Objective As China’s urbanization transitions from rapid expansion to steady development, urban regeneration has entered a complex governance stage characterized by diversified stakeholder interests and an urgent need to safeguard the public interest. Based on Matthew Carmona’s “design governance” framework of formal and informal tools, this study argues that the weak governance logic of “plan-control-permit-implementation” is gradually shifting toward a stronger governance logic of “plan-participation-consensus-guidance and control-permit-implementation.” It aims to uncover the distinctive application patterns, synergistic mechanisms, and operational logic of these two categories of governance tools within China’s local institutional context. Furthermore, the study conducts a comparative analysis of how formal and informal tools are applied and interpreted across the Chinese and UK institutional contexts. The findings seek to contribute to the development of an institutional paradigm and practical references for design governance with Chinese characteristics in the context of urban regeneration.

Methods Building on an analysis of the cultural foundations and institutional evolution of China’s spatial governance system, this study introduces Matthew Carmona’s concepts of design governance and his formal-informal tool framework as the analytical foundation. Using urban regeneration in Guangzhou as a case study, the research systematically investigates the application characteristics and interactive mechanisms of these two categories of governance tools within the Chinese institutional context. A qualitative case study approach was adopted to capture the complexities of governance processes. Data were collected from multiple sources, including national and local planning and design policies, regulatory documents, design guidelines, and renewal project reports. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with planners, government officials, and design professionals involved in the renewal of Guangzhou’s Traditional Central Axis and other representative projects. The collected materials were coded and analyzed using qualitative content analysis to identify patterns in the localization, coordination, and transformation of formal and informal tools.

Results The localized translation of both formal and informal tools represents a key pathway for advancing urban regeneration in China’s new development phase. In China, the localization of formal tools reflects a government-led approach. Administrative departments at different levels deploy these tools primarily for guidance and control, while incentive-based instruments—such as fiscal subsidies, policy rewards, or developer contributions (e.g., tax exemptions)—remain relatively limited. Informal tools, by contrast, show greater flexibility and inclusiveness. Their localization reflects an adaptive reconstruction shaped by China’s administrative system and social structure. In Guangzhou’s urban regeneration practice, formal tools exhibit governance characteristics of strong institutions and flexible execution, unlike Western design governance systems that emphasize multi-stakeholder consultations and power balance, formal tools in the Chinese context primarily achieve guided control and procedural supervision of public interests through institutionalized mechanisms. This enables the planning system to maintain a dynamic balance between regulation and coordination. The renewal of Guangzhou’s Traditional Central Axis historic district exemplifies the localized pattern. In this case, guidance and control instruments formed the core of the governance framework, while incentive-based tools—though less frequently applied—played a supplementary role in funding allocation and process coordination. In the renewal of the Traditional Central Axis, informal tools were embedded throughout design decision-making and project oversight, fostering a co-creation mechanism centered on knowledge generation, process support, and quality delivery. Specifically, the Improving Design Quality Culture tool facilitated expert-led knowledge production and open design competitions, cultivating a shared understanding of design quality among multiple stakeholders. Meanwhile, the Promoting Design Quality Delivery tool emphasized both design excellence and practical implementation, ensuring that projects were not only well-conceived but also effectively realized.

Conclusion The concept of “governing by managing” provides a profound cultural rationale and institutional foundation for Chinese spatial governance. Its meaning extends beyond administrative management and technocratic rationality. It emphasizes a calibrated combination of rigidity and flexibility through the integration of normative order and social recognition. Guided by this ethos, China’s urban governance logic is shifting from one-directional administrative control toward multi-actor collaboration. In practice, spatial governance has gradually formed interactive arrangements that combine top-down steering with bottom-up engagement, institutional integration through “multi-plan integration” (多规合一), and a multidimensional coordination landscape in which competition and cooperation coexist. Against the backdrop of strengthened governance, the localized adaptation of formal and informal tools has become a critical lever through which urban renewal supports high-quality development. These two categories of tools work by aligning the functional strengths of different actors, clarifying responsibilities and collaboration boundaries, and embedding public participation and deliberation across stages such as plan-making, regulatory control, and implementation. They also establish process-wide feedback loops that enable iterative negotiation and continuous refinement of renewal proposals. At the same time, differences in institutional arrangements and socio-cultural contexts between China and the UK mean that tool transfer is not a straightforward replication; their applicable settings and functional meanings are partially reshaped. In the UK, a relatively mature rule-of-law system, entrenched traditions of public participation, and well-developed remedial mechanisms grant formal tools stronger authorization and enable more extensive use of informal tools. In contrast, China’s political-cultural and governance structure tends to rely on a formal toolkit that combines rigidity with flexibility, complemented by government-authorized informal tools to achieve institutional coordination. A mature system for the localized translation of design-governance tools has yet to fully emerge, but Guangzhou’s urban regeneration practice has already revealed an endogenous evolutionary trajectory. This trajectory is driven by institutional innovation and sustained by multi-actor participation, through which deliberation and iteration gradually consolidate consensus. In projects such as Guangzhou’s Traditional Central Axis and Enning Road, formal and informal tools have been differentially embedded and jointly mobilized across governance stages. This has produced localized modes of tool adaptation—such as the Chief Designer mechanism and the Co-creation Committee—that align with local policy priorities and institutional conditions.