Page 86 - JCAU-5-1

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Revitalizing resource-depleted community

through community empowerment: The case of
Shougang Laoshan community in Beijing

1
1
Xinli Tian *, Yiyao Zong , and Aobo Ran 2,3
1 Department of Urban Regeneration, Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning and Design Institute, Beijing,
China
2 Think Tank Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
3 Institute for Urban Governance and Sustainable Development, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Theoretical and Practical Innovations in Relation to China’s
Urban Regeneration)

Abstract

In the process of transformation and development, resource-depleted areas face
the parallel situation of economic system transformation and social foundation
reconstruction. Since community building is an important aspect of social foundation
reconstruction, how to revitalize resource-depleted communities is a critical issue
faced by the transforming resource-depleted areas. This study starts from this
background and explores how resource-depleted communities can be revitalized
*Corresponding author:
Xinli Tian through community empowerment. Through a community regeneration case
(tianxinli@thupdi.com) study of Shougang Laoshan Community in Beijing, two key points of community
Citation: Tian, X., Zong, Y., empowerment to resource-depleted communities in its early stage are proposed,
& Ran, A. (2023). Revitalizing namely, the professionals’ channeling to local level, and the linkage of resources.
resource-depleted community The most important goal of community empowerment is to energize individuals in
through community empowerment:
The case of Shougang Laoshan the community, encourage their communications, and increase their mobilities by
community in Beijing. Journal of cultural empowerment and resource mobilization.
Chinese Architecture and Urbanism,
5(1):0351.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0351 Keywords: Community empowerment; Resource-depleted community; Local
Received: March 20, 2023 revitalization; Principal planner institution; Resource connection
Accepted: April 18, 2023
Published Online: May 8, 2023
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). 1. Introduction
This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the As China’s urban development is changing from incremental development to
Creative Commons Attribution- development in built-up area, there are increasing urban regeneration projects in the
Non-Commercial 4.0 International scale of community in built-up areas. The concept of community empowerment was
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all
non-commercial use, distribution, introduced to mainland China from Japan and Taiwan, which is a hot term in the field of
and reproduction in any medium, neighborhood planning and community regeneration in China in recent years.
provided the original work is
properly cited. Community empowerment is a means to realize participatory planning. In one
Publisher’s Note: AccScience of the most famous theories about public participation – Arnstein’s ladder of citizen
Publishing remains neutral with participation, it states that participation is the redistribution of power that enables the
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional have-nots citizens to be deliberately included (Arnstein, 1969). The categories on the top
affiliations. rungs of the ladder, which means high participation, are partnership, delegated power,

Volume 5 Issue 1 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0351