The Application of Sense of Place in Public Participation in Planning Decision of the Renewal in Old Industrial Areas

Public participation in planning decision-making has become an important link in the process of urban construction and renewal all over the world. The changes of environment will significantly change the life of residents in their place of residence, especially in the old urban renewal, so the opinions of local residents are particularly critical. Therefore, the research on the relationship between people and place in the renewal area has maintained a sustained growth trend in recent years. Sense of place is an important concept in human geography, which describes the special relationship between people and place that is produced by the long-term interaction. Yi-Fu Tuan, a scholar of human geography, believes that place, which is the basis of people life, has special significance only through people activities. It provides all the background of people life and gives individuals or groups a sense of security and identity. Jorgensen and Stedman believe that the sense of place can be regarded as the residents' attitude towards the place of residence. Past research shows that strong sense of place may be the reason for residents' support to policies, so sense of place can play an important role in predicting, guiding and managing residents' emotional objects, behavior patterns and supporting attitudes towards planning policies. In order to further explore the relationship between residents' sense of place and their attitude towards the future development direction of urban renewal area, this study selected Xiangfang old industrial zone in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, a famous old industrial zone in Northeast China, as the research object, which is in the stage of urban renewal. Now, this industrial zone, which was prosperous in the past, is upgrading and showing a slight depression.The study investigated 300 local residents' sense of place intensity and their recognition of the four future development directions of the region, including: paying attention to industrial transformation and economic development, paying attention to social revitalization and community vitality, paying attention to historical protection and cultural heritage, and paying attention to environmental improvement and ecological protection. Firstly, this study tests whether the dimension division of sense of place is suitable for local residents, and calculates the intensity of sense of place of residents in Xiangfang old industrial zone.Then the preference differences of residents with different intensity of sense of place for the future development direction of the region are calculated.The study also calculates the influence of the intensity of different dimensions of the sense of place on the preference of different development directions, and finally makes a discussion based on the local actual situation. The results show that the residents' sense of place can be divided into place attachment, place dependence and place identity, and the overall intensity is high. Moreover, the difference in the dimension and intensity of the sense of place indeed lead to different opinions of residents on the future development direction of the region, which may affect public participation in planning decision-making. These results can help the urban renewal of Xiangfang old industrial zone and provide reference for other similar areas. More importantly, this study proves that sense of place can be used as an aspect of residents' survey, which provides a way for the public to participate in planning decision-making in the future. Government and other policy makers can take sense of place as an important basis, so that urban construction can better meet the wishes of local residents in the future public participation in planning practice.