Community Participation of China’s Urban Regeneration: A Case Study of Sanxue Historical District in Xi’an

In the past two decades, community participation has been increasingly playing a critical role in urban regeneration. It refers to as an important part for the design and implementation of the urban regeneration process. Due to the persistent top-down tendency, particularly in developing countries, it is critical to expand the channel for community participation in urban regeneration practises. For achieving an inclusive target and enhancing positive interactions among different stakeholders, in recent years, partly as a response to the criticism of high-centralized regeneration projects, the community are increasingly empowered in the process of regeneration to bridge other stakeholders including government, private sector, and professionals in China. Through an appropriate participatory method, people could have an opportunity to act in the regeneration process, and cooperate with other stakeholders to complete a sound, long-term, and local-based solutions to regeneration (Li et al. in Cities (Elsevier Ltd.) 102:102743, 2020). However, although community participation approach is launched, people’s demands have failed to be satisfied due to the continuing marginalizing the community. In order to dissect the reasons, by taking Sanxue historical district in Xi’an as case study, this paper aims to elaborate a new community participation model–collaborative workshop; analyses how collaborate workshop operates and why it finally results to the ineffective of participation. Grounded in a qualitative research methodology, this paper is built upon data collected through archival research, interviews with local community as well as other stakeholders, and on-site observation.