(PCC) Program on Chinese Cities – Thoughts on Overseas Travels Series
Authors: Ziang Xie,
Tongji University School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ph.D. student; joint training Ph.D. student at the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. xza9584@163.com
What is most satisfying for planners is not the planning per se, but seeing the plans turn into reality.
— John Cook, Chief Transportation Planner at Bolton & Menk, Planner of the Multimodal Transportation System in Matthews Town
Perhaps no one knows better than urban planners the distance from plan formulation to implementation—a lengthy and challenging path involving intertwined factors and uncertainties that require ongoing effort and adjustments to achieve a compromise. Yet, it’s this distance and challenge that make planning work meaningful and fulfilling. This article uses the downtown Matthews, North Carolina, planning project as an example to discuss overcoming challenges in public participation during planning implementation, aiming to provide international experiences for China’s “People’s City” guided urban planning.
1. Introduction to Matthews Town
Matthews is located in the southeastern part of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, with a population of about 30,000 and an area of 17 square miles (about 44 square kilometers). It is a suburb of Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina, lying to the west and north of it (Image 1). Historically, the town was a stagecoach stop between Charlotte and Monroe, and its center retains many buildings from the early 20th century, ten of which were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Matthews has shown exceptional initiative and positivity in urban planning and environmental enhancement, valuing the realization of citizen-driven plans through a well-established and comprehensive public participation process. For example, the town’s official website provides comprehensive materials on public participation in planning, serving as a detailed blueprint. Meanwhile, as a typical suburban town with limited regional prominence and funding, Matthews has facilitated project implementations through local bonds, easing challenges like infrastructure financing. This operational experience is worth learning from. I will discuss the characteristics of the planning operation model and the challenges and efforts in public participation reflected in the town’s planning implementation.
2. Characteristics of the Planning Operation Model
2.1 Public Needs Lead Planning Goals
Matthews prioritizes residents’ needs, clearly identifying areas needing planning and the priorities for implementation. In 2018, Matthews held a special public meeting titled “Our Town, Our Vision” to gather public aspirations for the town’s development (Image 2). Feedback from stakeholders at state, regional, and local levels—including the North Carolina Department of Transportation, community schools, hospitals, transport agencies, developers, and citizens—was collected, resulting in 12 vision statements guiding community development in 2019. These statements became focal points for subsequent planning efforts, providing guidelines and objectives (Image 3).
In 2020, town staff further refined these visions into the “2023-2038 Matthews Strategic Plan,” approved in 2022. Each vision statement in the strategic plan has corresponding goals, measures, and performance indicators to ensure transparency, accountability, and targeted efforts by the local government. The “Envision Matthews Comprehensive Plan,” initiated in 2023, starts with these 12 visions and extensively collects public opinions to ensure that the planning represents various community voices.
Throughout the planning process, citizens participate as stakeholders and partners. To better capture public input, a separate public survey website was established as a platform for planning announcements and feedback interaction. Unlike most plans that only showcase the results of public participation, Matthews has made the entire participative discussion process available online, authentically documenting feedback and votes from 862 participants on nearly 4,000 comments, visually presenting the perspectives and decision-making debates among different stakeholders on the same planning issue, and the majority consensus reached through opinion bargaining (Image 4). Public participation continues, and this process will last until the plan’s promulgation (Image 5).
2.2 Local Bonds Drive Infrastructure Planning Implementation
Guided by a shared vision, stakeholders collectively discussed and determined the priority order for project implementation in the strategic plan. Residents of Matthews expressed a strong desire for improved connectivity and walkability, increased parking in the downtown area, more park spaces and facilities, and more greenways and paths across the town, with the “Multi-Modal Transportation System” vision being the highest priority.
To achieve these goals, the local government committee considered general obligation bonds (GO Bonds) as the best way to finance the projects, minimizing taxpayer costs. GO Bonds, also known as full faith and credit bonds or municipal bonds, are local government bonds backed by the issuer’s taxing power. These bonds require the consent of all taxpayers and state on the bond prospectus that the issuer has the right to levy taxes; they often have lower interest rates than other types of debt, with the actual debt repayment conditions expected to have a minimal impact on taxpayers’ monthly costs.
In 2022, following a public vote in Matthews, 57% of citizens agreed to the town government raising $34 million through the issuance of GO Bonds to meet the funding needs of the project, with $21 million authorized for issuing transportation bonds to fund transportation facility improvements. Expected projects include improvements to parking conditions, streetscapes, traffic enhancements, road widening, new arterial roads, and pedestrian connectivity. The use of these funds will be strictly regulated and transparently disclosed. Matthews’ bonds are mainly repaid through the town’s annual property tax collection, with costs shared by current and future property owners over approximately 20 years. If the full $35 million in bonds is issued, the expected increase in the property tax rate would be about 3.7 cents per $100 of valuation.
3. Challenges and Efforts: Rational Planning Decisions and Multiple Stakeholder Interests
The planning implementation process in Matthews Town was not smooth sailing. Deep public participation led to many challenging yet interesting negotiation cases, from which we can reflect and learn.
3.1 Pilot Areas to Resolve Public Doubts
In the complete street renovation of Trade Street, the main east-west artery in the town center, the planning team suggested adjusting diagonal parking to parallel parking to widen sidewalks and add central dividers (Images 7 and 8). During the consultation process, street-side businesses strongly opposed the parallel parking proposal, insisting on retaining the original diagonal parking to gain more parking spaces. Although the sidewalk expansion proposal was for the public benefit, most of the public, not being directly affected, remained silent or abstained from voting. To gain public support and understanding, Matthews set up a pilot area with temporary outdoor dining spaces in existing curbside parking areas. During the COVID-19 era, outdoor dining spaces became more flexible and popular, and street-side businesses gradually changed their views from resistance to acceptance, actively encouraging the sidewalk expansion plan.
3.2 In-Field Surveys to Understand the Core Issues
During online public participation interactions, the addition of parking spaces sparked extensive discussion—most people complained about the difficulty of finding parking and called for a significant increase in parking facilities in the downtown area; meanwhile, some reported that public parking areas near their homes were often vacant, arguing that setting up a large number of parking spaces in central areas was a waste of public space. To address parking issues and understand the real parking demand and availability, Matthews’ planning team conducted all-day parking counts on both weekdays and weekends. The survey found that even on the busiest Saturday mornings at the farmers’ market, there were ample parking spaces available, but people did not know where to find them. Thus, the planning team realized that solving Matthews’ parking difficulties was not about blindly increasing parking spaces but rather about optimizing parking layout and sharing plans to help people understand the distribution of parking spaces (Images 9 and 10). Following this, Matthews proposed a monitoring plan, requiring a comprehensive town-wide parking situation survey at least every six months to continuously optimize the parking environment.
3.3 Emphasizing Urban Planning Public Education
Urban planning needs to consider a variety of issues. For example, improving traffic and parking issues cannot be solved by merely building more roads and increasing parking spaces. Strengthening public guidance, conducting public planning education, and providing more public information are also important aspects of solving urban problems and achieving urban goals.
Take the optimization of John Street, a north-south arterial road in Matthews that connects Charlotte and the town center, as an example. This street carries a heavy traffic load, and congestion often occurs. When optimizing this street, the public wondered why the planners did not simply widen the road to solve the traffic problem. However, the planners considered how to protect the historic cultural area of the town center—if the road were widened, it would require demolishing historic buildings, disrupting the town center’s fabric. Without explaining this to the public, planning decisions could not gain public support, and the plan could not be implemented. To help the public better understand, the planning team invited an expert consultation group to explain the distribution of historic districts and national cases, helping the public better understand the importance of preserving John Street’s history. Additionally, by adding signs and road slogans introducing the community’s history, the planners sparked citizens’ interest and empathy for cultural heritage protection.
In addition to these successful experiences, Matthews Town faced many unresolved issues in the public participation process of planning. One was the inefficiency in decision-making brought by democracy. Planning workers mentioned that during a planning draft public hearing in late February 2024, they experienced nearly 20 minutes of “Zoom-bombing,” where public comments were mostly venting, significantly affecting the atmosphere and enthusiasm for decision-making in subsequent meetings, forcing them to organize another public meeting later that month to continue discussing the planning text. Another issue was coverage. African Americans, the second largest resident group in the town, were difficult to reach, meaning their opinions were hard for planners to hear. Although the planning team actively contacted African American community residents, they were still reluctant to participate actively. Therefore, how can planning design cover the interests of these “silent majorities” who are not actively involved?
4. Reflections and Insights
First, demand-driven planning is more implementable. Matthews Town provides an excellent example of “people build the people’s city, and the people’s city is for the people,” with citizens’ will guiding the direction of planning, investment, and construction, and driving project implementation and financial support. Full public participation makes the planning process time-consuming and labor-intensive but also builds a stronger foundation of public opinion for subsequent planning implementation, reducing resistance, and expecting higher social acceptance and satisfaction.
Second, maintaining scientific rationality in planning amid public voices is crucial. When planning decisions diverge from public opinions, while respecting public views, it is essential to make more scientific and rational planning decisions through interventions such as expert consultation groups, surveys, and pilot areas, and to inform the public about the reasons and future effects behind planning decisions. This helps align public and planner goals in implementation. Additionally, the most active groups in public participation often start from “personal interests,” but these do not represent the broadest social interests, nor are they the optimal solutions to problems. How to ensure the interests of the silent, unrepresented majority in public participation, prevent active public participation from sacrificing long-term public interests, and effectively promote the justice and fairness of planning are worth deep consideration by planners.
Third, public education about planning is vital for maximizing planning benefits. Planning principles and results have high professional barriers for most ordinary people. If the public does not understand the planning content, even the best planning schemes cannot achieve their maximum value and benefits, potentially leading to uneven facility usage and idleness. Therefore, it is necessary to provide information through various channels and in an easily understandable manner, especially regarding infrastructure, disaster prevention facilities, and parking layout related to residents’ daily lives, to maximize the effectiveness of planning designs.