Public Participation in Rural Society of Heritage Site—Take Ancient City of Zhuguo as an Example

In the field of Smart & Green Urban Society，Public participation is a necessary means of spatial benefits distribution and social consensus formation. Due to the high economic value, social attention and complexity of property rights, some heritage area planning first started seeking help of public participation. The research takes Zhuguo Old City in Shandong province as an example, to explore solutions to the coordination of some tough questions such as demolition, farmer employment and distribution of tourism benefits. And it is trying to make recommendations for platform organization, regional guidelines establishment and legal procedures optimization of public participation in heritage area. Known as the "the Hometown of Confucius and Mencius", Zhuguo Old City is located in the territory of Zou City, which is a National Historical City. It is listed as a National City Relics project, and is overlapping with Yishan National Parks, and is covered with three villages. This study put public participation into practice and share planning rights in three levels, which is informing, consulting and collaboration. In addition, the study makes a comparison of relevant legal procedures and institutional settings between China and western countries, indicating the value and defect of autonomous way of Chinese traditional communities. Conclusions: first, in a heritage area with rapid tourism development, the introduction of public aspirations and social capital into planning can make an inventory of land assets efficiently, improve social benefits, as well as facilitate the implementation of planning. Second, planning practices, legal procedures and regional guidelines need to promote mutually, in order to achieve a more flexible social governance objective. Third, due to natural community properties in Chinese rural areas, the transition from event-based temporary participation to contract-based village autonomy will be a proper response to the endogenous order in a village.