participation in historical buildings under the context of Canton

Public Participation in the Regeneration of

Guangzhou：Case Study of ‘Enning Road’

Zhou Ling

Tutor: Alice Fursdon

PS10-37, The English Language Teaching Centre

The University of Sheffield

Email: [email protected]

1. Introduction

In the concerns of improving the strength of land-use, urban

regeneration tends to be an efficient way in city development.

However, any reconstruction processes should not oppose

people’s rights and interest as cities belong to citizens.

Accordingly, reducing the probability of creating conflicts

between the local authority and dwellers, public

participation, a right for people to partake in the process of

urban planning, is usually classified as a problem-solving

technique.

This essay attempts to explain the importance and necessity of

promoting public participation in regenerating urban area,

mostly focusing on the situation in Guangzhou (a city in

southern China), and forecast what should happen in future

(the future possibility). It begins by giving three reasons,

separately concerning people’s needs, rights and their in-

depth understanding of the city, to explain the importance of

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public participation, then take the regeneration of ‘Enning

Road’ (Fig. 1) as an example in the second part. ‘Enning Road’

is the first urban regeneration district (China daily, 2010)

and it witnessed the progress of public participation in

Guangzhou. In addition, a good communication would be

primarily considered to promote (advance) public participation

in urban regeneration. Therefore, this paper will also

evaluate some similar practical experiences in Lapworth (a

village in Warwickshire, England) to illustrate the methods of

building up interactive communication between the authority

and the public. Moreover (last but not less), the final part

will explain (provide the potentially effective) communicating

methods the government of Guangzhou should learn and develop

to promote public participation in future.

Fig. 1 ‘Enning Road’, a famous arcade street in Guangzhou (Author’s own

picture dated 27 Nov. 2011)

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2. The Importance of Public Participation

In reference to the social impacts of urban renewal, it is

divided into three parts to explain (interpret) the importance

of public participation. Firstly, according to Atkinson

(1992), in urban regeneration practise, planning cannot

completely rely on officials, specialists, administrators or

experts. A certain degree of public participation in urban

regeneration planning is essential. China has a different

social context from western countries, but it still faces with

the necessary development of public participation in city

planning.

Guangzhou is the third biggest city in China with 12.7 million

people (source: English.gz.gov.cn); at the same time, it needs

a higher level of (comparatively more intensive) urbanization

to catch the pace of China’s rapid development, which causes

the contradiction between the development of city and the

limitation of land resource. Therefore, regenerating urban

districts is strongly attracting local government’s interest

as economical and political processes (for economical and

political purpose?). However, in most of situations, public

interest may not (in most of situation 與 may 與 與 與 與 與 與 ) be

considered under the city’s speedy revitalization. On the

basis of “Outline Plan for Guangzhou’s Urban Redevelopment”

(published by Guangzhou Urban Planning Bureau, 2010), the

total amount of designated areas for redevelopment would reach

54 ha （ha？）and it would include 600,000 households totally

（ , which presently occupied by 600,000 households） . This

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means that any kinds of reconstruction may bring an

unpredictable influence (unpredictable influences?) to local

residents. Reasonably, if local occupants could participate in

the decision-making of the living area re-plan, the final

design will possibly attempt to achieve a better balance

between the needs of development and the needs of community

members (the final design would be a more positive opportunity

to alleviate the imbalance between urban development and

interest of community members).

Another reason should be related to citizenship rights (? 與與與與與與 ：).

It is a fact that a planning is always required to submit to

local authority, which would be divided into sectors, and it

will be published as public consultation. However, there are

several complicated processes before accessing to the detailed

purpose of this project or expressing suggestions (Nicholas,

2009). These conditions (issues) are similar to those in

Guangzhou. In most cases in Guangzhou, the publication of

planning contains so over-specialised information that people

could not easily understand the clear target of the planning.

As a result, to some extent, they would unable to provide

suitable responds basing on such a confusing object, an

official planning project. If the authority could create some

opportunities to allow the community (for community) to learn

or even to partake in renewal planning, the public will access

to express their opinions and exercise their rights fluently

and deeply.

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The final reason to encourage public participation on certain

levels of the renewal plan may be linked to the basis of

public cultural value. As some citizens believe that the old

town represents significant local historical value, which can

help the younger generation to remember regional culture and

lifestyle in the history. In other words, historical buildings

might carry special meanings as John Ruskin wrote, ‘We have no

right whatever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong

partly to those who built them and partly to all the

generations of mankind who are to follow us.’(cited in

Michael, 1997: 2). This thinking might be the original

motivation to insist on the correct attitude of decision-

making towards reconstructing old districts. Meanwhile, on

account of living in a same community for a long time,

households are more likely to have intimate knowledge of

detailed local history. For these reasons, it could be

imagined that if rational means of public participation could

be provided for citizens, local occupants may significantly

contributed to urban planning under better cultural and

contextual consideration, and historical value will be

comparatively more respected in reconstructive planning

process.

To sum up, the public involvement would be adjusted by

different progresses of planning. But most types of public

participating actions always encourage the community to get

more detailed knowledge and to access the position of

planning （ But 與 與 與 與 與 與 clause 與與與與， 。 ） . Therefore, public

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participation seems like an efficient strategy, no matter the

extent of participating, which is benefit (beneficial) to

optimise regeneration planning leading the city development

towards a better way (future).

3. The Regeneration of ‘Enning Road’

‘Enning Road’, as a famous Guangzhou neighbourhood with many

successful business families and refined scholars amongst its

residents, carries considerable historical memories, and it

has been resisting the threatening of modern urbanisation for

a long time. Unfortunately, such resistance seemed to be

worthless as it was decided to reconstruct as commercial

sector following the government’s master plan in 2007. As

‘Enning Road’ was the first renewal district in Guangzhou, it

attracted much (a national range of) media attention (China

Daily, 2010), especially focusing on the imbalance between the

development profit and the public interest, and, importantly,

the special status of local culture represented by this area.

However, the public’s opinions could not be expressed and be

expected due to the government created a gap between the local

authority and the public.

In March 2010, a civil organization called ‘Enning Road’

Concern Group （ homepage: http://enninglu.info/ ） began to

intervene in ‘Enning Road’ event. This group seemed (was

planned to) to bring a positive turning (reverse) point

against such predicament at that time. Most of group members

were students with multi academic background, such as urban

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design and architecture, social anthropology, journalism,

economics, law and so on. They devoted much time and energy

trying to reverse(struggle with) such difficult situations or

support the residents of ‘Enning road’ district by, for

example, inviting architects to teach residents about the

basic knowledge in order to raise the public awareness of the

old building’s value, or creating a studio to share the latest

information with the (local) community (Fig. 2). For more than

a year, they tried to accomplish the salvage records of old

buildings and the fieldwork of this area before the

reconstruction process was taken into operation. This group’s

activities were reported widely by local media and received

more and more supports from the public, especially from local

young people (Nandu Weekly, 2011).

Fig. 2 The studio, a flat in one

of old buildings in ‘Enning

Road’ district, is for group

members and residents to share

immediately information of

renewal planning. (Author’s own

pictures dated 26 Sept. 2011)

Under the public pressure,

government reconsidered the direction of ‘Enning Road’ future

development. In 2008, a new plan called ‘Plan on Preserving

Traditional historical blocks’ was created and finally

published in June 2011, which mentioned that the old community

would be maintained instead of being handed over to developers

for commercial development (Yangcheng Wanbao, 2011). This

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change witnessed the increasing influence of public

participation in the fields of regeneration planning.

Satisfying information sharing and good communication channels

are the access to participation (Bruton & Lightbody, 1978: 7).

Precisely because of the insistence of residents, the

involvement of specialists and students, the reporting of

media and the attention of the society, it could be possible

(for local residents) to built up a bridge of negotiating with

the government. This case witnessed how the public partook in

the progress of redevelopment planning without any official

measures to help (support). To some extent, with the

increasing awareness of the public, the government in

Guangzhou should try to build up communication channels;

meanwhile, it will lead to an expected outcome for the public

and the government.

4. The Experiences in Lapworth

Compared with the progress in China, the public participation

of urban renewal has been developed for a long period in the

UK. Due to the social development (a series of social and

political evolution), the concept of participation emerged in

the 1960s and 1970s. This idea was to increase democracy and

people’s awareness of using natural right to be involved in

the official process which would change their living

environment (Shapely, 2011:77).

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Furthermore, choosing appropriate ways of communication, which

aims to avoid misrepresented information, seems to be an

important factor of building up an effective negotiation

between the society and the authority. During the period May

1975 – March 1978, according to the working note of the

Lapworth (a village in Warwickshire) local plan, the Warwick

district council attempted to utilise participation measures

in the preparatory stage (Bruton & Lightbody, 1978). Three

terms mentioned by Goldsmith and Saunders, ‘educative

participation’, ‘informative participation’ and ‘involved

participation’ were used in making a satisfactory

communication between the council and the public (cited by

Bruton & Lightbody, 1978: 7). In addition, Bruton & Lightbody

also described that the district council intended to increase

the negotiability of communication so it used the press, news-

sheets, posters, a questionnaire survey, official reports and

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exhibitions, and these stages were based on a co-ordinated

publicity policy. After that, a sample interview including 53%

of people who attended the exhibition was used in evaluating

the public’s reaction. According to the result of interview,

69% of interviewees approved of the publicity and 65% were

satisfied with the public participation of Lapworth plan

(Bruton & Lightbody, 1978). Nowadays, there is a more suitable

system to collect the public’s opinions in Warwickshire, which

was called ‘A Report of Public Consultation’ prepared by the

council to illustrate the steps of the local plan (Warwick

district council 2005, Fig. 3).  

Fig. 3 The First Deposit Version Press advert showed a slogan ‘Have your

say on the local plan’. (Warwick District Local Plan 1996 – 2011: Statement

of Public Consultation)

This case, apparently, successfully illustrated the range of

communication channels and the two-way pattern how to benefit

the negotiation between the public and the local authority. In

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addition, correcting the fixed position of the community in

the planning process would lead the public forming an

appropriate foundation for public participation (Bruton &

Lightbody, 1978).

5. The future development of participation in Guangzhou

Although this regeneration of Lapworth happened almost 40

years ago, its initial progress of participation was closely

analogous to the present situation in Guangzhou. Regardless of

the social context, the channels and stages of enabling multi-

communication should be more considered in public

participation. Furthermore, the local authority always

reserves the full decision-making. Therefore, the primary

point of achieving friendly negotiation is likely focused on

the fair treatment of the public, such as taking the

initiative to care for their demands and psychological

feelings.

According to the redevelopment processes of ‘Enning Road’, the

community always pay close attention to three major issues:

(1) the lack of displacement plan before reconstruction, (2)

the absence of awareness on heritage conservation, and (3)

unreasonable compensation without considering neighbourhood

housing prices (Shin, 2013). Due to these issues could not be

solved only for waiting the government’s self-improvement,

people tended to explore other

ways to participate in urban

renewal. In fact, several

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spontaneous organizations have appeared in recent years (Fig.

4). The residents and the wider society came together to

arrange collective actions and defended strongly enough to

raise public awareness in Guangzhou (Shin, 2013). Fig. 4 In Guangzhou, civilian organizations often shares their own

experiences with each other via sharing sessions or small exhibitions.

(Author’s own pictures separately dated 20 Nov. 2010 and 14 Jan. 2012)

This situation seems to last for a period until the government

improve a participation system by respecting the public and

giving them enough channels to express opinions. Therefore,

the government in Guangzhou should realize this situation

(reality) and create the channels (rational means) of multi-

communication for the public at this moment in time. If the

needs of residents could be deeply realized and considered,

the local authority would be able to build up a suitable

consultation system as the similar one in Warwickshire.

More precisely, the government could combine with the specific

conditions of social context and historic culture to create an

implemental system for the purpose of promoting public

participation.

6. Conclusion

In general, therefore, it seems that public participation

should be taken in the process of urban regeneration to craft

a balance between cities and dwellers, and this measure mainly

aims to satisfy people’s demand, respect their rights and

conserve historic culture discreetly. Furthermore, the

inspiration of the case study of ‘Enning road’ event indicated

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that certain advantages of the experiences in Guangzhou could

be noticed, such as optimizing the urban planning strategies

and governing, the increase of communication between public

and authorities, the explanation of general sense of natural

right, etc. These progresses should be highly respected and

significantly important for further urban development in the

backdrop of Chinese rapid development, regarding the cultural

conservation and protection of residents’ welfare. On the

other hand, in the concerns of Lapworth’s experiences,

building up the channels of multi-communication and creating

public consultation system are benefit to the development of

public participation. In a certain extent, such experiences

could be reference in the recent progress of regeneration in

Guangzhou. If the government could enhance the awareness of

the importance of public’s opinions in urban development,

promoting public participation, and this city may be more

suitable for living with few conflicts and complains.

References

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Public participation in planning. London: Wiley.

2. Michael J. Bruton (1978) Public participation in local planning :

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Department of the Environment.

3. Michael J. Thomas (Michael James) (1997) Conservation of the

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urban : issues and politics. Oxford: Oxford Brookes University, School

of Planning.

4. Nicholas Socrates (2009) Public participation in urban design and

planning. Via www.slideshare.net

5. Peter Shapely (2011) Planning, housing and participation in Britain,

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Welsh History and Archaeology, Bangor University, Bangor, UK.

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