A methodological framework for analysing the justice phenomenon embedded in urban regeneration: A Chinese perspective based at the project level

Abstract

Urban regeneration is developed as a major strategy for improving the quality of life for citizens. However, social conflicts and contestations related to justice are often witnessed in the process of implementing urban regeneration projects. Justice is a complicated phenomenon and is embedded in various activities throughout the whole urban regeneration process, which can be interpreted differently by different resident groups. This entails gaining a clearer concept and a practical approach to diagnose justice issues and ensure accordingly justice between different groups of residents. To achieve this, our paper proposes a methodological framework to analyse the justice phenomenon in the process of implementing urban regeneration projects from a Chinese perspective. This framework conceptualises urban regeneration justice into four hierarchies in referring to different residential groups affected by regeneration activities. By applying this framework to the urban regeneration project of Xiaohe Street Historic Block in Hangzhou City, China, it is found that the hierarchy of justice varies among different resident groups. In the construction stage, tenants and shop owners tend to be the most marginalised groups, whereas residents who resettled locally enjoy the best level of justice performance. Our findings further suggest that the enhancement of justice pertaining to all affected groups in the operation stage may benefit from establishing resident participation channels for governing regeneration projects. The methodology proposed in this paper also provides a referral approach for examining the justice phenomenon involved in urban regeneration programmes in other cultural contexts.