Heterogeneity of public participation in urban redevelopment in Chinese cities: Beijing versus Guangzhou

Abstract

Chinese cities, especially large cities, are in urgent need of urban redevelopment but social conflicts in redevelopment processes have threatened social stability. Public participation has been stipulated in national policies to alleviate these conflicts and the responsibility to implement these policies has been delegated to local governments. Therefore, the features of public participation may differ between Chinese cities. Yet, a systematic investigation of this possible heterogeneity is lacking. This article adapts 11 features of governance to build a framework to compare public participation in urban redevelopment in Beijing and Guangzhou. Findings show that the two cities are similar in five features (policy instruments, policy integration, initiators, position of stakeholders, policy level at which citizens operate) but differ in six (policy goals, policy–science interface, power base of citizens, model of representation, rules of interaction and mechanisms of social interaction), making citizens in urban redevelopment in Guangzhou more powerful than their counterparts in Beijing. The observed shift towards urban micro-redevelopment might further strengthen the power of citizens in urban redevelopment in Beijing, but might weaken their power base in Guangzhou. The findings highlight the importance of local context and policy dynamics in the study of public participation in urban redevelopment in China.