Exploring consensus and divergence in different societal groups' preferences for typical urbanized landscapes: Implications for rural planning

Abstract Urbanization has brought dramatic landscape changes in rural areas, leading to the emergence of urbanized landscapes (ULs). Despite the extensive preference research on rural landscapes, the ULs has hardly been studied, especially from the outsider’s perspective. In this study, we chose three outsider groups of landscape professionals (PRs), governmental officials (GOs), and city residents (CRs) to explore their preferences towards five typical ULs: hardened water bank (HWB), big pavilion (BPA), big memorial arch (BMA), big ornamental lawn (BOL), and big square (BSQ). Quantitative method of questionnaire survey was used to identify how these ULs and their related landscape characters (LCs) were rated and ranked (N = 780), and qualitative method of semi-structured interview was used to explore a more comprehensive understanding about the outsiders’ view on rural constructions (N = 45). The results revealed 1) Although distinct ratings and rankings, the outsiders had general support for the constructions of ULs, with PRs being the most demanding group. 2) Despite various demographic backgrounds, there is surprisingly broad consensus in two preference themes, i.e. a livable village and a featured village, and it posed a challenge for the landscape designers to balance the relationship between them. 3) All the five ULs being surveyed were considered to be replaceable by other landscape forms, thus it could be unnecessary to decide which specific type to be moved away or kept in rural areas, but the more important is to investigate the site-based LCs. This study provides evidence to better understand public perception on rapid landscape change and rural constructions from the perspectives of different social groups, which has some implications for planners and decision-makers to incorporate the public shared values into planning process.