System Building and Multistakeholder Involvement in Public Participatory Community Planning through Both Collaborative- and Micro-Regeneration

With the continuous development of social governance research and practice, the role of public participation in community planning has received increasing attention. In some developing countries, the public participation methods used in Western countries show a certain degree of inadaptability. The underlying reason for this is the lack of understanding of the related concepts and participation units of public participation and the lack of a scientific public participation system. This study first investigated the fundamental issues of public participation system construction and the definition of a public participation unit in community planning. Then, the micro-renovation of the Zengcuoan community in Xiamen, China, was used as an example to introduce the whole process of constructing a public participation system and an inverted pyramid model of public participation units. Collaborative workshops are a method of community planning that is government-guided and allows for multistakeholder participation and joint consultation. These workshops are mainly led by relevant government departments or social autonomous organizations. They adopt a flexible and diverse approach in response to problems and needs in the process of community construction and development that mobilizes and organizes residents and community organizations to participate in community construction and governance. Collaborative workshops provide new working ideas and practical solutions for participatory community planning in both top-down (government-led) and bottom-up (citizen-led) settings in developing countries.