Public participation in contested spatial planning: Learning from a failed urban development project

Recent work on metropolitan growth in developing countries (see Shaw and Satish 2007; Zhang 2000, 2002) has suggested that changes in governance have a significant influence on urban spatial changes and suburban development. China is taking a decentralization process so the local governments have more power to control public policies, resource allocation and delivery of public goods and services (Zhang 2002). The decentralization of power opens up broad space to multi-scale forms of governance with multi-stakeholder arrangements (Rakodi 2003; Zhao et al. 2009). In the multi-stakeholder arrangement system, conflicting interests should be allowed and negotiation between the government and other sectors replaces mere command control from government. As a result, spatial planning is facing much more challenges stemming from the uncertainties of current local developments (Zhao et al. 2009).