Urban community regeneration and community vitality revitalization through participatory planning in China

Abstract

Urban regeneration has been a major concern in urban studies globally. China's urbanization is transitioning from a growing space to regenerating existing communities, which calls for reevaluating the newly emerging trend of urbanization in China. This study aims to investigate China's increasing focus on urban regeneration through the practice of community redevelopment, with an emphasis on public participation in community planning and how communities re-archive vitality and public favor. Considering the Shapowei community in the city of Xiamen, Fujian province as a case, we introduced a method to progressively rebuild local residents' confidence and obtain local government support and public engagement where participation planning has been considered an effective method of regeneration, rather than demolishing old buildings and constructing new, large-scale buildings as in the previous state of urbanization. The findings suggest that local resident participation plays a crucial role in urban planning and regeneration. Micro-construction and fishing-port culture can be catalysts in reproducing local community vitality; public consensus and participation are deeply-rooted in community regeneration with multi-stakeholders' involvement; and third-party stakeholders like scholars, local resident volunteers, and social groups contribute to the overall success of local community regeneration. The implications of this study are of great value to community planning, and planners must perform necessary actions to regenerate China's deteriorated communities.