. The key mechanisms influencing the SD of CCAVs are obtained through research. Using quantitative research, the paper determines four categories of influencing factors and the mechanisms influencing the SD of CCAVs. This study provides an important resource for governments at all levels to promote the sustainable development of artist villages in the region.@en