Participatory Renewal of Historic Districts Based on Bayesian Network

Abstract

Public participation is a requirement for contemporary urban governance in China, especially in the protection planning of historic districts. In the rapid development stage, many historic districts have lost their functional positioning in cities and are gradually disappearing due to outdated facilities and services. Previous studies have pointed out that protecting historic and cultural districts requires the joint efforts of multiple stakeholders. Integrating multiple stakeholders’ interests and needs is a complex problem in related research fields and planning practices. The traditional forms of public participation, such as questionnaire surveys, interviews, and symposiums, have the problem of high time costs for collection and analysis. At the same time, the information has been translated multiple times, making it challenging to avoid misunderstandings and errors. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an alternative platform for public participation in the renewal of China’s historic districts. Taking Houzaimen Street in Jinan City as an example, this paper uses the Bayesian network to establish a spatial evaluation model of historic districts. Our aims are to translate natural semantics into the design semantics of the architectural field, accurately locate the spatial problems of the historic district, and provide targeted improvement measures. In this paper, a public feedback channel for Houzaimen Street is established to provide a reference for the renewal of the historic district and the advancement of public participation.