Paper short abstract:

This paper explores to what extent an intermediary planning arrangement at a community or neighbourhood level can open up the 'room for manoeuvre' for substantial community participation in enhancing infrastructure in decayed urban areas, and bridge top-down and bottom-up planning.

Paper long abstract:

In 2017, Beijing Municipal Government proposed Refined Urban Management (RUM) which aims to improve the infrastructure of the decayed urban areas, and narrow the quality disparity in the built environment between rich and poorer neighbourhoods. However, the lack of capacity in neighbourhood government became one of the biggest challenges to materialise the goals of RUM. The Community Duty Planner (CDP) mechanism was then introduced to fill the gap between top-down planning and bottom-up demands. After being introduced, CDP appeared to open up space for extensive participation in several sites. The Shuangjing Well No. 6 site, a renovated public space located in Post-modern City (Houxiandaicheng) in Beijing, is one example of such. As a group of 'big-data' planners took the lead after being commissioned as the CDP of Shuangjing, a residents' 'thinktank', UN-Habitat, local and national government, property management and 3D printing firms, as well as local journalists were sequentially brought into the project. Intricate politics and power relations also unfolded in the process.

Based on eighteen-month ethnographic fieldwork, this paper tells the story of how the Well No.6 site was developed. Meanwhile, it attempts to examine: a) what is the role of an intermediary planning arrangement at a neighbourhood level; 2) to what extent this arrangement can open up space for substantial community participation in urban renewal; and 3) what is the power relation under this new arrangement. The paper aims to contribute to the debates and discussions in urban governance, urban infrastructure development, and planning practice.