Building Community Trust in Historic and Cultural Districts: A Case Study on Shijia Hutong in Beijing.

Concerning the complexity and diversity of demands in historic and cultural districts, the protection and regeneration planning (PRP) practice has been gradually shifted from spatial design to pluralistic and participatory community governance. Previous studies have pointed out that community trust is an essential means to eliminate social resistance and improve community cohesion and executive capability. However, the trustbuilding mechanism has been given little attention in urban planning. This study intends to improve the theoretical cognition of trust in community governance and provide suggestions for addressing issues of protection and regeneration planning in historic and cultural districts. With Shijia Hutong in Dongcheng District of Beijing, as an empirical case, this paper conducts a household survey and applies the Structural Equation Model (SEM) to explore the influencing elements and community trust-building path in the protection and regeneration planning from the perspective of residents. Through analyzing the influencing mechanism of residents' perception, it reveals that, firstly, pluralistic governance that is composed of the grass-roots government, NGOs, and residents can directly promote residents' perception of the protection and regeneration planning, and have a greater influence by facilitating public participation in building up community trust. Secondly, residents' perception of the protection and regeneration planning would not be improved if public participation failed to build up community trust. Thirdly, community trust consists of neighborhood trust and leadership trust, of which the latter is more important. These findings contribute a new perspective and solution to urban regeneration and heritage protection in the future. In addition, this study may inspire research on trust-building through urban planning, governance, and public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]