Research Of Public Participation Of Urban And Rural Planning In The Age Of New Media

With the continuous development of the theory of urban and rural planning, public participation has been recognized as an important foundation which provides legality and scientificalness for urban and rural planning decisions. The new version of the Urban and Rural Planning Law updated in2008provides the legal basis and protection for planning publicity, the public’s right to information, the approach and procedures of public participation and so on, so that the urban and rural planning public participation system has made great progress. While, whether it is from the view of practical effect or protection system, Chinese public participation still raises a good deal of problems, and stays in a relatively early stage generally. Meanwhile, with the development and popularization of new media of which computer network and mobile network are the two main aspects, non-procedural participation through it is becoming popular and making a significant impact to the original urban and rural planning system of public participation.In the large number of public participation though new media in resent years, the article selected Xiamen PX Project and Nanjing Phoenix Tree event---the two typical cases to investigate and study. Via combing through the process of public participation in the two cases, there are two characteristics of urban and rural planning public participation in the age of new media:(1) the public play a leading role in non-procedural participation;(2) procedural participation is still necessary in the process when making decisions.On the basis of the understanding the phenomenon, the article concludes the general pattern of participation of urban and rural planning in the age of new media from two sides---both in the aspect of procedural and non-procedural participations, and points out the trending of the interaction between the public and government in it, and the possible defects speculatively. The study points out that, under the context of the age of new media, public participation should not be limited to the aspect of procedural participation. The government should also encourage the public to express their demands through non-procedural ways powered by new media, which is helpful to avoid extreme expressions in public participation. At the same time, attention should be paid to avoid the adverse effect which may be caused by excessive participation via the non-procedural ways.Last but not least, regarding to the successful experience of public participation in Master Plan of City of Shenzhen and the practice of E-participation in the New East Manchester, the article attempt to set up the strategic of improving the system of public participation in urban and rural planning in new media age from four aspects:perfect the legal protection, optimize the process of participation, build a platform of information publishing and public participation based on the supporting of new media and build a structure which can connect the public participation both from top-down and bottom-up organically.