The Characteristics and Planning Inspirations of Villages in Scenic Area under Influence of Multi-factors: A Case Study of West Lake Scenic Area

With the continuous increase in the number of scenic spots (protected areas) in China, a large amount of villages have been included within scenic areas, presenting characteristics that distinguish them from other villages. Taking nine villages in the West Lake Scenic Area as case study, this research summarizes the characteristics of these villages in spatial utilization, social relations and industrial development under the influence of the regulatory, functional and managerial factors of the scenic area, based on the first-hand data through three rounds of field interviews and questionnaires. The result shows that the spatial utilization of the villages presents the characteristics of “unbalanced growth and contraction, internal and external differentiation of functional structure, tragedy in the use of public land, and spatial mismatch”. The social relations have the characteristics of “complex population structure center, instantaneous crowd population, and weakened neighborhood relations”. The industrial development presents the characteristics of “increased proportion of the tertiary industry, diversified driving forces for transformation, single collective economy and resource-oriented stratification of monthly incomes”. On this basis, it puts forward suggestions on the optimization of the planning for villages in scenic areas including the transformation of the public’s participation in the suitability transition, improvement of living environment, multidirectional linkage of industry, stratified and classified allocation of service facilities.