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Public Participation in Smart-City Governance: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Public Comments in Urban China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhe Gao

    (Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
    The College of Urban & Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China)

  • Siqin Wang

    (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4067, Australia)

  • Jiang Gu

    (Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
    The College of Urban & Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China)

Abstract

Public participation is crucial in the process of urban governance in smart-city initiatives to enable urban planners and policy makers to take account of the real public needs. Our study aims to develop an analytical framework using citizen-centred qualitative data to analyse urban problems and identify the areas most needed for urban governance. Taking a Chinese megacity as the study area, we first utilise a web-crawling tool to retrieve public comments from an online comment board and employ the Baidu Application Programming Interfaces and a qualitative content analysis for data reclassification. We then analyse the urban problems reflected by negative comments in terms of their statistical and spatial distribution, and the associative factors to explain their formation. Our findings show that urban problems are predominantly related to construction and housing, and most frequently appear in industry-oriented areas and newly developed economic development zones on the urban fringe, where the reconciling of government-centred governance and private governance by real estate developers and property management companies is most needed. Areas with higher land prices and a higher proportion of aged population tend to have fewer urban problems, while various types of civil facilities affect the prevalence of urban problems differently.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhe Gao & Siqin Wang & Jiang Gu, 2020. "Public Participation in Smart-City Governance: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Public Comments in Urban China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-19, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:20:p:8605-:d:430467
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Jan Chocholac & Roman Hruska & Stanislav Machalik & Dana Sommerauerova & Petr Sohajek, 2021. "Framework for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Calculations in the Context of Road Freight Transport for the Automotive Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-28, April.
    3. Rui Nan & Yongjiao Yang, 2022. "Who Is Willing to Participate in Local Governance? Modernization of Shared Governance in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-16, November.
    4. Kusumastuti, Ratih Dyah & Nurmala, N. & Rouli, Juliana & Herdiansyah, Herdis, 2022. "Analyzing the factors that influence the seeking and sharing of information on the smart city digital platform: Empirical evidence from Indonesia," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

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