Co-creation of community micro-renewals: Model analysis and case studies in Shanghai, China

Community micro-renewal is an important aspect of urban regeneration. Residents, as the primary users of the community, have become a vital component of community micro-renewals. With the advent of participatory design, designers are no longer the dominant constructors of communities. Residents' participation is essential to current community micro-renewals, but the existing resident involvement still reflects a lack of initiative and an underutilization of potential. Instead, co-creation, in which residents can be deeply involved in the community micro-renewals, is becoming the mainstream. This paper categorizes co-creation models in community micro-renewals into three types according to the degree of residents' participation: the co-creation model based on common ideation, the co-creation model for resident participation in the design process, and the co-creation model of resident-led community regeneration. Three corresponding cases in Shanghai, China are analyzed in relation to specific scenarios and typologies. Each case study provides a contextualized interpretation of the characteristics associated with different types of co-creation. Increased residents' participation in the process of co-creation has been found to positively impact residents’ identification with community micro-renewals and their intrinsic commitment to sustain them. Furthermore, highly participatory co-creation empowers residents to assume a higher level of responsibility for the project and mitigates the risk of uniformity. The contribution of this paper is to provide a theoretical basis for subsequent practices. Specifically, this research aims to facilitate a comprehensive integration of participatory design methodologies with community micro-renewal initiatives.