Challenges and Pathways for the Aging Neighborhood Renovation from the Perspective of Participatory Governance: A Case Study of X Community in H Street, Yinchuan City

The renovation of aging neighborhoods faces challenges such as governance imbalance and insufficient resident participation, leading to low renovation efficiency. Based on the theory of participatory governance, this paper constructs an analytical framework of "power structure—participation mechanism—governance efficiency" to reveal the causes of dilemmas in the renovation cases of coal sheds and markets in X Community, H Street. The government-led "power structure imbalance" marginalizes residents' demands, the "breakdown of formalized participation mechanisms" exacerbates negotiation failures, and conflicts of diverse interests lead to the "dissipation of governance efficiency." To address these challenges, this study proposes a four-dimensional optimization strategy: adopting differentiated renovation strategies to balance safety concerns and resident needs, establishing a clear legal framework to clarify property rights, building institutionalized consultation platforms to strengthen residents’ decision-making power, and promoting community cultural integration to enhance collective recognition. By reconstructing the governance logic of "government-community-residents" co-governance, this study promotes the shift of residents from symbolic participation to substantive decision-making, providing a new paradigm for resolving conflicts of interest and implementation obstacles in aging neighborhood renovation, thereby contributing to the modernization of grassroots governance.