The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance: Interdisciplinary Urban Design in China 9789811568114, 9811568111

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Sam Jacoby · Jingru (Cyan) Cheng Editors

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance Interdisciplinary Urban Design in China

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance

Sam Jacoby • Jingru (Cyan) Cheng Editors

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance Interdisciplinary Urban Design in China

123

Editors Sam Jacoby School of Architecture Royal College of Art London, UK

Jingru (Cyan) Cheng School of Architecture Royal College of Art London, UK

ISBN 978-981-15-6810-7 ISBN 978-981-15-6811-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the generous and rich contributions by the many collaborators, friends, and speakers who supported the research, public events, and workshops that informed its contents. The project “Collective Forms: Neighbourhood Transformations, Spatialised Governmentality and New Communities in China” was funded by the British Academy’s Tackling the UK’s International Challenges 2017 programme. I would like to express first of all my deep gratitude to the co-investigators Gangyi Tan (Huazhong University of Science and Technology), Yan Tang (Tsinghua University), and Xuefeng He (Wuhan University) and his team members Defu Wang and Xuelin Zhang, as well as the researchers Xiamao Cao, Yuwei Wang, Runze Zhang, Pengyu Chen, Yunshi Zhou, and Yizhuo Gao. I would like to further thank Beatrice Leanza, Yapeng Pu, Yongyi Lu, and Adrian Lahoud for their advice and support of this project. Special thanks to Jingru (Cyan) Cheng at the Royal College of Art for her tireless efforts as a postdoctoral researcher on the project and co-editor of the book. This book would not exist without her. Thanks to all the symposium and workshop contributors in Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, and London: Raül Avilla Royo, Guohui Cao, Yanwei Chai, Yulin Chen, Jingru (Cyan) Cheng, David Bray, Michael Dutton, Haoyang Fan, Boya Guo, Honghu He, Weixin Huang, Xiaoxi Hui, Sophie Johnson, Alasdair Jones, Yin Liang, Ding Liu, Jian Liu, Jiayan Liu, Tianbao Liu, Yun Liu, Yunbin Lou, Yinghua Lu, Neill McLean Gaddes, Catherine McMahon, Seyithan Ozer, Yapeng Pu, Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, Francesca Romana Forlini, Gangyi Tan, Zheng Tan, Yan Tang, Justinien Tribillion, Xiaoyuan Wan, Defu Wang, Sophia Woodman, Fulong Wu, Nan Wu, Zuopeng Xiao, Yijing Xu, Jiawei Yan, Miao Zhang, Xuelin Zhang, Yan Zheng, and Zishu Zhou. Also, thanks to the organisations that have provided us with invaluable support and resources: Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Royal College of Art, Hubei Institute of Fine Arts (Xujun Zhan and Xi Zhou), New Architecture (Xiaofeng Li and Yin Fang), Leping Social Entrepreneur Foundation, MAT Office, B/Side Design and The Global School, Geguang Community Residents’ Committee and Guanshan Subdistrict Office (Wuhan), Miaosan Community Residents’ Committee and Beihu Subdistrict Office (Wuhan), Qinbei Residents’ Committee and Hongmei Subdistrict Office (Shanghai), Xinyuan Xili Community Residents’ Committee and Zuojiazhuang Subdistrict Office (Beijing). Finally, thanks to Sridevi Purushothaman from Springer Nature and Crisie Yuan from Tongji University Press for all their support in getting this book published. The publication was financially supported by the Royal College of Art’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Research Costs Fund and the School of Architecture.

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Contents

Part I 1

2

Urban Design and Spatialised Governmentality: Collective Forms in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sam Jacoby

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis of the People’s Commune, Danwei, and Xiaoqu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sam Jacoby and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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Part II 3

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5

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Introduction

Collective Forms

Grassroots Governance in Rural China Before China’s Reform and Opening Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Xuefeng He

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Rethinking the Spatial Prototype and Operational Organization of the Chinese Danwei System from a Collective Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zuopeng Xiao, Tianbao Liu, Yanwei Chai, and Mengke Zhang

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The Built Environment, Spatial Will, and Heritage of the Third Front Movement in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gangyi Tan

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Architecture of the Cold War: Geopolitics and Cultural Knowledge in Socialist China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Jianfei Zhu

Part III

Community Building: From Government to Governance

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China’s Changing Landscape of Neighbourhood Governance and Participation: From a Governmentality Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Xiaoyuan Wan

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Housing Privatization and the Return of the State: Changing Governance in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Fulong Wu

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The Xinyuan Xili Community in Transformation: The Social Life and Community Governance of a Post-Danwei Community in Beijing . . . . . 141 Defu Wang

10 Associational Relationship, Collective Space, and Community Planning: The Everyday Infrastructure of Urban Communities in China . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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Contents

11 The Governance of Urban Community Spaces: Fieldwork Report on the Geguang Community, Guanshan Sub-district, Hongshan District, Wuhan City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Xuelin Zhang 12 Problems, Analyses and Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance . . . . . . . 171 Yapeng Pu 13 Politics at the Grassroots: “Socialized Governance” in Tianjin’s Neighbourhoods and Villages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Sophia Woodman 14 Developing a Community: The Case of Renheng Cuizhuyuan’s Community-Making in Nanjing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Nan Wu Part IV

Community Planning: From Planning to Design

15 From “No Holes in Walls” to “Street and Community Renovation” in Beijing: A Transformation of Urban Governance? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Yan Tang 16 Rethinking Community Renewal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Lu Feng 17 Redefining Boundaries and Co-operative Operation: Design Strategies for Community Revitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Miao Zhang 18 Community Planning Based on Socio-spatial Production: The “New Qinghe Experiment” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Jiayan Liu

About the Editors

Sam Jacoby is Professor of Architectural and Urban Design Research and Research Leader of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art. His diverse practice-led research focuses on transdisciplinary design research with public and social impact. He is co-founder and former Director of the MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design: Projective Cities at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (2009–2019), and has taught at universities in the UK and Germany. His recent publications include the book Drawing Architecture and the Urban (2016) and the guest co-edited special journal issue ‘Collective Forms in China: A Contemporary Review’ for New Architecture (2018). Jingru (Cyan) Cheng is a researcher of the Laboratory for Design & Machine Learning and design tutor in the MA Architecture programme at the Royal College of Art. Cheng’s works on Chinese rurality and domesticity (2018) and China’s People’s Commune (2020) are respectively recognised by the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) President’s Awards for Research. Cheng’s design research practice does not dwell on a defined subject matter, but rather meandering through architecture, anthropology and art. The wide-ranging themes include, non-canonical histories and socio-spatial models, diverse ways of cultural knowing and being, aesthetic agency, and modes of co-existence and affinity between human and non-human.

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Part I Introduction

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Urban Design and Spatialised Governmentality: Collective Forms in China Sam Jacoby

Abstract

Social projects, spaces, and realities have shaped three interrelated contexts critical to understanding urban design and planning in the People’s Republic of China. First, the histories of “collective forms” and “collective spaces” in relation to current community building and planning agendas. Second, socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development models such as the rural people’s commune, urban danwei (work-unit), and contemporary xiaoqu (small district) and shequ (community) system. And third, different approaches to “spatialised governmentality” in which spatial, social, and political diagrams are correlated and instrumentalised by the state in the creation of collective forms and spaces. These contexts are used to question Western-centric notions of “public space” and “place”, and examine instead the socialist and collective spaces they produced in China. They further frame a discussion of collective forms, community building in relation to a transition from government to governance models, and community planning in respect to a shift from planning to design practices. The historical transformations and experimentation leading to the current shequ system disclose a China-specific concept of community and changing socio-spatial problems that require new multi-scalar and interdisciplinary urban design methods. Thus, a new approach and criteria to analysing socio-spatial development in China based on collective spaces is proposed. Keywords













Collective form Spatialised governmentality Urban design Community building Community planning

S. Jacoby (&) School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, London, UK e-mail: [email protected]

Many of the spatial design challenges facing the People’s Republic of China today, are comparable to those found in many countries. At the same time, they are distinct. Preconceptions around public space and civil society, liberal models of governance, public service provisions, nuclear family households, or labour and social mobility are put into question in China. One finds instead disparate practices of governmentality (Foucault 2007) based on economic planning, political activism, and collectivisation and, central to this book, a rich and legible spatialisation of these practices. This “spatialised governmentality” has created new “symptomatic” (Sonne 2003) forms of socio-spatial institutions at different scales. Architecture, urban design, and urban planning have thereby proven themselves to be indispensable technologies of governmentality. A prolific historical example of these institutions is the socialist danwei (work-unit), in which the emergence of designed modern spatial form as a rational technique of government is particularly legible in its process of shaping collective subjectivities through shared modes of production and political participation (Bray 2005) (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2). Yet, the danwei as a social space can also be seen as a continuation of a long history of Chinese neighbourhoods, residential and live-work compounds, and communities, many of which were walled and gated (Xu and Yang 2009). They engendered notions of collectivity well before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and can all be considered examples of a spatialised governmentality in which spatial, social, and political diagrams are deliberately correlated. Historically, this was, and continues to be, instrumentalised by Chinese governments in the creation of collective forms, spaces, and subjectivities and, more recently, in the translation of community building into the built environment of residential neighbourhoods. An analysis of the various forms of collectivity and governmentality this has produced, suggests a need for a form of urban design thinking that is less normative and more contextual. Eluding normative spatial design and, in

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_1

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Fig. 1.1 Residential area of the Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) in the 1980s, Wuhan. Source Wuhan gang tie gong si [WISCO], Wu gang zhi: 1952–1981, Volume 1, Part 3 (Wuhan Shi: Wuhan gang tie gong si, 1985)

Fig. 1.2 Masterplan of the Luoyang Research and Design Institute for Non-ferrous Metals Processing prior to economic reform. Drawing key: A—work area 1 (design department); B—work area 2; C— western living area; D—eastern living area; a—office; b—canteen; c—

clinic; e—kindergarten; f—bachelor’s quarter; g—bathhouse/barber shop; h—workshop; i—storage; j—garage (bicycles); k—activity center for the elderly; m—commercial rental space. Source Drawing by Chenyu Li

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Urban Design and Spatialised Governmentality …

particular, urban design practices reliant on Western-biased concepts of place and placemaking or civil society, China offers a valuable countermodel with its own social history and spaces. A different history of spatial practice, urban experience, and social norms—comparable perhaps to other countries with non-Western spatial traditions and epistemologies—has created socio-spatial cultures not immediately fertile to Western-centric urban design theory and practice. One can see therefore at times a slippage in how spatial and urban dogmatic concepts are translated and imported into China. Grounded in their own history and understanding of place, China’s different spatial practices affirm that urban design is not just concerned with problems of designing or analysing a built environment, but is also inherently linked to the planning and realisation of a social environment and social space. This is particularly apparent in a study of historical “collective forms”, which served as basic units of social, political, and economic life in urban and rural China during the Mao era. They formed “small societies” and adhered to principles that hark back to Confucian norms while still continuing to determine common urban experiences and social welfare expectations in Chinese society today. Engaging with questions that arise from some of these context-specific historical and disciplinary conditions, this book brings together a diverse range of observations, thoughts, analyses, and projects in China by urban researchers and practitioners in relation to how everyday practices of spatial design and social governance intersect and inform each other. It thereby examines how social projects, spaces, and realities shape three contexts critical to understanding urban design and planning in China: the histories of collective forms and spaces in relation to current community building agendas, socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development models, and different modes of governmentality. While governmentality studies have been interested in China since the 1990s (Dutton 1992; Jeffreys and Sigley 2009), the effects of governmentality on the built environment and built forms have seen little attention, with the notable exception of Bray (2005). Generally disregarded by urban designers, the spatial and environmental aspects of governmentality are, however, formative to urban design by significantly shaping the socio-spatial context in which it is implemented as well as the organisation, management, and participation of constituencies that are to benefit from it. Four decades of unprecedented urbanisation in China has made it a prime example of developmental challenges arising from a combination of rapid urbanisation, demographic change, and diversifying communities and lifestyles that have created unique development, civil society, and governance problems (Friedmann 2005). Increased focus on urban growth has exacerbated a historical imbalance in urban and rural development, regional disparity, rural poverty, and

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inefficient use of resources, and is currently further aggravated by an ageing society and inequitable access to public services and employment. Although urban growth escalated with economic reforms starting in late 1978, its origins lie further back in a forced national collectivisation starting in the 1950s. After the catastrophic failure of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962)—which was meant to realise an agrarian economy through the comprehensive transformation of rural China into industrialised people’s communes— economic policies turned their attention in the 1960s to urban collectivisation to implement modernisation and industrialisation. The urban bias has only recently given way to a refocus on rural development, with the aim to integrate rural and urban areas. This is driven by an extension of urban planning principles to the countryside, an intention manifest in the renaming of Urban Planning Law to Urban-Rural Planning Law in 2007, and the introduction of a “three concentrations” policy to rationalise and intensify rural landuse (Bray 2013). The plan to urbanise the countryside by relocating an unimaginable 250 million rural residents into new towns and cities by 2050, raises a plethora of infrastructural, labour, social, moral, and governance questions (Feng and Squires 2018). Despite policy reforms recognising the need for changes to wealth and welfare distribution, administration, and spatial planning, large-scale socio-economic inequalities and labour migration persist, with China home to a floating population of 244 million (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2019) and witnessing near insurmountable challenges in providing equitable access to social welfare services. At the same time, the interrelationship between spatial development, political administration, and social welfare transformations disclose a history of spatialised governmentality that has determined social and spatial forms with significant features of continuity. In this wider context of change and continuity, existing urban, as well as rural, problems in China, can be directly understood in relation to historical and collective models of government and the building of collective subjectivity. These transformations have created, and continue to create, new dominant social and urban spaces specific to China (Zhu 2009). This is well recognised by sociologists, economists, and political scientists (e.g. Xie et al. 2009; Bray 2005; You 1998; Lu 1989; Walder 1986), but insufficiently by spatial designers. However, urban designers in particular, can benefit from a better understanding of these histories. For example, they can help explain why the notion of “public space”, a misnomer in China, is better understood in terms of “open urban space” (Hassenpflug 2012) rooted in collective life. In fact, they are more accurately described as a “collective space” (Figs. 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4). Despite similar appearance, collective space differs in conception and function from the Eurocentric notion of public space and its

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Fig. 1.3 Mahjong players in a residential area (District 8 and 9) of the Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation in Wuhan (2016)

Fig. 1.4 Residents in front of their shared flat entrance in District 8 and 9 of the Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation in Wuhan (2016)

common association with a politically framed bourgeois public sphere and social life (Habermas 1989, 1962). China thus occupies, in socio-political terms, a “third realm” between state and society—of which collective forms and their spaces are prominent institutionalised examples—in which socio-spatial change occurs not as a claim of societal autonomy, but through a reworking of state-society relations (Huang 1993). Discourses of the public arguably only started to become relevant in China in the 1990s with the introduction of western-style urban “public” spaces (Gaubatz 2008), and an increasing interest in such discourse after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Many spaces are simply open spaces that result from a collective landownership system defined by kinship or community structures and are often almost exclusively for the use of local residents (Heberer and Göbel 2011). This book uses the distinction between “public” and “collective space” to draw out some of the epistemologies and urban experiences specific to China. It looks at the historical, conceptual, and spatial contexts critical to explaining how Chinese urban space is a collective space for particular constituencies and their activities. Through this collective space, these constituencies maintain the interpersonal social networks that underpin their collective association, which regularly include aspects of intergenerational social care and support. These socio-spatial contexts and conditions, I believe, ought to have implications on how we practice and conceive urban design. Thus, this book equally establishes a new approach and criteria to analysing socio-spatial development. Consequently, it discusses collective forms and communal development in order to analyse how spatialised governmentality and spatial design in China continue to be instrumental to government in shaping collective subjectivities and a shared sense of community and place. These discussions are divided into three main parts that respectively deal with questions of collective forms, community

building in relation to a transition from government to governance models, and community planning in respect to a shift from planning to design practices. To introduce the spatial context in which these transformations occur, I present with Jingru (Cyan) Cheng in the following chapter ‘Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis of the People’s Commune, Danwei, and Xiaoqu’ a brief overview to the general historical context and an architectural analysis of selected case studies of the people’s commune, danwei, and xiaoqu (small district) prior to the main discussion. While some important research already exists in this area (Hoa 1981; Lü et al. 2001; Rowe et al. 2016), I hope this will contribute to addressing a lack in documentation of everyday architecture from the Mao era, which has recently seen a growing interest by historians.

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Collective Forms

In social, political, economic, infrastructural, and spatial terms, urban and rural areas in China were historically planned, designed, and administered at a “neighbourhood” scale. The neighbourhood meaning a discrete and often self-sufficient planning unit that could greatly vary in size— from an urban community within an urban block to one at the scale of the subdistrict, or from a village community to that of a township. This neighbourhood was historically defined by a unification of administration, production, and reproduction in one social space and political institution. Primary examples from China’s recent past are the collectivising rural people’s commune and the urban danwei. They were critical to implementing new work practices, political participation, and a social contract based on social and work security (Bray 2005), as well as new social networks of care and control. Traditional paternalistic family and work organisation—defined by patriarchal rule and kinship relationships of the clan, guild or gang, and later the

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nuclear family—were largely replaced by a socialist pastoral state and collectivist lifestyles defined by new modes and institutions of production in a planned economy. Unsurprisingly, it was less comparable with Clarence Perry’s early twentieth-century concept of the “neighbourhood unit”— which was briefly experimented with in the late 1940s and early 1950s—than the “microdistrict” (mikrorayon) idea introduced by Soviet advisors in 1956 to China. It was the latter that would greatly influence the planning of these collective “neighbourhoods” (Lu 2006; Fan 2016). The total planning units of the people’s commune and danwei provided rights and identity, but also exercised extensive social control over its population by managing all aspects of everyday life including access to housing, employment, education, healthcare, care of children and the elderly, culture, and leisure as well as legal rights (Shaw 1996). This is what I refer to as a “collective form” (Jacoby 2019). While collective forms are not exclusive to China, they are particularly dominant and legible in its history. The term collective form has been previously applied to urban design. For example, Maki (1964) used it to describe, in general terms, a coherent collection of buildings. He differentiated this collection further by their compositional, mega-structural, or group form, which was characterised by various types of linkages that mediate, define, repeat, make functional paths, or select between their constituent spatial elements. These linkages, according to Maki, are not just useful to urban design analysis, but can be equally employed in its practice. More recently, while acknowledging the history of collectives in China that brought together production and living, the term collective form was revisited by Fan (2016) to distinguish between development with standardised and repetitive buildings and singular, individual form. While these two previous uses highlight a formal and compositional description, I would further argue, that collective forms in the context of China, should be seen more broadly as an experimental form or the outcome of experimentation in which social diagrams, administration, policy, and spatialisation continuously interact. Therefore, by collective forms I do not only refer to historical phenomena, but more generally to socio-spatial and institutional forms that are shaped by collective subjectivities and aims. Consequently, collective forms are defined by specific social groups and their concrete shared spaces, activities, and norms. Often characteristic of these groups is a sharing of daily routines, or at least important social aspects of everyday life such as eating, working, and learning together. Simultaneously physical and institutional, collective forms can embody, for example, governmental forms, social forms, organisational forms, and spatial forms, but equally economic forms or political forms. For the discussions in this book, it is worthwhile to recall some of the differences in meaning of “collective” and

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“community” that have emerged over time (Brint 2001), as well as the type of spaces associated with them. The term collective is often used when referring to collaboration for the “mutual support and/or advancement of the interests of its members”, whereas a community is more broadly taken to be “typified by social relationships based on commonality” that can be defined by shared locality, interests, or goals (Harris and White 2018). The term collective is thus often applied as an adjective to describe collective actions, interests, goals, consciousness, and norms of society and its communities. A discussion of community regularly invokes Ferdinand Tönnies’s (2002/1887) classic distinction between Gemeinschaft (community) as a natural, affectual, and old, and Gesellschaft (society) as a rational, contractual, and modern social form. Communities, according to Tönnies, are based on three typologies of associational relationships and spaces: by blood (kinship), depending on human relations and domestic life in the house; by locality (neighbourhood), based on common habits, collective (land) ownership, and labour or management cooperation in rural villages or urban communities; and by the mind (friendship), deriving from shared beliefs and common actions or goals, and mostly inhabiting a mental and abstract space. The relationships found in Gemeinschaft are real and organic, whereas those defining Gesellschaft depend on imaginary and mechanical structures, such as the state, that define public life and form public spaces (Tönnies 2002/1887). Xiaotong Fei is credited with introducing the term community (shequ) to China in the 1930s, one that highlights a place-based meaning following the work of Robert Park (Ding 2008), but that also invokes Tönnies’ territorial idea of the neighbourhood community. Fei (1992/1947) later explained power relations between the individual and social group in China as highly nuanced and shaped by a “differential mode of association” and a “face-to-face society”. This derived from an expansive network of personal relationships and acquaintances that continuously and dynamically change, and which define the social capital, status, and experience of the individual within a community. The structure of social relations is explained through concentric circles that surround each individual, with the distance and intersections between two circles signifying specific and real relations—including that between individuals and the state —and with each relation conforming to Confucian ethical principles.1 This explanation counters the idea of abstract social relationships or spaces in favour of self-centred and

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Fei used the metaphor of ripples formed by stones thrown into water, which invokes Georg Simmel’s (1955) theory of the “web of group-affiliations”, described by him as a pattern of concentric circles formed by each social group, whereby the affiliation with various groups define an individual’s social opportunity and personality.

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tangible ones. As a consequence, differences such as that between the collective or community are conceptually and practically less distinct, as from an individual’s perspective there is a continuity in how political and social institutions are experienced. The period of collectivisation tried to lessen the importance of personal social networks by institutionalising social governance through the danwei and gaining loyalty in return for the lifetime social security of the “iron rice bowl”. However, with the demise of the danwei-man and emergence of “society man” in the new social institution of the shequ (Hurst 2009), the importance of a personal face-to-face society has returned —or perhaps, it had never vanished. Institutional relationships in China can thus be said to be experienced through “socialised governance” (Woodman 2016), and are always subject to shared social norms and control in a largely “soft power” approach to local government instead of a complete rule of law. Hence, autonomy, self-governance, and democratic processes that are often strongly associated with the notion of community, might have different aims and form different institutions in China. The “imposed” communities (shequ) of urban China, function as an administrative sub-unit to the street office, and represent simultaneously in physical, social, and administrative terms a unique place and its residents, with self-governance and democratic processes subservient to achieving political targets set by central and local governments, instead of democracy being an end in itself (Heberer and Göbel 2011). Despite a self-centredness of social networks, these must be seen as firmly situated within the boundaries of a collective subjectivity and shared social norms. In comparison, Western thought foregrounds a dialectic between individualisation and community, whereby the conflict between individual interests and the common good requires continuous rationalisation and voluntary submission —a process characterised as political and occurring within a public space. An individual’s subjectivity and rights are thereby taken as fundamental to one’s identity and place in society, but are limited by a social contract with an agreed framework of moral norms and institutions. Fei (1992/1947) therefore distinguishes between a Chinese “differential” and a Western “organisational” mode of association, through which society and social groups are institutionalised and defined, with all individuals within an organisation being equal and sharing the same relationships, rights, and morality. In this social form, real interpersonal relationships are secondary to maintaining a social contract and organisation, which provides greater autonomy and abstraction, but equally makes the meaning of community institutional and less tangible or spatial. Given these institutional formations and differences, a Eurocentric public space does not signify a collective space but rather implies a political space of assumed democratic

S. Jacoby

communication and a “right to the city” (Harvey 2008). It is therefore as much a conceptual, institutional space as it is a physical space. In contrast, collective spaces in China are always tangible and provide places for concrete and interpersonal everyday uses, activities, and communication through which associations between different individuals, but also with the collective, are reinforced by everyday life. These significant differences are also reflected in how spaces are owned. Collective space belongs to a collective, a group of people living and working closely around it—for example the family, village collective, or danwei—and are a direct spatialisation of personal social relationships, whereas public space is owned and managed by a public institution, usually the state, on behalf of society. Collective space is concrete and public space abstract, both in the territorial and social sense. This abstraction makes it easier for public spaces to become homogenised and commercialised, and has made them socially more symbolic than functional. The Chinese activity-based collective space thus offers another way of understanding the meaning of shared spaces, as collective spaces always serve fully identifiable constituents and their tangible activities. They are an important socio-spatial heritage and reality comparable to that of public space. The history of collective forms has anticipated some of the changes we witness today more widely. For example, a decreasing importance of the nuclear family as a social and spatial planning norm and a diversification of the household structure—in fact, an end to domesticity as a central notion of housing. Collective forms were in this respect an early attempt to create extrafamilial social networks of care and integrate work-live-education, which we can see promoted in new ways in advanced economies. Collective forms have thus created China-specific meanings of the collective and the community, and defined an important context of current urban design practice. In “Part II: Collective Forms” of this book, a series of new analytical frameworks are proposed to study the histories, constitution, impact, and continuing value of collective forms to contemporary discourse. Xuefeng He in “Grassroots Governance in Rural China Before China’s Reform and Opening Up” discusses rural governance practices before, during, and after the people’s commune period. He argues that the people’s commune and a cultural nexus of power (Duara 1988) are essential to understanding rural governance, with the people’s commune presenting an important example of a strong grassroots system with a balance between autonomy and state supervision that is needed to successfully govern rural China. Zuopeng Xiao, Tianbao Liu, Yanwei Chai, and Mengke Zhang in “Rethinking the Spatial Prototype and Operational Organization of the Chinese Danwei System from a Collective Perspective” analyse the historically dominant

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danwei system and the importance of resource distribution, production, and reproduction to its institutional function and operation. Proposing a new paradigm for danwei studies based on a “resemblance in essence” instead of a “resemblance in form”, they compare it to a “corporate-run society” that supplies social welfare and public goods, one that has adapted to the China-specific context of a planned economy and institutional environments of a collective society. Following this, Gangyi Tan in “The Built Environment, Spatial Will, and Heritage of the Third Front Movement in China” studies the large-scale collective forms created by the Third Front Movement from 1964 to 1980 in central and western China as part of a national defence strategy. Tan’s analysis is based on a complementarity between socialist doctrine, economic development, and spatial design in the Third Front Movement—especially evident in its danweis— and includes a review of the urban morphologies, architectural typologies, construction methods, and standardisation that formed a “national style” and modern architecture in China, which as typical examples of the socialist construction period are an important modern heritage. Finally, Jianfei Zhu’s “Architecture of the Cold War: Geopolitics and Cultural Knowledge in Socialist China” develops a new geopolitical framework and historiographical approach to the combined study of geography and architecture in China. Through the lenses of war and culture, and politics and aesthetics, he brings together transnational enquiries into architectural styles (as part of a cultural warfare in support of regional and international conflicts), spatial planning, and the production of social space and order shaped both by local-national and geopolitical forces. This discussion is entered through a study of socialist space and economic development in construction projects of the Third Line—part of an intense programme of war preparation, industrialisation, and modernisation—and in the context of modernism in architecture as a system of cultural knowledge production in Cold War China.

1.2

Community Building: From Government to Governance

Community building and community-led developments are supported by governments worldwide in efforts to involve grassroots organisations, the third sector, and the free market in a privatised delivery of social services and order. A “government through community” has become a widespread ambition, with community building part of a new spatialisation of government (Rose 1999; Bray 2008). The issue of community building has first arisen in China with economic reforms and a need for new forms of governance, and has therefore been largely understood as an administrative problem. Nevertheless, the new “community turn”

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brings together the three concepts of community, people, and place, which have become key to policy and are often referred to in the context of: “neighbourhood community building” (shequ jianshe), “taking people as the root” (yi ren wei ben), and “suiting measures to local conditions” (yin di zhi yi) (Smith et al. 2019). While the introduction of a community framework has led to a growth in social organisations, these are not, as many would expect, civil society expressions of democratisation and political autonomy, but depoliticised, state-led, and mostly dedicated to delivering administrative and social work (Ngeow 2012). Thus, the purpose of community building, self-governance, and non-profit organisations in China is not to create social organisation or enterprise separate from the state, but social and civil activism in collaboration with and under the supervision of the party-state (Kuhn 2018). State-owned enterprises were released in 1984 from their responsibility of providing comprehensive welfare services to employees and their families, as the decline of the danwei system made this no longer viable. This social policy change had fundamental urban impacts. It resulted in the separation of working, living, and leisure spaces and enhanced social mobility, but also created social segregation, class differentiation, and housing commodification. The city, previously requiring little urban spatial planning, had relied on a cellular and decentralised growth through autonomous planning units such as the danwei that adapted existing standardised housing and block plans (Leaf and Hou 2006). The enormous demand for new infrastructures and state-investment to service the new urban condition, however, required vast amounts of construction and spatial planning, with the planning profession formally recognised again after 1978. At the same time, the transformations meant that, almost proportional to the transition from a planned to a market-oriented economy, local government had to take on the burden of extensive welfare responsibilities, including the provision of housing, something it previously only provided to those without a connection to a danwei or workplace. Because of this, the Communist Party of China has become more directly and finely ingrained within the everyday life of its citizens than before. During far-reaching urban change that included large-scale physical demolition and redevelopment, the danwei system and its urban governance model involving state-owned enterprises was replaced by a shequ (community) and xiaoqu system that introduced new forms of self-governance. The contemporary xiaoqu, literally meaning a “small district”, is a residential estate that is typically enclosed and historically derives from the Soviet residential “microdistrict”, a planning model for a residential collective that provides housing and comprehensive social services to meet the everyday needs of its residents (Alekseyeva 2019) (Fig. 1.5). Typically, several xiaoqus make up a shequ, which denotes in policy terms a residential neighbourhood

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S. Jacoby

Fig. 1.5 Villager in front of their houses in the evening in Shigushan Village, Xinzhou District, Wuhan (2016)

community and lowest administrative level represented by a residents’ committee—although not considered a formal part of government with direct representation. Experiments with a new xiaoqu model and its constitutive element of housing started in 1986, the year the Ministry of Civil Affairs proposed the provision of nationwide urban community level services. These experiments resulted in a first edition of the Planning and Design Standards for Urban Residential Areas in 1994, which codify “scientifically logical” principles and the facility, services, and technical requirements to be met by new residential neighbourhoods (Ding 2008; Bray 2016). The xiaoqu was the spatial and administrative framework in which the critical problem of how to spatially distribute community services and facilities were tried and tested. For example, a community has its own service (community) centre and provides a whole range of social and administrative services to its residents. It is therefore the natural locus of community building that is to be the foundation for collaboration between grassroots-level self-governance and formal government. Community building, the “new socialist countryside” programme, rural village reforms, and urban renewal projects of so-called “old” communities (often only a couple of decades old but suffering from serious planning and maintenance issues) are all responses to new socio-economic circumstances and governance needs. While responding to immediate development pressures, they also remain contextual to a sustained impact of historical government policies. They express a parallel socialist conception and spatial design of communities, and a continuing process of

designing a “socialist space” (Bray 2005). The xiaoqu in particular, continues to spatialise collectivity, which is now, however, rephrased in terms of community values such as “social cohesion”, “neighbourliness”, a “sense of security”, and a “sense of belonging” (Bray 2008). Thus, similar to the collective danwei period, self-governance, state representation, social services, and their territorialisation and spatialisation remain linked in the xiaoqu, and urban communities are still defined by the rights and quality of social services, care, and infrastructures they provide. The new community-based administrative and planning system has been implemented top-down. However, this implementation is through an ongoing process of experimentation via pilot projects that explore new spatial, social, and political management at local government level, with the aim of creating new administrative units, grassroots organisations, neighbourhoods, and types of community. In this experimental process, in which urban design has an essential function, central government policy is interpreted through modifications of the xiaoqu model. Relationships between the socialist institutions that controlled everyday life, the hukou (a household registration system essential to control labour mobility), danwei, street office, and residents’ committee are thus being changed or recalibrated to find suitable sizes of new communities for effective administration and self-governance (Shieh and Friedmann 2008). Naturally, different solutions have emerged across China’s varied regions. Generally speaking, while the experiments are guided by the everyday functional and social wellbeing needs of residents, especially administrative considerations

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are spatially translated, e.g. housing clusters have been scaled to match the area of a residents’ committee (population 1000–3000) and residential district of a street office (population 30,000–50,000), with typical population sizes changing over time and across China (Bray 2016). What is being literally tested out in front of our eyes, is a spatialisation of governmentality. The introduction of a “neighbourhood community building” policy in the mid-1990s, aimed to support the immense efforts and resources required to build a new national administrative and social welfare system at the local neighbourhood scale. Its objective is to foster a participation of residents in grassroots-level, neighbourhood governance and the provision of social services in order to lessen the burden on government—although a participation of residents in administrative and planning processes was unknown during the planned economy of the danwei. It is set up to directly support the work of sub-district level street offices— the lowest level of direct administrative representation of the state in cities—by encouraging active collaboration within local communities, especially through working with professionalised residents’ committees, with trained social workers needed to provide the new social welfare responsibilities. These committees have been given greater resources and powers than before and are defined as a “mass organisation for self-government at grassroots level” in the Organic Law of the Urban Residents’ Committees of the People’s Republic of China, 1989. In the residents’ committee, locally elected residents, voluntary community “activists”, appointed party representatives, and professional social workers (salaried by the state to replace lay volunteers) work together in a “participative bureaucratisation” (Audin 2015). Serving its residents, but accountable to the street office, residents’ committees rely, in their daily work, on the personal connections (guanxi) of socialised governance to resolve tensions between direct state representation and grassroots self-governance in a community (Woodman 2016). While xiaoqus are part of a residents’ committee, many also have a property management company for the maintenance of shared areas, and in cases with private housing, an additional owners’ committee, complicating power relations between different community actors and causing many conflicts in urban communities. This part of the book discusses the histories and new institutional forms and practices that have emerged with processes of governmentality and community building and self-governance agendas. More specifically, it analyses different forms of social governance, activism, and participation in communities and urban grassroots governance. Xiaoyuan Wan in “China’s Changing Landscape of Neighbourhood Governance and Participation: From a Governmentality Perspective” provides a review of historical

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neighbourhood governance and its spatialisation and planning in China through the lens of Foucauldian governmentality, and an empirical study of how rationality, government technologies, and subjectivities continue to be important in the current shequ system in Beijing. Wan traces how socialist norms were built on Confucian norms, and how these are brought back with a refocus on family values in a post-Mao era to maintain social order and govern neighbourhoods, while mobilising and cultivating residents to participate in the self-governance of communities. Fulong Wu, in “Housing Privatization and the Return of the State: Changing Governance in China” looks at how the economic reform period and housing privatisation created a new need for neighbourhood management and governance. However, a lack of an independent income for residents’ committees and a failure to create an affordable market for the provision of services and management of residential communities, forced the government to professionalise neighbourhood governance and re-enter urban communities it had left during the early stages of housing commodification. This conflict between privatisation, new property rights, and government responsibility for neighbourhood services creates problems of increased state involvement in actual neighbourhood governance, cost-efficiency of community management, and mobilisation of voluntary participation, which are some of the major problems still experienced in community self-governance. This is followed by three papers that analyse, in detail, the spatialisation of governmentality in daily urban governance within “old” (pre-reform) residential communities, based on fieldwork undertaken in 2018 by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng, Defu Wang, Xuelin Zhang, and myself in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan. Defu Wang in “The Xinyuan Xili Community in Transformation: The Social Life and Community Governance of a Post-Danwei Community in Beijing” discusses the transition from the danwei system to a community system. Using Xinyuan Xili as a typical case study, he argues for community being understood as a living organism in which the scales of family life, community life, and social life overlap in the community and its complementary surrounding neighbourhoods. He further examines challenges of effective community governance, which is in significant parts undermined by the problem of “intensive power” in Beijing. Jingru (Cyan) Cheng’s “Associational Relationship, Collective Space, and Community Planning: The Everyday Infrastructure of Urban Communities in China” compares community systems in Shanghai and Wuhan, paying particular attention to the relation between social governance and the spatial organisation of a xiaoqu. She studies how this socio-spatial interaction defines the xiaoqu and its built forms as a collective social space, in which urban

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governance relies on personal relationships to enforce social norms but equally maintain a social network of care within the community. She further discusses how a new approach to community planning, emerging in 2018, has been deployed to expand participation and self-governance in urban communities, and attend to the improvements needed in the infrastructure of old communities. Xuelin Zhang in “The Governance of Urban Community Spaces: Fieldwork Report on the Geguang Community, Guanshan Sub-district, Hongshan District, Wuhan City” examines the policy context and specific everyday challenges of community governance and community building in an urban community in Wuhan. She analyses the effectiveness of, and problems in, political, institutional, economic, and interpersonal cooperation between the residents’ committee, owners’ committee, and property management company in the daily execution of political tasks and management of community affairs, but also in respect to a more general modernisation of grassroots governance. The problems of urban grassroots governance are elaborated by Yapeng Pu in “Problems, Analyses and Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance” from the perspective of a practitioner and local government. Through a series of aphorisms and their discussion, Pu elaborates the problems of social governance and proposes a series of practical strategies that advocate a rationalisation and professionalisation of governance, the rule of law, and social values based on an “affective governance” approach. In “Politics at the Grassroots: “Socialised Governance” in Tianjin’s Neighbourhoods and Villages”, Sophia Woodman proposes a framework of “socialised governance” to analyse how guanxi connections inform place-specific citizenship and an intimate form of politics through simultaneous state and social organisations in which emotions, compliance and complaint, and local moral sociality play important roles. Woodman discusses the benefits and limitations of “socialised governance” and a politics of moral judgement to inclusion and exclusion based on collectively-generated and shifting social norms that negotiate neighbourly concern and state responsibility, and which contrasts with attempts to professionalise governance and apply a rule of law model. The last contribution in this section of the book by Nan Wu, “Developing a Community: The Case of Renheng Cuizhuyuan’s Community-Making in Nanjing”, provides an account of current community building and the importance of new social organisations at the grassroots in its coordination. His Bamboo Community Mutual Association is exemplary in demonstrating how to—based on shared interests, but also socialist core values and leadership—involve residents in public affairs and social activities for the common good. Wu provides an overview of the challenges

S. Jacoby

and guiding principles for self-organised community building based on his experience.

1.3

Community Planning: From Planning to Design

With changing development priorities came a decline in large-scale projects and a shift from planning to smaller scales of design. It is thus not a coincidence that spatial designers are becoming increasingly engaged with urban design. This scalar change in focus has led to more flexible and participatory design approaches that respond to community building agendas and a diversification of community actors. Indicative for this new landscape of planning is that the government has lessened its control over spatial urban planning and architecture through design institutes that must approve all new construction, with the number of private design institutes growing. In 2011, China’s new five-year plan introduced a national framework for a community service system. This led to the introduction of a radically new, small-scale planning approach in comparison to the existing strict masterplanning hierarchy from the state down to the sub-district level, which is explicitly linked to ongoing community building efforts: community planning (Smith et al. 2019). Community planners are appointed by local governments, and are often spatial design professionals and academics (with many academics involved in practice and university-based design institutes), but sometimes are simply representatives of existing community stakeholders. The new community planner’s task is to translate community building policies into reality by supporting communities in improving and taking on greater responsibility for their shared assets, infrastructures, and resources. A particular objective thereby is to enhance the design and quality of the built environment. New community design guidelines, for example the Technical Guidelines of Working Mechanism and Design for Community Planning in Wuhan (2018) by ATA Architectural Design, set out the policy contexts, stakeholder involvement, and decision-making processes to develop a joint community plan. In this way, community planning is defining a new China-specific approach to urban design, in which spatial and social planning is clearly linked. A relatively new discipline, urban design emerged in the 1960s in the USA and Europe in response to distinctly different urban conditions and design problems. In its first public conception—in the lecture “Urban Design” given by Josep Lluís Sert in 1953—it was presented as the “integration of city-planning, architecture, and landscape architecture; the building of a complete environment” that could foster and maintain “civil culture” in cities (Mumford 2006).

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This was in parts an answer to perceived shortcomings of the functionalist Modern Movement’s planning doctrine, seen as lacking a human design scale and concern for a civic public. Urban design and its ideas of the “public” and “place” was only introduced by Chinese planning authorities in the mid-1990s with an initial shift in attention from planning to design. Its rise in importance was tied to a demand for design guidelines and planning processes capable of integrating the needs of residential communities into large-scale developments. However, imported urban design practice was confronted with unfamiliar ideas of place, local community, and scale in China. Western design models did not always translate well into a context with much larger developments, a dominance of state-owned local design institutes, and a lack of public participation and civil society (Loew 2013). Until recently, urban design was therefore mostly deployed to prepare land for individual real-estate development, serving larger plans and planning objectives. The absence of understanding its relation to social, economic, and political objectives, discloses a limitation of the traditional focus on architecture, planning, and landscape architecture. A better integration of urban governance, urban sociology, social policy, and other forms of spatial planning is needed to cross established disciplinary, methodological, and cultural boundaries, as the multitude of “environments” in which urban design operates in, includes increasingly diverse challenges and stakeholders. Thus, an understanding of the physical environment and knowledge of various economic, social, political, environmental, and human behavioural aspects or urban experiences have become essential to achieving urban design aims. The growing attention on smaller scales of design within urban communities acknowledges this need for new cross-disciplinary collaborations, and forms the context in which participatory urban design practices are emerging in China. This part of the book discuses and presents some of the new spatial design approaches that have recently developed in the direct context of community planning. This section is introduced by Yan Tang’s “From ‘No Holes in Walls’ to ‘Street and Community Renovation’ in Beijing: A Transformation of Urban Governance?”, which explains the shift from large-scale technical planning to an increasingly community-focused design by discussing how a new multi-scalar urban design approach brings together the main administrative and spatial scales in cities through an integrated series of design guidelines: city/urban design guidelines, district/urban district guidelines, and subdistrict/community design guidelines. This signals a clear shift from a top-down urban management to an urban governance model that actively seeks the participation, consultation, and consent of local residents in spatial planning processes. The “No Holes in Walls” programme is a case

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study of how this new agenda is confronted by contradictions between planning violations, the rule of law, and community-level services or leisure previously provided by the market that require new governance responses and investment in communities and their renewal. Lu Feng from Wuyang Architecture in “Rethinking Community Renewal” argues that, based on his experience as a community planner and work with the Colourful Community project in Shanghai, community renewal should be integral to community building by not only focusing on improving physical environments, but creating new spatial networks and changing the use rights of spaces in order to reconstruct relationships between people, communities, and their place. Miao Zhang further outlines in “Redefining Boundaries and Co-operative Operation: Design Strategies for Community Revitalization” six strategic design approaches that MAT Office has developed in response to the renewal of community space. Breaking with previously more common planning methods in China, all of MAT Office’s projects are based on detailed studies of communities and their socio-spatial needs, before proposing highly contextual design responses that recognise the specificity of users, stakeholders, and sites. This aims to establish new forms of community regeneration practice capable of bringing together spatial planning and social and participatory design. The challenges and aims of community participation are analysed by Jiayan Liu’s “Community Planning Based on Socio-spatial Production: The ‘New Qinghe Experiment’”. Framed by the concept of the “production of space” and China-specific conditions, Liu sets out the objectives, means, and methods needed for a new type of community planning that is social, inclusive, and equitable, and has the capacity to develop community self-governance, interdisciplinary collaboration, and long-term partnerships. The aim is to build a new community subjectivity through a balanced social and spatial production, which can foster practical collaboration and environmental improvements, and support the social organisations that play part in their delivery, but also create a higher-level of unity within communities.

1.4

Conclusions

Collective forms, spaces, subjectivities, and social norms have shaped, and continue to shape, urban design problems and are an integral part of China’s modernity and process of modernisation. More specifically, they provide insights into the unstable relationships between the individual and social group as well as constituency, place, ownership, and use, while raising questions of how to manage or govern. A collective space that derives from collective forms and histories

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S. Jacoby

Fig. 1.6 Xinyuan Xili Community, Beijing (2018)

Fig. 1.7 An outdoor gym to the back of the Xinyuan Xili Community Service Centre in Beijing (2018)

is not the same social space as a public space (Fig. 1.6). This is of particular importance to urban design and community planning practices, as a critical task is to establish spaces for shared or rather differentiated “collective” uses that are productive to the forming of social ties and rights (Fig. 1.7). The current issues of community building and community planning in China have to be seen as part of a socialist or socio-spatial “production of space”, as claimed in this book, that is aimed at forming a new collectivity. This is rooted in China-specific histories of experimentation with a spatialised governmentality in which social and spatial planning models and new approaches to the problem of government and how to govern are thought closely together. Laying the foundations of today’s urban and rural China, the impacts of collective forms are still visible and real, especially for ongoing community building and planning. Today’s community can thus be understood as a contemporary collective form, and like its predecessors, continues to be defined by clear territorialisation and issues around administration and the provision of social welfare services for its members. This raises questions of how communities can be better adapted to demographic transformations, changing social needs, and cultural diversification. Despite many apparent challenges, the continuous process of spatialising social relationships and governance in China provides valuable insights for spatial and urban design. We can see, for example, some noticeable resilience emerge in communities and the governance structures and new types of collective spaces they produce. Alongside the evolving rich combination of stakeholders and responsibilities that give communities both necessary political and social legitimacy and representation, the “professionalisation” of grassroots governance and social organisations can perhaps provide some of the specialised knowledge and skills needed

to support, maintain, and develop communities and enable participation in decision-making processes. Of course, this can also lead to increased conflict. As many contributions in this book attest to, issues around conflict resolution and the mobilisation of different forms of support and agreement are central to social governance, and the contradictions between a face-to-face society and a rule of law are exposed in the daily life of communities. The new community planner role is further evidence of a recognition that effective community-led development requires expertise, interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder collaboration, and long-term shared aims. Having much-needed experience in working together with communities, specialist consultants, and government agencies, spatial designers can play an important role in community building. Urban design, and community governance in general, has to simultaneously deal with spatial and social environments, practices, and policies. The historical transformations leading to the current dominance of the urban xiaoqu and shequ system reinforce community planning as a changing socio-spatial problem that requires new multi-scalar and interdisciplinary approaches to bringing different urban stakeholders, disciplines, and practitioners together in a design process. This ongoing process that we can witness in China, is discussed in this book.

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bureaucratisation of residents’ committees in Beijing (trans: Throssell K). Revue Française de Science Politique (English Edition) 65(1):1–26 Bray D (2005) Social space and governance in urban China: the Danwei system from origins to reform. Stanford University Press, Stanford Bray D (2008) Designing to govern: space and power in two Wuhan communities. Built Environ Transition Chin Cities 34(4):392–407 Bray D (2013) Urban planning goes rural: conceptualising the “new village”. China Perspect 3(95):53–62 Bray D (2016) Rethinking and remaking China’s built environments: spatial planning and the reinscription of everyday life. In: Bray D, Jeffreys E (eds) New mentalities of Government in China. Routledge, London, pp 74–96 Brint S (2001) Gemeinschaft revisited: a critique and reconstruction of the community concept. Sociol Theory 19(1):1–23 Ding Y (2008) Community building in China: issues and directions. Soc Sci China 29(1):152–159 Duara P (1988) Culture, power, and the state: rural North China, 1900– 1942. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA Dutton M (1992) Policing and punishment in China: from patriarchy to “the people.” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Fan L (2016) Spatialization of the collective Logic and dialectics of urban forms in the Chinese City of the (1950). In: Lee CCM (ed) Common frameworks: rethinking the developmental city in China (Harvard design Studies). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 42–55 Fei X (1992) From the soil: the foundations of Chinese Society (trans: Hamilton GG, Zheng W). University of California Press, Berkeley (Originally published 1947 in Chinese) Feng H, Squires V (2018) Integration of rural and urban society in China and implications for urbanization, infrastructure, land and labor in the new era. S Asian J Soc Stud Econ 2(3):1–13 Foucault M (2007) Security, territory, population: lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978 (trans: Burchell G). Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Friedmann J (2005) China’s urban transition. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Gaubatz P (2008) New public space in urban China. China Perspect 4:72–83 Habermas J (1989) The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society (trans: Burger T). Polity, Cambridge (Originally published in 1962 in German) Harris J, White V (2018) A dictionary of social work and social care, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Harvey D (2008) The right to the city. New Left Rev 53:23–40 Hassenpflug D (2012) The urban code of China. Birkhäuser, Basel Heberer T, Göbel C (2011) The politics of community building in urban China. Routledge, London Hoa L (1981) Rconstruire la Chine: Trente ans d’urbnisme, 1949–1979 Huang PCC (1993) Public sphere”/“civil society” in China?: the third realm between state and society. Modern China 19(2):216–240 Hurst W (2009) The Chinese worker after socialism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

15 Jacoby S (2019) Collective forms and collective spaces: a discussion of urban design thinking and practice based on research in Chinese cities. China City Plan Rev 28(4):10–17 Jeffreys E, Sigley G (2009) Governmentality, governance and China. In: Jeffreys E (ed) China’s governmentalities: governing change, changing government. Routledge, London, pp 1–23 Kuhn B (2018) Changing spaces for civil society organisations in China. Open J Polit Sci 8:467–494 Leaf M, Hou L (2006) Urban planning in China: The resurrection of professional planning in the post-Mao era. China Information 20 (3):553–585 Lu D (2006) Remaking Chinese urban form: modernity, scarcity and space, 1949–2005. Routledge, London Lu F (1989) The Danwei: a unique Form of social organization. Chin Soc Sci 1:71–88 Lü J, Rowe PG, Zhang J (2001) Modern urban housing in China, 1840– 2000. Prestel, Munich Loew S (ed) (2013). “China” issue. Urban Des Group J 127 Maki F (1964) Investigations in collective form. School of Architecture, Washington University, St. Louis Mumford E (2006) The emergence of urban design in the breakup of CIAM. Harvard Des Mag 24:10–20 National Bureau of Statistics of China (2019) China statistical yearbook 2018. China Statistics Press Ngeow CB (2012) Civil society with Chinese characteristics? An examination of China’s urban homeowners’ committees and movements. Probl Post-Communism 59(6):50–63 Rose N (1999) Powers of freedom: reframing political thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rowe PG, Forsyth A, Kan HY (2016) China’s urban communities: concepts, contexts, and well-being. Birkhäuser, Basel Shaw VN (1996) Social control in China: a study of Chinese work units. Praeger, London Shieh L, Friedmann J (2008) Restructuring urban governance. City 12 (2):183–195 Smith N, Abramson D, Shih M (2019) An introduction to planning China’s communities: between people and place. Int Dev Plann Rev 41(3):247–267 Sonne W (2003) Representing the state: Capital city planning in the early twentieth century. Prestel, Munich Tönnies F (2002) Community and Society = Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (trans: Loomis CP). Dover Publications, Mineola, NY Walder AG (1986) Communist neo-traditionalism: work and authority in Chinese industry. University of California Press, Berkeley Woodman S (2016) Local politics, local citizenship? Socialized governance in contemporary China. China Q 226:342–362 Xie Y, Lai Q, Wu X (2009) Danwei and social inequality in contemporary urban China. Res Sociol Work 19:283–306 Xu M, Yang Z (2009) Design history of China’s gated cities and neighbourhoods: prototype and evolution. Urban Des Int 14(2):99–117 You J (1998) China’s enterprise reform: changing state/society relations after Mao. Routledge, London Zhu J (2009) Architecture of modern China: a historical critique. Routledge, London

2

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis of the People’s Commune, Danwei, and Xiaoqu Sam Jacoby and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

Abstract

A nationally enforced comprehensive collectivisation started in the new People’s Republic of China in the 1950s, and was achieved through the implementation of the rural people’s commune and urban danwei (work-unit) systems. These were “collective forms” in which production, reproduction, and administration spaces were unified. After economic reforms beginning in 1978, new forms of socio-spatial development were needed to deal with changing lifestyles and government or governance needs, as well as rapid urban growth. This led eventually to the current contemporary community (shequ) and xiaoqu (small district) model. Providing an introduction to these three dominant types of socialist space in China that have shaped its social, economic, and spatial histories and realities, a brief overview of the historical contexts and an architectural analysis of typical case studies is given. Keywords

People’s commune




Danwei




The following historical and architectural analysis of the collective forms of the people’s commune, danwei (work-unit), and xiaoqu (small district) systems is to provide an introduction and context to the following discussions in this book. The planning models of the Mao era, despite dominating spatial development from the 1950s until the 1990s, have been surprisingly little studied. This seems in part due to a lack of official planning records from that period, but also because many of the danwei sites have become valuable urban development land, with much of the historical fabric demolished and replaced by high-density developments. Yet another reason is that the people’s commune and urban danwei are widely seen as representing an undesirable and old way of life, with a wider public interest in its architectural modern heritage only slowly emerging. The aim of this introduction is therefore to contribute also to an important architectural documentation of this era.

Xiaoqu

S. Jacoby (&)
J. (Cyan) Cheng School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] J. (Cyan) Cheng e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_2

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

2.1

19

The People’s Commune

When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, nearly 90% of its population of just over 540 million lived in rural areas.1 The new socialist state was thus faced with the pressing need for extensive modernisation across the country. To this end, a Land Reform Law was announced on 30th June 1950, with the aims to “abolish the land ownership and feudal exploitation by the landlord class and implement land ownership by the peasantry, thereby liberating the productivity of rural areas, developing agricultural production, and opening up new ways of industrialisation in a new China” (Figs. 2.1 and 2.2).2 This was followed in December 1951 by a first draft of the Resolution on the Mutual Help and Cooperation in Agricultural Production (关于农业生产互助合作的决议(草案)), in which the central government proposed three models of agricultural cooperation: a temporary mutual help group, a perennial mutual help group, and a land cooperative. The resolution required local governments to assist in their immediate development. By 1953, the land reform had been largely implemented and “primary” agricultural cooperatives proliferated, in which peasants had their newly acquired land collectively managed by a cooperative. In the years following, this cooperative model was scaled up in order to form multiple “advanced” agricultural cooperatives, which later led to the formation of the people’s commune.

Fig. 2.1 “Distributing Land”, poster ca. 1948. Source chineseposters.net

The campaign to establish people’s communes in China was officially launched by the Resolution on the Establishment of People’s Communes in Rural Areas (中共中央关于在农村 建立人民公社问题的决议) on 29th August 1958 as part of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962). By the end of the year, 23,530 people’s communes incorporating more than 99% of rural households (approximately 120 million) were realised, thus approximately 85% of China’s population had

1

National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook 1981 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1982), 89. 2 Land Reform Law of the Peoples Republic of China (1950). English translation by the authors.

Fig. 2.2 “Land Reform Largely Accomplished”, poster 1952. Source chineseposters.net

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become part of a rural commune.3 Chairman Mao’s original vision for the people’s commune was to increase productivity and to reduce rural-urban differences. In other words, it aimed to ruralise cities and urbanise the countryside. However, agriculture was soon paralysed by the burden of having to support urban industrialisation, which in parts led to the Great Famine of 1959–61, and a subsequent concentration on urban growth. Two decades after its implementation, the year of 1978 witnessed the overall number of people’s communes rising to 52,781, which encompassed 95% and 84% of the rural and overall population respectively.4 In the same year, a de-collectivisation of agriculture took place as part of China’s Economic Reform, which resulted in the commune system being abolished in 1983 and saw planning responsibilities return to the administrative level of the township.5 The commune system had created a new socio-economic grassroots unit with far-reaching responsibilities for local government administration and commune management, including the coordination of industry, agriculture, finance, trade, education, military affairs, and public services. Different production activities, the labour force, and welfare provisions were managed through a three-tiered model of organisation. At the lowest, basic level were the production teams, which were mainly responsible for farming, and typically consisted of less than 200 people. Multi-functional canteens served all needs of public activities at this organisational level. The next level was made up of production brigades, which combined several production teams and numbered between 1000 and 2000 people. Small industrial workshops could be found at this level, as well as basic welfare services including kindergartens and primary schools. At the highest level, the people’s communes, these production brigades formed a production and administrative collective with a population of 10,000–80,000 people. The people’s communes were responsible for large-scale agricultural and, to some extent, industrial production. In this case, higher-level welfare services, including the provision of hospitals and secondary schools, were the responsibility of a commune. The ownership of land and administrative power were centralised at the commune level, which made its administrative functions comparable to that of a contemporary township. The commune was thus a large-scale, modular unit of rural development and organisation.

S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

The people’s commune has several precedents. A notable example is that of the Soviet kolkhoz (collective farm) that developed following an enforced collectivisation of agriculture and extensive land reforms under Joseph Stalin in 1928. At its peak in 1940, 236,900 kolkhozes worked 78.2% of the country’s agricultural sown areas. Similarly, the Israeli kibbutz presents itself as another paradigm. Conceived in 1909 as a series of agricultural collectives, these have since become significantly diversified and today account for 9% and 40% of Israel’s industrial and agricultural output respectively. Perhaps the utopian community of New Harmony in Indiana, USA, established by the industrialist and social reformer Robert Owen, or the phalanstère envisioned by Charles Fourier in the early 19th century can also be considered precedents in how they brought spaces of production and reproduction together. Lu (2006), argues that the planning of the Chinese commune was also influenced by that of the neighbourhood unit concept and microdistrict schema. From a different perspective, G. William Skinner (1965) traced the link between the commune system at the regional scale and the three-level system of central, intermediate, and standard market towns in traditional and transitional rural China. In the Chinese Communist Society: The Family and the Village, C. K. Yang (1959) provided one of the first original accounts of changing social institutions and village organisations in the transitional years that fell prior to the official establishment of the commune system.6 Based on fieldwork and available press material, Yang’s sociological work studied social changes that occurred in the first decade of the P. R. China and how these were accelerated by the commune movement. After its implementation, the commune model attracted much attention from the West in the 1960s and 1970s. Everyday accounts of rural life in the Chinese commune, based on travel reports by foreigners, interviews, and government propaganda were widely published in this period. For example, Huadong: The Story of a Chinese People’s Commune (1978) by Gordon Bennett synthesises various accounts by different authors who visited the Huadong

3

See China Statistical Yearbook 1981, 89 and 131–133. Ibid. 5 On 2nd January 1983, “Several Problems on the Current Economic Strategies for Rural Areas” (当前农村经济政策的若干问题) published by the central government demanded that government administration and commune management should be separated. 4

6

This book combines two volumes originally published in 1959, The Chinese Family in the Communist Revolution and A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition.

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People’s Commune.7 More recently, as part of growing interest in Chinese history and social studies, scholars such as Yi Xin and Xuefeng He have reviewed the important role of the commune system in aiding national socioeconomic development (Xin 2001; He 2007). Directly related to issues of spatial design, the commune model has been part of a critical discourse that surrounds regional planning. For example, Alan Gilbert in Cities, Poverty, and Development: Urbanization in the Third World

Other examples are: Michael Shapiro, “People’s Communes in China”, Marxism Today, 2.12 (1958): 353–361; Cheng Chu-Yuan, The People”s Commune (Hong Kong: Union Press, 1959); G. F. Hudson, A. V. Sherman and A. Zauberman, The Chinese Communes (London: Soviet Survey, 1959); Richard Hughes, The Chinese Communes (London: The Bodley Head, 1960); Ministry of Agriculture, People’s Republic of China, People’s Communes in Pictures (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1960); Anna Louise Strong, The Rise of the People’s Commune in China (New York: Marzani and Munsell, 1960); Peter S. H. Tang, The Commune System in Mainland China (Washington: Research Institute on the Sino-Soviet Bloc, 1961); and Chow Ching-Wen Criticism on People”s Communes (Hong Kong: Continental Research Institute, 1961). Joan Robinson, Notes From China (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964); Isabel and David Crook, The First Years of the Yangyi Commune (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966); C. S Chen, Rural People’s Communes in Lien-Chiang: Documents Concerning Communes in Lien-chiang County, Fukien Province, 1962–1963; Arthur W. Galston and Jean S. Savage, Daily Life in People’s China: Inside the New China With an American Family that Lived and Worked on a Commune (New York: Thomas Crowell Company, 1973); Wu Chou, Report from Tungting: A People’s Commune on Taihu Lake (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975); Chu Li and Tien Chieh-yun, Inside a People’s Commune: Report From Chiliying (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975). 7

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(1982) presents the commune model as a potential alternative to capitalist development. More specifically, one of the key design challenges at an almost exclusively territorial scale was that of how to organise and concentrate settlements to spatialise and foster the goals of the people’s commune. Key publications such as the Architectural Journal (Jianzhu Xuebao) therefore disseminated the design proposals and thinking that materialised in pilot communes, especially between 1958 and 1960 when the people’s communes were in their early stages of inception.

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2.1.1 Case Study 1: Shawei Settlement, Panyu People’s Commune, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (Partially Built in 1958)

Fig. 2.3 Masterplan for the Shawei Settlement, Panyu People’s Commune, 1958. Source School of Architecture, South China University of Technology, “Architectural Design for New Buildings in Shawei Settlement, Panyu People’s Commune, Guangdong Province”, Architectural Journal, 1959 (2): 3–8

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

23 1. Kindergarten 2. Rest Home 3. Nursery 4. Culture Palace 5. Tea House 6. Youth Housing 7. Housing 8. Teacher Dormitory 9. Student Dormitory 10. Public Canteen 11. Library 12. Cinema

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13. School of Agriculture 14. Science Palace 15. Palace of Young Pioneers 16. Gym 17. School of Sports 18. Hospital 19. Xinhua Bookshop 20. Guest House 22. Primary School 23. Middle School 24. Warehouse

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Fig. 2.4 Masterplan (detail) for the Shawei Settlement, Panyu People’s Commune, 1958. Source School of Architecture, South China University of Technology; redrawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

One of the first commune pilot projects, the Panyu People’s Commune, was published in 1959 in the Architectural Journal (School of Architecture 1959). Panyu was located in the Shatian District in the Pearl River Delta and combined three natural villages. Its people’s commune was to encompass 1787 rural households and 6232 people. In the masterplan for the Shawei settlement, four clusters are oriented towards the hill and linked up by a main road, with its agricultural land lying to the south (Figs. 2.3 and 2.4). Its different residential building typologies are based on a combination of two basic flat typologies and their variations. These housing units have no kitchens or bathrooms and are

not planned as family dwellings, despite variations of threeand four-room sized units (Figs. 2.5 and 2.6). Shared washrooms and toilets are provided in each building, and the spatial design of the housing indicates that household units are defined by collective work relationships (Fig. 2.7). Therefore, each cluster has disproportionately large provisions of shared, public facilities. What Panyu clearly demonstrates is a symmetry between the overprovision of public facilities at the expense of private accommodation or the removal of private family space, reinforcing a collective lifestyle of working, living, and learning together.

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

I

II III

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Fig. 2.5 Housing typologies for the Panyu People’s Commune, 1958. Source School of Architecture, South China University of Technology; redrawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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Fig. 2.6 Unit and cluster typologies for the Panyu People’s Commune, 1958. Source School of Architecture, South China University of Technology; redrawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

25

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Fig. 2.7 Housing for the youth in the Panyu People’s Commune. Source School of Architecture, South China University of Technology; redrawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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2.1.2 Case Study 2: Shigushan Brigade, Fenghuang People’s Commune, Wuhan, Hubei Province (Built 1973–74)

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Fig. 2.8 Population Flow in the 1970s for the Shigushan Brigade, Fenghuang People’s Commune. Source Based on information provided by the Shigushan village leader, drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

27 N

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Fig. 2.9 Reconstructed masterplan for the Shigushan Brigade, Fenghuang People’s Commune in the 1970s. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

The central settlement of Shigushan Village was built in the early 1970s and represents one of the eight production brigades in the Fenghuang People’s Commune established in 1958. Shigushan’s population was moved into the new central settlement from four surrounding natural villages, to which many have since returned (Fig. 2.8). Originally conceived as a pilot project, it is one of very few commune

settlements that still exist today (Fig. 2.9) and, to some extent, continues to function as a village (Fig. 2.10). The settlement is located on a flattened hill that lies roughly at the centre of its surrounding natural villages. It has a central axis with public functions and a commune hall at its northernmost point where a former school and art college

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.10 Aerial view of Shigushan village, 2017. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

Fig. 2.11 Collage of front and back façades of a typical row of houses built for the Shigushan Brigade. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

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29

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Fig. 2.12 Standardised unit modules and row of houses built for the Shigushan Brigade. Sources Based on plans provided by Xiaohu Liu; redrawn by the Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17) and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

were originally located. Parallel rows of housing are equally distributed on either side of the axis. The organisation of this housing is based on a basic unit module, a “core” consisting of an enfilade of rooms, including a living room, storage area, and kitchen. Despite this modularity however, irregular dwelling units were formed (Figs. 2.11 and 2.12). An efficient modular system allowed for a unit variation that could accommodate differently sized family households by adding either a bedroom to the right or left of the core. These variations would take

into account the age of children, their sex, and the number of generations sharing the unit. Thus, unlike the Panyu commune, here, housing is still, to an extent, defined by the family and its size. The differences between an early and late example demonstrate a shift from a radical phase of collectivisation to an adjustment phase that adapted to existing social structures and upheld the family unit. More importantly, they signify a readjustment of social relationships defined by household, production, and governance.

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

2.2

The Danwei (Work-Unit)

The danwei (work-unit) dominated the urban development of industrial cities in China from the 1950s to the 1990s, and is in part rooted in the Communist labour movement that took place between the years of 1920 and 1940 (Perry 1997). The construction of a new corporate life by the Bank of China in Shanghai during the 1930s was an important precedent to the paternalistic relationship between employer and employee that would later typify the danwei (Yeh 1997). Aided by a hukou system introduced in 1958, which coincided with the collectivisation of the population and regulation of labour mobility, the danwei was to strengthen a labour force defined by their native place or workplace instead of class associations. To give a sense of the urban-rural labour distribution in China’s planned economy, in 1957 there were 31,010,000 workers and 205,660,000 rural labourers, which respectively accounted for 13% and 86.5% of the overall labour force, this rose to 23.8% and 76.1% in 1978, or 94,990,000 workers and 303,420,000 rural labourers.8 Typically forming an autonomous, enclosed compound, the danwei is an all-inclusive urban unit defined by different types of state-owned enterprise, ranging from factories and hospitals to universities. It provided comprehensive living, working, and communal services, including canteens, public bathrooms, kindergartens, health clinics, and assembly halls for all its workers. Through a system of shared training and living, as well as cultural and sports activities, a collective subjectivity of employees was formed. The danwei had far-reaching economic, administrative, and social welfare functions, including the provision of social security through employment, housing, healthcare, childcare, welfare, and pensions. Consequently, these collective developments were not only concerned with standardising physical infrastructures and the built environment, but with the planning and

8

31

National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook 1981 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1982). It is important to note that the definition of “worker” here includes workers from all types of danwei as well as commune-level administrative workers who receive a state salary.

realisation of a socio-economic environment, one which was enabled by a comprehensive provision of shared facilities, as well as industrial buildings for production and housing for all workers. In this context, architectural design and planning for cities were greatly influenced by questions of standardisation and a planned economy for live-work collectives. This created planning units that were designed at the neighbourhood scale and managed access to housing, employment, healthcare and childcare, social services, education, culture, and sports. Through the repetition of these large-scale planning units, a homogenous and expansive urban field was created, which was essentially made up of disconnected and autonomous parts. It is important to note, however, that danweis could greatly differ in size. Unlike the community planning model of the “neighbourhood unit” by Clarence Perry or the Soviet “microdistrict”, the neighbourhood scale of a danwei was variable and predominantly dependent on the size of the enterprise or institution it accommodated. Consequently, its inclusion of public or commercial functions was also not fixed but conditioned by the wealth of its members, rendering the danwei a pliable administrative model. Following the proliferation of people’s communes in rural areas, urban communes also began to emerge in cities during the Great Leap Forward. Existing only for a short period of time, however, the majority of these so-called communes were often termed as such to denote the mere restructuring of administrative bodies or renaming of existing governments. The Fusuijing Urban Commune, also known as the Socialist Mansion, was completed in 1960–61 and is one of only three built pilot projects of this typology in Beijing (Fig. 2.13). In Fusuijing, housing and all service provision were condensed into one 8-storey building that included a kindergarten, shop, hair salon, activities room, and a canteen that could serve hundreds of people at the same time, with becoming a resident being a highly selective process (Song 2010). The Fusuijing building was the very expression of national collectivisation in China at its peak.

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.13 Fusuijing Urban Commune, Beijing. Source Architectural Association Beijing Visiting School (2015)

Fig. 2.14 Masterplan for Caoyang New Village, Shanghai, 1956. Source Wang Dingzeng, “The Planning of Shanghai Caoyang New Village Residential District”, Architectural Journal, 1956 (2): 1–15

From the 1950s to 1970s, the workers’ villages that were funded either directly by the state or indirectly through danweis, provided another model of housing. While the danwei hinged on a work-live relationship, the workers’ village was more of a public housing model. As the name “village” suggests, its spatial aspiration was to create an idyllic, but also hygienic and modern, living environment (Li 2017). A typical example is Caoyang New Village, built in suburban Shanghai between 1951 and 1977 (Fig. 2.14) (Wang 1956). This typology, however, can be traced back to the pre-communist “model village” of the Republic of China (1912–1949), which provided working class housing that was to shape the worker as a “complete man”, but is equally associated with the New Village Movement of the early 1920s (Liang 2018).

Architectural studies of the danwei include Duanfang Lu’s Remaking Chinese Urban Form (2006), a study of contemporary Chinese urban form and its histories, including the danwei and the people’s commune. Modern Urban Housing in China (2001) by Junhua Lü, Peter G Rowe, and Jie Zhang and Tao Wang in “Housing Developments in the Socialist Planned Economy from 1949 to 1978”, provide a more detailed architectural analysis of modern housing, largely focused on danwei housing and policies from 1949 to 1978, and the economic and political contexts in which they were created.

A number of social science scholars, such as Martin King Whyte and William L. Parish (1984), Xiaobo Lü and Elizabeth Perry (1997), Yihu Zhou and Xiaoming Yang (2002), Mark W. Frazier (2002), Hanlin Li (2004), and Morris L. Bian (2005), have examined the origin and institutionalisation of the danwei and its social and economic impacts. But among these works, the importance of spatial design to its functioning is still largely overlooked. A well-known exception is David Bray’s Social Space and Governance in Urban China: The Danwei System from Origins to

In recent years, the history and origins of the danwei and its built forms have received increasing attention by academic, professional, and political audiences, as this urban heritage has become directly linked to urban regeneration needs in contemporary Chinese cities, which has seen the extensive demolition of former danwei areas. For example, Michele Bonino and Filippo de Pieri in Beijing Danwei: Industrial Heritage in the Contemporary City (2015) looked at the danwei in Beijing through the lens of industrial heritage and urban experimentation.

Reform (2005), which offers an extensive and critical study of the socio-spatial nature of the danwei in parallel to a comprehensive analysis of its history.

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

However, some essential knowledge gaps remain in research on the danwei. Existing discourses often lack an interdisciplinary and historical approach that can explain how a history of collective forms, represented by the danweis, relates to contemporary forms of community development or the ongoing debate of building sustainable communities. There is also a significant lack of basic architectural and urban analysis of the increasingly historical danwei and the modern, socialist, and industrial heritage it represents. The danwei created an efficient standardisation of housing and the urban block that permitted enough variation to accommodate the needs of different shared institutions and

33

functions. In this sense, it was a resilient model that could deal with significant changes without losing its basic organisation around defined housing blocks and communities. Its biggest perceived problem today is that of low density and issues around vehicular circulation, as the block interior was designed for pedestrian use only. But its density, for example, is still significantly higher than comparable regions of London, with London’s terraced housing fabric lacking in flexibility, thus, restricting possibilities of densification and the insertion of public infrastructures seen in the danwei, as well as the clear spatial community it has created.

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2.2.1 Case Study 1: Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corporation, Wuhan, Hubei Province (1950s–)

Fig. 2.15 Masterplan of the Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corporation (WISCO), 1983. Source Wuhan gang tie gong si [WISCO], Wu gang zhi: 1952–1981, Volume 1, Part 1 (Wuhan Shi: Wuhan gang tie gong si, 1983)

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35

a. Canteen

Fig. 2.16 WISCO residential District 8 and 9. Source Wu gang zhi: 1952–1981, Volume 1, Part 1 (1983)

The Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) was one of China’s 156 Projects that were assisted by the Soviet Union as part of the national First Five-year Plan (1953– 1957).9 WISCO started operation in 1958 in the Qingshan District, Wuhan, and is located in the northeast of the city, taking up a significant portion of its urban area (Figs. 2.15 and 2.16). This meant it had to take on corresponding administrative and social service burdens, having for example its own health, real estate, and education departments, as well as a whole range of cultural and social facilities. Accordingly, its different public facilities were also greatly distributed. Due to its size, it had thus an urban organisation in terms of the infrastructure needed to connect its various sectors and functions, such as housing and canteens, public services and amenities including a department store, bathhouse, public transport, sport fields, theatre and hospital, and a wide range of educational facilities (Fig. 2.17). WISCO provided a full range of social welfare and public services, however, contrary to what this might suggest, these were not entirely public but exclusively for members of the danwei. The housing blocks of WISCO have a mid-rise suburban character, they are semi-autonomous and are constituted by a repetition of gated urban blocks (Figs. 2.18, 2.19, 2.20, 2.21, 2.22 and 2.23). Largely based on anonymous designs

9

The First Five-year Plan was implemented in 1953 and prioritised the development of heavy industry.

b. Middle school and college

c. Commute buses for workers

Fig. 2.17 WISCO danwei services in the 1980s. From top to bottom: canteen, middle, college, and commuter buses for workers. Source Wu gang zhi: 1952–1981, Volume 1, Part 1 (1983)

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng N

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Fig. 2.18 Reconstructed masterplan for WISCO District 8 and 9 in the 1950s. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

Fig. 2.19 Aerial view of a WISCO residential area in the 1980s. Source Wu gang zhi: 1952–1981, Volume 1, Part 1 (1983)

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

37 N

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Fig. 2.20 Plan of WISCO residential District 8 and 9 as in 2016. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

Fig. 2.21 Aerial view of a WISCO residential District 8 and 9 in 2016. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.22 Group photo of Soviet experts in Wuhan, 1955. Source WISCO museum., Wuhan

Fig. 2.23 Street façade (2017, under demolition). Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

by Soviet architects, the WISCO Housing District 8 and Housing District 9 employed a courtyard typology with three different arrangements. Despite an axial disposition, forming a central urban block core or axis with non-housing functions that link the urban blocks or segments, the typical housing arrangements are in principle autonomous and oriented towards the large open courtyards around which they are arranged. Due to the walled enclosure of each urban block, they essentially create an urban fabric made up of cellular, repeated units that have little interaction. Nevertheless, this model demonstrates a flexible composition that sees each block create variations for different formal and functional requirements.

Within the urban block, what appears to be public open urban spaces, are in fact collective spaces that are not designed the wider public, but rather a clearly defined group or constituency of users that live next to it. In this sense, the urban is less formed by public infrastructural connections than organised through semi-public and private spaces. These are defined by an efficient housing standardisation made up of six building and eight unit typologies (Figs. 2.24, 2.25 and 2.26). These all use a limited set of flat typologies that follow a legible housing space standard. The standardisation of housing in WISCO is consistent with the larger development of standard unit flat typologies found throughout China’s danwei housing (Rowe et al. 2016).

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

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Fig. 2.24 Housing typology I and unit typologies. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

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Fig. 2.25 Housing typology II and unit typologies. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

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Fig. 2.26 Housing typology III, IV, and V, and unit typologies. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

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2.2.2 Case Study 2: Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool Factory, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province (1950s)

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100m

Fig. 2.27 Masterplan of the Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool Factory (production area), 1956. Source Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool Factory; courtesy of Yuwei Wang

Located in the Xiangfang District, Harbin, the Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool (HMCT) Factory was one of six factories founded in the 1950s as part of China’s 156 Projects. The HMCT Factory was designed by the China Northeast Architectural Design & Research Institute under the guidance of Soviet advisors in 1952 (Fig. 2.27). Coinciding with the nationwide reform of state-owned enterprises, the HMCT Factory underwent major restructuring from 1999 to 2003, and was consequentially renamed HMCT Group Co. Ltd. As a typical danwei, the HMCT Factory consisted of a production (industrial) area and adjacent residential areas,

providing facilities such as an assembly hall and club, a hospital, and a primary school (Figs. 2.28 and 2.29). Its housing blocks were organised through a series of courtyards that were semi-enclosed by different types of residential buildings, which bear a clear resemblance to the organisation of WISCO housing. While the factory area remains largely unchanged to this day, most of the housing originally built in the 1950s has been demolished and privately redeveloped with the exception of one housing block along Minsheng Road that, aside from the renovation of its façade, essentially remains the same (Figs. 2.30, 2.31, 2.32, 2.33, 2.34, 2.35, and 2.36).

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

43

Original masterplan 1956

0

100m

The main building in the factory area The remaining 1950s housing and facilities in 2002

N

Single person dormitory HMCT boundary (factory and residential areas)

Housing

Housing Primary School

Housing & Hospital

Minsheng Road

Assembly Hall / Club

Housing

Train Entrance

Heping Road

Heping Road

Fig. 2.28 Reconstructed plan of the production area in the 1956 masterplan and remaining housing and facilities in 2002. Source Based on information from Yuwei Wang; drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.29 HMCT production and residential areas in 2018. Source Google Earth

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.30 Longitudinal section of main building in the production area, 1956. Source Courtesy of Yuwei Wang

Fig. 2.31 First floor and ground floor plans of main building in the production area, 1956. Source Courtesy of Yuwei Wang

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

45

Fig. 2.32 Cross sections of main building in the production area, 1956. Source Courtesy of Yuwei Wang

Long Section

CHIEF ENGINEER'S OFFICE

HEAT TREATMENT DEPARTMENT INFRASTRUCTURE DEPARTMENT

MARKETING DEPARTMENT

INFRASTRUCTURE DEPARTMENT

ECONOMIC PLANNING DEPARTMENT

ECONOMIC PLANNING DEPARTMENT

CORROSION AND WHET

ARCHIVE OF HUMAN RESOURCES

MEASUREMENT LAB AND EXAMINATION ROOM

RECEPTION AND SECRETARY

SPECIAL DEPARTMENT

DIRECTOR'S OFFICE

FINANCE DEPARTMENT

VICE-DIRECTOR'S OFFICE

RECEPTION ROOM

TECHNICAL EXAMINATION DEPARTMENT

PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT

COORDDINATION ROOM

HIGH TEMPERATURE DEPARTMENT

METALLOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT

PHOTOGRAPHY ROOM

METALLOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT'S DIRECTOR OFFICE

First Floor

SECURITY ROOM

SECURITY ROOM

BROADCASTING ROOM

POWER TRANSFORMER STATION

NURSERY

CHANGING ROOM

DIRTY BANDAGE ROOM

CLEAN BANDAGE ROOM

MEDICAL CARE ROOM

MEDICAL CARE ROOM

REGULATING TANK AND INSTALLATIONS ROOM

STANDARDIZATION ROOM

POWER STATION

GENERAL MEASUREMENTS ROOM

3

ELECTRICITY AUXILIARY ROOM

INSPECTION BOUREAU

PHYSICAL MEDICAL CARE ROOM CADRE DEPARTMENT'S RECEPTION

CADRE DEPARTMENT

CADRE DEPARTMENT

SECURITY DEPARTMENT

WAITING ROOM ON CALL ROOM FOR NURSES

REGISTRATION ROOM

TEMPORARY MEDICAL CARE ROOM

CHANGING ROOM

MEASURING TOOLS LAB

Ground Floor

Fig. 2.33 Main building in the production area. Source Drawn by Raül Avilla Royo

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.34 Original groundfloor plan of dormitory for single persons, 1956. Source Courtesy of Yuwei Wang

a. Roof structure details

b. Decoration details on the gable wall

Fig. 2.35 Construction details for dormitory, 1956. Source Courtesy of Yuwei Wang

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

47

0

Ground floor

5m

A A

A

A

A

A

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A

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A

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3m B

Unit - A

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A

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A Unit - B

Bedroom Kitchen Toilet Storage Staircase Others

1

1. Washing room 2. Laundry 3. Isolation room 4. Administration room 5. Common room

1

3 2

4

3 2

4

5

Typical floor

Ground floor

Fig. 2.36 Single persons dormitory arrangement and plan analysis. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

2.2.3 Case Study 3: Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, Hubei Province (1950s–)

Fig. 2.37 Masterplan for the Huazhong University of Science and Technology main campus, 1953. Source Courtesy of Gangyi Tan

Fig. 2.38 Historical photographs of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology main campus. Source Courtesy of Gangyi Tan

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

49

N

Case study housing

Fig. 2.39 Detail of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology main campus plan in 2017. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

The Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), located in the Hongshan District, Wuhan, was founded in 1952 as an institute devoted to studies related to engineering. Although the campus is now considered one of Wuhan’s most developed and busy urban areas, it was far from the city centre at the time of first construction and had insufficient public transportation connections. To this day, HUST has retained the self-sufficiency, function, and organisation of a danwei. Designed in 1953 with the assistance of Soviet advisors, the campus masterplan employs a grid system with a generic distribution of mid-rise slab buildings (Figs. 2.37, 2.38, and 2.39). In terms of functional layout, teaching areas are

generally positioned near the main road, while living areas for students and teachers are found at the back towards the bottom of the Yujia Hill, revealing basic notions of functional zoning. The housing for students and teachers is standardised and made up of a limited set of unit typologies (Figs. 2.40 and 2.41). The campus also provides a full range of service facilities, including canteens, hospitals, kindergartens, primary schools, assembly halls, gyms, banks, post offices, and teachers’ and students’ clubs as well as factories. Over the period of more than six decades, the campus’ density has now increased significantly, while the overall grid system has remained the principal spatial and organisational structure.

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Housing typology I

0

5m

First floor

T K

L - Living Room B - Bedroom K - Kitchen T - Toilet

B

L/B 0

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Ground floor Unit - A

A

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Living Room Bedroom Kitchen Toilet Storage Staircase

A

Housing typology II

0

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Typical floor

A

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Ground floor

K

T

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Living Room Bedroom Kitchen Toilet Storage Staircase Balcony

T

L

B S

By Unit - A

By

0

3m

Unit - B

L - Living Room, B - Bedroom, K - Kitchen, T - Toilet, S - Storage, By - Balcony

Fig. 2.40 Housing and unit typologies. Source Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17)

B

A

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

51

Housing typology III

0

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Ground floor

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Living Room Bedroom Kitchen Toilet Storage Staircase Balcony

L

B

B By

K

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L - Living Room B - Bedroom K -TKitchen T - Toilet By - Balcony

0

3m

Unit - A

Fig. 2.40 (continued)

Fig. 2.41 Street façade of housing typology I, 2017. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

2.3

53

The Xiaoqu (Small District)

A contemporary community (shequ) in China is, first and foremost, an administrative space or governing unit that provides exclusive social services to its residents. Determined by community building policies, the contemporary concept of community started to take shape in 1987 and has gradually become a critical part of grassroots administration in urban areas, with the xiaoqu (small district) emerging as a new neighbourhood unit. That said, contemporary urban communities and community-led neighbourhood developments are equally rooted in historical collective forms such as the people’s commune and danwei. Beginning in 1978, the economic reform and decline of industrial manufacturing led, in the 1980s, to state-owned enterprises being relieved from their responsibility to provide welfare functions, which made new urban policy and governance necessary. The lowest unit of urban governance, which was the danwei in the collectivisation era, is today rescaled to fit the territorial and administrative size of a community. At the same time, the direct overlap between the urban neighbourhood, social space, and grassroots governance in residential areas from the danwei period has been realigned and experimented with in the xiaoqu. Thus, new xiaoqus, whether gated or ungated, are not merely an outcome of real estate speculation resulting from housing commodification that began in 1979, but are, more importantly, still organised according to socio-spatial structures that continue to regulate access to housing and public services today. In this regard, the contemporary xiaoqu remains essential to providing social mobility and social security. The state also remains directly involved in their governance and the provision of services, however, coinciding with reforms in the household registration system (hukou), the way in which these services are distributed and accessed, permitting increased free movement of the population, has fundamentally changed. In other words, locality, social space, self-governance, state representation, and social or public services are strongly linked in a xiaoqu, and ultimately define the community (Figs. 2.42, 2.43, and 2.44). With an increasing marketisation and privatisation of housing in China, the contemporary urban xiaoqu is, when

compared to the danwei, a much more heterogeneous model that accommodates a diverse demographic and various types of ownership. In fact, there are xiaoqus that are still owned and occupied by a particular danwei, some of which were built by danweis in an attempt to relocate their population off valuable urban sites that could be redeveloped for profit, and completely private or commercial xiaoqus. Among our four case studies, the Geguang Community (Figs. 2.45, 2.46, 2.47, and 2.48) and the Miaosan Community (Figs. 2.49, 2.50, 2.51, and 2.52) in Wuhan, the Xinyuan Xili Community (Figs. 2.53, 2.54, 2.55, and 2.56) in Beijing, and the Hongmei Xiaoqu (Figs. 2.57, 2.58, 2.59, and 2.60) in Shanghai, the first three accommodate a mix of former danwei residents and external owners, while the fourth has a mix of relocated residents and external owners. Despite differences in ownership and demographics, all xiaoqus continue to spatially demarcate and define a clearly identifiable community and its members. Different ways of providing services within xiaoqus are thus often carried out in line with their specific ownership models. For example, in the xiaoqus that have a continued relationship with a danwei, service provisions continue to be, at least in parts, the responsibility of the danwei. In privately owned xiaoqus, however, services and facilities are instead often provided by developers and/or property management companies, which tend to have a better range and quality of services. In cases where both the danwei and the private sector are absent, the state steps in to provide these services, which creates a costly, large-scale challenge to rationalise their provision and urban governance. In respect to a typical, generalised urban governance structure in China, there is a hierarchy that extends from the city level, which in the case of Wuhan—a Tier 2 city—serves 10.9 million people, to the district level, which in the Hongshan District has a population of over 1 million people, and the sub-district level, which in the Guanshan Sub-district has a population of 283,000. This hierarchy further encompasses that of the lower community level. The community level is a basic autonomous or grassroots

54

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organisational level and equally forms an integral part of the functioning and representation of the Communist Party of China. The community normally incorporates several xiaoqus, for which it might have different levels of administrative responsibility. While community governance varies from city to city, the key administrative body is that of the residents’ committee, in which party and community representation overlap. In addition to the resident’s committee, most xiaoqus have a property management company responsible for the management and maintenance of shared or public areas and facilities, and an owner’s committee in cases where housing is privatised. Within the community governance structure, there is a mixture of party representatives, community representatives, and elected and employed Fig. 2.42 View of Geguang Community from its service centre, 2018. committee members as well as community volunteers Source Photograph by Yizhuo Gao (so-called activists) that work together to provide social services. Facilitating state involvement, this structure provides, to an extent, legitimacy for community-led developments, but also presents itself as a major source of conflict.

Fig. 2.43 Residents’ activity room in the Hongmei Community, 2018. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 2.44 A variety of sign boards at the entrance of the community centre, Miaosan Community, 2018. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

An analysis of the different community typologies in China is provided by Peter G. Rowe, Ann Forsyth, and Ye Kan Har in China’s Urban Communities (2016). Through a study of 25 neighbourhood cases from a range of Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities, this work also traces a genealogy of the concepts of community in China over several millennia from the Shang Dynasty to post-reform China (Rowe et al. 2016). With the classification primarily based on the built form of communities, such as “parallel block arrangements”, “high-rise developments”, “garden city neighbourhoods”, and “traditional forms”, however, the discussion remains predominantly descriptive of built form. That said, a history of collective models and the social changes that occurred during the transformation from the danwei to the xiaoqu and community system, is provided by Bray (2005) through a discussion of social identity, labour relations and management, housing development, and urban spatial practice, as well as an analysis of the “complexity and contingency” of these processes (Lü and Shao 2001). This often discussed transition phase is also captured in studies of China’s housing development such as that by Junhua Lü and Lei Shao (2001), who study the shift in housing provision from a form of welfare in the danwei to its commodification after China’s economic reforms. Since the 2000s, a growing discourse on contemporary communities in China and their built environments has developed and is perhaps linked to an emerging shift from large-scale planning to smaller-scale urban regeneration and design, as well as the creation of a new “community planning” category. In one of the very early analyses of this shift in China, Wei Zhao and Min Zhao (2002) discuss how community as a subject of study is understood differently in

2

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

sociology and urban planning, further explaining the main differences between traditional urban planning and community planning. In 2013, Planner, a Chinese academic journal, published a special issue focusing on a system of community planning, which at the time had not yet been established. It discussed, primarily at a theoretical level, community building, community planning, and the role of a community planner in the Chinese social and political

55

context, alongside developments in community planning from a global perspective. With community planning increasingly put into practice, discussions surrounding pilot projects and new approaches to practice began to emerge, such as that of an action-oriented working framework of community planners proposed by Sisi Liu and Leiqing Xu (2018).

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Geguang Community, Wuhan, Hubei Province (built in 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2003) Wuhan 8569.15 km2 (built urban area 585.61 km2); Population 10,892,900 (hukou 8,536,500); 13 Districts (and 5 Functional Zones); 156 Sub-districts, 1 Town and 3 Townships; 1319 Community Committees and 1825 Village Committees

Hongshan District 480 km2 (actual management area 220.5 km2); Population 1,049,000 (hukou 650,000); 9 Sub-districts and 1 Township;

Guanshan Sub-district 35 km2; Population 283,000; 38 Communities;

Geguang Community 0.06 km2; Population 5234; Household 1524

Geguang Xiaoqu

Yufeng Jiayuan

Lataishan Xiaoqu

Household 920 Population 3800 (hukou 3200) 18 Buildings; 3 Grids

Household 216 5 Buildings; 1 Grid (located in another xiaoqu)

Household 100 (Only responsible for ‘people not the land’)

Household 288 (To be relocated)

Fig. 2.45 Administrative structure, Geguang Community, Wuhan (2018)

Geguang Xiaoqu

Yufeng Jiayuan

0

Fig. 2.46 Aerial view of Geguang Community, Wuhan, 2018. Source Google Earth

100m

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

57

Avenue

1. Guard’s Room 2. Supermarket 3. Long Pavilion 4. Electricity Room 5. Clinic

Guanggu

2

and Activity Rooms 7. Bicycle & Motorcycle Storage 8. Water Room N

7

4

2n

d

2

Gu

an

1

6

sh

an

5

1

Ro

ad

3

6

8

5

2

8 7 6 9

4

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11

3

15

16

14

17

13

12

18

7

Housing

Facilities

Playground

Greenery

Boundary Wall

0

1 Block Number

20m

Fig. 2.47 Masterplan of the Geguang Xiaoqu, 2018. Source Collated and drawn by Xiaomao Cao, Yunshi Zhou, Yizhuo Gao, and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

K

T

L

B

B

By

Fig. 2.48 Typical unit plan, Geguang Xiaoqu. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

L - Living Room B - Bedroom By - Balcony K - Kitchen T - Toilet

B

ca. 80-90 m2 0

3m

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Miaosan Community, Wuhan, Hubei Province (built in the early 1980s and 2000) Wuhan 8569.15 km2 (built urban area 585.61 km2); Population 10,892,900 (hukou 8,536,500); 13 Districts (and 5 Functional Zones); 156 Sub-districts, 1 Town and 3 Townships; 1319 Community Committees and 1825 Village Committees

Jianghan District 28.29 km2; Population 830,000; 13 Sub-districts; 108 Community Committees

Beihu Sub-district 14.5 km2; Population 153,000; 15 Communities and 2 Administrative Villages;

Miaosan Community 0.43 km2; Population 3526 (hukou 2526)

6 ‘Old’ Xiaoqus (ex-danwei housing)

Jintai

Household 332 Built in the 1980s No property management company

Household 64 Built in 2002

Yuanchen Guoji Household 273 Built in 2002

Wanhao

Shiji Huating

Household ca. 300 Built in 2002 (residential & commercial)

Household 189 Built in 2001 (residential & commercial)

Fig. 2.49 Administrative structure, Miaosan Community, Wuhan (2018)

Shiji Huating

Old Xiaoqu Area (incl. Jintai and Yuanchen Guoji) Wanhao

0

Fig. 2.50 Aerial view of Miaosan Community, Wuhan, 2018. Source Google Earth

100m

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

59

1. Community Policy Station 2. Community Activity Room 3. Jintai Xiaoqu Guard’s Room 4. Bicycle & Motorcycle Storage 5. Wuhan City Maternity Hospital 6. Metro Station 7. Bus Station oad

est R xiao W

Ro Xibeihu

Huang

ad

6

7 4 6 2

1

5

3 Qingnian Road

2

5

N

Housing

Facilities

Greenery

0

Boundary Wall

Fig. 2.51 Masterplan of the Miaosan old xiaoqu area, 2018. Source Collated and drawn by Xiaomao Cao and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

B

L - Living Room B - Bedroom K - Kitchen T - Toilet

K L

T

B

B ca. 70-80 m2 0

Fig. 2.52 Typical unit plan, Miaosan old xiaoqu area. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

3m

20m

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Xinyuan Xili Community, Beijing (built in the early 1980s) Beijing 16410.54 km2 ; Population 21,707,000 (hukou 13,592,000); 16 Districts; 150 Sub-districts, 143 town and 38 townships; 3054 Residents’ Committees and 3941 Village Committees

Chaoyang District 470.8 km2 (Built Area 177.2 km2); Population 3,739,000 (hukou 1,688,000); Elderly Population 11.3% 24 Sub-districts (and 19 Other Sub-districts)

Zuojiazhuang Sub-district 4.17 km2; Population 87,741 (hukou 67,340); 9 Communities

Xinyuan Xili Community 0.75 km2; Household 2037; Population ca. 5100 (hukou 3820); Elderly Population 30%; Rental Household ca. 700; 23 Buildings; Housing Ownership Stakeholders 10+

No owners’ committee Property management company 16+ Danwei history Built in the early 1980s

Zhongjie Xiaoqu

Dongjie Xiaoqu

Fig. 2.53 Administrative structure, Xinyuan Xili Community, Beijing (2018)

0

Fig. 2.54 Aerial view of Xinyuan Xili Community, Beijing, 2018. Source Google Earth

100m

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

61

1. Xinyuan Xili Primary School 2. Xinyuan Xili Kindergarten 3. Beijing Yijian Sanye Hospital 4. Clinic and Service Station for the Elderly 5. Yifang Property Management Company

N

ZJ 2

Xin

do

ng

Ro

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te rB yw

ay

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en

Ou

ZJ 1

im

ZJ 3

Do ng zh

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ZJ 12

ZJ 7

4

ZJ 11

7 3 5 ZJ 15 ZJ 16

DJ 10

DJ 10

2 DJ 12

DJ 7

DJ 4

DJ 8

DJ 5

DJ 1

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6

ZJ 19

Housing

Facilities

Playground

DJ 11

Greenery

DJ 3

DJ 9

Boundary Wall

0

ZJ1/DJ1 Block Number

60m

Fig. 2.55 Masterplan of the Xinyuan Xili Community, 2018. Source Based on map by MAT Office. Collated and drawn by Pengyu Chen and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

B

B

T

K

L B

L - Living Room B - Bedroom By - Balcony K - Kitchen T - Toilet ca. 50-60 m2 0

By

Fig. 2.56 Typical unit plan, Xinyuan Xili Community. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

3m

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S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng

Qinbei Residents’ Committee, Shanghai (built in 1996) Shanghai 6340.50 km2 ; Population 24,183,300 (hukou 14,456,500); 16 Districts; 105 Sub-districts, 107 town and 2 townships; 4253 Residents’ Committees and 1590 Village Committees

Xuhui District 54.93 km2; Population 1,085,600 (hukou 920,800); 12 Sub-districts and 1 Town; 305 Residents’ Committees

Hongmei Sub-district (Community) 5.98 km2; Population 30,839 (hukou 18,369); 13 Residents’ Committees; 22 Xiaoqu and 1 Urban Village

Qinbei Residents’ Committee Household 627; Population 2800 (hukou 1028)

Hongmei Xiaoqu

Hongliu Xiaoqu

Zoujiazhai Urban Village (traditional village - commune - urban village)

Built in 1996;10 Buildings Household 360; Rental rate 50%

Built in 1987-88; Household 154; Rental rate 60%

Owners’ Committee Property Management Company

Owners’ Committee Property Management Company

Registered Household 44 Population: hukou ca. 300 without hukou ca. 1300 Self-Organisation Teams (7+7)

Fig. 2.57 Administrative structure, Qinbei Residents’ Committee, Shanghai (2018)

Zoujiazhai Urban Village

Hongliu Xiaoqu

Hongmei Xiaoqu

0

Fig. 2.58 Aerial view of the xiaoqus under Qinbei Residents Committee, Shanghai, 2018. Source Google Earth

100m

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Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

63

Fig. 2.59 Masterplan of the Hongmei Xiaoqu, 2018. Source Collated and drawn by Renze Zhang and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

K

T

S

L

Sy

L - Living Room B - Bedroom By - Balcony K - Kitchen T - Toilet S - Storage Sy - Study ca. 90-100 m2

B

B 0

By

Fig. 2.60 Typical unit plan, Hongmei Xiaoqu. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

3m

2

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis …

2.4

65

Concluding Comparison

A comparison of the analysed architectural case studies and their modular organisation from unit to unit cluster to building and urban block, show noteworthy similarities and differences (Fig. 2.61). Starting with the Shigushan Brigade housing, its modularity expresses a traditional cellular organisation with a large central room (living room) and secondary rooms to either side (bedrooms). However, the cell-to-cell relationship is non-traditional, as bedrooms are allocated to each unit according to household size and need, and produce irregular, interlocking units. In the case of the Shawei Settlement, unit sizes are determined by a non-familial and non-domestic radical form of collective housing, and the units are based on an efficient repetition. However, one can still recognise the central space organisation with two secondary “wings” in the overall disposition of the building. Modularity at the room and building scale is used in both cases from the rural people’s commune to reinforce a social idea of housing. In comparison, in the Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool Factory, the urban danwei housing has no compositional expression or hierarchy between shared central and individual adjacent spaces. The building plan is designed to be efficient and has the aim of forming a larger block ensemble. The importance of the urban block arrangement is particularly evident in the Wuhan Iron and Steel Cooperation,

which clearly shows a Soviet-inspired urban block layout in which buildings enclose and define a hierarchical series of shared (public) spaces. The modularity occurs here at the unit and building scale, in order to create standardised plans that can be efficiently repeated. In contrast to this, the housing of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, as well as the recent xiaoqu plans show an even more technical and environmental approach to the building disposition. All buildings are parallel, in order to maximise their optimal sun orientation. Being placed in walled and gated plots of land, the larger urban morphology does not matter. This also indicates that the articulation of a “public space” and the landscape is not deemed relevant or important in the conventional sense. There is also a complete repetition of elements from the room to the building scale. The only legible difference between the plan layout found in the danwei and xiaoqu housing is an increasing unit size and a decreasing number of units that are being served by one access point, in order to increase the privacy of the units and minimise shared areas. The housing design has thus moved from an increasingly collective yet differentiated to an increasingly private and repetitive model that is clearly reflected in the changing approaches to the planning of housing and its immediate surroundings.

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Unit

Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool (HMCT) Factory Residential Block

Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) Residential District 8 & 9

A A

Unit Cluster

B

A

A B

Building Block

A A A A A A A A A

A B A C

C

A A A A A AA A A A A A A A

A E

D

A B

A

A B

D

E

Rural Case Studies

Neighbourhood

B

A A A A A A

Panyu People’s Commune, Shawei Settlement Youth Housing

Panyu People’s Commune, Shawei Settlement Housing Compounds & Units

Fig. 2.61 Comparative matrix of case studies. Source Drawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

2

Collective Forms in China: An Architectural Analysis … Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) Residential Block

67 Geguang Community Geguang Xiaoqu

A

A

A

A

B

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Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) Residential Block

Neighbourhood

Rural Case Studies

Living Room Bedroom Kitchen Toilet Storage Staircase Balcony

Fenghuang People’s Commune, Shigushan Brigade Standard Housing Row

Fig. 2.61 (continued)

Others

68

Note The research on the urban communities and xiaoqus in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan was supported by funding from the British Academy’s The Humanities and Social Sciences Tackling the UK’s International Challenges programme (Collective Forms: Neighbourhood Transformations, Spatialised Governmentality, and New Communities in China, primary investigator Sam Jacoby). The Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School (2016–17) was led by Sam Jacoby and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng with great support by Tan Gangyi, Vice-Dean School of Architecture & Urban Planning and Head of the Department of Architecture, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. We thank all our tutors and workshop participants in assisting in the documentation of the people’s commune and danwei case studies. Tutors: Deng Ai, Qian Chen, Raül Avilla Royo, Rongwei Yuan, Valerio Massaro, Xiaomao Cao, Yating Song, Shikuang Tang, Yuwei Wang. Participants: (2016) Benqi Zhu, Bingling Rao, Bixiao Yuan, Chen Qin, Huizi Zhu, Jiawei Yuan, Linna Li, Man Huang, Mingyu Ye, Olga Konyukova, Qian He, Rongwei Yuan, Shangzi Tu, Song Zhang, Ting Yan, Xiandian Gong, Xiangyu Zhang, Xiaoting Zhao, Yan Zhao, Yi Ju, Yishen Zhao, Yishuang Li, Yu Qu, Yushu Kong, and (2017): Aobo Guan, Biwen Yu, Bowen Zhang, Chengxuan Fang, Chenxing Ding, Danzhou Li, Dongyang Mi, Guangyu He, Haocheng Wang, Huace Yang, Huiyu Fan, Jesus Daniel Stamatis Portugal, Jiahui Ma, Jia Ling Lim, Jiayuan Wang, Jin Yi, Jing Yuan, Juntian Chen, Junyan Ye, Leilei Zhu, Letian Zhang, Lixia Ye, Miaomiao Yu, Pengcheng Zhai, Ruijie Jiang, Shangyun Chen, Shiyan Chen, Shiyin Tang, Sizhe Wang, Songzi Zhou, Tianxiang Xia, Weiheng Cao, Weijian Li, Xiaolei Zhu, Yanning Xiang, Yaqi Wang, Yinshuang Yu, Yixin Miao, Yujin Cao, Yunshi Zhou, Zihan Gao, Zixin Wang.

References Bennett G (1978) Huadong: the story of a Chinese people’s commune. Westview Press, Boulder, CO Bian M (2005) The making of the state enterprise system in modern China: the dynamics of institutional change. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Bonino M, de Pieri F (2015) Beijing danwei: industrial heritage in the contemporary city. JOVIS, Berlin Bray D (2005) Social space and governance in urban China: the danwei system from origins to reform. Stanford University Press

S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng Frazier MW (2002) The making of the Chinese industrial workplace: state, revolution and labour management. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gilbert A (1982) Urban and regional systems: a suitable case for treatment? In: Gilbert A, Gugler J (eds) Cities, poverty, and development: urbanization in the third world. Oxford UP, Oxford, pp 162–197 He X (2007) Shilun 20 Shiji Zhongguo Xiangcun Zhili de Luoji (试论 20 世纪中国乡村治理的逻辑) [On the logic of China’s rural governance in the 20th century]. Rural China: Int J Hist Soc Sci, 157–173 Li H (2004) Thoughts on Chinese work-unit society (中国单位社会). Shanghai People Publishing House, Shanghai Li Y (2017) ‘New Village’: an alternative scope for the study of built environment (新村”——一个建筑历史研究的观察视角). Time + Architecture (02):16–20 Liang ZC (2018) Becoming a ‘Complete Man’: YMCA Pudong Workers’ model village and the practice of ‘Model Village’ in the early 20th Century (成为 “完整的人”——20世纪初期上海基督 教青年会的 “模范村” 探索). New Architecture (05):34–37 Liu S, Xu L (2018) Study on the community regeneration propelled by community planners and its frame (社区规划师推进下的社区更新 及工作框架). Shanghai Urban Plann Rev 04:28–36 Lu D (2006) Remaking Chinese urban form: modernity, scarcity and space, 1949–2005. Routledge, London Lü X, Perry EJ (1997) Danwei: the changing Chinese workplace in historical and comparative perspective. ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY Lu J, Rowe PG, Zhang J (eds) (2001) Modern urban housing in China, 1840–2000. Prestel, Munich Lü J, Shao L (2001) Housing Development from 1978 to 2000 after China adopted reform and opening-up policies. In: Lu J, Rowe PG, Zhang J (eds) Modern urban housing in China, 1840–2000. Prestel, Munich, pp 187–282 National Bureau of Statistics (1982) China statistical yearbook 1981. China Statistics Press, Beijing Perry EJ (1997) From native place to workplace: labor origins and outcomes of China’s danwei system. In: Lu X, Perry EJ (eds) Danwei: the changing Chinese workplace in historical and comparative perspective. ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY Rowe PG, Ann F, Har YK (2016) China’s urban communities: concepts, contexts, and well-being. Birkhäuser, Berlin School of Architecture, South China University of Technology (1959) Guangdong Panyu Renmin Gongshe Shawei Jumindian Xinjian Geti Jianzhu Sheji Jieshao (广东省番禺人民公社沙圩居民点新建 个体建筑设计介绍) [Architectural design for new buildings in the Shawei Settlement, Panyu People’s Commune, Guangdong Province]. Archit J (02):3–8 Skinner GW (1965) Marketing and social structure in rural China: part III. J Asian Stud 24(3):363–399 Song C (2010) Chengshi Renmin Gongshe de Xingqi yu Zhongjie: Yi Beijing Weili (城市人民公社的兴起与终结—以北京为例) [The rise and fall of the urban people’s commune—in the case of Beijing]. Dangdai Beijing Yanjiu 4:43–49 Wang D (1956) Shanghai Caoyang Xincun Zhuzhai Qu de Guihua Sheji (上海曹杨新村住宅区的规划设计) (The Planning of Shanghai’s Caoyang New Village Residential District). Archit J 02:1–15 Whyte MK, Parish WL (1984) Urban life in contemporary China. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Wuhan gang tie gong si [WISCO] (1983) Wu gang zhi: 1952–1981, Vol 1, Part 1. Wuhan Shi: Wuhan gang tie gong si Xin Y (2001) Shilun Renmin Gongshe De Lishi Diwei (试论人民公社 的历史地位) [On the historical status of the people’s communes]. Contemp China Hist Stud (03):27–40

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Yang CK (1959) Chinese communist society: the family and the village. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Yeh WH (1997) The republican origins of the danwei: the case of Shanghai’s Bank of China. In: Lu X, Perry EJ (eds) Danwei: the changing Chinese workplace in historical and comparative perspective. ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY Zhang J, Wang T (2001) Housing development in the socialist planned economy from 1949 to 1978. In: Lu J, Rowe PG, Zhang J (eds) Modern urban housing in China, 1840–2000. Prestel, Munich

69 Zhao W, Zhao M (2002) From residential area planning to community planning (从居住区规划到社区规划). Urban Planning Forum (06):68–71 Zhou Y, Yang X (2002) Zhongguo Danwei Zhidu (中国单位制度) [China’s danwei system]. China Economic Publishing

Part II Collective Forms

3

Grassroots Governance in Rural China Before China’s Reform and Opening Up Xuefeng He

Abstract

This paper discusses the mechanisms through which the Chinese state extracted resources from the countryside during two important historical periods before China’s reform and opening up: China’s rural governance in the first half of the twentieth century before the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the people’s commune system after the founding of the People’s Republic. The first period saw severe state involution in grassroots organisations due to an inability of the state to supervise grassroots governments and cost-ineffective state institutions dealing with China’s very large rural population. In the second period, an integration of government administration and commune management in the people’s commune enabled an effective organization of the peasantry, efficient resource extraction, and largely successful regime building. The commune system was abolished in the 1980s and the state has since pulled back from rural grassroots organisations. However, a rural governance crisis occurring again in the 1990s as a result of misguided rural policies, reminds us of the importance of a more comprehensive understanding of historical rural governance practices and their underpinning mechanisms in the twentieth century. Keywords

Rural governance commune




Grassroots organisation

China’s reform and opening up started with then distributing farmland to each household tryside. To fully understand the reform in the means to first understand the relationship X. He (&) School of Sociology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]




People’s

dividing and in the counrural context between the

resources extracted from rural areas and the transformation of a rural grassroots governance system during China’s process of modernisation starting in the late Qing Dynasty. This paper discusses rural grassroots governance in two important periods before China’s reform and opening up: first, China’s rural governance in the first half of the twentieth century before the founding of the People’s Republic of China and, second, the people’s commune system after the founding of the People’s Republic.

3.1

Rural Governance in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

In the first half of the twentieth century, the governments of both the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China were confronted by the same challenge of extracting resources from rural areas to support modernisation. Resource extraction from rural grassroots society hinged on expanding state power into rural grassroots, especially by establishing new administrative agencies, in order to acquire the resources needed to build schools, expand public undertakings, and support other modernisation projects. In historical Chinese societies, the state extracted relatively limited resources from rural areas and the system of taxation was set up accordingly. As stated by Prasenjit Duara, crucial to this system was “the domination of local state structures by social elites with independent bases of power typically developed in feudal societies where the state and social power at the local level were perfectly fused” (Duara 1988, 75). The authority of social elites at the local level was built on the cultural nexus of power. “This nexus was composed of hierarchical organisations and networks of informal relations that constantly intersected and interacted with one another. Hierarchical institutions, such as those of the market, kinship, religion, and water control, and networks such as those between patrons and clients or among affines, provided a framework within which power and authority were exercised” (Duara 1988, 5). In the cultural

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_3

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nexus of power, “the affiliation of symbolic values to these organizations lent the nexus an authority, which enabled it to serve as an arena for the expression of legitimate leadership aspirations in local society” (Duara 1988, 5). The cultural nexus that exclusively relied on traditional powers was insufficient in extracting resources needed for modernisation from rural society. Thus, state expansion to the rural grassroots aimed to abandon the traditional cultural nexus of power and establish a new rural government system at the grassroots level. However, without the traditional cultural nexus of power, the newly established government system consumed a great amount of the resources it extracted. As a result, there was no significantly increased contribution made to state finances. More specifically, in order to extract enough resources from rural areas, the state not only relied on formal administrative institutions, but also on informal institutions (typically entrepreneurial brokerage arrangements) for policy implementation. This is the context in which severe state involution occurred. “The involutive state cannot develop systems of bureaucratic responsibility at a rate faster than the entrenchment of the informal apparatus of extraction—a process that is itself induced by the increased extraction and intervention of the state in local society” (Duara 1988, 75). Because of state involution, “the expansion of the fiscal power of the Chinese state occurred concomitantly with growing anarchy in local society” (Duara 1988, 73). This model of expansion therefore was “oppressive and disruptive of local society” (Duara 1988, 76). Eventually, before modernisation was achieved, the legitimacy of the state was severely undermined and all efforts of building a new government system were in vain. In other words, rural governance in the first half of the twentieth century can be understood through two aspects: first, the national interest in extracting more resources from rural areas and corresponding efforts to extend state power to rural society and, second, how rural society responded to national demands and developed its own operational framework. Given the complicated history of the first half of the twentieth century (including the late Qing Dynasty, the Beiyang government, the government of the Republic of China and the Japanese occupation) and regional differences, this paper will only discuss key aspects of rural governance in this period. In traditional society, on the one hand, the state governed indirectly and the peasantry was not burdened by heavy taxation. By implementing reforms, such as the Tan Ding Ru Mu tax reform (the integration of poll tax and land tax), the state was able to regularise the collection of land tax while maintaining control over the land. On the other, the cultural nexus of power in rural society fostered the emergence of protective brokerage arrangements between the state and villages. Therefore, a relative balance was achieved between the state’s extraction of resources from rural areas and a functioning traditional society.

X. He

In the advent of the twentieth century, the state tried to increase the amount of resources extracted from the countryside by building a grassroots government system. But the grassroots organisations established by the state in rural areas also became a reason for increased resource extraction. On the one hand, the grassroots organisations themselves required fiscal expenditures, on the other, it was often difficult for the state to prevent corruption in grassroots organisations. In order to extract sufficient resources from the countryside, the grassroots government, as an extension of the state to rural society, kept creating new types and means of taxation in addition to traditional land tax. However, the grassroots government did not have the capacity to collect these taxes from each rural household. The simple solution was to treat a village as a unit when collecting taxes. The tax that each village needed to pay was known as tankuan. When the state collected tankuan from a village, and if the village had a strong cohesive force or the cultural nexus of power was still in place, the village leaders would fairly divide the overall tax amount between all households based on customary law (xiguan fa). When the state began to excessively extract resources from the countryside, however, with the grassroots government demanding more and more tankuan, to the extent that traditional protective village leaders could no longer cope, the leaders would withdraw from village politics. In order to then effectively extract resources from villages, the grassroots government used entrepreneurial brokers or “aggressive people” (hen ren) who were not constrained by their existing role in the village community, to serve as tax brokers between the state and the peasantry. These brokers did not act in accordance with national law or village customs, but out of self-interest, and determined tankuan based on how easy it was to collect taxes from different units. This entrepreneurial brokerage arrangement accelerated the decline of the traditional cultural nexus in villages and intensified village conflicts. Stratification in villages was exacerbated, which made it increasingly difficult for vulnerable famers to survive. This severely weakened the legitimacy of the state and grassroots government in the countryside. The key aspects of rural governance in the first half of the twentieth century can be summarised as follows: 1. Confronted by challenges of modernisation from the West, the state needed to increase the amount of resources extracted from rural societies. 2. In order to effectively extract resources and promote modern rural development, state power was extended to rural societies, which was evident in, for example, the policy of township autonomy and the establishment of grassroots government (such as district and township governments) in the late Qing Dynasty.

3

Grassroots Governance in Rural China Before …

3. Faced with greatly dispersed rural households, although the grassroots government had a police force, it was very difficult to effectively manage and control rural societies to extract resources. 4. The grassroots government relied on existing protective brokerage arrangements to extract resources and levied tankuan based on a village as a unit rather than individual households. 5. If the grassroots government could impose higher taxes, it had an incentive to increase the tankuan, which could be turned over to the county government and be used to implement new policies or it could be misused to fill its own pockets. 6. If an effective administrative supervision system and a formal bureaucratic system was established, district and township governments could use more tankuan for the implementation of new policies, whereas in a semibureaucratic system, the grassroots government would use more tankuan to subsidise insufficient government income. 7. The distribution of tankuan became an increasingly difficult task, as tankuan was increasingly based on a village as the basic unit and villagers increasingly refused to pay their quota. This rendered protective brokers, who had legitimate authority in a village, unwilling to take up this difficult work. It thus led to the retreat of village elites from village governance, and leader positions being taken up by “local bullies” who collected tankuan for their own benefit. As a result, the traditional cultural nexus of power in villages was disrupted and entrepreneurial brokers gained power and entered the core of village society. 8. While entrepreneurial brokerage arrangements weakened the power of the grassroots government over villages, grassroots government gained more tankuan from villages by encouraging entrepreneurial brokers to take a share of tankuan. But, this damaged village solidarity and in turn the traditional cohesion collapsed, mutual help between villages decreased and the villagers’ capacity to cope with risks in production and life was greatly undermined. Therefore, villages further deteriorated, production shrank, and the ability to pay taxes was further reduced. 9. The exploitation of villagers by the grassroots government and entrepreneurial brokers became increasingly unbearable. The more the grassroots government used entrepreneurial brokers to exploit villagers, the lower the legitimacy of the grassroots government became. 10. The more illegitimate the grassroots government became, the more difficult it was to collect tankuan. The grassroots government had to thus mobilise more resources, give entrepreneurial brokers more rights and

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larger shares, and spend more resources on supporting these large semi-bureaucratic and non-governmental groups. This eventually exacerbated state involution. 11. In the end, before the modern developments fuelled by resources extracted from rural areas could benefit rural society, the peasantry could no longer sustain its exploitation and disruption. The peasantry thus became the revolutionary force that fought against the existing regime. Striking similarities can be found in the relationships between the state and peasantry or farmers in two distinctly different periods: the first half of the twentieth century, and after China’s reform and opening up. Severe involution occurred in grassroots organisations through which the state extracted resources from rural societies for purposes of modernisation. While the burden on the peasantry became much heavier and the essential order of production and living in villages was rapidly disrupted, the amount of resources extracted by the state was only slightly increased. In other words, the state did not extract sufficient resources for their purposes, yet the peasantry had paid a great price. During this process, grassroots organisations took advantage of state pressure to extract resources by forming strong and powerful interest groups, which made any state institutions ineffective. There are two main causes for this. One is a lacking ability of the state to supervise grassroots governments and the other is a lack of cost-effective state institutions to deal with rural households. The latter is in fact the cause of the former. The lack of institutions derives from the fact that rural China has a very large population, but each household has only very limited income, which makes it infeasible for the state to directly collect taxes from each household. In traditional society, this problem was resolved by the balance between state brokers, such as a shushou (an official document writer or scribe), and protective brokers in a relatively autonomous society dominated by local elites and landlords. Because the taxation was lower and regular, and part of a system of appropriate cultural and symbolic values, the state managed to collect compulsory national taxes at a relatively low cost. However, when rural taxes surged in the late Qing Dynasty, this balance in traditional society was broken. Therefore, in order to collect higher taxes, the state had to mobilise police forces and internal power relations in villages, allowing for particularism.1 Differences between these two periods can also be identified. In the first half of the twentieth century, although the local government established by the state had powers to

1

For example, villages could have their own ways of distributing the overall tankuan among villagers.

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enforce itself (such as the use of police for collecting taxes), its political power was rather loose and weak. Without mobilising existing power relationships within the village, the state was unable to directly deal with rural households. Compared to the first half of the twentieth century, political power was far stronger after China’s reform and opening up. The nature of the Chinese socialist regime, however, did not permit the grassroots government to use and enforce its power casually. Without this, the grassroots government had to acquire resources through negotiation and communication by establishing and maintaining good relationships (shuo haohua) with rural households. In the absence of state institutions dealing directly with rural households, particularism, whose premise was to give the grassroots government flexibility, became important. The state could determine various indicators, such as indicators for completing taxation tasks, upgrading tasks, the (maximum) number of petitions from farmers (shangfang), and reducing criminal incidents. But the state can neither specify that the grassroots government must follow the modern taxation system to collect taxes, nor expect farmers to voluntarily turn up at a tax counter to pay their taxes, as some provinces and cities did after the 2003 rural tax reform. In short, the state cannot stipulate what methods the grassroots government adopts to collect taxes (whether through good relationships, coercion, a carrot-and-stick approach, door-to-door collection, over-the-counter collection and so on). Compared to taxation, taking into consideration specific time, situations, and locations, particularism is employed to an even greater extent when it comes to collecting public money to build public facilities and services. This also applies to the first half of the twentieth century, when the state needed to fund the construction of new schools and local public projects. Once a grassroots government has reached some autonomy—while under pressure from the state to extract resources and meet indicators and quotas, and while grassroots officials are motivated by increasing their political power and economic benefits—rural interest groups are soon formed. In this context, once the state can no longer supervise and thereby lose control of grassroots governments, it will soon lose control of the whole situation.

3.2

The Rationale of the People’s Commune

Generally speaking, during the people’s commune period, while the state extracted a large amount of resources from rural areas, grassroots governance was rarely corrupt and the relationship between cadres and the people was relatively

harmonious. No state involution occurred, which was largely due to the organisational structure of the people’s commune. The organisation of the people’s commune was based on the principles of a “three-level ownership with the production team as the foundation” (sanji suoyou, dui wei jichu) and “integrating government administration with commune management” (zheng she heyi). Through this integration, the production team became a constitutive level of collective ownership in the people’s commune, and the state managed for the first time to extend its institutions to production teams, that is, social units at the very bottom of rural society. In this way, the state was able to effectively deal with different conditions in rural areas across the country, making possible the plan put forward by Mao Zedong: “The living standard of the people of the whole country should be improved one step at a time, but cannot be raised too high” (Mao 1977, 106). Resources from increased agricultural production could be used for modernisation in a planned way. For example, the state had the ability to collect grains from collective production teams through the commune system. Since this means of extracting resources from production teams was stable, the state could prevent the formation of interest groups that would have both cheated the state and exploited the peasantry, and could also prevent grassroots government from bleeding the peasantry dry through taxation. It was through the people’s commune system that China was able to achieve the major task of building a new regime and establish a complete, modern economic system based on self-reliance. The objectives of socialist industrialisation were thus largely achieved. Of course, the people’s commune had its own problems, especially with the production team as both a production and distribution unit. Collective production and distribution were not the best way to motivate individual farmers to produce more or better. Therefore, after the initial establishment of a modern industrial system in China and at the beginning of the reform and opening up period, a household-based smallholding agricultural economy was re-established by dividing and distributing farmland to each household in the countryside. But it was through the people’s commune that sufficient resources were extracted from rural areas to support modernisation. The state was thus able to reduce taxation on farmers after the reform and opening up, and could further abolish agricultural tax in 2006. The state today has not only stopped extracting resources from rural areas, but also started to plan and implement a new Socialist countryside strategy that is “using industry to subsidise agriculture, and opportunities and resources in cities to advance rural development” (yi nong bu nong, yi cheng dai xiang).

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Grassroots Governance in Rural China Before …

3.3

Conclusion

The key factor determining rural governance in twentieth-century China was the state’s need to identify and/or establish sufficient grassroots organisations through which it could extract large amounts of resources from rural areas. In China, while the population of the peasantry was extremely large, the surplus income of each household was very limited. The countryside was thus a highly complicated area, as it was very difficult for the state to fully embed itself and establish an effective institutional system of tax collection. Furthermore, adopting particularism made it almost impossible for the state to control how the grassroots government collected taxes, whether properly or improperly. This taxation pressure resulted in the formation of strong new interest groups at the rural grassroots, which themselves consumed a large portion of resources extracted from the peasantry. The state was thus caught in a predicament, with the peasantry heavily burdened and regime building confronted by issues of involution, limiting increases in tax collection. In order to extract sufficient resources from rural areas for necessary modernisation, the state had to rebuild a strong grassroots system, that is, the people’s commune. Through the integration of government administration and commune management in the people’s commune, the peasantry was effectively organised, resource extraction efficient and regime building largely successful. Since the 1980s, with China establishing a national economic system in which the contribution of the agricultural sector has shrunk, the state dependency on resource extraction from rural areas to support modernisation has significantly decreased. In this context, institutional reforms starting with the household responsibility system, have not only quickly transformed the economic system, but also the administrative system in rural areas. By 1984, with the commune system abolished, townships and town governments became the lowest level of administration while

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villages were permitted to maintain a certain level of autonomy. This signalled the state pulling back from rural grassroots organisations. The two decades leading up to 2006—the year China abolished the agricultural tax that had existed for more than two thousand years—can thus be seen as a transitional phase, one demarcated by the crisis of the 1990s. In this period, farmers were once again overburdened by an eagerness of the state to speed up modernisation by imposing top-down tasks on local governments. However, this overlooked the fact that the institutional means of resource extraction through the rural grassroots no longer existed. Therefore, under top-down pressure, the formation of new interest groups was inevitable and led to a rural governance crisis. In fact, given that the task of extracting resources from rural areas to support industrialisation had been completed by the people’s commune, the state should have adopted a form of “passive administration” (He and Wang 2002) in rural grassroots. In this case, other interest groups would not have formed and rural governance today would be in a much better situation. As a result of misguided policies, the rural governance crisis of the 1990s reminds us of the importance in a comprehensive understanding of historical rural governance practices in the twentieth century and their underpinning mechanisms, such as the cultural nexus of power and the people’s commune.

References Duara P (1988) Culture, power, and the state: Rural North China, 1900–1942. Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif He X, Wang X (2002) “Lun Xiaoji Xingzheng” (On passive administration). Zejiang Acad J 6:22–27 Mao Z (1977) Selected works of Mao Zedong, vol 5. People’s Publishing House, Beijing

4

Rethinking the Spatial Prototype and Operational Organization of the Chinese Danwei System from a Collective Perspective Zuopeng Xiao, Tianbao Liu, Yanwei Chai, and Mengke Zhang

Abstract

Keywords

The danwei system was a crucial institutional arrangement established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and witnessed the country’s largescale construction and development. It offers an understanding of China’s urban transformation since the economic reform, however, there is no consensus in danwei studies from different disciplines on how to define the spatial prototype of the system. Focusing on the obligation of enterprises in running social welfare services, the spatial prototype of the danwei system can be defined by its provision of urban public goods and formation of a so-called “corporate-run society”. This can be conceptualized as a sustainable model for production and reproduction. The institutional practice of the danwei system is thus a process in accordance with socialist construction, public ownership, and state socialism. This paper argues that it is necessary to rethink the legacies of the danwei system in order to explore its implications on contemporary Chinese society.

Danwei system Public goods Collective society Institutional arrangement Urban china

Z. Xiao School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] T. Liu (&) Marine Economics and Sustainable Development Research Center, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] Y. Chai College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] M. Zhang College of Humanities, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]

4.1











Introduction

The danwei system was the most important institutional organization in allocating social resources in a planned economy after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Wang 1995). This system, in which state-owned enterprises and public institutions dominated resource allocation and social management, has profoundly affected interactions between the state, organizations, and individuals (Li 1993; Li et al 1996). Although the danwei system has gradually retreated after the “reform and opening up”, its economic, social, spatial, and ideological legacies have remained throughout the past 40 years, and are still influencing urban transformation and development in China today. Thus, it could be said that the danwei system is key to understanding China’s urban transformation (Chai and Zhang 2009). The origin and formation of the danwei system can consequently be regarded as a starting point for the exploration of these questions, however, despite current studies of the danwei within different disciplines, the absence of a clearly-defined spatial prototype often causes significant confusion. In the past, a large amount of research has focused on studying the “resemblance in form” between the danwei system and other systems, or in demonstrating the homologous and isomorphic relationships between them. These comparative studies include that of international cases, such as the early utopian socialist experiments of “New Harmony” and the “Phalanstère” as well as the “New Village Idea” from Japan during the early Republic of China (Ding 2007; Dong 2005). In addition, Li (2002) notes that resemblances can also be found in Chinese history, such as

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_4

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traditions deriving from kinship ties and the patriarchal clan system. Scholars further point out that the danwei system was closely connected to the more recent Soviet model, in which collective workers movements were organized by the Communist Party and labour policies (Lü and Perry 1997), but more specifically, also developed from the experience of a planned supply system established in revolutionary bases during the Chinese revolutionary war (Lu 1989). It could be argued, however, that studies of the danwei paradigm focusing on a “resemblance in form”, simply indicate some origins of the idea, but fail to present sufficient reasoning or evidence to prove, from a phylogenetics or institutional perspective, that the danwei system was significantly influenced by these precedents. Other danwei studies focus on why the danwei system emerged in the specific social and economic context of China. Liu (2000) analyzed the historical background of various social crises and the need for a marginal expansion of the overall economy to explain the rationality of establishing the danwei system. Lu (2006) holds that the danweibased strategy for urban spatial development was formed as a response to material shortage and a lack of capital accumulation in realizing Chinese modernization. Both analyzes understand the origin of the danwei system from within the historical context of China and discuss what we refer to as a “resemblance in essence”. These studies are rooted in exploring the deep impact of the national crisis or social transformation after the founding of the country (Tian and Liu 2010), however, they do not yet seem to fully identify or address the fundamental questions deriving from the formation of the danwei system. Who were the main entities that formed the danwei system? Were they state enterprises or governmental bodies? What are the key questions related to the emergence of the danwei system from the perspectives of phylogenetics, urban governance and public services? Do the drivers of formation and the spatial prototype of the danwei system only occur in China, or also in other countries and regions? Considering these questions, this paper investigates the origin and formation of the danwei system and aims to identify its internal, operative logic in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. We propose that understanding the structure and rationality of the “corporate-run society” is key to analyzing the danwei system. The essential meaning of the concept of a “corporate-run society” is understood as corporations assuming the role of supplying social welfare and public goods that are supposed to be managed by the government or market, due to

Z. Xiao et al.

the latter’s inability to provide such services. The formation of the danwei system can therefore be seen as rooted in the insufficient supply of products and production during China’s post-war reconstruction period, which resulted in the formation of collective life in the danwei society and lasted throughout the following decades. This institutional arrangement has profoundly influenced urban development in Chinese cities.

4.2

Corporate-Run Society: The Institutional Logic of Collective Production and Collective Consumption

The model of a “corporate-run society” is criticized as one of the biggest problems of the danwei system. However, few detailed studies are devoted to answering why and how the danwei system formed such a society and its underlying social histories. According to Bian (2011), “corporate-run society” can be traced back to the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the social crisis during the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937–45). He holds that, given the insufficient supply of social services, underdeveloped markets, serious inflation, and social turmoil at that time, state-owned enterprises had to provide social welfare services to maintain industrial production. The social services provided by those enterprises were thus regarded as a welfare provision to retain good employees and stabilize production. A society run by a danwei is exemplified by the case of military factories that built dorms, residential buildings, canteens, public baths, schools, hospitals, consumer cooperatives and farms for the daily supply of pork and vegetables, and even provided cemeteries and crematories for their employees. This practice of an enclosed community, developed and managed by military factories, later spread to many other industries. Some modern industrial factories in the late Qing Dynasty, such as the flour factory owned by Jian Zhang—a famous entrepreneur who profoundly influenced the urban planning of Nantong through a model of corporate-run society—also adopted similar practices to meet the daily needs of his factory workers. In these examples, the provision and maintenance of social welfare (employee benefits) was deemed the obligation of an enterprise and not philanthropy. The fact that social services and welfare services are provided by the employer or the danwei system is an important factor in the formation of a “corporate-run society” and its collectivization. Our research found that this

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Rethinking the Spatial Prototype and Operational Organization …

model exists in many socio-economic and institutional environments in both the East and West,1 specifically: (a) In the early stage of industrial revolutions: Examples are the industrial development of China from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, the model village in Britain (Fig. 4.1), and the company town formed by steel and coal companies during the Westward Expansion in the United States (Fig. 4.2) (Green 2010). (b) During war or crisis: Examples are revolutionary base areas at the beginning of the China Communist Party, industrial development in western China during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the Kibbutz in Israel. (c) During a declining market economy and a rising state-controlled economy: Examples are the Chinese socialist reforms that eliminated a market economy and the farms founded in the Soviet Union during the collectivization of its agricultural sector. (d) During a failure of the market economy: Examples are corporate communities built in recent years by many Chinese companies, but also high-tech companies in California that provide housing as a benefit to their employees to mitigate soaring real estate prices. These four contexts have some shared characteristics: they all precede or occur in an undeveloped market economy failing to regulate supply, demand, and social welfare needs. Enterprises or other non-market bodies are therefore forced to provide social services and welfare in a collective and planned manner, in lieu of the market or before the emergence of a market. This is consistent with what other studies on the supply of public goods justify through “club theory”. According to Webster (2003), a neighbourhood is in its essence defined by contracts to supply public goods within a club model that leads to collective consumption. The provision of public goods by neighbourhoods or related entities is thus a third path, that sits between the governmental

1

Due to space constraints, the sizes and degrees of collectivization of institutional practices cannot be described in detail here. In terms of size, an average danwei compound accommodated about 1000–3000 people. The collective farms in the Soviet Union and the Kibbutz of Israel had fewer than 1000 people, while the model village had approximately 3000 people and covered an area of about 1 km2. The people’s communes in China were equivalent to the size of sub districts or towns, and were similar in area and size to corporate and industrial towns in the United States. Although the population of the Soviet enterprise city (atomgrad) was not necessarily as high as that of the commune, it covered a large area. Historical records from different countries provide a clue about the degree of collectivization of various institutional forms. Generally, the degree of collectivization was low in the UK and the US. Most collectivization in Israel and the Soviet Union was in the form of collective farms, while the Chinese people’s commune also operated under public ownership.

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provision of non-competitive products and the market provision of competitive products. In this context, the danwei can be understood as a supplier of public goods to its community, just like a club, with exclusive services available to its members. While the initial formation of the danwei system was rooted in an insufficient supply of public goods to the whole society, as a self-sufficient model, it later solidified to reinforce collective life at the level of the danwei.

4.3

The Danwei System and Collective Society in China

After the founding of the PRC, far-reaching nationalization and the formation of the danwei system were part of a socialist reform that pushed out a market economy. As a result, all social resources were integrated into different sections of the danwei system. Together, a functional unity, a non-contractual relationship between production processes and elements, and a poor circulation of production resources (Lu 1989) shaped a communal lifestyle centered on industrial production and labour reproduction. This formed an interrelated tripartite system of circulation made up by an external mechanism of resource distribution and internal mechanisms of production and reproduction within the danwei (Fig. 4.3).

4.3.1 External Resource Distribution The external mechanism of resource distribution in the danwei system predominantly dealt with the socio-economic relations either between a danwei and other danweis, or between a danwei and the state. It included initial investment arrangements of a danwei, and later the resources for daily operation. Driven by Chinese socialist modernization, initial investment in the development of a danwei compound was part of a nationwide deployment strategy of industries and enterprises. The Decisions on a Few Questions of Strengthening the Construction of New Industrial Zones and Industrial Cities by the State Council, issued in 1956, underscored that site selection, planning, and construction of a danwei’s residential area should be synchronized with its industrial area. The state institutes of different industrial sectors thereby acted as governing bodies, and directly liaised with the municipal government and relevant departments to arrange the allocation of land, as well as that of resources and staff from other danweis. The leaders of a danwei were normally reassigned from the upper administration of state institutes, while workers were typically either newly recruited or allocated from other danweis according to

82 Fig. 4.1 Model village in Birmingham, England. Source Phil Champion, www.geograph. org.uk/photo/2832606

Fig. 4.2 Indian Hill, Massachusetts, the United States, built for the Norton Company in 1913. Source Crawford (1999)

Fig. 4.3 The spatial paradigm of the danwei system in China

Z. Xiao et al.

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industrial arrangement. Once a danwei was established, the daily production cycle consisted of managing raw material allocation and delivery, product distribution, and profit and expenditure. A completed danwei compound became part of the national danwei system and a national socio-economic unit. Its initial objectives, resources, workers, and products and services it provided, all determined the extent of external resource distribution. It should be noted, however, that due to differences in affiliation and administrative levels, the allocation of resources could substantially differ between danweis. Higher-level danweis that carried out important production tasks or those affiliated with important state institutes, tended to obtain more national resources, were more developed, and enjoyed better living conditions.

4.3.2 Production Inside the Danwei The aim of the production cycle was to complete production tasks and achieve profit targets set by state institutes. The production spaces of the danwei compound included factory and office buildings, as well as support facilities such as warehouses, changing rooms, maintenance rooms, and garages. The production space was located in the center of the compound, while the support infrastructures were at its fringe. The production inside a danwei involved the close symbiosis of workers, factories, and raw materials. It transformed raw materials into products using industrial processes and was the result of an interaction between machines and human physiological characteristics. In addition, production was enabled by a supporting infrastructure that comprised the acquisition, installment, and maintenance of production machines and facilities (Figs. 4.4 and 4.5).

4.3.3 Reproduction Inside the Danwei The labour reproduction space in the danwei compound was the residential area. These facilities served the needs of residence, recreation, education, and health care, which are essential to different aspects of labour reproduction. Among them, auditoriums, canteens, primary schools, and kindergartens formed centers in the compound, while other facilities with residential, recreational, and health care functions were often located at the periphery. Reproduction can be divided into three parts: intragenerational labour reproduction, intergenerational labour reproduction (including workers and their children), and facility maintenance. The first two parts constitute the main body of reproduction, while the last supported and assisted it. The space for labour reproduction inside the danwei

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offered a full range of services, so much so that the public facilities in other urban areas were considered supplementary. It not only met the needs of labour reproduction, but also the needs of raising the next generation. In addition, residents developed strong social bonds and interactions due to shared geographical and work relations. This also played a significant role in the formation of a cultural complex specific to the danwei compound, deepening the residents’ sense of belonging and cultural identity.

4.3.4 Interactions Between External and Internal Mechanisms The external mechanism between a danwei and its external world dominated and controlled production and reproduction. The state’s power could thus be observed not only when a danwei was built, but also in the direct intervention of state institutes during the danwei’s daily operation. One concerned with production orders, living standards, codes of ethics, and ideological education. This reveals a close relationship between the national modernization movement and the danwei system, with each danwei functioning as an integral part of the planned economy. In regard to the relationship between production and reproduction, the latter was derived from, and dominated by, the former. The space for labor reproduction was created to facilitate production and was subordinate to it. In fact, the labor reproduction process was subject to production orders, as workers had to schedule their daily life according to their work plan and working hours. A pattern of “three shifts per 24 h” (sanbandao) was common in state-owned factories to ensure they operated 24 hours a day, and thus the daily routine of workers was strictly determined. The reproduction facilities served to reproduce labor for the production cycle and, at the same time, production provided compensation to laborers in the form of salaries and welfare services. In providing necessities and sustenance, these benefits created a sustainable danwei system and ensured the loyalty of future generations. It fostered an intergenerational mechanism of labor reproduction as, despite a small proportion of workers’ children moving away to find jobs in other danwei compounds or attend university, the majority took over their parents’ jobs. Thus, in this interrelated circulation system, each member of a danwei acted in accordance with their position and fulfilled their duty by undertaking production tasks in their everyday life, which in turn realized the production and reproduction of social relations among different generations. The danwei system was continuously built and strengthened by every new danwei compound. All resources were monopolized by this system that supported the entire country’s production and consumption. The elimination of

84 Fig. 4.4 Beijing No. 2 Textile Factory in the 1970s. Source Zhang et al. (2009)

Fig. 4.5 Residential buildings in the Beijing No. 2 Textile Factory built in the 1970s. Photograph by Zhou Qian-jun.

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market forces by socialist reforms, however, necessitated a “corporate-run society”. On a larger social scale, policies in support of the development of the danwei system were formed, with all resources devoted to meeting the demands and necessities of each danwei, where all urban residents were now required to live and work. However, as the allocation of resources was centralized and exclusive to danweis, it led to the paternalism of public ownership, soft budget constraints, and a lack of production incentives. Consequently, involution occurred due to a low level of competition in production, and a failure to stimulate social and economic growth led to a new round of social crisis. This gave rise to the reform of the danwei system that abolished many of its former functions.

4.4

Conclusion and Discussion

Delineating the fundamental paradigm of the danwei system is an essential starting point for studies of the danwei system and our understanding of it. Thus, we believe in the necessity to better understand the context and reasons for the formation of the danwei system in terms of the “essence of resemblance”, and the need to clarify key questions arising from the function of the danwei as a significant part of the urban fabric. This will help us to better analyze the evolutionary dynamics of the danwei system. After the founding of the PRC, state socialism and the mentality of “prioritizing production and postponing consumption” created the danwei system, and its dominant role in organizing society and allocating resources. This system constantly weakened, replaced, and even invalidated the role of the market and municipal governments. The danwei system thereby fused with a planned economy and formed an external mechanism between a danwei and other state entities, as well as relatively enclosed means of production and reproduction. Together, these generated the danwei paradigm within the Chinese institutional environment and context, shaping a collective society in China (Chai 1996). This interlinked system can be seen as the fundamental operational organization of China’s danwei system. In the most basic sense, the danwei is essentially an organization and a place for people to work. Because of the undeveloped market economy in the early years of the PRC, the danwei system was established to stimulate the country’s production and reproduction, and was tasked with providing all kinds of public and social welfare services, and was thereby formative of a person’s whole life. This system, containing the functions and attributes of social organizations, can be regarded as a special type of “corporate-run society”. From our point of view, the model of a “corporate-run society”, under which public goods were supplied by organizations, is the fundamental spatial

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prototype of the danwei system. This model also appears in other places and at other times—it is worth noting that the supply model of public goods is rationalized at both theoretical and empirical levels. Through social transformations and the governance of public affairs, western countries have developed theories of polycentric governance, a club supply of public goods, and private production of public goods to deal with issues caused by market and government failures.2 In comparison, in the era of the planned economy, the construction of danwei compounds played an important role in providing urban public services through a decentralized system. One that could support state-owned enterprises, and government agencies and institutes. It arguably overcame the supply shortage at the national level and enhanced the ability to supply public services. However, opportunism appeared quite quickly in the post-danwei period, after the economic reform, and thus the private supply of public goods in a community has become increasingly common (Zhou and Yang 1999; Hao and Liu 2006). After the reform of the danwei system, the social functions of the danwei and the government were decoupled and its responsibilities transferred to the market and society itself. The shortage of public services in today’s cities and communities is one of the most significant problems for urban governance. We therefore need to find multiple channels between the government and the market to provide public goods. Scholars have called on the government, community residents, community organizations, companies, authorities, non-authorities, and other social and market entities to jointly manage the public affairs in the communities that have replaced the danwei. This, they believe, will improve community autonomy and their ability to actively engage with emerging public issues (Shi 2006). Thus, we believe that in order to solve key problems of current and future urban development, it is important to analyze the nature of the danwei system and to learn from its practical experiences for today’s urban institutional environment in China.

2

Many scholars have extensively discussed the issue of providing public goods in communities. For example, by examining cases such as the Walt Disney World, the Reston Association in Virginia, and the private neighbourhoods of St. Louis, Foldvary (1994) argues that public goods can be provided by agents through consensual community agreements and that this approach will be beneficial to urban economies. Ostrom et al. (2012) argue that an effective resource management often requires “polycentric” systems of governance where the role of various entities is effectively defined.

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References Bian L (2011) The logic of institutional change—the formation of a modern state-owned enterprise system in China. Zhejiang University Press, Hangzhou Chai Y (1996) Danwei-based living space structure inside Chinese Cities. Geographical Research 15(1):30–38 Chai Y, Zhang Y (2009) Research on the transformation of the Danwei in urban China. Int Urban Plan 24(5):1 Crawford M (1999) The “new” company town. Perspecta 30:48–57 Ding G (2007) Workers’ new village: “eternal happiness”—an interpretation of workers’ new village in Shanghai in the 1950s and 1960s. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Tongji University Dong B (2005) The last oasis—today’s new village in Japan. 21st Century Bimonthly 4:113–121 Foldvary FE (1994) Public goods and private communities. Edward Elgar Publishing Green H (2010) The company town: the Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills that shaped the American economy. Basic Books, New York Hao Y, Liu W (2006) Institutional change and community public goods production—from the “danwei system” to the “community system.” Urban Dev Res 13(5):64–70 Li H (1993) Integration mechanism of the Chinese Danwei phenomenon and urban community. Soc Res 5:23–32 Li L-l (2002) Research on danwei Studies. Soc Res 5:23–32 Li M, Zhou F, Li K (1996) Danwei: the inside of institutionalized organizations. China Soc Sci Q (Hong Kong) 16(5):135–167

Z. Xiao et al. Liu J (2000) Danwei in China: individuals, organizations and countries in the social regulation system. Tianjin People’s Publishing House, Tianjin Lu D (2006) Remaking Chinese urban form: modernity, scarcity and space, 1949–2005. Routledge, London Lu F (1989) Danwei: a special form of social organization. Chin Soc Sci 1:71–88 Lü X, Perry E (1997) Danwei: changing Chinese workplace in historical and comparative perspective. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk Ostrom E, Chang C, Pennington M, Tarko V (2012) The future of the commons-beyond market failure and government regulation. Institute of Economic Affairs Monographs. Shi Y (2006) The totalism of Chinese political parties and its political modernization analysis. Soc Sci Res 2:57–63 Tian Y, Liu J (2010) Reevaluation of the historical status of the “Danwei society.” Learn Explor 4:41–46 Wang H (1995) From Danwei to society: reconstruction of a social regulation system. Public Adm Hum Resour 1 Webster C (2003) On the nature of the neighborhood. Urban Stud 40 (13):2591–2612 Zhang Y, Chai Y, Zhou Q (2009) The spatiality and spatial changes of danwei compounds in Chinese cities: case study of Beijing No.2 textile factory. Int Urban Plan 5:20–27 Zhou Y, Yang X (1999) The Chinese danwei system. China Economy Press, Beijing

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The Built Environment, Spatial Will, and Heritage of the Third Front Movement in China Gangyi Tan

Abstract

The paper studies how the Third Front Movement created some of the most characteristic urban and rural forms and settlements in China during the three decades after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and analyses their basic architectural elements. The Third Front Movement was a large-scale industrial and infrastructural planning project to enhance national productivity in the northwest and southwest of China, and left a vast and important industrial heritage behind. It created collective forms clearly affected by the administrative will of its time and was built according to egalitarian principles and strict planning rules typical of the traditional socialist period. The paper discusses the built environment and spaces, and their physical, political, economic, and social properties. It focuses on how the Third Front Movement established a spatial paradigm of collective life, developed a modern and national architectural style and explored the implications of its “socialist content”. Keywords












Third Front Movement Built environment Collective form danwei Spatial will Modern heritage If a country has significantly invested in underdeveloped regions for more than a decade—with investment per capita several times higher than that in other regions (Fig. 5.1)— and resettled millions of workers, intellectuals and military, as well as tens of millions of migrant workers, to carry out large-scale industrial development, it is not difficult to imagine the importance and wide-ranging influence of such construction (movement) on the history of this country. This is China’s “Third Front Movement” (or Third Front G. Tan (&) School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

Construction). Forming part of national war preparations, intended to prevent a so-called nuclear war and an imperialist re-invasion, China completed large-scale infrastructural developments for defense, science and technology, and industry and transportation purposes during the 16 years between 1964 and 1980—implemented by three consecutive Five-Year Plans. It invested 205,268 million yuan in the 13 provinces and autonomous regions of central and western China that made up the Third Front area, accounting for over 40% of the country’s total capital investment in construction during that period (Fig. 5.2). People from all parts of China, followed the calls of the era signifying that “good people and fine horses should work for the Third Front” (好人好马上三 线) and “prepare for war while reserving resources for the people” (备战备荒为人民).1 They embarked on long, tough journeys to the deep mountains and valleys of the southwest and northwest of China to build more than 1100 large- and medium-sized industrial and mining enterprises, research institutes and colleges, and universities. They did so through great effort, hard work, and sweat that sometimes cost them their lives. The Third Front Movement changed the level of industrialization in the central and western regions, as well as the distribution of China’s productive forces, leaving a significant and great legacy.

5.1

The Built Environment of the Third Front Movement

The built environment of the Third Front Movement included the transformation of nature by large-scale infrastructures, such as the Chengdu-Kunming Railway (Fig. 5.3) and large factories and mines (Fig. 5.4)—even the transformation of mountains and rivers. Most images of the Third Front Movement depict large factories, mines, workshops,

From “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong”, in People's Daily in April 1967.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_5

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Fig. 5.1 Investment per capita relative to the national mean, the Third Front region and non-Third Front region, 1955–2000. Source Fan, J. C. and Ben Y. Zou

buildings with large chimneys, and staff quarters or residential areas, which were slightly better than the then existing local living conditions and offered a full range of services and living facilities such as staff clubs, auditoria, basketball courts, and schools, etc. The Third Front developments were some of the most distinct settlements of the mid-western region in that period, and had a significant impact on both local urban and rural forms, reshaping the people’s way of life. This impact has continued to this day. There are generally two models of urban spatial organization. On the one hand, there is the so-called random city or geomorphic city, which is usually “self-organized” and shaped by the land and its topographic conditions without any “artificial” design—gradually generated and formed under the influence of daily life (Kostof 1991). On the other, is the planned or created city. This kind of spatial

Fig. 5.2 Geographical extent of China’s Third Front Movement

G. Tan

organization was established in a particular historical period and, reflecting certain plans and clear purposes, represents power relations in the formation of urban space. Examples of the latter kind of cities are that of Panzhihua, Liupanshui, and Shiyan (Fig. 5.5), which were new cities entirely built by the Third Front Movement (Fig. 5.3). They are located in mountains that are not directly suitable for production and construction, and thus its environment had to be adapted and forcibly “created”. Moreover, famous historical and cultural cities such as Chongqing and Xiangyang, were developed by the Third Front Movement—their urban forms have undergone major changes since. During the Third Front Movement, many industrial towns and urban clusters (Fig. 5.6) were formed according to a general arrangement of industrial systems, and places of production linked by infrastructural developments such as railways. The geographical space of these cities (towns) thus corresponded with an economic space, giving great importance to the joint study of their urban development and economic planning history. From layout and site selection to factory buildings, housing, and public buildings, the Third Front Movement was composed of large-scale developments built under conditions that were extreme and often unsuitable for construction. In the past, the layout of “one factory with many separated blocks” (一厂多点) was called “sheep shit” (羊拉 屎), “melon-vine-type” (瓜蔓式) and “village-type”. In accordance with their morphology, attention should be paid to their clusters and blocks, but also their structural relationships (Fig. 5.7). On the one hand, being close to the mountains—entering mountains, drilling mountains, etc.—caused damage to nature, on the other, these developments expressed an accumulated experience of reducing and preventing disasters within harsh conditions. This should therefore be considered

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Fig. 5.3 The Chengdu-Kunming Railway, a traffic artery in southwest China. Source club.china.com

Fig. 5.4 300 power plant, coal mine in Wangjiazhai, Liupanshui. Photograph by Tan Gangyi

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Fig. 5.5 Shiyan City’s process of urban construction development. Source Drawn by the author and Wan 2016

Fig. 5.6 General plans of the Third Front Movement in the northwest of Hubei. Source Drawn by the author, Wan and Gao 2016, 2017, 2018

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Fig. 5.7 Typical layout plan of mines of the Third Front Movement. 1—Factory 846 in Xiangyang, Hubei; 2—Factory 5137 in Xiangyang, Hubei; 3—Series ring-type Third Front relics settlement form represented by Yunnan Coal Mining Machinery Factory in Qujing, Yunnan;

4—Side-by-side block-type Third Front relics settlement form represented by State-owned Southwest Yunshui Machinery Factory in Malong, Yunnan. Source Drawn by the author, Wan et al. 2016, 2017, 2018

an important element of the built environment formed by specific political and social motivations, which enables us to study the intention and form of projects through environmental transformations and human behaviour. The industrial and mining enterprises and research institutes built by the Third Front Movement are danweis (work units), which being from the period of traditional socialism, were constructed in accordance with principles of equality and its urbanization followed strict planning rules. These danweis can be described as projects of standardization under the control of the central government that became important basic units of the city, with their urban form displaying some of the most essential characteristics of Chinese architecture. The danwei became a special spatial form that was different from its surrounding deserts, suburbs, and mountainous environments, with particular characteristics that now signify times of industry and the Third Front Movement. The spatial pattern, formal language, and materiality of the danwei, expressed in its factories, mines and institutions, are

typical examples of China’s socialist construction period and followed the policy of “better, faster and more economically”2 in a time of economic difficulty. Thus, the architecture of the Third Front Movement is also typical of that era. In July 1952, at the 1st National Construction Engineering Conference, senior scholars discussed and proposed the building policy of “utility, economy, and if possible, beauty” (实用、经济、在可能条件下注意美观).3 In the years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a large number of economic construction methods to save building materials and construction techniques for disaster reduction and prevention in remote areas were developed. Mao Zedong put forward the basic principles of “work hard, strive for the best, and build socialism better, faster and more economically” at the Chengdu meeting of the CPC central committee in March 1958, which was formally adopted at the second meeting of the eighth party congress. It is often abbreviated to “better, faster and more economically”. 3 Translated in: Ding G (2014) Experimental Architecture in China. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 73.1:28–37. 2

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Fig. 5.8 The forms of various buildings constructed during the Third Front Movement. 1—Office Building in Facotry 288 in Yidu, Hubei; 2 —Workshop in State-run Southeast Yunshui Machinery Facotry in Malong, Yunnan; 3—Funeral Parlour in Factory 238 in Yidu, Hubei; 4 —Workers Club in Yunnan Coal Mining Machinery Facotry in Qujing, Yunnan; 5—Gardens in Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 6—Fire

Station in Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 7—Dormitory in State-owned Southeast Chuanguang Machinery Factory in Lufeng, Yunnan; 8—Gate house in State-owned Southeast Chuanguang Machinery Factory in Lufeng, Yunnan. Photographs by Tan Gangyi, Liu Zhenyu, Chen Bo and Zhang Dunyuan

In addition, during the period of socialist development in China, a “national style” of architecture was explored, as was a so-called Soviet Union style. Furthermore, many simple and pure Modernist-style buildings were created. These are all part of the architectural heritage of the Third Front Movement (Fig. 5.8). Low-tech construction methods employed in this period include the temporary “tent” (帐篷), the “mat shed” (席棚 子) and the rammed earth or stone house (Gan-da-lei, 干打 垒)—a traditional construction technique associated with the socialist Gan-da-lei Spirit, which is almost equivalent to the Yan’an Spirit (Fig. 5.9). They reveal how the development of infrastructure failed to keep up with the development of ideology after the socialist revolution. And they supported the so-called “national style, socialist content” doctrine, which is comparable to what happened in the Soviet Union at the time (Humphrey 2005). The new “proletarian house” did not have any architectural precedents or criteria for its

size and interior that could be simply followed. Thus, architects soon began to create new styles and techniques, and involved the proletarian masses in their design and construction, gradually establishing regulated design practices and specifications. The Third Front Movement’s enterprises and institutions, which also had their own schools for children (and technical schools), nurseries, cinemas, basketball courts, shops, food markets and other everyday facilities alongside spaces for production and living, actually formed small all-encompassing societies that constituted the basic social unit of local urban and rural areas—they were “social condensers”. This social unit, maintained by a system of collective behaviour in both production and life, can be called a “collective form”. It had the characteristics of an entity or organization, but also referred to a spatial form and corresponding social mechanism. One can actually say that to interpret the built environment is a cultural reading of the Third Front Movement and

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Fig. 5.9 Tent, mat shed, rammed earth house and stone house. 1— tent; 2—mat shed; 3—barrack dormitory; 4—rammed-earth (gandalei) house; 5—rammed-earth (gandalei) house in Chinese Second

Automobile Production Factory; 6—stone house. Source Historical Photographs are courtesy of the China’s Third Front Museum, photograph 6 is by Tan Gangyi

its meaning as a collective form. This collectivity is not just an addition to the function of the Third Front Movement, but may be its most important function. To say it differently, the essence of its meaning is cultural, and the influence of its meaning on human behaviour is the influence of culture on human behaviour. The typical representation of the collective form (lifestyle), of society at that time, was not only the product of planning and architectural design, but also the projection of a social will and the analysis of spatial forms with social, geographical and even economic attributes, through which its meaning can be decoded. Therefore, the complementary research on social will, politics, economy, and spatial form will be the most important and most challenging, especially on those from the 30 years after the founding of the PRC, but will also be of great academic value for the study of collective forms.

is equally a history of powers (both terms should be thought of in their plural form). The danwei is thereby a product of “welfare regimes”. The differences in the danwei’s welfare regimes are expressed physically and spatially in its buildings, corresponding to the differences in social stratification and stratum. The danwei combines thus socio-political and economic significance, and provides an important example of governmentality in accordance with Michel Foucault’s analysis of the rationality of governance. Foucault’s concept of governance provides an important theoretical framework and method to analyze the relationship between space and power, and settlement and social welfare, as well as the danwei’s residential buildings, public spaces and activities of the Third Front Movement. The housing (or living spaces) of the Third Front builders were uniform, constructed by the danwei and distributed according to principles of equality. At first, these workers all shared dormitories, but were later allocated housing according to their needs, with housing ranging from simple collective dormitories to apartments—this recognized housing not just as a quantitative but also qualitative problem (Fig. 5.10). The diverse dormitory-style forms of accommodation maintained, and continue to maintain, a considerably sized labour force, and were part of a proletarianization process that laid the structural foundations for a new working

5.2

Architectural Typologies and Their Spatial Properties

Architecture is a means of representing power, wealth and political belief. Thus, architecture affects urban policies and changes in power. They have always had a close relationship. While their histories must be written as a spatial one, it

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Fig. 5.10 Various dormitory types. 1—Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 2—Yunnan Coal Mining Machinery Facotry in Qujing, Yunnan; 3—Factory 610 in Xiangyang, Hubei; 4—State-owned Southwest Gaofeng Machinery Facotry in Malong, Yunnan; 5— Factory 3545 in Xiangyang, Hubei; 6—Power Plant 300 in Wangjiazhai, Guizhou; 7—Factory 969 in Lujiang, Yunnan; 8—Dormitory in

State-owned Southwest Chuangguang Machinery Factory in Lufeng, Yunnan; 9—Factory 238 in Yidu, Hubei; 10—Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan; 11—Factory 3607 in Xiangfan, Hubei; 12— State-owned Southwest Dongguang Machinery Factory in Malong, Yunnan. Photographs by Tan Gangyi, Liu Zhenyu, Chen Bo and Zhang Dunyuan

class (e.g. Foxconn dormitory). This collective way of living not only created dormitories and complementary public service facilities, but became a spatial model (configuration) underpinning the social welfare and socialist system. Collective life was regarded as valuable by those who experienced it, and became the most common form of accommodation for those who did not have their own apartment. In the context of labour migration, general housing shortages, and urban and rural migration pressures, living in a collective dormitory became a common experience for many mobile aspirant workers. “[T]his living experience which is famous for hardships has a benefit: it is a school that teaches you how to get along with others, how to fight against yourself, and how to cultivate friendship”.4 Although the housing allocation policy seemed built on progress and equality alone, its focus was on integrating workers into a “work-live community” and became subject to political manipulation. In order to match some of the better (or worse) accommodation with workers, housing “shortage” became a necessary tool. It enabled calculating and planning the minimum standards of life itself.5 The allocation of housing in the danwei thereby became an

important indicator of welfare. Housing demand and systems of allocation not only specified the number and sizes of rooms, but also what basic spaces and functions were available in a house (such as kitchens, dining rooms, etc.), or what public facilities were available in an apartment block (such as nurseries, reading rooms, laundry rooms, etc.). The compressed (minimized) space for the individual (home or bedroom) required a complementary collective life and thus became a radical form of living. “Production first, life later” (先生产,后生活) and “Cultivate the land before building a home.” (先治坡,后治窝).6 During this period, buildings for production and living adopted different material and construction standards. The design of production spaces were determined by new technical requirements as well as by the economic and political agendas of “catching up” and “surpassing” the UK and US. However, they also revealed some contradictions. While promoting self-reliance and the need to develop local methods of production, the newest production equipment was imported from abroad. In addition, with the Third Front Movement partially based on considerations of national defense, security, and military secrecy, some factory production lines were built in environments unsuitable for

4

6

Humphrey, Ideology in infrastructure. Ibid.

5

These slogans were prevalent in the early days of new China, especially in the period of the Third Front Movement.

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Fig. 5.11 Factory 238 in Yidu, Hubei. Photograph by Chen Bo and Zhang Dunyuan

construction. This resulted in many inappropriate production spaces and production lines, despite claims of “innovation” and the need to develop more efficient production processes. If residential buildings can be considered as elements of social welfare and spatial governance under the danwei and collective system, then industrial buildings (production plants) can be taken as representative of their time and regional technologies. In addition to the above, it is worth studying some of the service buildings such as the grand auditoria of the Third Front Movement as important types of modern public buildings and a “container” of collective life. The auxiliary facilities of the danwei, such as hospitals, schools and clubs (grand auditorium), provided social services and welfare facilities that complemented the important production and living spaces, and offered another kind of space for collective life. The shared spaces for leisure (including basketball courts) served to integrate the surrounding housing units within an organic whole, thereby creating a “central field”. Key elements, such as small parks in the center of nearby hospitals and office buildings, integrated the entire field, and supported and improved the existing structure (Xue 1992). This “field of power”, formed by the central field radiating out to its “peripheral” areas, restrained each of its members within a pattern typical of the Panopticon (Fig. 5.11) (Tan 2001). Non-productive buildings, such as kindergartens, schools, hospitals and clubs were thus meant to support production and

improve efficiency, forming a rich “pattern language” aligned with the policy of “production first, life later” (Fig. 5.12). However, all of these collectively owned “public” buildings and spaces were neither completely public nor private, but rather within subtle ranges from “public/official” to “private/home”. These collective places in the collective form of the danwei were not used in ways common for public spaces. Perhaps, they should be called a collective space, whose ownership and rights of use are generally different from that of public space.

5.3

The Third Front Movement as a Collective Form

“Comrade Mao Zedong said, we should gradually and orderly form the industry, agriculture, commerce, cultural education and militiaman [national armed forces] into a large commune so as to constitute the social grassroots units in our country (Chen 1958).” Mao’s statement about the people’s commune (Fig. 5.13), indicates a standardized configuration or model space of an enterprise-based basic social unit represented by a collective form. Pre-industrial models of social reproduction, such as the cohesion created by families and guilds, were destroyed by the forces of modernization, and traditional families, communities or markets could not meet new needs. Thus, the spatial composition of the Third Front

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Fig. 5.12 Outdoor court (theatre), post office, garden and other services and leisure or entertainment spaces from the Third Front Movement. 1—Outdoor court in Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 2—Basketball court in Factory 610 in Xiangyang, Hubei; 3—Outdoor

court in State-owned Weidong Machinery Factory; 4—Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan; 5—Shanxi Chemical Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 6—Projection room in Factory 238 in Yidu, Hubei; 7—Outdoor court in Factory 238 in Yidu, Hubei.

Movement could be considered a response to these needs as well as a geopolitical concept and product of architectural design or the manifestation of the social will of an omnipotent government. Excessive organization, however, results in a solidification of spaces and social structures. This makes it necessary to permit deviations from traditional aesthetics and to analyze how spaces relate to economic and political considerations, leading to an in-depth analysis of social, geographical and economic criteria. In the context of a planned economy, the danweis of the Third Front Movement are not purely administrative (grassroots) organizations, but basic units of urban and rural spatial forms. Representing hard work and simple living, Third Front builders believed that it was enviable to work as a “danwei man” (a member of a danwei) rather than being just an ordinary “social man”. The construction of social grassroots units thus became an important development program after the founding of the PRC, and its particular brand of socialism became important to the urban and rural explorations of the socialist country.

From a longer historical perspective, the collective could be said to originate from the clan’s cooperative symbiosis during China’s primitive society. Clans lived together, and rural collective organizations formed, because “imperial power couldn’t cover the counties” (Wen 1999). Eventually, various collective forms emerged in modern society and based on this understanding, we may be unable to rid ourselves from ideological prejudice against the collective and turn to questions of belonging and the circle of life. The Third Front Movement and other collectives defined by production, bear the heavy responsibilities of national development and “concentrating strength on doing great things” (Deng 1993), thereby demonstrating the country’s capabilities. At the same time, the individual’s daily needs were met through services provided by a collective system optimized within limited resources and “organized to do small things” (Wang 2018). Such a social welfare system is therefore built on and enables the collective, but is equally founded on the new rights created by a collective and its “regulations”.

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Fig. 5.12 (continued) 1—canteen in Facotry 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 2—post office in Facotry 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 3—fire station Facotry 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 4—post office in Facotry 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 5—shop in State-owned Yunnan Machine Second Factory in Lujiang, Yunnan; 6—Shop in State-owned Yunnan Machine

Second Facory in Lujinag, Yunnan; 7—Canteen in State-owned Southwest Gaofeng Machinery Factory in Malong, Yunnan; 8—Workers’ hospital in State-owned Yunnan Machine Second Facory in Lujinag, Yunnan; 9—Vegetable market in Panzhihua Iron and Steel Corporation.

Focusing on collective form, we can analyze environment-space-behaviour in the context of time. According to an approach by Amos Rapoport, this analysis is based on aspects such as the organization of space, time, communication, and meaning. In terms of time, the organization and “regulation” of daily behaviours—such as daily shared meals and work in the collective form, as well as the planning of festivals, various environments and events or scenarios—not only give the spatial environment “attributes” and “meaning”, but also reflect on and affect “individual and group activities, as well as values and intentions in such organizations, show the intention of ideas, and represent the harmony between physical space and social space (Rapoport 1990). Through collective behaviour, the collective form brings individuals and society together, and defines the boundaries of production and living spaces. For example, collectives of the Third Front Movement (such as the danwei compound, the people’s commune, May 7th Cadre Schools and state-run farms) all built their auditoria (clubs). These are highly representative

spaces serving the formation of collective behaviour, and merit research in their own right (Fig. 5.14). What is also worth considering in this analysis, is that of spatial organization as an environmental attribute more fundamental than form itself. That said, form is important in organizing the meaning of an environment through concrete material representation and characteristics. Compared with spatial organization, the use of materials can express meaning more successfully, evident in the spiritual practices of the Gan-Da-Lei.

5.4

Spatial and Historical Contexts of the Third Front Movement

There are similarities and fundamental differences between the Third Front Movement, China’s past national public service provision and enterprises burdened with social responsibilities, and Western industrial towns (monotowns) and company towns. The public service provision shared

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Fig. 5.12 (continued) 1—greenhouse in Factory 238 in Yidu, Hubei; 2—Yile Gardens in Facory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 3—Zhitong Gardens in Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 4—Zhitong Gardens in Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 5—Gardens in State-owned Yunnan Machine Third Factory in Lujiang, Yunnan; 6—Gardens in

Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan; 7—Gardens in Panzhihua Iron and Steel Corporation; 8—Gardens in Power Plant 300 in Wangjiazhai, Guizhou. Photographs by Tan Gangyi, Liu Zhenyu, Chen Bo and Zhang Dunyuan

similarities with the Third Front Movement in its spatial organization, building types and administrative management (Wu 2007). For example, in terms of site selection, during the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937–45):

In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, enterprises burdened with social responsibilities also shared similarities. Due to the doctrine of self-reliance in state-owned enterprises and the prevailing rural, agricultural economy back then, these enterprises had to establish their own social welfare system, including the provision of housing to meet the basic needs of their labour force and its reproduction. This followed expectations that all national industrial enterprises were to consider the workers’ social welfare when organizing production, in order to dispel their worries and improve production efficiency. These enterprises gradually strengthened and were better educated through collective life. Western model villages and company towns built over a hundred years earlier than the Third Front Movement are also important precedents worth comparing. All houses and shops in company towns belonged to the employing companies. Generally, these companies were located in remote

… many arsenals that moved to inland provinces could not choose their location casually as they had to take into account a series of factors such as safety, raw material supply and transportation, or they chose to settle in the suburbs without social services and welfare facilities, or were too far away from urban areas to make use of social services and welfare facilities provided by cities. […] to retain workers, arsenals strengthened social services and welfare facilities. […] Most mines in the countryside had relatively good hospitals and schools for workers and the children of staff members. Meanwhile, most of them were public utilities, so the sick people in the countryside could be treated in hospitals and children in the countryside could attend school.7

7

Wu, Public Service Provision in China, p. 206.

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Fig. 5.13 Typical configuration of the people’s commune as shown in a propaganda poster for the people’s commune. Source Painted by Rui Guangting, published by the People’s Education Press, 1958

suburbs where people found it hard to commute or do their shopping. Most company towns therefore provided conveniences such as shops, churches, schools, markets, and entertainment facilities, and provided a company-based community and organized society, which made them larger than a typical village. At their peak, there were 2500 such company towns in the USA, which accounted for about 3% of its total population. Most company towns were for monopolized mining industries in traditional sectors such as coal, metal and timber. But there were also infrastructural towns nearby dam sites or military towns, such as those for nuclear research, across the former Soviet Union. As company towns developed and attracted other settlements and enterprises, and built public transport and service infrastructures, they often became conventional “public” cities or towns. Similar to China’s Third Front Movement, the Soviet planned economy created hundreds of monotowns. This is demonstrated, for example, by closed cities known as atomgrads, built to bring industrialization to remote locations, usually in geographical areas unsuitable for construction and industry. The very serious problem this created

was an economy totally dependent on the competitiveness, or lack thereof, of a single company or factory and the technology available to it.8 The study of collective forms inevitably involves ideological, political and economic issues. In particular, the study of evolving collective forms after the founding of the PRC should consider the context of the transition period and understand the uniqueness of their urban spatial changes. As a kind of community and city, the danwei in China might be closely related to American New Urbanism, the Soviet community system, neighbourhood units, and community building. But, many of the factories and mines built during the Third Front Movement, or as part of a danwei in cities, were also similar to closed societies. When the Third Front builders, migrants coming from all over China, built their new homes, they also created a distinct collective culture. Questions of great significance to anthropological research on the Third Front Movement are thus concerned with how an understanding of community

Even today, new company towns like Facebook “town” are emerging.

8

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Fig. 5.14 Auditoriums (clubs) of enterprises and institutions from the Third Front Movement. 1—Yunnan Coal Minning Machinery Factory in Qujing, Yunnan; 2—Factory 3541 in Shiyan, Hubei; 3—Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 4—Shanxi Chemical Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 5—Yunnan Coal Mining Machinery Factory in Qujing, Hubei; 6—Factory 3541 in Shiyan, Hubei; 7— Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 8—Shanxi Chemical Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 9—Factory 288 in Yidu, Hubei; 10—Factory 388 in Yidu, Hubei; 11—State-owned Southwest

Changzheng Machinery Factory in Lufeng, Yunnan; 12—Factory 388 in Yidu, Hubei; 13—Factory 816 in Fuling, Chongqing; 14— Factory 3602 in Shiyan, Hubei; 15—Factory 3602 in Shiyan, Hubei; 16 —Factory 4504 in Xiangyang, Hubei; 17—Power Plant 300 in Wangjiazhai, Guizhou; 18—Yunnan Machine Third Factory in Luxiang Yunnan; 19—Skating rink in Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan; 20—Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan. Photographs by Tan Gangyi, Liu Zhenyu, Chen Bo and Zhang Dunyuan

and forms of communal living were built, while considering the context of an era and its social space and built environment. With a community determining its own spaces, a series of considerations related to urban geography and planning can be brought together, shifting from that of political and economic changes to a more operative focus on the evolution of built spaces in cities and communities. As the danwei is still related to urban communities today—even after the reform

and opening-up period—and to the new socialist countryside agenda, the context of the transition period helps us to understand the changes of urban space and the evolution of community types and models. From the danwei to the contemporary community, we can see the changing spatialization of political systems in China. Today, there are still many large enterprises equipped with collective dormitories, which maintain social significance. Why, for example, have there not been large-scale urban

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Fig. 5.15 Production workshops of factories from the Third Front Movement. 1—Factory 288 in Yidu, Hubei; 2—Factory 288 in Yidu, Hubei; 3—State-owned Southwest Dongguang Machinery Factory in Malong, Yunnan; 4—No. G085 Workshop in Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan; 5—No. G085 Workshop in Factory 9807 in Luxiang, Yunnan;

6—Factory 388 in Yidu, Hubei; 7—Taiyuan Soap Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 8—Taiyuan Soap Factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi; 9—State-owned Southwest Yunshui Machinery Factory in Malong, Yunnan. Photographs by Tan Gangyi, Liu Zhenyu, Cen Bo and Zhang Dunyuan

slums in China after its rapid industrialization? Where do 270 million farmers moving between urban and rural areas live? It is the dormitory-based model of labour that has prevented China from becoming a “slum empire” (Pan 2006).

heritage of modern China and their value needs to be clarified, especially in the context of a value-centered preservation theory and practice of heritage protection. Value-centered analysis of the built environment of collective forms can meet current heritage criteria by making people understand heritage sites and a whole range of values that reveal the historical environment and its social, architectural, scientific, cultural, spatial, industrial, and spiritual importance. Collective forms are special models of local cities and mountain villages that have shaped local culture, but are also contemporary “ways of living together”. They have even influenced market relations, mass media and political systems. They are an important part of the existing urban tissue, form and texture of some cities and villages, and contain a special historical memory and landscape. They still have tremendous social and human significance, environmental and ecological benefits, as well as great economic and cultural importance by enriching the types, elements, space, time, and form of Chinese cultural heritage. Research into their theories and practices also play an important role in the definition of a modern heritage in China.

5.5

The Heritage of the Third Front Movement

Considering notions of intergenerational equity and sustainable development, UNESCO has paid great attention to the modern heritage of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries besides the protection of ancient monuments (Liu 2008). That said, only two projects from the twentieth century appear on the list of Chinese Architectural Heritage—jointly issued by the China Cultural Relics Academy and the Architectural Society of China. These are the Project 816 Site and the early buildings of the Luoyang Tractor Plant, which were directly related to the Third Front Movement. So far, however, no modern heritage or industrial heritage in China has been selected and included on the World Heritage List. Yet, collective forms are an important historical (living)

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Fig. 5.16 Former Factory 9807 in Yunnan in current state of dereliction typical for many Third Front Movement sites. Photographs by Liu Zhenyu

Representing a built environment with important historical values from a specific period, the Third Front Movement fulfils UNESCO heritage criteria as “an important change of human value in architecture or technology […] urban planning or landscape design within a period of time; or a combination of buildings and technology in a major period in history”. It is an important modern cultural heritage that has led to a collective transformation of nature, but one that has not yet been fully recognized (Fig. 5.15) (Van Oers and Haraguchi 2003). The large-scale Third Front Movement in the industrial history of China is significant in several ways. It was the

second westward industrial movement after the short but large inland migration of 1937. It was a planning project that operated at a vast scale, and is the most concentrated and significant industrial investment since “Project 156”—aided by the Soviet Union after the founding of the PRC. It is therefore an important witness of industrial development and technological progress, including the special cities and industries it produced and their changes. Further considering the criteria for modern heritage, as established in June 2003 in the World Heritage Papers No. 5 by the UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage Centre, this study regards the industrial heritage of the Third Front Movement as an essential part of

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modern heritage, and “a uniquely or at least exceptionally existing or disappeared cultural tradition or civilization”.9 According to this criteria and its types and system of value appraisal, the Third Front Movement can be seen as a major historical event and an important period of modernist architecture in China. As an important expression of national and social history, the Third Front Movement represents an important part, or even the entire history, of state-owned enterprises in relation to individuals and the memory of several entire generations. A product of a particular era, it has faded away and almost disappeared. Just like the commercialization and marketization of housing quietly changed and transformed the collective forms of the danwei, the Third Front Movement developments saw their demise due to a failure to adapt to new developmental demands brought about by urban transformations and a market economy (Fig. 5.16). Whether to abandon them completely, refurbish them extensively, preserve only their appearance, or regenerating them fully, have become serious questions and problems that the government, the people and scholars must face. This is not just a problem of what to do with these buildings and spatial forms in order to regenerate the danweis of the Third Front Movement, but a social and economic question of how to deal with brownfield site reuse and land consolidation. Thus, analyses and decision-making based on a cultural perspective that considers the impact of political will and spatial speculation, may help to reactivate and reuse them, or at least clarify questions of history and development in China.

References Chen B (1958) Zai Mao Zedong Tongzhi de Qizhi Xia (Under the banner of Comrade Mao Zedong). Hongqi: 1–12. 陈伯达. (1958) 在毛泽东同志的旗帜下, 红旗: 1–12

9

Ibid.

103 Deng X (1993) Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan (Selected works of Deng Xiaoping), vol 3. People’s Publishing House, p 377. 邓小平. (1993) 邓小平文选. People’s Publishing House, p 377 Humphrey C (2005) Ideology in infrastructure: architecture and Soviet Imagination. J R Anthropol Inst 11:39–58 Kostof S (1991) The city shaped: urban patterns and meanings through history. Thames and Hudson, London Liu K (2008) Zhongguo 20 Shiji Jinxiandai Wenhua Yichan Xianzhuang ji qi Baohu (The present situation and protection of modern Chinese cultural heritage in the 20th century). In: Zhongguo Wenwu Yanjiusuo Jiansuo 70 Zhounian Wenwu Baohu Xueshu Yantaohui Lunwenji (Proceedings of the symposium on the protection of cultural heritage on the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage). Cultural Heritage Publishing House. 刘克成 (2008) 中国20世纪近 现代文化遗产现状及其保护. 中国文物研究所建所70周年文物 保护学术研讨会论文集, Cultural Heritage Publishing House Pan Y (2006) Sushe Laodong Tizhi Rang Zhongguo Meiyou Biancheng ‘Pinminku Diguo’ (The dormitory labour system has made China not become a ‘slum empire’). Available at: http:// thegroundbreaking.com/archives/36346. Accessed 8 June 2019. 潘 毅 (2006) 宿舍劳动体制让中国没有变成 ’贫民窟帝国’ Rapoport A (1990) The meaning of the built environment: a non-verbal communication approach. University of Arizona Press Tan G (2001) Kejia Minju de Anquan Tushi: Zhongguo Kejia Minju yu Wenhua (The security pattern of Hakkas’ dwelling: Chinese Hakkas’ houses and culture). South China University of Technology Press, Guangzhou, pp 33–38. 谭刚毅 (2001) 客家民居的安全 图式:中国客家民居与文. South China University of Technology Press, Guangzhou, pp 33–38 Van Oers R, Haraguchi S (eds) (2003) World Heritage Papers No. 5: identification and documentation of modern heritage. UNESCO Culture Heritage Center, Paris Wang D (2018) Get organized to do small things: an understanding of the rural collective system. New Arch 5:19–22 Wen T (1999) Bange Shiji de Nongcun Zhidu Bianqian (Change of rural system in half a century). Zhanlve yu Guanli 6:76–82. 温铁军 (1999) 半个世纪的农村制度变迁. 战略与管理 6:76–82 Wu Z (2007) Zhongguo Huigong Shiye (Public service provision in China). World J Bookst, p 2. 吴志信 (2007) 中国惠工事业. World J Bookst, p 2 Xue CQL (1992) Jiazhu Chang Lijie (An understanding of architectural field—a factor of human environment). Jianzhushi (The Architect) 49:42. 薛求理 (1992) 建筑场理解. 建筑师49:42

6

Architecture of the Cold War: Geopolitics and Cultural Knowledge in Socialist China Jianfei Zhu

Abstract

6.1

Constrained to culture and design, architectural discourses are slow to wake up to real tensions confronting peoples and nations of the world. Today, there is not enough discussion about architecture in relation to war and geopolitics, although tensions are fast rising to new standoffs and flashpoints, especially around the Pacific, at a scale, intensity, and complexity far surpassing that of the Cold War. In the scholarship on the architecture of modern China, the approach is even more confined— stylistic design, spatial planning, and social production are studied on their own, without considering their interconnection or larger context. To remedy the situation, this research explores how war and war preparation in socialist China impact on architecture as forms of cultural knowledge and as social production. Adopting a geopolitical perspective, connecting tensions near and far, and stretching to times before and after the Cold War era of socialist China, this paper sketches out a larger discourse in which the architecture of modern China is rediscovered as grounded, multi-faceted and transnational, where the spectrum of architecture correlates to the distribution of political geography. Keywords













War Cold war Geopolitics Cultural knowledge Architecture Third line construction Socialist China

J. Zhu (&) School of Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK e-mail: [email protected]

Introduction

Anyone who cares about recent shifts in world politics would not have missed the powerful signs coming from the United States of America and People’s Republic of China. The current US-China trade war is perhaps merely an entrée, whereas the less noticed strategic build-up and ideological confrontation signal arguably that something far more seismic is approaching. In December 2017, China was named, for the first time, as the primary strategic competitor—ahead of Russia—of America in the National Security Strategy issued by the White House; in February 2018, the Taiwan Travel Act was endorsed, allowing visits by state officials between Taiwan and the United States; in Donald Trump’s speech at the UN in September 2018, “socialism” and “communism” were openly denounced; in October 2018, in Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the Hudson Institute, China was denounced, whereas Taiwan was praised as a democracy that “shows a better path for all the Chinese people”. Pence claimed that America’s commitment to a “free Indo-Pacific” had never been stronger.1 The signals from China were less clear, but, with a rising centralization of the party-state, an escalating comprehensive “war” with America can be verified on multiple fronts. These include the exchanges on Huawei, exercises on North Korea’s denuclearisation and moves around China-EU relations concerning China’s Belt and Road Initiative, not to mention the military gestures involving the US, China, Taiwan and Japan on sea—the crossing of China’s fighter jets into Taiwan’s airspace on 31 March 2019, for example, is just one of the latest incidents in a comprehensive escalation. With tensions on the rise and a new cold war looming large, it is time now to study war culture, or at least how culture has been impacted by war. It is time now to review the history of wars—including the Cold War—and to study how wars and military confrontations have had, if anything, 1

See Pence (2018).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_6

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an impact on society, culture, art and architecture—on its knowledge and practice. Surprisingly, there is little work on this in architectural scholarship, except by a few British, American and European scholars writing on World War II and the Cold War. There is even less on war-architecture relations in Asia, East Asia and countries such as China specifically.2 This essay is thus a preliminary attempt to outline a study on how architecture was shaped in and by the Cold War in and around the People’s Republic; the study is part of a larger body of work on war and architecture in the Asian Pacific. Examining Cold War architecture in the People’s Republic, both formal architectural designs—such as those in a modernist and National Style—and planning projects—such as that of the nationwide Third Line Construction—are studied in relation to social, national, and geographic constructions in a climate of international war and war preparation.

6.2

Methodology

From the perspective of our discipline, it is not war per se, but how war is entangled with and has impacted art, design and building that interests us most. Thus, new research in war studies, shifting towards “culture” and “society”, is useful. For example, in contrast to “realist” work on leading figures and major nations involved at key moments of confrontations with large-scale impacts, the focus of new Cold War studies is shifting towards ideological construction, cultural practice, and social order in local developments, and deals with real people and their multiple perspectives and agendas.3 Masuda Hajimu’s Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (2015) has demonstrated how the major events of war—the Korean War in this case—were entangled with multiple views and agendas in local societies in Asian countries and the United States, and how the meta-narrative of the “Cold War” was nothing more than a pretext and consequence of the local, social, cultural and ideological agendas upholding social order against subversive alternatives—in Mao’s China as much as in Eisenhower’s America.4 2 For studies on war-architecture relations, Hirst (2005) remains a central and substantial contribution in historical study and theorization, and in depth and coverage. Studies in architecture that include substantial documentation are Mallory and Ottar (1979) and Kaufmann and Jurga (1999), and an interpretative analysis is in Cohen (2011). Multidisciplinary work across architecture, planning, geography and history can be found in Boyd and Linehan (2013) and Bevan (2006). Those that include significant theorization or critical suggestions can be found in Virilio (1994), Virilio and Lotringner (2008), Baudrillard (1995) and, for sure, recent studies in Weizman (2017). 3 See Westad (2000: 1–23), Westad (2010: 1–19). 4 See Hajimu (2015, especially 281–287). In architecture, a study on the impact of the Cold War on design can be found in Colomina (2006) and Schuldenfrei (2012).

A study on war-culture relations must include Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney’s work on the psychology of young suicide pilots who willingly plunged to death in their “kamikaze” attack on US warships in 1944–45.5 According to Ohnuki-Tierney, the mindset that facilitated the willing suicides was associated with the perceived and symbolized beauty and purity of cherry blossoms, which were appreciated in traditions and promoted by the state. Reviewing and studying the diaries of those university students who joined the mission—about one thousand (out of four thousand such pilots), Ohnuki-Tierney realized that these students were not necessarily offering their lives to the empire or state nationalism, but rather fulfilled a personal patriotism and glorious cause associated with cherry blossoms, their death and rebirth. Ohnuki-Tierney said that state efforts in aestheticization, together with a special semantic ambiguity, allowed these young intellectuals to follow and to sacrifice themselves, being part of a state-led military campaign, while adopting their own readings different from state ideology. The pilots plunged to their death with branches of flowers adorning their uniforms, in a burning flame of images depicting beauty and purity. A rich culture of meaning and imagery resulted in a fatal dive into military action.6 This episode serves as a testing case for us to consider relations between war and culture, and politics and aesthetics. The question for us is why the aestheticization by the state, as Ohnuki-Tierney has described, does not seem to be reason enough to unite aesthetic appreciation of the flower with a political and military program to committing suicide in war. Is there a deeper and broader mechanism that can integrate aesthetic perception with these highly disciplined yet violent exercises? On what basis can we talk about continuous interconnections between diverse realms—from art and culture to politics and military programs of action? In architecture, can these same questions be asked: On what basis can we discuss continuation or consistency from aesthetics to function and technology—across a whole spectrum of ideas and actions and architecture’s knowledge and practice—for particular systems of architecture that we call, for example, modernism, classicism or national style? For this, Jacques Rancière’s theory provides a good framework.7 According to Rancière, there is a “distribution of the sensible” that governs various modes of practice,

5

See Ohnuki-Tierney (2002). A rich cultural tradition had developed around the flower as: the quotidian symbol found in daily life; the symbolization of life based on the life-death-rebirth process; the likening of the flower to womanhood based on man-woman relations; the reading of sacrifice as falling cherry petals and of cyclic blossoming as rebirth; and a century-old “pathos over evanescence” in the cultural consciousness—all these provided a wealth of meaning and potentials that enabled the young male pilots to make the fatal move. See Ohnuki-Tierney (2002: 1–23, 299–305). 7 See Rancière (2004). 6

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including a socio-political order and aesthetic and cultural order. For example, a hierarchical political order and a representational, artistic culture forms one distribution of the sensible where exclusion and privileging of noble figures are its main features, as can be found in post-Renaissance Europe in its fine art and monarchy; whereas, from the nineteenth century on, a breaking down of hierarchy, an opening-up for inclusion and a new visibility of the ordinary and the anonymous defined new distributions of the sensible in modern democracies and in modern art and culture. Rancière’s “distribution of the sensible” can be conceived as a priori of the Kantian tradition, and thus be considered a framework through which cultural knowledge is organized. In this way, an aesthetic appreciation of the yearly cherry blossoms in relation to war, sacrifice and a projected revival of empire or the pure and glorious self, forms one order of the sensible, and a system of cultural knowledge that shares a consistent theme or perception—the glory of life, death and rebirth embodied in the flower— across several realms of art, culture, politics and pragmatic disciplines controlling military actions and the use of war machines. Similarly, a certain “style” or system of a comprehensive body of visions, ideas, skills, and a technical know-how in architecture also forms a sense-based “distribution” and “ordering” of a body of cultural knowledge in diverse realms (aesthetic, functional and technical). For example, a certain “sensibility” for austerity governs a distribution that defines modernism, whereas that of richness and grandeur defines another distribution that frames a classical or national style of architecture—each distribution itself being messy or hybrid as it crosses from aesthetics to other realms. Rancière himself has attempted to study various “distributions” or “orders” in early modern architecture (confirming a hybridity between pure form and messy social historical program or use in both Peter Behrens’s and William Morris’s work).8 This distribution is necessarily hybrid, yet a consistent ordering of the perceptive and the sensible runs through diverse fields— aesthetic, cultural, political and technological. In current studies, architecture—as knowledge and practice for producing spaces and forms—is considered as a distribution of the sensible. Furthermore, architecture is considered part of a larger distribution of the sensible for a societal project in a historical time, amidst geopolitical forces moving around, within, and beyond national borders. Both “distributions” here occur in Rancière’s sense. To understand the history of the Cold War and its relations to the production of social space and cultural form—as found in architecture—of the People’s Republic, it is important to understand that its observation can never be

8

Rancière (2010: 115–133). See also Rancière (2007: 91–107).

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bound by the national border. A transborder and transnational observation must be adopted, in which other cities, regions, and nations near or far must be included where necessary. Similarly, on a temporal dimension, we must also extend the scope of observation. For a better understanding of the Cold War period, we need to observe periods before, especially, World War II and interrelated colonial pasts of the Asian region. The subsequent development after the end of the Maoist period and Cold War that now provides us with a distance from which to observe developments up to 1976 and 1978, when Zedong Mao passed away and Xiaoping Deng initiated the earliest steps of Reform respectively, must also be considered.

6.3

Two Basic Distributions Correlated: Geography and Architecture

To study the development of architecture as practice and knowledge in China during the Cold War period, two distributions should be proposed. The first is geographic and geostrategic—the distribution of the frontier and rear over mainland China in relation to the shaping of military disputes with major foreign powers from the 1940s to 1980s. The frontiers were positioned along the east coast, however, other borders in other directions also acted as frontiers at certain moments. The rear, on the other hand, in response to the eastern frontiers (and later northern frontiers), were mostly in the hinterland, located in the center towards the south, with the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces forming the core of the rear in China’s mainland. The second distribution is architectural. It is concerned with the two ends of architecture, of which one is comprehensive practice and production, and the other a corresponding body of cultural knowledge in architecture. If there is a formal, aesthetic and symbolic end, then there is also a pragmatic, functional and planning side within the spectrum of issues and concerns found in practice and knowledge. The aesthetic and the pragmatic are certainly combined everywhere. Nevertheless, in a historical and geographical review, we can often identify a certain place or region (a metropolitan area for example) in which formal and symbolic production is more pronounced, whereas in other places (such as the industrial hinterland) pragmatic and functionalist construction is more pervasive. Due to the geographic configuration of mainland China, and the historical development of modern China confronting adversarial forces in specific directions, developed areas largely overlapped with frontier regions. While developed or metropolitan areas gravitated towards the east coast, where colonial invasions and Japanese encroachment had been moving from the east inwards (from east and northeast to be more precise), the communist-capitalist divide of the Cold War—in which mainland China played a big role—also

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occurred along China’s east coast (and further up to Korea and down to Vietnam). Colonization did contribute to modernization and development, however, the east being more developed originated long before in the Song dynasty between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. What is clear, is that the developed metropolitan areas found along China’s eastern coast, converged with a strategic frontier or divide during World War II and the Cold War. Since there was more formal, aesthetic and symbolic production in architecture in developed or metropolitan areas along the east coast, we are, in the case of mainland China, confronted by an interesting correlation. The regional distribution of architecture between aesthetics and function now overlaps with a geostrategic distribution of the front and rear in the east coast and western hinterland. In other words, formal, aesthetic and symbolic production can be found mostly at the eastern frontier, whereas pragmatic social-spatial planning and construction is found in the vast and nameless profusion of the rear or large hinterland.

6.4

Frontier, Rear and Third Line Construction

World War II in Asia, which largely unfolded between an invading Japan and defending China, was in fact a continuation of Japan’s imperialist expansion that started in the late nineteenth century. Japan’s victory over Qing China in 1895 and Tsarist Russia in 1905 initiated waves of colonization in Asia in subsequent years and decades.9 In this overall geostrategic confrontation from 1895 to 1945 in East Asia, the basic spatial or geopolitical war took place between Japan’s island and China’s mainland core, and within a series of middle zones—mainly Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan, which were either Japan’s colonies or China’s coastal areas—that were attacked and occupied after 1937. The beginning of the Cold War, as the consequence of World War II, sustained spatial and geostrategic divisions with the addition of some new dividing lines. In 1949 (after the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists ended), the frontiers of the new People’s Republic of China

were the Taiwan Strait and Guangdong-Hong Kong border, the first with Taiwan (as the Republic of China under the Nationalist) that was backed by the United States, and the second around the British colony. For mainland China, there were two other frontiers, situated in the southwest with India and in the northeast with the Soviet Union, over which military conflicts occurred in 1962 and 1969 respectively, with the Sino-Soviet borders in both the northeast and northwest asserting more pressure. By comparison, the US-backed pressures from South Korea on the peninsula, and Taiwan along China’s east coast all the way to the South China Sea, defined a major and long-term confrontational frontier.10 The US’s 7th fleet, which came to the Taiwan Strait in 1950 during China’s crossing into Korea, and which supported Taiwan’s military conflicts over small islands on China’s southeast coast in the 1950s, moved to the Gulf of Tonkin to support sea and air strikes in North Vietnam in 1964. As a moment of escalation between North and South Vietnam, this was a turning point that pushed Mao to begin large-scale preparations across China for a coming war with the United States. The worsening relations with the Soviet Union over much of the 1960s, culminating in military conflict in 1969 on the northeast border with the USSR, also contributed to this policy shift. Starting in 1964–65 in preparation for the third Five Year Plan (1966–70), the focus on economy for livelihood shifted to war preparation. Central to this national policy of war preparation was the building of China’s strategic rear or hinterland in the core area to the south, especially in and around the Sichuan province, by relocating industries and population from the east coast and building new industrial and transportation facilities in the rear. Lasting from 1964 to the early 1980s, this project was called the “Third Line Construction”.11 While the east coast was regarded as First Line and the areas behind as Second Line, the core of mainland China was described as Third Line. The precise geographic definition of this area was changing, however, the central area was made up of the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Qinghai, Gansu, and Shaanxi, which geographically all centered around and protected Sichuan and Yunnan—the core of the core in China’s geostrategic distribution.

9

Taiwan (1895), Liaodong Peninsular with a railway line (1905), concessions in Chinese cities (1907), Korea (1910) and Manchuria (1931) all fell into the Japanese hand one by one and became Japanese colonies or territories. For China (whether as Qing empire, the Republic, or the People’s Republic), the taking over of Chinese land, of Taiwan, Liaodong and Manchuria, were merely waves of escalating invasions that culminated in the 1937–45 war when Japan launched a full-scale attack from Beijing down and from Shanghai in, pushing the Republic of China (under the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party) into the core inland around the Sichuan Province. As is well known from this point on, the Pacific War broke out in 1941 and Japan surrendered in 1945.

10 Beyond mainland China or the People’s Republic, in East Asia another two confrontational frontiers were between North and South Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea respectively) and between North and South Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam respectively); the first is the Demilitarized Zone or the “38th Parallel North” that, re-established in 1953, still remains today, whereas the second, the “17th Parallel North” was established in 1954 and dissolved in 1976 by a unified communist Vietnam, renamed as Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 11 Huang et al. (2014: 98–110).

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The Third Line Construction meant essentially the building of a national industry for defense and production in the hitherto less developed core areas of China, and the project included industry bases, residential communities, railway lines and defense facilities (from military hospitals to airfields and space bases). In terms of planning, it adopted three models: building new industrial cities, developing existing cities and building scattered bases dispersed in mountainous regions. Some of its most well-known achievements include the Chengdu-Kunming Railway Line connecting the capital cities of the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, which was opened in 1970; the Penzhihua City in Sichuan, a completely new city constructed from 1965 onwards to service a large industry base including the Penzhihua Steel Plant; and the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan, on which construction started in 1970 and operation began in the 1980s.12 There was also a distinction between the “Large Third Line” and “Small Third Line” Construction, referring to major developments in the hinterland and minor but pervasive ones behind large cities such as Shanghai. The Third Line Construction was in effect a nation-wide process of development across China. As such, its aim was war preparation at an international level, but also political, social and economic development at a local-national level—and was not restricted to the core hinterland. In this sense, the war preparation campaign turned out to be a process of social ordering, streamlining state hierarchy and managing society and the population, which required a precise and institutionalized social space to assist and materialize. The organization of the danwei or “work unit”, initiated across China in the 1950s, saw a systematic expansion and spatial materialization in the Third Line project during the 1960s and 70s all over China, front or rear. While socially the danwei was a unit that combined production and reproduction, i.e. employment, health care, housing and other welfare facilities, spatially it was a compound that, since the 1960s and more so in the 1970s, adopted modern architectural principles of functionalism.13 Efficient planning, the economic use of materials, calculated designs for minimum waste and maximum use, largest quantity, and maximum sunlight, among others, were thus paramount principles of its architectural production (Fig. 6.1). Two observations can be made. Firstly, if modernism in architecture is a system of cultural knowledge and includes a range of ideas from formal aesthetics to pragmatic planning, then the architectural ideas and practices of the Third Line in the 1960s and 70s certainly embodied the pragmatic end of

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modernism in China. Secondly, echoing the work of Cold War scholars, its so-called war preparation at an international level was in effect a local process of socialist industrialization and socialist ordering of work and life through spatial organization and materialized architecture.

6.5

Frontier, East Coast and Aesthetic-Symbolic Production

In the dividing frontier between communist and capitalist Asia, along China’s east coast since 1949, formal, aesthetic, and symbolic production in architecture was part of the confrontation. But, the use of styles in war or confrontation started earlier. During Japan’s expansion and colonization starting in 1895, western classical styles were used for government buildings in Japan and its colonies (such as Taipei and Seoul). In the 1930s, when Japan invaded further into the Chinese mainland, an Imperial Crown Style with stronger Japanese features such as the use of curved roofs (which were in fact, associated with Chinese influences centuries back) came to dominate some of the key government and civic buildings in Tokyo as well as Hsinking (capital of Manchukuo from 1932 to 1945, now Chuangchun). Around the same time, in the Republic of China, a Chinese Native Style was established in its capital Nanjing as well as in other key cities including Shanghai and Beiping (Beijing), mainly in the 1927–37 period when Japan was pressing down from the northeast (capturing and turning it into Manchukuo) before their full-scale attack in 1937. In other words, during the long Sino-Japanese war from 1895 to 1945, both the Japanese Imperial Crown Style and China’s Native Style were in effect war styles or war architectures, in which aesthetic form and traditional culture of the styles—a system of cultural knowledge in architecture— were employed to glorify military campaigns on both sides, offensive or defensive. The communist-capitalist divide in Asia, in China, Korea, and Vietnam since 1949 and after 1953–54, was a geopolitical stylistic confrontation: nationalism for the people’s republics versus modernism for the capitalist republics. It is well-known that, with the ideology of socialist art and architecture demanding the use of “national forms” with “socialist content”—following a theory of “socialist realism” first articulated in Soviet Union, which opposed “bourgeois” and “imperialist” modernism of the capitalist west—the Chinese National Style was promoted and implemented in Beijing and other key cities, mostly along the country’s east coast.14 American-trained Chinese architects, for example Sicheng Liang (1901–1972) who graduated from the University of

12

Huang et al. (2014: 102–107). See also Meyskens (2015: 238–260) and Chen (2003). 13 Bray (2005); see also Lu (2006).

14

Zhu (2009, 75–104).

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Fig. 6.1 Master plan of the living quarter of Meishan Ironworks, Nanjing (1971), part of a Small Third Line Project, initiated in 1968 and operating in 1971. From Jianzhu Xuebao 1 (1973): 23. Translated by Catherine Woo and Jianfei Zhu

Fig. 6.2 Friendship Hotel, Beijing, 1956; Architect: Bo Zhang (Beijing Institute of Architectural Design). Photo taken 1997. © Jianfei Zhu

Fig. 6.3 Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, 1959; Architect: Bo Zhang (Beijing Institute of Architectural Design). Photo taken 1996. © Jianfei Zhu

Pennsylvania in 1927, and their students educated in China, now adopted Maoist and Soviet ideas and delivered buildings in the Chinese National Style (Figs. 6.2 and 6.3) with classical

features such as curved roofs—formally similar to, but bigger and more elaborate, than the Native Style in Nanjing of the 1930s.

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What is lesser known, is that modernism was being promoted on the other side in Taiwan, with American support, as part of the strategic and aesthetic confrontation. Da-hong Wang (1917–2018), who received his architectural education at Harvard University (1940–42) under Walter Gropius, built in a modernist style for decades in Taiwan, producing a Bauhaus modernism with subtle Chinese references, as found in his residence (Taipei, 1953, reconstructed in 2014) (Fig. 6.4).15 But American political support opposing communist mainland China16 was manifested more clearly in the work of other architects—Ieoh Ming Pei, Chi-kwan Chen and Chao-kang Chang, who were all associated with Gropius, in the building of Tunghai University (Taichung, 1953–63) (Fig. 6.5).17 In 1950–52, a US Christian association (The United Board for Christian Colleges in China) that had funded and built some 13 colleges and universities in mainland China, reached the conclusion that, having lost the mainland, a new Christian university for China—in Taiwan—had to be established. Named Tunghai (Eastern Sea), the university was to be modern, liberal and independent, and located in the city of Taichung. Ieoh Ming Pei (1917–2019), the Chinese-American architect who studied under Gropius at Harvard (1945–46)—and then taught there for two years while working in New York, and soon to establish his own practice, Pei & Associates, in 1955—was commissioned to design the new university in 1953. Vice President Richard Nixon presided over the ground breaking ceremony in the same year. Another two Chinese architects in the United States, Chi-kwan Chen (1921–2007) and Chao-kang Chang (1922–92), who both worked under Gropius in the early 1950s, joined the design team and arrived at the site to design, advise and supervise the construction—which was completed in 1963. Designed by Pei with Chen and Chang in a Bauhaus-inspired architectural language, its austere modernist design incorporated Chinese vernacular elements in a tectonic and plain approach, in sharp contrast with the

15

Shyu (2010). When Harry Truman sent the 7th fleet to the Taiwan Strait, he maintained a “polite” neutrality between communist mainland and capitalist Taiwan, whereas when the Republican president Dwight Eisenhower came to power in 1953, he was more hawkish and openly backed Taiwan with the use of US navy forces (supporting Taiwan’s conflicts with communist China in 1954–55 and 1958) and various parallel cultural policies. 17 Donghai Daxue Xiaoshi Bianji Weiyuanhui (2007). See also Chen and Jianzhuxi (2003). I am grateful to Professor Kuo Chi-Jeng at Tunghai University, who explained to me in detail the campus while guiding my visit to the campus on 8 December 2018. I am also grateful to Hsu Liyu, who also shared information and ideas about the building of this campus. Professor Hsia Chu-joe, Tong Jun Chair Professor in architecture at Southeast University of Nanjing, also shared his insight and knowledge with me about the campus in November 2018. 16

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ornate and proud designs of the Chinese National Style on the other side of the Strait. If there was an ideological confrontation between the nationalist architecture of communism and modernism in capitalist Asia, then from the 1960s onwards, and especially in the 1970s, its intensity dissipated. When the ideological content of forms diluted, even an “exchange” of formal languages took place on both sides of the Strait. Chinese national or “classical” features, especially the grand curved roofs for palatial halls of the past, were now used in civic and government buildings in Taiwan from the late 1960s onwards (Fig. 6.6), consolidating the image of a legitimate and tradition-based government, but also opposing the anti-traditional Cultural Revolution sweeping across communist China in the late 1960s.18 In mainland China, on the other hand, functionalist modernism became pervasive during the 1970s, both at its formal or aesthetic end in civic and state buildings along the east coast, and at its pragmatic end in pervasive spatial construction best manifested in the Third Line hinterland.19 At the formal and symbolic end, austere, functional, and modernist designs with clear aesthetic intention appeared in some civic, public and state buildings in large cities on the east coast in the 1970s, most prominently in Guangzhou and Beijing. In Beijing, the rise of these works, such as the International Club (1972) and the Diplomatic Apartment Blocks and Towers (on the Qijiayuan site, 1974) (Figs. 6.7 and 6.8), along with others of varying qualities, came into being because of several developments: a liberal and pragmatic force emerging in the government led by Enlai Zhou; an opening-up of China’s international relations with western powers (after the historic Mao-Nixon meeting in Beijing in 1972); and an architectural influence coming from Guangzhou in the south, whose version of modernism proved appealing. In Guangzhou, the rise of modernist works with subtropical characteristics, as found in hotels and exhibition halls such as the Oriental Hotel and Canton Fair Exhibition Hall (both 1974) by Junnan She, and the Baiyun Hotel (1976) by Bozhi Mo, was the result of several converging forces that turned Guangzhou in the 1970s into a breakthrough moment (Figs. 6.9, 6.10 and 6.11). These forces included: (1) a local tradition that developed since 1945 when German- and Japan-educated Chinese architects led by Hsia Chang-shi (1903–1996) arrived and established a functionalist program in teaching and practice; (2) subtropical climatic conditions that required an open, plain and tectonic design approach; (3) specific national functions assigned to the city by the central government to trade with 18

Fu (1993). The following descriptions on modernism in Beijing and Guangzhou of the 1970s are based on Ke Song’s study under my supervision, 2013:17: Song (2017). 19

112 Fig. 6.4 Residence, Taipei, 1953 (reconstructed in 2014); Architect: Da-hong Wang. Photo taken in 2018. © Jianfei Zhu

Fig. 6.5 Tunghai University, Taichung, 1963; Architect: I. M. Pei, Chi-kwan Chen and Chao-kang Chang. Photo taken in 2018. © Jianfei Zhu

Fig. 6.6 National Chang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Liberty Plaza, Taipei, 1976; Architect: Cho-cheng Yang. Photo taken in 2018. © Jianfei Zhu

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Fig. 6.7 International Club, Beijing, 1972; Architect: Guanzhang Wu with Beijing Institute of Architectural Design. From and by permission of the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design

Fig. 6.8 Diplomatic Apartment Blocks (on Qijiayuan site), Beijing, 1974; Architect: Rubi Weng with the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design. From Gong et al. (1989)

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Fig. 6.9 Canton Fair Exhibition Hall, Guangzhou, 1974); Architect: Junnan She with the Guangzhou Design Institute. From Shi (2010)

Fig. 6.10 Oriental Hotel, Guangzhou, 1974; Architect: Junnan She with the Guangzhou Design Institute. From: Editorial Committee (1976b), Guangzhou jianzhu shilu

overseas partners due to Guangzhou’s proximity to Hong Kong; and (4) a specific contemporary design language, with a mid-century modernism already in practice in Hong Kong (Hilton Hotel, 1963) now filtering through the frontier from the British colony to communist Guangzhou in the 1960s and 70s (Fig. 6.12).20 Functionalist modernism in China of the 1960s to 70s, as a system and a body of cultural knowledge, had pragmatic manifestations that occurred not only on a few symbolic projects in large cities on the eastern frontier, but in a profuse and “nameless” production of tens of thousands of institutions, industrial bases and residential communities that were part of the socialist danwei system, most manifest in the so-called Small and Large Third Line Construction that,

20

On this last point, for the two frontiers, the Taiwan Strait and the Guangdong- Hong Kong border, the former was more confrontational with military conflicts and combative gestures (still ongoing today), whereas the second was porous, with migration and Maoist ideas into Hong Kong and trade and modernism into Guangzhou—Shenzhen, a laboratory of contained capitalism of Deng Xiaoping, then became a logical fruition of that organic border condition in the early 1980s—a case to be further studied.

Fig. 6.11 Baiyun Hotel, Guangzhou, 1976; Architect: Bozhi Mo with Guangzhou Planning Bureau. From Editorial Committee (1976a), Jianzhu shilu: Baiyun Binguan

though centered on the hinterland, were dispersed all over China. There was, in other words, a spatial and geographic distribution of the modernist system of knowledge. While a few monuments of high formal qualities were built in metropolitan areas of the east coast frontier, pervasive planning and production of social spaces and functioning buildings were found more at the rear. The “aesthetic” east coast and the “industrial” hinterland thus formed a basic distribution of the geopolitics of architectural knowledge and building production in socialist China. In terms of war studies or a historiography of the Cold War, this geopolitical form of architecture embodied a correlation between war, geography and culture in which, mapped onto a specific territorial space, strategic confrontations corresponded with the use and development of a system of cultural knowledge, such as modernism in architecture that included its own spatialized distribution from the symbolic to the productive. At a methodological or conceptual level, cherry blossoms, like austere or ornate designs in architecture, became entangled with politics and warfare, not because of an “aestheticization” of politics, but because of a body of cultural knowledge, a distribution of the sensible that reproduces

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Fig. 6.12 Hilton Hotel, Hong Kong, 1963; Architect: James H. Kinoshita with Palmer and Turner. From http://kfwong2013. blogspot.com.au/2015_02_01_ archive.html, accessed 9 May 2019

itself everywhere, in all realms and spheres, political, social and technological, as well as artistic and cultural. If the image of the flower was reproduced in all realms of the personal world of the soldier flying to kill and die, the austere aesthetic and ornate glory of design were also reproduced, from east coast to west hinterland, and in formal symbolic designs as well as in pragmatic spatial planning and construction.

6.6

Concluding Remarks

If functionalist modernism provided a main body of architectural knowledge for socialist China in the 1960s and 70s, then there were two other movements that were also important—the socialist National Style of the 1950s and cultural regionalism of the 1980s and 1990s. For the National Style, if its symbolic manifestation was found in

its formal design for the use of traditional architectural features such as curved roofs and their associated parts, details, colours and proportional disciplines, then its social and functional manifestation lay in the production of symmetrical, hierarchical and authoritarian buildings and spaces, which can be found in spatial planning at various scales. Again, the aesthetic and symbolic end was manifest in a few key buildings, whereas the pragmatic and instrumental design practices were pervasive—to be found in almost all administrative buildings and central squares in socialist China, with some using little nationalist forms, but all using its underlying spatial rules of centrality and symmetry. In a hybrid manner, functionalist modern architecture also overlapped with the nationalist-classicist system in its central and symmetrical planning—many modernist designs in China used symmetry for buildings of authority.

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Fig. 6.13 Fragrant Hill Hotel, Beijing, 1982. Architect: I. M. Pei. Photo taken 1997. © Jianfei Zhu

With the Cold War coming to a close in the 1980s and 1990s, the spread of cultural regionalism in architecture must also be studied in relation to geopolitical transformation, at least in the Chinese context. Although already in existence, a clear regionalist architecture emerged in China with I. M. Pei’s Fragrant Hill Hotel in 1982, set on a beautiful scenic hillside to the west of Beijing—using clear elements of southern Chinese vernacular and garden designs in a modernist whiteness that was as bourgeois as it was elitist.21 When Nixon and Mao met in Beijing in 1972, a delegation of architects from the AIA was invited to visit China. Pei was one of 15 who visited China in 1974 and was invited to design a building in 1978, of which the Fragrant Hill Hotel was the outcome (Fig. 6.13).22 Combined with other influences coming to China, this building initiated waves of designs for a modern vernacular or reflective regionalism, its many forms ranging from the more literal and post-modern to the highly creative and transformed. Ideologically, this cultural regionalism served to help dissolve the Cold War political divide, as it appealed to a reading of culture and tradition as “aesthetic” and neutral by a population conceived as classless or “all as middle class”. The changing trajectory of Pei from Taiwan to Beijing, and later to all places of “China” (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan) is interesting to study. As a system of architectural knowledge, it had its symbolic manifestations in a few key buildings (which again gravitated to the east coast) and a functional manifestation in programming and in social spatial production—for the rising cultural and commercial domains of post-Mao China.

21

The initial mixed reactions in China were recorded in a section of “Architectural Criticism” with five essays in Jianzhu xuebao (March 1983: 57–78). 22 Cannell (1995: 289–325).

In terms of a societal, geographic, and temporal scale, the Third Line Construction may be considered as the core project of socialist China in the Cold War era, preparing for war with the United States or Soviet Union. As a secondary or parallel purpose, but more important in effect, the project was a local-national construction of industry, governance, and social order, for which the danwei system provided a socialist and functionalist framing. For this, systems of cultural knowledge in architecture provided a range of ideas and technological know-how, delivering both aesthetic images and spatial organizations at the frontier along the east coast and at the rear into the vast hinterland. Interestingly, in the spatial geopolitics of the Cold War from the viewpoint of Mao and socialist China, the inward-looking Third Line Construction was also related to an outward-looking embrace of the Third World, with China’s aid projects expanding throughout Asia and Africa; pressed by “imperialist” superpowers, Mao had both an internal core to retreat to and an external world to engage with. To conclude, in socialist China, the geopolitical spatial distribution of the frontier and the rear served to map and correlate a cultural and epistemological distribution of architectural practice and knowledge, in which the emblematic vanguard facing east complemented the operational base stretching deep into the west.

References (1983). Jianzhu xuebao (Journal of architecture) March: 57–78 (a section on “architectural criticism” with five essays on Pei’s Fragrant Hill Hotel) Baudrillard J (1995) The Gulf War did not take place (trans: Patton P). Power Publications, Sydney. First in French in 1991 Bevan R (2006) The destruction of memory: architecture at war. Reaktion Books, London Boyd GA, Linehan D (eds) (2013) Ordnance: war + architecture & space. Ashgate, Surrey

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Bray D (2005) Social space and governance in urban China: the danwei system from origins to reform. Stanford University Press, Stanford Cannell M (1995) I. M. Pei: Mandarin of modernism. Carol Southern Books, New York Chen D (2003) Sanxian jianshe: beizhan shiqi de xibudakaifa (Third line construction: opening the west during the war preparation era). Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, Beijing. 陈东林 (2003). 三线建设: 备战时期的西部大开发. 北京: 中共中央党校 出版社 Chen GL, Donghai Daxue Jianzhuxi (eds) (2003) Jianzhu zhi xin: Chen Qikuan yu Donghai jianzhu. (The mind of architecture: Chen Chi-kwan and the architecture of Tunghai University). Tianyuan Chengshi Wenhua Shiye, Taipei. 陈格理, 东海大学建筑系 (主编) (2003). 建筑之心: 陈其宽与东海建筑. 台北: 田园城市文化事业 Cohen J-L (2011) Architecture in uniform: designing and building for the Second World War. Canadian Centre for Architecture, New Haven and London Colomina B (2006) Domesticity at war. Actar, Barcelona Donghai Daxue Xiaoshi Bianji Weiyuanhui (ed) (2007) Donghai Daxue wushinian xiaoshi, 1955–2005. (Tunghai University: A history of fifty years, 1955–2005). Donghai Daxue Chubanshe, Taichung. 东海大学校史编辑委员会(主编) (2007). 东海大学五 十年校史, 1955-2005. 台中: 东海大学出版社 Editorial Committee (ed) (1976a) Jianzhu shilu: Baiyun Binguan. (Architecture record: Baiyun hotel). Jianzhu kexue yanjiuyuan, jishu qingao yanjiu suo, Beijing. 编委会 (主编) (1976). 建筑实录: 白云宾馆. 北京: 建筑科学研究院, 建筑情报研究所 Editorial Committee (ed) (1976b) Guangzhou jianzhu shilu. (Architecture in Guangzhou). Guangzhou sheji yuan, Guangzhou. 编委会 (主编) (1976). 广州建筑实录. 广州: 广州设计院 Fu CC (1993) Zhongguo gudian shiyang xinjianzhu. (A new architecture of classical styles in China), Nantian Shuju, Taipei. 傅朝卿 (1993). 中国古典式样新建筑. 台北: 南天书局 Gong DS, Zou DN, Dou YD (1989) Zhongguo xiandai jianzhu shigang. (An outline of modern architecture of China). Tianjin Kexue Jishu Chubanshe, Tianjin. 龚德顺, 邹德侬, 窦以德 (1989). 中国现代建 筑史纲. 天津: 天津科学技术出版社 Hajimu M (2015) Cold war crucible: the Korean conflict and the postwar world. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Hirst P (2005) Space and power: politics, war and architecture. Polity Press, Cambridge Huang L, Li B, Sun Y (2014) Sanxian jianshe: beizhan sixiang xiade Zhongguo xiandai chengshi guihua shijian (Third line construction: the practice of modern Chinese urban planning under the guiding principles of war preparation). In: Li B (ed) Chengshi guihua lishi yu lilun. (Urban planning: history and theory). Dongnan Daxue Chubanshe, Nanjing, pp 98–110. 黄立, 李百浩, 孙应丹 (2014). 三 线建设: 备战思想下的中国现代城市规划实践. 李百浩 (主编). 城市规划历史与理论. 南京: 东南大学出版社, 98–110页

117 Kaufmann JE, Jurga RM (1999) Fortress Europe: European fortifications of World War II (trans: Kaufmann HW). Greenhill Books, London Lu D (2006) Remaking Chinese urban form: modernity, scarcity and space, 1949–2005. Routledge, London & New York Mallory K, Ottar A (1979) Walls of war: military architecture of the two world wars. Astragal Books, London Meyskens C (2015) Third front railroads and industrial modernity in late Maoist China. Twent-Century China 40(3):238–260 Ohnuki-Tierney E (2002) Kamikaze, cherry blossoms, and nationalisms: the militarization of aesthetics in Japanese history. Chicago University Press, Chicago and London Pence M (2018) Speech at Hudson Institute. https://www.hudson. org/events/1610-vice-president-mike-pence-s-remarks-on-theadministration-s-policy-towards-china102018. Accessed 6 April 2019 Rancière J (2004) The politics of aesthetics: the distribution of the sensible (trans: Rockhill G). Bloomsbury, London Rancière J (2007) The future of the image (trans: Elliot G). Verso, London Rancière J (2010) Dissensus: on politics and aesthetics (trans: Corcoran S). Continuum, London & New York Schuldenfrei R (ed) (2012) Atomic dwelling: anxiety, domesticity and postwar architecture. Routledge, New York Shi AH (ed) (2010) Lingnan jinxiandai youxiu jianzhu 1949–1990 juan (Outstanding architecture of the Lingnan region, the 1949–1990 volume). China Architecture & Building Press, Beijing. 石安海 (主 编). (2010). 岭南近现代优秀建筑, 1949–1990卷. 北京: 中国建筑 工业出版社 Shyu MS (2010) Jianzhushi Wang Dahong 1942–1995: Da-Hong Wang: the architect, 1942–1995. Eslite Corporation, Taipei. 徐明松 (2010). 建筑大师王大闳: 1942–1995. 台北: 诚品股份有限公司 Song K (2017) Modernism in late-Mao China: a critical analysis on state-sponsored buildings in Beijing, Guangzhou and overseas, 1969–76. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Melbourne Virilio P (1994). Bunker archaeology (trans: Collins G). Princeton Architectural Press, New York. First in French in 1975 Virilio P, Lotringner S (2008) Pure war: twenty-five years later (trans: Polizzotti M). Semiotext(e), London Weizman E (2017) Forensic architecture: violence at the threshold of detectability. Zone Books, New York Westad OA (2000) Introduction: reviewing the cold war. In: Westad OA (ed) Reviewing the cold war: approaches, interpretations, theory. Frank Cass, London, pp 1–23 Westad OA (2010) The cold war and the international history of the twentieth century. In: Leffler MP, Westad OA (eds) The Cambridge history of the cold war, vol. 1: origins. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–19 Zhu J (2009) Architecture of modern China: a historical critique. Routledge, London & New York

Part III Community Building: From Government to Governance

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China’s Changing Landscape of Neighbourhood Governance and Participation: From a Governmentality Perspective Xiaoyuan Wan

Abstract

Keywords

The urban neighbourhood has become a conspicuous arena for policy intervention in China since the central government intensively promoted a shequ system to strengthen its political power at neighbourhood level in the 1990s. This research uses a Foucauldian governmentality framework for a genealogical review of neighbourhood governance during feudal dynasties, the Maoist era, and post-Maoist era. It does so in order to critically analyse the current shequ institutions’ use of governing technologies in everyday political practices, and study how these succeed or fail in shaping citizens’ conduct. It concludes that spatial practices and social norms have always been regarded by Chinese governors as essential to legitimising and consolidating their regimes at the neighbourhood level, regardless of the different technologies used by governments to design and organise neighbourhoods. Empirical evidence based on a study of Nanluogu Alley, portrays a hybridising scenario, in which the shequ institutions embrace both Maoist and Confucian discourses to cultivate active and responsible citizens. Yet, the residents’ reactions suggest that citizens develop their own ways to internalise or reject government interventions aimed at regulating their conduct. This paper concludes that participants in and beneficiaries of government discourse and neighbourhood governance make important contributions to governmentality, and provide valuable insights for research into how state power is exercised at a grassroots level and how this impacts the citizens’ struggle for subjectivity.

Neighbourhood governance China State power Public participation

X. Wan (&) Department of Rural Planning and Department, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada e-mail: [email protected]




7.1







Governmentality




Introduction

Since the 1990s, the Chinese central government has extensively delegated public administrative functions to local governments, and urban neighbourhoods have become a new arena of policy intervention. In recent literature, the urban neighbourhood has been widely described as the most active interface of China’s state-society interactions (Gui 2007; Wang 2009; Chen 2010; Yue and Wei 2010) and different views have emerged about the state’s power exercised at the neighbourhood level (Li 2002; Lin 2003; Liu 2005; Pan and Luo 2006; Xu 2001). However, these burgeoning discussions are usually limited in their attention to post-1978 and overlook more fundamental questions concerning the becoming of political rationalities and government technologies in today’s landscape of neighbourhood governance in China. Questions such as: “To what extent have historical Chinese political rationalities and technologies been inherited by the current government?” and “How have Chinese citizens become governed by both traditional and modern governing technologies?” need to be discussed in order to fully capture the nature of China’s transitional statehood and the complex dynamics of neighbourhood governance. Michel Foucault’s method of political genealogy, with its idiosyncratic and antiquarian interest in the emergence of political ethics and subjectivity (Szakolczai 1993:28), provides critical reflection on these questions. China’s long history as a centralised political and cultural entity makes it a good case for a genealogical review on whether (and how) historical governing rationalities and technologies play an implicit, but pervasive role in today’s governance.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_7

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This paper, firstly, carries out a genealogical exploration of how urban neighbourhoods have been historically used to exercise state power by Chinese rulers. It then critically analyses the current shequ institutions’ governing technologies in their everyday political practices, and evaluates how these technologies succeed or fail in shaping citizens’ conduct. The analytical framework is based on three main concepts of Foucault’s governmentality theory: rationality, government technologies, and subjectivity. The term governmentality, defined by Foucault as the “rationalism of governmental practice in the exercise of political sovereignty” (2004: 4), has generated proliferating discussions on the “how” of governing: how we govern, how we are governed, and the relation between the government of the state, the government of others, and the government of ourselves (Dean 1999: 2). It provides a critical perspective to understand and evaluate government practices in modern society.

7.2

Governmentality in Historical Neighbourhood Governance

Throughout the long history of China’s feudal dynasties (221BC–1911), a fundamental governing principle adopted by different emperors was to divide the population into hierarchical social classes and to administrate people by spatially segregating them, emphasising hierarchy and restraining mobility between them. The feudal rulers used a series of population policies, spatial design approaches, and philosophies to maintain a hierarchical social order, while cultivating citizens to respect this social order and self-regulate. As the basic units of cities, urban neighbourhoods were the ultimate arena where population policies and spatial design were implemented. Neighbourhood life directly reflected governmental rationalities to administrate society and also mirrored the then state-society relation. Thus, spatialising authoritarian power through spatial planning was the most implemented governmental rationality in feudal China. Most dynasties’ capitals and big cities were designed according to a strict guideline described in Zhou-li, or Rites of Zhou, a book recording ancient Chinese rituals (141–87BC). In a chapter named “Kao-Gong-Ji”, or “Records of Traders”, are precise descriptions of the ancient Chinese urban spatial layout: The Jiang-ren (craftsman) constructs the state capital. He makes a square nine Li (500 meters) on each side; each side has three gates. Within the capital are nine north-south and nine east-west streets. The north-south streets are nine carriage tracks in width. On the east is the Ancestral Temple, and on the west is the Altars of Soil and Grain. On the south is the Hall of Audience and on the north are the markets.

This famous paragraph is widely cited in books focusing on Chinese urban planning, as it not only contains detailed

description of ancient urban morphology, but also reflects on traditional ethics, ideals, and the ruler’s governing logic behind the spatial layout. The urban space is segregated into a gridded neighbourhood system in order to emphasise hierarchy and facilitate the exercising of imperial power. All elements in the spatial layout have a ritual meaning, including the direction, the width of roads, the sizes of gates, and so on. Based on these spatial elements, ancient Chinese cities developed into highly sophisticated, preconceived constructions, which served as a physical manifestation of cosmological beliefs, bureaucratic hierarchies, and the practicalities of daily life (Wu 2013). Apart from spatial practices, social norms also played an important role in rationalising and strengthening state power in ancient China in the form of a hierarchical “ritual system”. As discussed by Foucault and other governmentality theorists, government practices and policies designed to engender the people’s internalised desire to adhere to social norms are deeply embedded in political history (Ewald 1990; Foucault 1977; Miller and Rose 2008; Nettleton et al. 2013). In China, early records describing how feudal emperors used social norms to legitimise and stabilise their authority go back as far as the period of the Warring States (third–first Century BC). In the famous historical work of Stratagems of the Warring State, the role of norms was stated to have had three main aspects. Firstly, respect for norms was a basis for the legitimacy of emperorship. An emperor must have been acknowledged by “heaven” to gain formal legitimacy of his/her emperorship, and he/she also must respect interstate norms to gain recognition of his/her authority by a majority of states. Secondly, norms provided emperors with the legitimacy to use military force. Thirdly, to establish a new regime, it was necessary to adapt the current system of norms to changes in society (Yan 2011). Following Zhou-li planning principles and the hierarchical ritual system, most historical Chinese cities used walls to keep rural residents out, with guards at their gates who strictly controlled population movement between rural and urban areas. A gridded road system further divided the city into enclosed blocks, forming the boundary of neighbourhoods. The technologies of gates, walls, and curfews played a pivotal role for rulers to define a neighbourhood-based social space and control the mobility of residents (Barme and Minford 1989; Jenner 1992; Yang 1994; Bray 2005). Alongside these spatial practices, the feudal Chinese government used a “household registration” (hu-kou) system starting in the Han Dynasty to classify citizens into different social classes and govern them by restraining their spatial mobility (Chan and Buckingham 2008). People from one family were registered as one “household” (hu). Once citizens were registered in a certain household, their personal information was officially recorded and they were forced to live where they had registered. The government of the Tang

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Dynasty (618–907) developed a sophisticated hu-kou system, which organised citizens into nine classes (hu-fen-jiu) and levied them according to corresponding standards. The following dynasties of Song (960–1279), Yuan (1271– 1368), Ming (1368–1644), and Qing (1644–1911) all imitated the Tang’s hu-kou system by classifying citizens according to their land ownership, social status, and profession. Through the household registration system, population mobility in feudal China was kept very low to facilitate sovereign control over different social classes. The deeply embedded hierarchy in social rites had a profound influence on how Chinese people identified themselves within society and how they reflected on themselves in everyday life. As Sigley (1996: 468) puts it: “to be Chinese meant to subscribe to a particular mode of living— to engage in certain ritual practices, ranging from the number of times one bathed per day to the position and rank one was accorded in a funeral procession”. To a large extent, the people’s respect for history, norms, and traditions derived from their acknowledgement of social hierarchy, and deeply embedded Confucian values reminded people to keep reflecting on and cultivating themselves in their contact with others. Based on this doctrine, individuals became a microcosm of society: by achieving a perfect moral harmony in person, political harmony can be achieved, and by regulating themselves, individuals can contribute to an organised social order (Kupperman 2004).

registered as “urban householders” and rural citizens as “rural householders”. The rural householders were not allowed to seek jobs in cities and the transfer of household registration was extremely difficult. Meanwhile in cities, the feudal logic of demarcating space through compounds and by creating social spaces within these compounds can be easily seen in the socialist neighbourhoods of the “dan-wei”. Here, walls demarcated the space of neighbourhoods in the same way that they had defined the realm of the family in the past (Bray 2005). In many ancient cities, neighbourhoods were designed at a very large size with comprehensive functions (Wan 2013). In socialist cities, the same planning logic could be found: the dan-wei compounds were designed as enclosed spaces that contained factories, commerce, and comprehensive infrastructures. The “life radius” of most citizens was thereby concentrated within dan-wei compounds (Chai 1996). Through these demarcated compounds, both the feudal and socialist government created a social space for citizens and managed them as a group. As the dan-wei played the predominant role in delivering public goods and social welfare to citizens, most citizens had their housing, medical care, and education services provided by their respective dan-weis for free. There were only a small number of urban residents who could not enjoy these welfare services, such as the disabled, unemployed, and some socially disadvantaged groups. To provide for them, the government established a delegated agency, namely the “Street Office” (jie-dao-banshi-chu) at the neighbourhood level, to provide welfare and other government services to urban residents who did not belong to any dan-wei (Bray 2006: 533). Social norms continued to play an essential role in legitimising hegemony by the state. Following the traditional governing strategy described in the ancient Chinese text Stratagems of the Warring State (Zhan Guo Ce), the Chinese government tried to build a new system of norms to support its regime. The hierarchy-focused feudal norms were seen as backward and exploitative, and were therefore dismissed, while Marxism and Leninism formed new core values to guide and regulate social behaviour. However, the content of many advocated socialist norms actually derived from ancient norms, especially Confucian norms. For example, during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Socialist codes of conduct were defined as “patriotism, dedication to work, integrity and amity”. All codes that could be already found in the Analects of Confucius. As many researchers pointed out, the specificity of Chinese socialism is that it was built upon a mature Confucian system of norms. Therefore, many proposed norms were more or less based on Confucian doctrines, but reframed by socialist theories (Zhao 2002). Political activeness was another core socialist government practice. Differing from feudal governors, who kept their

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7.3

Maoist Governmentality

After the Chinese Communist Party came into power in 1949, the Chinese government adopted a rigid socialist system for the next three decades and launched massive political movements in attempts to build a completely new social structure. Analysis shows that some feudal governmental rationalities were implicitly inherited by the socialist government and the way it legitimised its regime and exercised power at the neighbourhood level. More specifically, while the government adopted some new technologies to design and manage neighbourhoods, these practices still aimed at shaping collective-oriented subjectivity. To facilitate its administration, the Chinese government maintained the feudal rulers’ rationality to spatialise power through practices of urban planning—firstly, the spatial design of cities and, secondly, the continued control of population mobility between rural and urban areas through a hu-kou policy. In January 1958, the first household management law, The People’s Republic of China Household Registration Ordinance, was promulgated to implement a city-rural dual management system (heng-xiang-er-yuanguan-li). This ordinance classified citizens into two categories according to their place of birth: urban citizens were

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citizens away from politics, the Maoist government actively involved citizens in political life to strengthen their political loyalty. Political activism was, as part of government discourse, described as being one of the highest virtues for any citizen (Solomon 1969). Through large-scale neighbourhood-based political campaigns and propaganda, the Communist Party cultivated a group of activists at neighbourhood level, who mediated discussions between the government and residents. These activists were regarded as key operational figures in political mobilisation and surveillance (Read 2003): they passed down political orders to residents and mobilised political participation at grassroots level through frequent personal contact with their neighbours. This approach was totally different to the feudal neighbourhood governance model.

7.4

Post-Maoist Governmentality: The Case of Nanluogu Alley

Since 1978, the Chinese central government began to reform its economic structure and embrace a more liberal “market economy”. To govern its increasingly open and dynamic urban population, starting in the 1990s, a series of urban neighbourhood governance reforms were adopted through which most functions of the socialist dan-wei system were handed over to the new Street Office Residents Committee system. At the same time, as Chinese society became increasingly fragmented by rapid urban development, socialist values and norms were greatly challenged by neoliberal thought. Thus, to maintain social order in neighbourhoods, the government changed its governing rationalities, bringing back Confucian norms and emphasising family-based ethical order and self-cultivation (Hoffman 2010), while beginning to introduce Western values of “public participation” in an attempt to cultivate more responsible and self-governed residents (Hoffman 2014). To examine how the government used a hybrid model of governmentality to govern the current urban neighbourhood, an empirical case study in Nanluogu Alley was undertaken between 2010 and 2011. It included six months of fieldwork in this historical neighbourhood of Beijing, which is located in the jurisdiction of the Jiaokou Street Office. In 2011, there were 6 Residents’ Committees (RCs) within a 1.47 km2 area, including that of Gulouyuan, Nanluoguxiang, Ju’er, Maoer, Yuanensi, and Fuxiang, and a residential population of approximately 54,000. In 2006, the Jiaodaokou Street Office established a twenty-year Community Development Plan to promote a “multi-stakeholders participatory” model of governance in order to mobilise residents’ participation in the neighbourhood regeneration and public administration. The Street Office launched over 20 small-scale, self-governed projects between 2006 and 2010 in support of

neighbourhood environmental regeneration, infrastructural upgrades, disaster prevention awareness, community care, and so on, with over 50 “residents’ working groups” established to implement self-governing projects. Planners and scholars were invited by the Street Office to provide technical guidance, and professional social workers were employed by the Street Office to give the project workers relevant “capacity training”. As part of my study, 43 open qualitative interviews were held with Street Officers, RC members, wardens and project workers, professional social workers, planners, and residents to ensure an understanding of the full range of ways that issues are addressed by different stakeholders. In addition, participatory observation took place in public hearings, meetings, and symposiums organised in late 2010 as part of a typical self-governed project. This was executed in order to get a more direct understanding of the whole process of events and gather information that could not be obtained through studies of documents or people’s accounts. The case of Jiaodaokou is thereby seen to represent the process by which governmental discourse is implemented by actors through their daily practices. It equally demonstrates how citizens react to the state power, rather than representing the practices of shequ governance in all types of neighbourhoods and different Chinese cities. By engaging with key themes of citizenship cultivation and struggles around the shaping of subjectivity, which are generic elements of shequ governance, this research contributes to arguments of changing landscapes in neighbourhood governance and participation from a governmentality perspective.

7.4.1 The “Powerful Elderly”: Hybrid Government Technologies of Mobilisation Discipline is described by Foucault as the main technology used by authorities to exercise power on agents in modern society. Benjamin Read’s research suggests that in neighbourhoods, social mobilisation is to a large extent organised and facilitated by a group of “activists” that include community leaders, who are elected as “wardens” and serve as the RC’s liaisons in smaller residential units, but also work with people who participate in self-governing projects as volunteers (2003: 173–174). Empirical data in Jiaodaokou further indicates that in these self-governed projects, activists spontaneously organise themselves in a hierarchical order to pass down political orders and mobilise participation from below (Fig. 7.1). When RC members receive assignments from the Street Office, they quickly pass them to the wardens, who are usually senior residents elected by their neighbours as informal leaders. When it comes to projects that need wider participation, wardens will recruit residents as volunteers—

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China’s Changing Landscape of Neighbourhood Governance …

Fig. 7.1 The hierarchy of community activists between the shequ institutions and residents

usually senior residents too—to work with them in mobilising wider resident participation. The 6 Residents’ Committees work directly under the leadership of the Street Office and each RC has 7–9 members who are in charge of around 10,000 ordinary residents. For each RC member, there are 20–30 wardens taking charge of their courtyard and a total of 100–120 residents working as volunteers. In this hierarchy, each RC member and warden is only responsible for 3–4 subordinate members, which greatly facilitates the implementation of the Street Office’s daily assignments and self-governed projects. As most RC members are paid by the Street Office, it can directly issue orders to them and is not obliged to mobilise others. Wardens and project volunteers therefore have pivotal roles in the governance hierarchy, since they work on practical projects without legislative obligations.

7.4.2 Maoist Mobilisation To encourage wardens and volunteers to participate in self-governed projects, the Street Office embraces the Maoist art of mobilisation, which attributes highest individual virtue to political activeness. Senior residents (or the Maoist generation) are targeted as the main subjects of mobilisation and are referred to as “powerful” citizens with “valuable resources”. The renovation project for a community common room in Juer Shequ, for example, illustrates the process of cultivating desired activists. In 2010, the Street Office allocated a 5000 RMB special fund to renovate the common room, which was rarely used by the residents due to poor ventilation and an impractical internal layout. The Street Office designated an official who would oversee the project’s “main direction”,

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but “not intervene in practical implementation” (Street Officer C, 36). In parallel, a professional, external social organisation was employed by the Street Office to provide “capacity training” sessions to support residents involved in the design process and implementation of the renovation scheme. Throughout these sessions, the “leading role” of the government was emphasised and wardens were taught how to collaborate with the government in “peaceful” ways. To mobilise greater participation, the Street Office launched a large-scale project campaign within the neighbourhood. Leaflets were distributed to residents and the RC members were required to make door-to-door warden visits to persuade them to participate. In following public hearings, the Street Officials repeatedly tried to verbally persuade wardens and volunteers to participate, making use of their personal relationships with them. The terms “activeness” and “progressiveness” were repeatedly used to praise their “marvellous values” within the neighbourhood and emphasise their “pivotal role” in the Street Office’s everyday work. The outcome was that most wardens who attended the hearing finally agreed to participate. In late 2010, the renovation project was officially launched. About 60 residents, including wardens, volunteers, and some frequent common room users participated in the project. External social workers were entrusted with giving the participants initial capacity training: all participants gathered for a two-day public discussion on the topic of “redesigning a pleasant and efficient common room”. On the first day, participants were divided into small working groups to discuss their opinions on the current activity room and make suggestions. On the second day, each group was required to design an integrated scheme detailing the arrangement and decoration of the new activity room. To meet the government’s aim of cultivating harmoniously participating residents, social workers integrated instruction with character development (jiao-xun-he-yi) in public discussion. Emphasis was put on participation in the spirit of “collaboration” and “consensus” while avoiding complaints. The project induced participants to think in “positive ways” and organised discussions around the keywords of “contribution”, “suggestion”, and “effort”. Terms such as “problem” and “conflict” were to be avoided in these discussions. A social worker summarised the capacity training as following: Chinese residents are actually quite easy to mobilise and cultivate. On the one hand, most of them have experienced the Maoist society and were quite used to obeying instruction from “above”. On the other, they have a lot of enthusiasm for public affairs and would like to make a contribution […] However, they are also easily influenced and led down “wrong ways”. Therefore, when working with them we need to especially emphasise “harmony” and avoid “conflict. (Social worker S, 45)

Whilst participants were trained to think and behave in “positive” ways, they did not realise that challenging or

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bargaining with the government was an option in solving their problems—nor were such bargaining powers offered to them. They became cultivated “collaborative” and “active” citizens rather than critical citizens. Professedly the activists and residents took initiative to organise themselves and change their neighbourhoods, but through the capacity training a series of “right” and “wrong” standards according to the government were instilled within them, giving them the capacity to work within government regulations. When asked about government intervention in their work, the social worker expressed the awkwardness of their situation: “This is the only way [we] do [our] work in China now. You need to work with them [the Street Office], then you can make your own points. Challenging them is the last thing you want to do” (Social worker C, 35).

7.4.3 Confucian Cultivation With “full regard to the values of old people in implementing its policies and projects” (Street Officer L, 27), the Street Office reintroduced Confucian characteristics such as xiao (filial piety) and jing (reverence for the elderly) through newspapers and a TV campaign, encouraging residents to live in disciplined ways under the leadership of the old wardens. In 2011, the Street Office organised a public symposium with the theme “Filial Piety is the Most Important Human Virtue”. Eight families were invited as “representatives of harmonious family living” to share their experiences of maintaining a good relationship with their parents. He, a resident from the Fuxue Shequ, was awarded and recognised as “the representative of good offspring” by the Street Office for taking good care of her mother-in-law, and her story was praised in the local community newsletter. He’s interview about filial piety was quoted as follows: Every time I see my mother-in-law taking care of her mother, I feel I should make more efforts taking care of her and making her happy. Filial piety is a traditional Chinese virtue and an important part of the Spirit of Beijing. We should work together to pass this virtue on to more people and to our offspring. (Resident H, 42)

Meanwhile, Street Officers made considerable efforts to build an image of “respecting the elders”. They were requested to regularly visit old people in their neighbourhoods and demonstrate their “leading role in filial piety”. During the traditional Chinese Chong-yang Festival (the festival of showing respect for older people) the Street Office workers were asked to visit families with older members and send them free food. The director of the office equally visited the community hospital to greet the elderly and was reported as “sending warm greetings to residents on behalf of the party”. The director described the old residents, especially the wardens and neighbourhood project workers, as

X. Wan

“powerful” and “priceless”, and said that: “We can count on them [the wardens and project workers] to operate [the self-governed projects]. After all, they are more experienced than us” (Street Officer Y, 55.).

7.4.4 Divergent Subjectivity The empirical case study of Nanluogu Alley has shown that participatory neighbourhood governance has led to divergent reactions on the part of residents, who either internalise or escape from governmental power, reflecting their different moral values and increasing tensions caused by social inequalities. For some residents (mainly senior residents), the aspiration to have moral integrity drives them to volunteer for work in public affairs as activists. Government mobilisation is therefore often internalised by activists as a will to do good and involves a process of self-cultivation, but does not necessarily engender forms of political complexion. Most residents, however, choose to keep a critical distance from such mobilisation as they distrust the government, while acknowledging and respecting the values of activists. The ordinary residents’ contradictory attitude towards activists and self-governed projects manifests in their subversion of government interventions: by not actively taking part, residents create a safe non-political sphere for themselves, where they are not obliged to participate in government projects.

7.5

Conclusion

This research contributes to an understanding of China’s changing forms of urban neighbourhood governance from a governmentality perspective. To summarise, throughout history and today, spatial practices and social norms have always been regarded, by Chinese governors, as the main means of legitimising and consolidating their regimes at the neighbourhood level. To a large extent, the legacy of Confucian and Maoist norms regulate the behaviours of Chinese people and continue to facilitate the current government’s approach to governance. Some values such as patriotism, collectivism, self-dedication, and filial piety are still more or less embedded in its citizens’ subjectivities (Hoffman 2010). But in a fast-changing and globalising society, Chinese people, as is the case all over the world, experience a cultural shock and rapid supplanting of traditional values by neoliberal thought. The Chinese government is thus inevitably losing control over its citizen’s conduct. In the contemporary city, neighbourhood relations are much more diverse than in the old dan-wei compounds. When the Maoist generation passes away in two or three decades, however, the government will find it more difficult to

China’s Changing Landscape of Neighbourhood Governance …

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cultivate community wardens. In addition, the dan-wei system is likely to have totally retreated from China’s urban administration in the next few decades. By that time, an important legacy of the dan-wei society—a well-developed social network in neighbourhoods—will have been totally supplanted by a heterogeneous neighbourhood population that will bring more challenges to neighbourhood governance. Therefore, more empirical research needs to be carried out to explore the ever-changing landscape of neighbourhood governance, especially the increasingly active participation of non-governmental actors and the formation of citizens’ subjectivities (Hoffman 2014).

Jenner W (1992) The tyranny of history: the roots of China’s crisis. Allen Lane, London Kupperman J (2004) Tradition and community in the formation of character and self. In: Shun K, Wong DB (eds) A comparative study of self, autonomy and community. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Li XC (2002) Chengshi shequ zizhi de shehui jichu. J Northwest Norm Univ 3:129–132 Lin S (2003) Research on cases of community democratic governance. Social Sciences Academic Press, Beijing Liu B (2005) Zhonghua wenhua yu zhongguo shequ. Jinan Daxue Chubanshe, Guuangzhou Miller P, Rose N (2008) Governing the present: administering economic, social and personal life. Polity Press, Cambridge Nettleton S, Neale J, Pickering L (2013) I just want to be normal: an analysis of discourse of normality among recovering heroin users. Health 17(2):174–190 Pan Z, Luo J (2006) Community self-governance and transformation of government functions. J Tangshan Norm Univ 4:44–46 Read BL (2003) State, social networks and citizens in China’s urban neighborhoods. Harvard University Press, California Sigley G (1996) Governing Chinese bodies: the significance of studies in the concept of governmentality for the analysis of government in China. Econ Soc 25(04):457–482 Solomon RH (1969) Activism and activists—Maoist conceptions of motivation and political role linking state to society. China Q 39:76–114 Szakolczai A (1993) From governmentality to the genealogy of subjectivity: on Foucault’s path in the 1980s. European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, Firenze Wan X (2013) Changing governmentalities and power relations in Chinese government’s ‘community construction’ practices. Ph.D. thesis, The University of Sheffield Wang W (2009) The analytical framework toward transition of community governance—applicability of state and society analysis approach. Jiangsu Soc Sci 4:106–112 Wu W (2013) The Chinese city. Routledge, Oxon Xu Y (2001) Lun chengshi shequ jianshe zhongde shequ jumin zizhi. J Cent China Norm Univ 3:5–13 Yan X (2011) Ancient Chinese thought, modern Chinese power. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford Yang D (1994) City monsoon: the cultural spirit of Beijing and Shanghai. Oriental Press, Beijing Yue TM, Wei B (2010) Guojia yu shehui guanxi shiyu xia de shequ jianshe ji zhengfu juese dingwei. J Northwest Norm Univ 5:51–56 Zhao Q (2002) Confucian values and socialist moral construction. J Xi’an Inst Post Telecommun 7:40–42

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References Barme G, Minford J (eds) (1989) Seeds of fire: Chinese voices of conscience. Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle Upon Tyne Bray D (2006) Building ‘community’: new strategies of governance in urban China. Econ Soc 35(4):530–549 Bray D (2005) Social space and urban governance in China. Stanford University Press, Redwood City, CA Chai Y (1996) Yi Danwei wei jichu de zhongguo chengshi neibu kongjian jiegou: Lanzhoushi de shizheng yanjiu. Geogr Res 1:30– 33 Chan KW, Buckingham W (2008) Is China Abolishing the Hukou system? China Q 195:582–606 Chen N (2010) Guojia-shehui guanxi shiyu xia de shequ jianshe: zouxiang neijuanhua de quanli zhixu –jiyu dui changchunshi J shequ de yanjiu. Lanjiu. Acad J 7:109–113 Dean M (1999) Governmentality: power and rule in modern society. Sage, London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi Ewald F (1990) Norms, disciplines and the law. Representations 30:138–161 Foucault M (2004) Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au Collège de France 1978–1979. Gallimard/Seuil, Paris Foucault M (1977) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Allen Lane, London Gui Y (2007) Neighborhood politics: power practice at the grassroots level and adhesive state-society relations. Society 7:102–126 Hoffman L (2014) The urban, politics and subject formation. Int J Urban Reg Res 38(5):1576–1588 Hoffman L (2010) Patriotic professionalism in urban China: fostering talent. Temple University Press, Philadelphia

8

Housing Privatization and the Return of the State: Changing Governance in China Fulong Wu

Abstract

8.1

Housing privatization seems to suggest a process of state retreat. However, this is not always the case in China. This paper examines an estate that is mixed with work-unit housing and municipal public housing to understand its changing governance. It is intriguing to observe that the state has had to return to this neighbourhood to strengthen its administration following housing privatization, because the attempt to transfer responsibility to commercial property management failed. The neighbourhood governance, however, has transformed from one based on work-units to a government-funded administrative agency. The return of the state has been achieved through professional social workers, but it is struggling to operate, leading to the alienation and disempowerment of former state work-unit residents. The side effect of this approach on governance is that, through encouraging market provision and commercial operation which is not fully working, reciprocal activities are restrained. Since housing privatization, the neighbourhood has deteriorated; from a brand-new estate to an “old and dilapidated neighbourhood” in less than 25 years. Keywords





Governance Housing privatization Work-unit housing China




Neighbourhoods

F. Wu (&) Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected]




Introduction

The neighbourhood is an important spatial form to foster social bonding (Putnam 2001). Despite the coming of an urban age, a small living space like a neighbourhood cherished by everyone, arguably still plays a role in place-making (Friedmann 2010). Forrest and Kearns (2001) emphasizing that the neighbourhood is a key dimension for maintaining social cohesion. In the UK, the significance of the neighbourhood was highlighted in area-based regeneration under New Labor (Kearns a Parkinson 2001), as well as in recent localism support for the community. The significance of the neighbourhood persists in urban policies (Kearns and Forrest 2000; Paddison 2001). With the growing importance of flows of people, goods and information, and with greater mobility, territorialized social practices are crucial, as argued by van Kempen and Wissink (2014, p. 95), because “neighbourhoods continue to play a role in the actions and imaginations of people, neighbourhood organizations, and government policies. People still live in neighbourhoods, and the government still tries to solve often severe social problems through neighbourhood policies.” Neighbourhood-level social-spatial inequalities have significant impacts on social cohesion (Cassiers and Kesteloot 2012). The rise of private governance in the form of gated communities is a salient feature of changing neighbourhood governance (Blakely and Snyder 1997). There are extensive studies of middle-class neighbourhoods and gentrification (Lees 2008). On the other hand, economic restructuring and a changing political economic environment have created acute pressures on working-class neighbourhoods (Ward et al. 2007). At the other extreme, territorial stigmatization strongly targeted specific neighbourhoods and affected ethnically diverse communities in Britain (Slater and Anderson 2012), and social exclusion occurred in poor neighbourhoods (Musterd et al. 2006). Racial practices and stigmatization suppressed civic development in American ghettos (Wacquant 2008). In post-socialist economies, neoliberalism

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_8

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and market transition have transformed domestic and neighbourhood lives (Smith and Rochovska 2007). Commodification seems to be a major process that affects neighbourhood governance. While there has been a burgeoning literature on urban China (Friedmann 2005; Hsing 2010; Logan 2008; Ma 2002) and neighbourhood governance (Boland and Zhu 2012; Bray 2005, 2006; Read 2000, 2012; Tomba 2005, 2014; Wu 2002), these studies have paid more attention to the new forms of gated communities built under the housing market (Huang 2006; Pow 2009; Zhang 2010) or informal urban villages (Wang et al. 2009; Wu et al. 2013). The re-establishment of neighbourhood governance by expanding the role of previous neighbourhood organizations such as residents’ committees is well documented (Read 2000; Tomba 2014; Wu 2002). However, it is not entirely clear why housing privatization has not led to greater self-governance. How does the state manage to maintain control in work-unit housing areas where service provision has been largely privatized? Current literature emphasizes the state’s desire to control or use new techniques of governing (e.g. Ong 2007; Read 2012; Tomba 2014), while paying insufficient attention to contextual neighbourhood changes. More importantly, the maintenance of the state’s role is not contradictory to the deployment of market instruments (Wu 2017a), because the latter has left a vacuum of governance that requires state intervention. This paper will provide a more nuanced understanding of the implications of housing privatization on neighbourhood governance, using a public housing area that consists of both work-unit and municipal housing as an example. While the specificity of the work-unit housing should be taken into account, these observations open up the possibility to think about other neighbourhoods in a similar way. This study chose an ex-public housing neighbourhood in Nanjing, which was jointly invested in and constructed by several state work-units in the mid-1980s, just before the introduction of the housing market and housing privatization. The Fifth Village (a pseudonym) is located on the edge of Nanjing. Because Nanjing is a relatively compact city, the distance from the neighbourhood to the city center only takes about 30 min by bicycle. The area is now part of the city proper.

8.2

Changing Neighbourhood Governance in Urban China

In this section, the features of neighbourhood governance prior to economic reform, the initiative to “build communities” under economic reform and rising “private governance” are reviewed to identify research gaps.

8.2.1 The Dominance of State Work-Units in Urban Governance Prior to Economic Reform Under state socialism, state work-units (danwei) were the main organizers of neighbourhood life (Bray 2006; Friedmann 2005, 2007; Whyte and Parish 1984; Wu 2002). This created an organized dependence on the state, known as “communist neo-traditionalism” (Walder 1986), which replicated the traditional features of stable neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods of municipal housing and work-unit compounds are different, because “[the work-unit community] is already part of a rational, future-oriented, differentiated, technological structure, and it has been quite effective in important modernization tasks. It is a community within modernity, within a division of labor—a transfigured community” (Womack 1991, p. 330). This argument distinguishes two types of neighbourhoods and their governance prior to economic reform: neighbourhoods that relied on state work-units and neighbourhoods that were based on informal neighbourhood organizations and still under the supervision of the state. State work-units played a key role in housing provision and organized social lives (Logan et al. 2010; Walder 1986). The strong capacity of governance was in contrast to weaker governance in old neighbourhoods, which were more or less based on self-organization by residents’ committees (ju wei hui) served by retired people and housewives (Read 2000; Whyte and Parish 1984).

8.2.2 The Decline of Work-Units and “Community Construction” Since the 1990s Market-oriented reform in the 1990s has had great impacts on neighbourhood governance (Friedmann 2005). Along with economic decentralization, Chinese cities have seen the influx of rural migrants and laid-off workers who are no longer attached to state work-units. These were private sector workers outside the traditional mechanism of social control, and thus it was an imperative to reconnect those outsiders with the state; this has been achieved through the top-down “community construction” initiative (Bray 2006; Friedmann 2005, 2007; Heberer and Göbel 2011; Read 2000; Shi and Cai 2006; Shieh and Friedmann 2008; Wu 2002). The initiative of “community construction” arguably strengthened state control. Wong and Poon (2005) argue that the institution of the neighbourhood has been transformed from “serving neighbours to re-controlling urban society.” The policy aimed to recreate a close and intimate small space where social surveillance could be effectively achieved. In Shanghai, urban governance adopted a new model of two

8

Housing Privatization and the Return of the State …

levels of government (municipal and district governments) and three levels of administration (adding the street office of government). Later the system was extended to include the fourth layer of residents’ committees as the agent of local government (Wu 2002). The development of residents’ committees represents the extension of state governance into the neighbourhood (Read 2000).

8.2.3 Rising Property Rights Awareness in Gated Communities Since the 2000s The retreat of the state from housing provision and the emergence of entrepreneurial governance have been arguably characterized as neoliberal urbanism (He and Wu 2009; Walker and Buck 2007), echoing a process of “neoliberalization” (Harvey 2005). The demise of the danwei as an organizational form of urban governance is the major change (Bray 2005; Huang 2006; Logan et al. 2010; Wu 2002). It is observed that traditional forms of social bonding are declining, showing up as less frequent neighbourhood activities (Forrest and Yip 2007), while social networks grow beyond neighbourhoods (Hazelzet and Wissink 2012). There have been extensive studies on the emergence of new residential forms of “gated communities” in China (Huang 2006; Pow 2009; Zhang 2010) and the rise of homeowners’ associations in these new neighbourhoods (Fu and Lin 2014; Read 2003; Shi and Cai 2006; Tomba 2005, 2014). Though social interaction at the neighbourhood level has declined (Forrest and Yip 2007), middle-class housing estates retain strong place affection and attachment (Zhu et al. 2012), and strong awareness of their property rights (Tomba 2005), perhaps due to a shared identity and interest in property. Read (2012) studied the residents’ committee as a government sponsored network and form of “administrative grassroots engagement” that embodies governance and facilitates policing at the most local level. His research reveals the connection between the state and society within the neighbourhood. Tomba (2014) highlights the importance of the neighbourhood as the place where residents’ everyday lives are governed at a distance by the government. In other words, it is in the neighbourhood that the state’s authoritarian governance is achieved. Rather than seeing the trend towards more tightly controlled neighbourhoods, Gui et al. (2009) suggest the emergence of increasingly fragmented neighbourhood organizations. Neighbourhood elections and new approaches to welfare delivery have been experimented with (Derleth and Koldyk 2004; Friedmann 2011). Thus, the dichotomist state-society approach becomes inappropriate, because a third realm, which is between the state and the market, has been created at the neighbourhood level (Gui et al. 2009). However, Fu and Lin (2014) have shown that undeveloped social capital has led to a lack of civic

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engagement and in turn made the homeowners’ association a weak territorial organization. From the above review, we can see that commodity housing development tends to enhance the awareness of property rights. Shared interests and identity may challenge the state and require more grassroots democracy (Cai and Sheng 2013; Fu and Lin 2014; Shi and Cai 2006; Shin 2013). The question is then: How does the state manage to continue to enforce its control even when facing strong property rights awareness? How does the process work in work-unit housing areas where property rights awareness is much weaker? We need to understand commodification, privatization and state-led “community building” as complementary processes to foster state hegemony.

8.3

The Context of the Case and Research Methodology

The Fifth Village is located not too far from central areas but connection with the city is not very easy. The place was relatively isolated and confined by a river that was also used for sewer discharge, cutting off the roads into the city. Cyclists used the rugged riverbanks to travel to the city in the 1990s. The area was close to the docklands along the Yangtze River where manual workers lived. This was the edge of the city. Before 1949, rural refugees concentrated in the area and built simple shacks. The place was gradually converted into shantytowns. In the 1980s, the city of Nanjing decided to renew this area because it was visible from trains across the Yangtze River Bridge to the city (a deputy director of city planning bureau, July 2001). The area was also chosen because there were farm lands and vacant lowlands. The population density was relatively low. The pressure to rehouse original residents was even lower. In 1986, the urban redevelopment office launched a project to develop a large estate. The project rehoused relocated households from nearby old areas. Two work-units also bought six residential buildings for their staff. The total area was 8.2 ha. The total building floor space was 104,000 m2. The estate consisted of 35 residential buildings, one nursery, one primary school and some buildings for shops along the main road in 1987. In 2001, more buildings were added, totaling 52 buildings in the Fifth Village, accommodating 2565 households and a population of 7472 persons (the director of residents’ committee, July 2002). About ten years after the estate was built, China initiated a full-fledged housing commodification (Hsing 2010; Logan 2008), which had an immense impact on this public housing estate. This study is based on the experience of living in this neighbourhood from 1987 to 1991 and ethnographic observation from regular visits thereafter. In the period between

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2001 and 2004, an initial investigation of neighbourhood governance was done through semi-structured interviews of officers and directors of the neighbourhood, as well as residents living in the neighbourhood, in response to the policy to promote “community construction” (Boland and Zhu 2012; Derleth and Koldyk 2004; Friedmann 2011; Read 2000; Shieh and Friedmann 2008; Tomba 2014). In 2008, investigation focused on the sale of ex-public housing. The two major estate agents in the area and eight residents who became owners through privatization were interviewed. In 2014, interviews were conducted with the street offices of the government (which is also known as the “sub-district” government (Derleth and Koldyk 2004)) and residents’ committees. Overall, 21 unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Whenever possible, the interviews were triangulated through conversations with estate agents, residents and neighbourhood cadres. It must be emphasized that the semi-structured interviews were done through a more formal process with government and neighbourhood officials, compared with many informal conversations had with the residents (which are not counted as interviews). Due to familiarity with the neighbourhood and five years’ living experience, triangulation of these conversations has been possible. These interviews lasted over a long period of time because of a sustained research interest in micro-level state control. While less formally organized as a research project, which tends to use a cross-section method, I believe this “longitudinal” approach helps to reveal long-term trends. Some data were collected from Nanjing Real Estate Market 2000, which provides some basic information about housing prices at the neighbourhood level in 2000. This is now supplemented by more detailed housing market data from 2014. As the study does not aim to provide detailed information about the housing market, no systematic effort was made comparing housing prices with other areas.

8.4

Housing Privatization and the Retreat of the State

The most significant implication of housing privatization is changing property management. Responsibility has been transferred from individual work-units that owned housing to the property management company that was recruited to take charge of property and estate maintenance. This was justified by the fact that through housing privatization the sitting tenants of public housing have become homeowners. However, since housing privatization, property maintenance in this estate has faced difficulties. For example, a sewer was blocked because some residents poured rubbish into it during housing refurbishment (a homeowner, August 2008).

The estate department of workplaces was no longer responsible for dredging because the housing had been privatized. On the other hand, the residents failed to coordinate themselves because not every household was affected by this problem at the same time. Thus, residents had to ask a private plumber to drill a hole in the external wall to set up a simple duct outside the building when the problem arose. The most salient feature is that the state withdrew from “neighbourhood services,” a term virtually unknown until the early 1990s. Before that time, services at the neighbourhood level were confined to assistance provided to poor families who received welfare benefits from the civil affairs department. These mainly included disaster relief and social assistance to the handicapped and the elderly (Solinger and Hu 2011; Womack 1991). For most residents, services were provided through their workplaces as occupational benefits. In the 1950s, street offices began to organize housewives and self-employed people into street handicraft workshops and small factories. This laid down the foundation of the “street collective economy”. The development of the collective economy helped provide employment to those who could not be formally recruited by state-owned enterprises. In the 1980s, because of the return of urban youth from the countryside, unemployment pressures increased. Street offices organized various street services such as TV repairs, barbers and housing maintenance to absorb returnees from the countryside (an officer in the residents’ committee, July 2002). As a result, neighbourhood services became an important sector of the collective economy, but they operated on a small scale, similar to social enterprises. The major change came in 1992, when the State Council classified neighbourhood services as a tertiary industry. This opened the door to the commodification of public services at the grassroots. In the 1990s, the decision to commercialize neighbourhood services led to the proliferation of businesses run by street offices. For example, in the Fifth Village, the street office owned the premises of small shops and convenience stores along the main road and leased them to private businesses. The income drawn from rental was used to subsidize the budget of the street office (a street officer, July 2002). Similarly, the residents’ committee maintained a local community center and managed some simple one-storey shacks to accommodate rural migrants. These business activities generated income to subsidize the operational costs of the residents’ committee. In the 1990s, residents’ committees managed to tap into market resources to provide paid services to residents. Shanghai even adopted a tax rebate policy to stimulate the development of a street economy (a street office manager, Shanghai, August 2002). Under this policy, street offices enthusiastically supported the registration of private business within their territories in return for a rebate of value added tax.

8

Housing Privatization and the Return of the State …

At the very beginning of promoting the privatization of neighbourhood services, there were debates about whether neighbourhood services were public goods delivery or a business of the service industry: “We believe the policies were contradictory; the State Council’s decision was not the same as the notice sent by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The latter believed service is for public goods. Now the neighbourhood service is ‘one servant for two masters.’ That was really confusing, and the purpose of developing neighbourhood services was quite different!” (a civil affairs official, August 2002). The premises along the main road of the Fifth Village were sold to private companies around 2000. The street office no longer collected rentals from these properties. In the 2000s, the street office managed to use the roads inside the neighbourhood for parking trucks and other vehicles to earn parking fees. After 2008, the residents’ committee no longer managed parking spaces because of a shortage of parking space and the collection of parking fees creating potential liability complications. In the Fifth Village, the street office director mentioned an incident where two drivers fought for a parking space, resulting in one driver being seriously injured. “[The other driver] had to pay a compensation of 80,000 yuan to get a settlement. This would bring us a lot of trouble if we had collected parking fees!” (director of residents’ committee, November 2014). The street office and residents’ committee played the role of arbitrator rather than stakeholder. Commercial activities have now been stripped from the operations of the street office and residents’ committee. The street office is now entirely dependent upon the budget assigned from the district government, and in turn the residents’ committee operates on specifically allocated funds for administrative tasks. In the Fifth Village, there used to be some one-storey houses and shacks managed by the residents’ committee for renting to rural migrants. But nearby commodity housing development projects demolished these premises. Originally, the neighbourhood also controlled a grocery market and collected a maintenance fee. But since the street market was moved into a formal indoor market, the residents’ committee can no longer collect this fee. In some old neighbourhoods, the residents’ committee undertook small services such as milk and newspaper deliveries, or introductions to nannies and domestic helpers. But all these services have now been fully commercialized. For example, there are special domestic help centers. In the Fifth Village, commercially operated sports and recreational activities are organized by private businesses. Some outdoor sports facilities were invested in by the street office of the government under specific funding and opened to the public. The insulation of the residents’ committee from market operation is due to two considerations. First, involvement in

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the market proved to create many irregularities and even corruption, because the director acted as both cadre and businessperson.1 Second, regulation prevented the residents’ committee from evolving into an independent “selforganized mass organization” through the use of independent financial sources.2 In this way, residents’ committees could have become charities or non-government organizations (NGOs) with their own business accounts. This direction of change was regarded as undesirable by the state, because it would weaken state control over neighbourhood governance. The policy of separating business and residents’ committees has transformed the nature of the residents’ committee from an organization that comprehensively deals with neighbourhood affairs into a public administration agency.

8.5

The Imperative for an Enhanced State Presence in Neighbourhood Governance

In this section, I will explain why privatization is not a one-way trajectory. The failure of commercial property management in many work-unit housing areas creates an imperative for the state to return in a more territorialized form. In the period of socialism, the street office together with a neighbourhood organization played a complementary role in social welfare and service provision. Their main targets were residents without workplace affiliation and the recipients of benefits from the civil affairs department, including the handicapped, widows, elderly without children, veterans, and their families, while the majority of the population depended upon their workplaces for social services (Solinger and Hu 2011). Neighbourhood management remained underdeveloped until the introduction of privatization. Treating neighbourhood management as paid services created a chance for developing property services through the market. Along with the unfolding of full-fledged privatization, public spaces have been privatized as commercial premises, and residents’ committees no longer provide services that can be delivered commercially. Property management companies were introduced to take over some functions. While work-unit housing has been privatized, the road to a self-governed neighbourhood has not been smooth. It is difficult to recruit a property management company in this

1

This was the concern raised both in an interview with a street officer in 2004 and ten years later in 2014 by another officer. 2 This is the conclusion inferred to by this study, because our interviewees constantly mentioned the importance of “financial independence,” suggesting that “we surely could have done more at our wish if we had our own source of money” (a street officer, November 2014).

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work-unit housing area, because residents cannot afford the maintenance fees or are reluctant to pay them (a street property service manager, November 2014). After privatization, “We tried very hard to find a property management company [to look after the estate], but you know the maintenance cost is very high” (director of street office, November 2014). Of 47 old and dilapidated residential districts in the territory of the street office, only eight are managed by property management companies, with only one formally managed by the homeowners’ association, and about 27 residential estates directly managed by the street office. The remaining 11 neighbourhoods were left to the residents themselves, which basically means a lack of maintenance (street office director, November 2014). Because of the difficulty in collecting property management fees, the property management company that took charge of the Fifth Village abruptly withdrew its service, leaving the neighbourhood in a state of limbo (director of residents’ committee, November 2014). After property management companies abandoned their role, the street office had to ask the residents’ committee to do what it could—according to the director, “Our ability is at most to do some small fixes and repairs” (the director, November 2014). As early as 2000, there were many signs of deterioration, for example, broken windows, under-maintained bushes, and sewage blockages. The failure of commercial operation imposes significant demands on the state to maintain its role in neighbourhood governance. In contrast to urban villages that draw income from assets under the village collectives (Po 2008), the work-unit housing neighbourhood has limited resources and has to depend on government funding. Moreover, as a modern public housing estate, the Fifth Village does not have many commercial establishments in its jurisdiction. Therefore, the neighbourhood has been constrained by its resources to support neighbourhood services. Following housing privatization, the residents’ committee is no longer supported by the work-units and so has to approach those enterprises within the area for “donations.” The director of the residents’ committee described how they were just like a “Buddhist monk begging for alms”. For services that can possibly be privatized, residents have to pay for themselves. “We don’t have to do anything. In fact, we can do nothing. All we can do is fix small problems here and there” (a residents’ committee officer, November 2014). When asked who would pay for maintaining trees and grass in the neighbourhood, the officer in the street office became anxious: “This is the area where you spend money but don’t see where it has gone. Trees, bushes and grass grow every year, and so you have to pay for them every year. We just spent 200,000 yuan on the maintenance of green spaces. Whenever possible, we convert grassland into hard surfaces. We had no choice” (a street property management officer,

F. Wu

November 2014). The continuing pressure on the residents’ committee means it has to be professionalized through state funding.

8.6

The Return of the State as a Territorialized Form of Governance

8.6.1 Increasing Size of the Residents’ Committee and Its Professionalization Housing commodification has led to greater residential mobility in urban China. Private sector workers are no longer affiliated with a state workplace that operates as a social management institution (Walder 1986). The influx of rural migrants has increased residential diversity. The bankruptcy of state-owned enterprises led to millions of laid-off workers who were transferred from workplaces to the places they live (Solinger and Hu 2011). Residential relocation created the problem of a mismatch between the location of household registration and the actual place of living. In short, urban China in the aftermath of commodification has seen an unprecedented tendency towards ungovernable spaces (Wu 2002). Confronted with an increasingly fluid society, the state strived to consolidate neighbourhood governance (Read 2000; Tomba 2014). Moreover, there has also been an increasing practical need to deliver social assistance to those not within the state enterprise system. The residents’ committee has thus been chosen as a territorialized form of governance. Previously, in this large residential area, there were three residents’ committees served by retired people and housewives. In 2000, they were dismissed, and the three residents’ committees were merged into a single residents’ committee (a residents’ committee officer, July 2002), later known as shequ. The new residents’ committee is served by professional social workers recruited formally by the government street office. The cadres come from other places. Although in theory local residents are also eligible to serve the residents’ committee, in practice it is difficult to find professional social workers in the same neighbourhood. Officials are appointed based on educational attainment and qualification, regardless of whether or not they come from local communities. The residents’ committee has a proper office with desks and filing cabinets. It has become a de facto government agency performing administrative duties. Regular administrative tasks include the delivery of social assistance, family planning, neighbourhood education, health and hygiene campaigns, women’s affairs, organizing neighbourhood cultural and sport activities, mediation of neighbourhood and domestic conflicts, and maintenance of public space. The residents’ committee plays an important role in neighbourhood governance. For example, in this

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Housing Privatization and the Return of the State …

neighbourhood, cadres should pay home visits to families that have lost a member to explain funeral and interment procedures (a street officer, November 2014). The office is in charge of allocating the minimum livelihood support and other welfare benefits from the civil affairs department (Solinger and Hu 2011). The residents’ committee also tries to maintain contact with poor families in the neighbourhood. In the 2000s, the residents’ committee also helped to verify rental spaces for rural migrants and checked their family planning measures. Other tasks in more informal peri-urban villages include the creation of new addresses for rental properties so that migrants living in these properties could be “geo-located” (a district planning officer, August 2010). In some informal urban areas, new address plates were created for the rooms accommodating rural migrants. The major change for the residents’ committee is a bureaucratization of its organization. Initially in 1954, the organizational law of residents’ committees stipulated the residents’ committee as a “self-organized mass organization.” Subsequently in 1989, the law defined it as a “resident self-managed, self-educated, and self-served local mass self-organized organization” (Womack 1991), though in reality the residents’ committee is always guided by the government and is thus different from “grassroots organizations” in the West. The original size of the residents’ committee was relatively modest. The residents’ committees in the Fifth Village were each in charge of 100–700 households and staffed by five to nine people, mainly from the neighbourhood. In 2001, it managed 7472 residents (a residents’ committee officer, July 2002). But in 2014, the Fifth Village residents’ committee needed to serve more than 11,000 residents, about ten percent of whom were rural migrants (director of residents’ committee, November 2014).

8.6.2 The Separation Between Social Management and Commercial Services The budget of the residents’ committee is allocated by the government’s street office. Compared with the huge demand for assistance and management, the budget has been always seen as inadequate. In 2002, the street office only allocated 180 Yuan per month, which was barely enough for telephone bills and office stationery. The director of the Fifth Village residents’ committee complained, “We don’t have enough funding. We often have to go back to our original workplaces to make photocopies of administrative forms” (July 2002). In 2014, the annual budget increased to 50,000 Yuan, but this is still short of covering basic operational costs (director of residents’ committee, November 2014), although when asked about the use of stationery, the director said that it could be simply obtained from the street office.

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Being a cadre in a residents’ committee is hard work. They often have to work overtime, especially when the city organizes mega events. During the Youth Olympic Games in the summer of 2014, the cadres of residents’ committees had to carry out security checks and patrol the neighbourhood to ensure there would be no social incidents. For young professional social workers, “The pay is not high enough compared with private sector jobs; young social workers keep an eye open for other possibilities” (director of residents’ committee, November 2014). Recently, six social workers resigned from the residential estates under the street office. In the Fifth Village: “We just lost two social workers. We are unable to fill these posts because the district government has not started its formal recruitment” (ibid.). At present, unlike during early stages of market reform, the residents’ committee is forbidden to tap into market resources and has turned into a purely administrative agency. For example, residents’ committees are no longer allowed to operate housing rentals or maintenance charges. Parking charges from spaces inside the neighbourhood are submitted directly to the property management company. In fact, all paid services have been transferred to the property management company. This regulation reduced irregularities in the residents’ committee, but at the same time constrained its resources. As a neighbourhood organization, the residents’ committee has to cope with requests from various government departments. However, its funding mode reflects the nature of the residents’ committee as an administrative agency. The street office allocates the basic budget covering the salaries of cadres. Other government departments can also ask the residents’ committee as the “agent on the ground” to carry out specific tasks. But they have to assign a specific budget to cover these costs. For example, when the Bureau of Statistics needs to organize a survey of urban livelihoods, it asks the residents’ committee to contact residents in the neighbourhood to book-keep their daily spending. Then the residents’ committee receives a specific fund for handling the accounts of surveyed households. This practice of budget allocation on the basis of specific tasks helps to maintain the residents’ committee as the agent of the government.

8.6.3 The Return of the State to an Enhanced Neighbourhood Governance The original rationale of consolidating neighbourhood governance in the aftermath of privatization was to re-create a territorial form of social relations, resembling the environment of a workplace where officials were familiar with their employees and thus provided effective management. However, as can be seen from the Fifth Village, it is not easy to

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F. Wu

institutionalize the residents’ committee in the same way as state work-units, because in this work-unit housing estate there are severe resource constraints. To increase administration capacities, the government street office must merge smaller residents’ committees into a large residential community (shequ) organization and professionalize the operation of the shequ. The new enlarged residents’ committee has thus been professionalized. However, the reform of neighbourhood governance to achieve economies of scale comes at the cost of declining territorial social relations, because the consolidated residents’ committee serves a very large territory and its officials are appointed from other places. The residents’ committee is a non-democratically elected body which is not allowed to collect fees for its services to the neighbourhood. It carries out purely administrative tasks assigned by the government. Many amalgamated residents’ committees are too large for residents to know them personally. Unfamiliarity with the residents’ committees has led to declining reciprocal social capital. In this peri-urban neighbourhood, a series of privatization movements (in housing and neighbourhood services) have not created a homeowners’ association, as in middle-class commodity housing neighbourhoods (Read 2000, 2012; Tomba 2005, 2014; Zhang 2010). When asked about the possibility of setting up a homeowners’ association, a resident replied (August 2008): “You mean us? Yes, I think I am an owner but I don’t know what the homeowners’ association is for. I hope this is not another way of collecting money!” Up to 2015, there was still no sign of setting up a homeowners’ association, as the issue was deemed less relevant to this former work-unit housing area. In contrast to the newer middle class, the homeowners of previous work-unit housing do not feel a strong sense of ownership or property rights. They recognize the ownership right to their properties. But in terms of housing management and low affordability constraints, they do not understand that their ownership could extend their control over neighbourhood governance. In contrast, they are aware of the possibility of an increasing financial burden, as the government now requires them to look after their property management through commercial services.

8.7

Implications for Neighbourhood Governance: Alienation and Disempowerment

As a legacy of the centrally planned economy, ordinary residents in China were not involved in decision-making on urban development. Despite strong bonding in work-unit living quarters, residents did not participate in neighbourhood management. The residents, as state employees, relied on the estate department of their workplaces to carry out

property maintenance. For municipal housing tenants, the Bureau of Housing Management was in charge of property maintenance. If work-unit housing tenants or municipal public housing tenants were not satisfied with the service, the residents had to resort to their employer or public housing management section. In the Fifth Village, the workplace appointed an officer of neighbourhood affairs to liaise with the neighbourhood. “If we have any repairs, we just ask our danwei [work-unit]; the estate belonged to the danwei anyway. Why should we contact the residents’ committee? They would not do the work for us” (a resident, July 2002). The residents thus had little chance to participate in neighbourhood activity. In newer housing estates, particularly those developed in suburban areas, homeowners are becoming more active in neighbourhood governance. Housing commodification has created stronger awareness of property rights (Shin 2013; Tomba 2005). Residents set up homeowners’ associations to represent their interests (Fu and Lin 2014). The homeowners’ associations may then decide on the appointment of property management companies. In these gated communities, the rise of homeowners’ associations has challenged the authority of the residents’ committees (Pow 2009; Read 2012). The efforts of the government to strengthen the role of residents’ committees in newer and gated housing estates is resisted by homeowners. For better-off residents, moving into a new commodity housing estate provides privacy (Pow 2009; Zhang 2010). Some homeowners believe that privacy frees them from the social surveillance by residents’ committees in public housing neighbourhoods. In these newer housing estates, because the property management company is able to collect maintenance fees, they are generally well maintained and even secured by private security guards. The management service provided by the property management company reduces the workload of the residents’ committees in commodity housing estates. However, this was not the case in work-unit housing areas. In the Fifth Village, there was a sense of alienation among residents. Despite living in close proximity, there was very little interaction between work-unit residents and original residents. Physically, the work-unit housing was still fenced off in a mini-compound within the residential area. Although flats were privatized, some work-unit staff still lived there. While in subsequent years, some owners in the work-unit compound sold their flats to newcomers from outside the work-units, the division between those who lived inside and outside the compounds can still be seen. The residents lived in different worlds, like one retired teacher who had plenty of spare time but claimed that “I cannot imagine playing mahjong with them at the roadside!” (interview with a resident, July 2002). When a female migrant was asked by the neighbourhood official to show her marriage certificate (for contraceptive measures), she looked puzzled and said, “But we have been married for

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Housing Privatization and the Return of the State …

over eighteen years!” (July 2002). In this larger professionally run neighbourhood administrative agency, nobody actually knew her well enough to provide evidence of her marriage. The decline of neighbourhood interaction is also due to housing commodification (Forrest and Yip 2007; Hazelzet and Wissink 2012). The sale of housing to sitting tenants has led to the retreat of workplaces in housing provision and property management, which means that residents now have to rely on themselves for property maintenance. They do not need to ask neighbors or colleagues in the work-units to help with their property maintenance. The size of the estate and the professionalization and formalization of neighbourhood governance led to reduced familiarity and the weakening of social relations. Now, housing management is formally outside the remit of the residents’ committee. There is no reason for residents to ask for help from the residents’ committee. It has been difficult to set up voluntary organizations to help maintain public space and organize neighbourhood activities. The loss of the neighbourhood and reciprocal help has not been compensated by the introduction of commercial property management, because the property management company later abandoned its service, which is not usual in similar public housing areas. The privatization of work-unit housing has increased spatial mobility. Better off residents moved out to other commodity housing areas. The creation of a rental stock, although limited, has attracted private sector tenants. Rural migrants have come to this neighbourhood. Initially in the 2000s, the residents’ committee maintained a stock of rental housing for rural migrants and helped verify their status before they could rent a property in the neighbourhood. Since the mid-2000s, property owners have begun to manage their own properties or asked estate agencies to negotiate with migrant renters. Migrants are registered with the local police station and are no longer managed by the residents’ committee except for the issue of family planning. Female migrants may be contacted by the residents’ committee for assistance in contraception measures: “We also offer a free health check-up to women” (director of residents’ committee, November 2014). Despite this service, migrant tenants do not have much contact with the neighbourhood agency. By professionalizing neighbourhood social management, the state strengthened neighbourhood governance. At the same time, the state tried to incorporate voluntarism into its formal structure of governance, but it is difficult to mobilize residents in this formal governance structure. The director of the street office blamed the low quality (suzhi) of residents in this neighbourhood: “It is difficult to reach consensus here. It is fine to organize singing and dancing activities. But nobody really contributes to neighbourhood affairs. To be honest, the more people join in the fun, the fewer do the

137

work” (street office director, November 2014). However, from the residents’ perspective, “We have to make a living first. I am not claiming a low-income benefit (dibao), and why should I be an activist” (a resident, August 2008). “If there is a problem [with my apartment], I would try to find a company myself. If we have some problem in this neighbourhood, we don’t have money to sort it out. I doubt the residents’ committee has the money” (a resident, August 2008). “I have nothing to do with neighbourhood officials. I am a law-abiding person, anyway. I am just selling vegetables here in this market. But the locals are quite friendly” (a temporary resident, August 2008). Observed through this work-unit housing area, feelings of alienation and disempowerment go beyond factors of physical design in modern residential spaces and higher residential mobility. It is a side effect of formalized and professionalized neighbourhood governance.

8.8

Conclusion

This paper examines an ordinary public housing area with work-unit housing and municipal housing built just before the introduction of the housing market and housing privatization. The Fifth Village in Nanjing was invested in and developed by multiple state work-units. The housing was allocated to their employees as public housing. However, the neighbourhood has changed from a brand-new estate to an “old and dilapidated neighbourhood” over 25 years. After a housing privatization, the state work-units retreated from property management and related neighbourhood services. Furthermore, along with the privatization of neighbourhood premises into commercial operations, the residents’ committee—a neighbourhood organization originally supported by volunteers, housewives and retired people under the supervision of the street-level state agency (the street office) —streamlined its function and has now become solely reliant on government funding, staffed with salaried professional social workers. Surprisingly, in the work-unit housing area, privatization does not empower residents to engage in more active neighbourhood self-governance. The transfer of property management to a commercial management company failed because of its high cost to residents, creating an imperative for the state to return to a prominent presence in neighbourhood governance, while at the same time imposing a heavy burden for its operation. However, the new form of governance is different from the comprehensive approach provided by state work-units. It is a more territorialized form of state agency operating at the neighbourhood level. Whenever possible, the state agency emphasizes the use of market instruments and market operations. The co-existence of a professionalized and “bureaucratic” (in the sense of formality) agency and commercial services provided by

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various companies seriously discourages the development of reciprocal neighbourhood activities. Alienation and disempowerment are the side effects of privatized and formalized neighbourhood governance. While the narrative of neoliberalism would expect the state’s retreat in the aftermath of mass housing privatization, there is now a well-documented trend of consolidated state presence in China’s urban governance (Friedmann 2011; Read 2000, 2012; Tomba 2014; Wu 2002, 2017a). However, the operational mechanism is not entirely known, particularly at the neighbourhood level. The accounts of commodification and the continuation of state control seem to describe different aspects of urban transformation in China. How are these two contradictory processes of privatization and enhanced state roles intertwined in actual neighbourhood governance? In contrast to simply juxtaposing them to concepts of “neoliberal authoritarianism” (Harvey 2005), this paper attempts to describe how they are actually operating together through a “coherent” process of governing the Chinese urban neighbourhood. Rethinking the concept of the “neoliberal city,” an earlier attempt has been made to relate China’s development model and governance approach (Wu 2017b), but here I provide a close-up look at the neighbourhood level. Housing privatization helped the state work-units retreat from property management. Property management companies were asked to take over their role, however, low-income households could not afford this market form of service provision. This could result in an opportunity to develop reciprocal activities, which would enhance self-governance capacity. Perhaps residents had low expectations or were not unhappy with services in their neighbourhood. But in reality, they have witnessed the deterioration of their neighbourhood. They might be helpless because of the lack of a self-governance tradition under what Harvey (2005) described as “authoritarianism.” But what is found here is not a lingering authoritarianism. From a microscopic perspective, this paper focuses on the mechanism through which the deployment of a market instrument has reduced neighbourhood self-governance and in turn maintained a “planning centrality” (Wu 2017a). The state required neighbourhood services to take a commercial form. The vacuum left by privatization, however, has not been filled by private management or homeowners themselves, because of either high cost or the distrust of private companies, even if residents could afford them. The supposedly self-organized residents’ committee is insulated from tapping into market resources and has been formalized through exclusive government funding. This vacuum left by privatization has “necessarily” been filled by the professionalization of neighbourhood organizations. From everyday neighbourhood lives, we begin to understand the erosion of solidarity in the working-class

F. Wu

neighbourhood in a post-socialist context (Stenning 2005). The underdevelopment of neighbourhood self-governance is not simply caused by state restriction, but more importantly, by the prevailing market approach to reciprocal relations in the context of fading neighbourhood resources. All resources available to the neighbourhood have been commoditized. As a result, housing privatization does not reduce resident dependence on the state, but rather creates an imperative for the state to return in an enhanced form of governance. Acknowledgements I wish to thank Professor Xigang Zhu for helping with interviews in 2014. This paper was first published in Urban Geography, 39:8 (2018).

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The Xinyuan Xili Community in Transformation: The Social Life and Community Governance of a Post-Danwei Community in Beijing Defu Wang

Abstract

9.1

This paper analyses the social life and community governance of the Xinyuan Xili Community, which is a typical case of a so-called old community in China. The study reveals complexity in the governance of public affairs in the context of China’s transition from a “danwei system” to a “community system”. Xinyuan Xili is located in the old town of Beijing, which has a neighbourhood-based functional support system, with which the social life of Xinyuan Xili residents closely and frequently interacts. Thus, the old community and its neighbourhood can be understood as a living organism. However, highly diverse property ownership and a disparity in service provision has created a complicated governance situation, with the local government and residents’ committee continuing to be held responsible for community governance and service provision. This is, to an extent, a continuation of the danwei model. That said, it is complicated by the phenomena of “intensive power” in Beijing, which causes many problems for the management of public affairs in communities. The overlap of interest from different administrative levels in the community undermines the autonomy of the residents’ committee and prevents the community from implementing its own effective governance. This slows down a transition towards a “community system”. Keywords





Old communities Governance of public affairs organism Intensive power




D. Wang (&) School of Sociology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, P. R. China e-mail: [email protected]

Living

Introduction

China is undergoing an unprecedented social and institutional transformation, which is often referred to as the “reform and opening up” of China. Here, urban grassroots governance is transforming from a “danwei system” to a “community system”. As is well known, China’s cities were for a long time governed by a “danwei system”. In this system, most urban residents belonged to a “danwei” that provided them with employment and everything needed for subsistence. In this way, the state controlled its urban population through the danwei, which was effectively a “total planning unit”. Although at this time the residents’ committee already existed as an autonomous residents-led organisation, it did not have much administrative power and was an organisation subordinate to the danwei. When the danwei system was gradually dismantled during China’s economic reforms, urban residents were “liberated” from its all-encompassing organisation. Residents were mobilised and dispersed across the city, as were public services. This caused new problems. For a large country such as China to directly control and provide public services to billions of individuals, administrative challenges are unimaginable. In the “post-danwei” period, the state had to create a new government body that could efficiently manage the public affairs of its population. It had to re-establish, at the urban grassroots level, an autonomous organisation capable of dealing with the public affairs of the community. Thus, the “community” system was “created”. In 2000, the state-led campaign “Community Building” was launched in cities across the country. Community was thereby defined as a “social living collective in a certain geographical area”. When the social area of a community matches the governance area of a residents’ committee, the community is simultaneously a “social unit” and a “governance unit”. One essential task of urban governance in Chinese cities is to therefore establish an efficient community system that improves social integration and establishes the effective governance of public affairs.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_9

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9

The Xinyuan Xili Community in Transformation: The Social Life …

There are two main types of community in contemporary Chinese cities. One is often referred to as “old communities”, which are residential areas built during the danwei period. The other is called “new communities”, which were built during or after the economic reforms, consist of commodity or market housing, and are commonly gated developments. These two community types face different issues in their management of public affairs. For old communities, issues arise in how to restructure a governance system that was previously based on shared work relations, but now must manage an increasingly mobile and heterogeneous population. Other challenges include motivating residents who are used to passively consume public services that are managed by danweis, to actively participate in the community and its governance. To an extent, old communities are “living fossils” of China’s urban transformation, but they are also a critical context, within which state power cooperates with society to collectively shape urban grassroots governance. The Xinyuan Xili Community in Beijing is exemplary for the transformation of old communities (Fig. 9.1). It is not only a typical example built in the 1980s under the danwei system, but also includes a rich mix of different danwei types: from reformed state-owned enterprises to danweis for government agencies and public institutions. While some of the danweis have already completely retreated from involvement in community affairs, others continue to manage them, which complicates the overall challenges of community governance. Moreover, Beijing has the most tiered administrative system in China: from the central government to the municipal government, the district government, and the sub-district office. Thus, community affairs often involve interventions by multi-level administration, further increasing the complexity of community governance.

9.2

The General Condition of Xinyuan Xili

Xinyuan Xili is under the jurisdiction of the Zuojiazhuang Sub-district Office in the Chaoyang District and is located at its junction with the Dongcheng District. The community consists of the Xinyuan Xili Middle Street Xiaoqu and Xinyuan Xili East Street Xiaoqu. The overall site area is approximately 0.75 km2, and accommodates 2047 households and more than 5000 residents, of which around 4000 hold a Beijing hukou (household registration). 30% of its residents are over 60 years old, of which more than 200 are above 80. In 2017, the community introduced a “service station” for the elderly, run by a non-governmental organisation and paid for by the government.1

1

This service station for the elderly shares a space with the community healthcare service station.

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Xinyuan Xili is centrally located inside of the city’s 3rd Ring Road, adjacent to the Airport Expressway, and enjoys a good public transportation network with access to regular bus stations and the subway.2 Within 500 m to its south is Beijing’s embassy district, across Xindong Road to its east is the Kunsha Business-office Area, and less than 1.5 km away is the Sanlitun Commercial District. Therefore, white collar workers make up a large portion of the neighbourhood’s rental population, whose relatively high level of consumption has created a street with restaurants whose offer include upmarket Japanese food. Public facilities within the neighbourhood include: a local market and two medium-sized supermarkets (within 300 m), a Sub-district Culture and Service Centre (within 600 m), several educational institutions located within the community,3 and Class-AAA general or specialised hospitals (within 5 km).4 Across the Dongzhimen Outer Byway, to the northwest and northeast of the community, are the Zuojiazhuang Culture Park and Xiangheyuan Park, while to its west and south borders lies the Liangma River with convenient access to its many amenities. The physical environment of Xinyuan Xili includes 23 residential buildings, of which five are 22-storey and one an 18-storey high-rise towers while the remaining majority are 6-storey slab buildings (Fig. 9.2). All buildings were erected in the early 1980s as danwei welfare housing. Despite the privatisation of residential buildings after the housing reform in the 1990s, the old danwei property management model was largely kept. According to some estimates, there are 16 property management companies in the community, with Yifang being the largest.5 Governance bodies of the Xinyuan Xili Community include: a community party committee, a residents’ committee, and a community service station. The community officers include: a secretary of the community party committee—who is also the leader of the residents’ committee— a deputy secretary of the community party committee, a deputy leader of the residents’ committee, a deputy leader of the community service station, a dedicated party committee

2

The Liangmaqiao Station of Line 10 is 1.5 km to the east of Xinyuan Xili. 3 This includes the Xinyuanli Kindergarten West Branch, the Chaoyang Experimental Primary School Xinyuanli Branch School, and the Tsinghua University Affiliated Middle School (Chaoyang School Xinyuan Xili Campus). 4 For example, the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, the Beijing Anzhen Hospital, the General Hospital of Chinese PLA, the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital. 5 As a result of different property management, for example the heating supply varies. Some are self-managed while others are contracted to the Yifang property management company.

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officer, and six residents’ committee officers.6 In addition, each unit of the slab building—dwellings served by one staircase—and every two floors of the high-rises have one elected representative. These “building unit representatives” are also called “harmony promoters”. All 117 representatives are volunteers, and 70% of them are party members, mostly over 60 years old.

Located in the old town of Beijing, the social life of Xinyuan Xili residents largely depends on the infrastructures found in its surrounding neighbourhood. Benefiting from long-term urban development, the old town has densely distributed public services. While the xiaoqus are largely monofunctional residential areas, good access to these public services in the old town is an important part of creating a functional support system for the neighbourhood, through which daily needs are easily met at low cost and high convenience. At the same time, the service industries create job opportunities for a large migrant population, who work in hospitality, retail, and housekeeping, and form an integral part of the ecosystem in the old town. The old town is thus a dynamic living organism, in which mono-functional xiaoqus and comprehensive public services within the neighbourhoods define the unique qualities of its urban space. Compared to new communities with commodity housing and more service facilities within their perimeters, old communities are more dependent on the functional support system found in the larger neighbourhood. Interacting frequently with its surrounding urban areas, an old community has close connections to its context, which is essential to the social vitality of the old town. In other words, a mature network of public services is the foundation of social vitality in old communities. To fully understand old communities as living organisms, there are three key scales to the lives of its residents: family life, community life, and social life. Family life, as implied by this term, is the life within the domestic realm of the family. Community life refers to the leisure activities and participation in social and public affairs outside the family and inside the community. Given the strong connection between an old community and its surroundings, the activities by residents within walking distance of their communities can also be considered a part of their community life. More importantly, the participants in social interactions and the activities occurring in nearby public

spaces are often closely related to the community, making these spaces markedly different from large-scale urban public spaces such as central squares. The social activities beyond this community area, which can be dispersed across the entire city, make up social life. It usually takes place in spaces outside the community, and the participants of social interactions are typically unrelated to the community. Through these three layers, we can further clarify the differences between new communities with commodity housing and old communities as a living organism. In short, an old community is a space in which family life and community life are tightly connected, whereas a new community often only accommodates family life and has very little community life, with its residents relying more on their social life outside the community. What is key in creating a community as a living organism, however, is the vitality and diversity of community life that gives form to a collective, and supports residents interacting with each other outside the family. Community life within old communities is primarily made up of two types of activities. One is a group leisure activity. This is on the one hand, organised through interest groups and takes place in community activity rooms and other public spaces in the xiaoqu (Figs. 9.3 and 9.4). Joining a recreational interest group often requires certain skills, such as singing, dancing, calligraphy, and art. The required skills limit direct participation in the groups to a small number of residents, and most residents can only participate indirectly as observers. On the other hand, group leisure includes social activities that do not require particular skills, such as game playing, chatting, and hanging out. Most elderly people like spending time watching cards or mah-jong games, which forms part of their daily leisure activities. This second type of activity promotes social life in the community and is important in disseminating information and shaping public opinion. The group leisure activities led by the elderly, have a distinct social function and foster social interactions between residents. It is thus different from individual leisure activities such as gardening. Compared to the social life outside of the community, the social interactions within the community are essential to community building by creating shared social exchanges and identities. Because of these social functions, an old community can be characterised as “a society of acquaintances”.7 In addition to these activities, another important aspect of community life is the management of its public affairs. The resident’s “engagement” in community affairs is rarely part of their daily lives and more a matter of community

6

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9.3

The Old Community as a Living Organism

Except for the party secretary and the party committee officer, all community officers are around 30 years old.

Xiaotong Fei, From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992).

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Fig. 9.3 Communal playground. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 9.4 Communal clinic and “the elderly station”. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

mobilisation. Nonetheless, a rich community life helps raise the level of engagement by residents in public affairs, because spending their lives in the community gives them awareness of shared needs for physical environments, their maintenance, and quality. In contrast, residents in new communities—whose needs for social interactions are largely met outside of the community space—focus on their family life and the physical environment of the xiaoqu, which is typically taken care of by a property management company. Therefore, residents of new communities are less willing to actively participate in communal public affairs compared to those in old communities. Thus, the urban regeneration of the old town in Beijing should focus on supporting and strengthening the community as a living organism. This approach can inform a more rational allocation of resources between the community space and its surrounding urban areas in a regeneration project. For example, it is unnecessary in some cases to provide a complete range of public services within the limited space of a xiaoqu. Instead, a community should be seen as an integral part of the larger urban area, and the planning and design of its regeneration should focus on creating a functional support system at the neighbourhood scale, allowing for resources to be most effectively distributed.

increasingly limited. That said, the level of resident dependency on the community, largely determines the possibility of the community becoming a social collective. The public affairs of the community are essentially defined by many trivial things that derive from basic subsistence needs and everyday life, such as conflicts between neighbours, environmental health issues, use of public spaces, and so on. These everyday public affairs, although minor, directly affect the residents’ quality of life and daily practices. But, the government’s direct involvement in these trivial matters comes at a high cost and level of inefficiency. Thus, self-governance and cooperation among residents is needed. In the classical Chinese “danwei dayuan” (work unit compound) living and working is fully integrated, and comprehensive services that fulfil the residents’ everyday needs, including basic education and primary healthcare demands, are offered. Residents frequently meet each other when using the services provided within the danwei dayuan. However, only when social interactions reach a certain degree of intensity and continue for an adequate period of time, can a comprehensive interpersonal network based on exchanging information of shared interest, emotional attachment, and collective identity be established. These conditions for advanced social integration are given in the danwei dayuan. The integration of living and working merges geographical relationships and work relationships, thereby creating synthesised interpersonal interactions. Xinyuan Xili is not a typical danwei dayuan, however, but a fragmented community (Figs. 9.5 and 9.6). Built in the 1980s, some of its residential buildings are part of Beijing’s last provision of welfare through housing, which ended in 1998. According to initial data we collected, seven of the residential buildings are owned by different national

9.3.1 A Fragmented Community For urban residents, a community or xiaoqu is the main living area that provides them with everything required to meet their daily needs. Due to a growing separation between living and working spaces, and social activities being decreasingly determined by geographical relations, the importance of communities for the lives of urban residents is

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Fig. 9.5 One of the external gates to Xinyuan Xili Community. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

ministries (including the ministries of transportation, human resource and emergency) and municipal and district governments in Beijing, nine of the residential buildings belong to six different danweis (including the Beijing Telephone Bureau, Beijing Electric Power Supply Bureau, Beijing Urban Construction Group, and Beijing International Trust), and four buildings have mixed ownership.8 In addition, within the administrative area of the community, many large basements, extensions, commercial spaces, and schools are owned and managed by different danweis with varying identities and financial means. Thus, the property management of housing, commercial spaces, and public services greatly differs in quality. With more than ten different danweis involved, this has created a complicated governance situation. The salaries paid and welfare and property services provided by the different danweis vary greatly, causing problems for social cohesion through significant social and economic differences. This has prevented Xiyuan Xili from becoming a social collective. Although housing reforms were implemented, the most important public affair of the community, the property management services, are still largely managed by different danweis in Xinyuan Xili, which has created great disparities in the services provided for different buildings. This undermines the most important foundation of social cooperation in a community: common interests. The residents of Xinyuan Xili are accustomed to blaming problems in their living environment on different levels of resources, attention, and management standards between danweis instead of considering their own responsibilities, such as paying service fees on time for the maintenance of the xiaoqu. While a gradual retreat of danweis from providing services has created new During fieldwork in 2018.

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Fig. 9.6 One of the internal gates in Xinyuan Xili Community. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

community challenges, there is a lack of residents taking responsibility or interest in participating in community affairs. As discussed, all of these administrative problems have made social cooperation difficult in Xinyuan Xili, which is especially evident in the management of public spaces. As an old community, public spaces in Xinyuan Xili are usually those spaces between two rows of buildings (Figs. 9.7 and 9.8). However, since these buildings are owned by different danweis, their property management services only take care of spaces inside their respective buildings. In other words, no one is responsible for the management of these “in-between” public spaces. As a result, they are maintained by the community residents’ committee and local government. However, as the government only provides basic services in the community, such as keeping streets clean and providing waste collection, green spaces at the front and back of buildings are left unattended. This is a serious health hazard, as garbage litters these areas and some people may even urinate there. In hot weather, residents are further affected by stenches from rubbish, and mosquitoes and flies breeding. In our interviews (2018), many residents complained about these problems, and blamed them on a lack of government services, without considering how residents could work together to address them. Another typical conflict concerning the use of public space in Xinyuan Xili is that of parking—a problem common to all old communities. Since the public space of the xiaoqu is largely unregulated, parking is on a first-comefirst-serve basis. Subsequently, many car owners have installed lockable parking barriers and sometimes occupy multiple parking spaces, with residents who bought their cars later left with no access to parking. This increasing conflict over parking highlights the inability of residents to manage problems as a community. As a result, the

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Fig. 9.7 Public spaces between two rows of buildings. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

Fig. 9.8 Public spaces between two rows of buildings. Source Photograph by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

government has had to intervene by removing all parking barriers and bringing in a professional company to manage parking in the community. Aside from these issues, illegal extensions are also a typical cause of conflict over the use of public space, which is something that the community has equally been unable to resolve by itself. As urban residents generally do not have an interest or ability to deal with community public affairs themselves, and as many danweis have retreated from property management as part of the ongoing danwei reforms, the residents’ committee and the local government have had to take on various responsibilities in managing public affairs. As if the government were to retreat from these responsibilities in the same way, community life would be in a state of disorder. Therefore, Beijing has in recent years widely supported the regeneration of old communities, and Xinyuan Xili has undergone several rounds of partial renovation. Although its physical environment has been greatly improved—for example, an external upgrade of thermal insulation was completed last year—the renovation has also reinforced the residents’ dependency on the government to solve problems, instead of taking responsibility and encouraging cooperation. This is a common problem found in old communities across China.

administrational organisations. This intense overlap of political power undermines and complicates the ability of the community to effectively govern itself. After the housing reform of the 1990s, home ownership became possible and increasingly diverse. The privatisation of former welfare housing created private property owners, the development of private housing, and thus a housing market. This resulted in many original households leaving their community, and gave rise to a new demographic of residents who could afford to buy or rent their homes. Yet, despite housing reforms, collective ownership still exists today, for example, many basement spaces in Xinyuan Xili are still owned by the danweis, and property management often continues to follow old danwei models. Complicated property rights and a growing need for profit have led to a contestation of some community spaces. This is manifest in the existence of various “grey” spaces and the “grey” appropriation of space—grey meaning a level of ambiguity between legal and illegal use. Many of these “grey appropriations” were not illegal at first, but became so due to changes in law and regulations. For example, some structures near the boiler room in Xinyuan Xili, originally used to store coal, were later converted into single or two-storey buildings when coal heating was discontinued. Illegal examples include different types of extensions, usually used for private kitchens or storage areas, residential spaces that are converted into small shops at ground floor level, and basements converted into rental housing for migrants.9 Similarly, buildings under collective ownership are also often rented out for “grey” commercial uses, such as the well-known street of restaurants in Xinyuan Xili.

9.4

The Influence of “Intensive Power”

Aside from these aforementioned common challenges, communities in Beijing have a unique problem that prevents them from effective community governance: the issue of so-called “intensive power”. The different levels of political power, from the central government to district and sub-district levels, are compressed in the space of the community through the various interests of different

9

In Beijing, basement spaces used to accommodate millions of rural migrant workers and young people, providing a cheap place to rent.

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The unregulated use of grey space is a huge challenge to community governance. While they have provided important affordable housing and convenient commercial services to residents for a long time, owners and profiteers can remain hidden, with rent presenting itself as an indirect, “secret” source of income for some danweis. Moreover, these grey spaces create parking, health, and noise problems, affecting the daily lives of residents and thus are the cause of common complaints. Confronted by these problems, however, the residents’ committee has been powerless in taking sufficient action, as the motivation for some to profit from the illegal use of these grey spaces is greater than the ability of the residents’ committee—without executive powers—to stop them. In addition, those profiting from grey spaces are often hidden to the public, and in some cases high-level authorities, such as national ministries or municipal departments. This creates a very difficult situation for local communities, with the issue of “intensive power” becoming a source of many of their problems, as they undermine the

D. Wang

administrative powers of the residents’ committee and prevent the community from implementing effective governance. Despite efforts over the past two years to remove illegal developments in Beijing, with the Zuojiazhuang Street Office using Xinyuan Xili as its first site of implementing policies to remove so-called “holes in the walls”—used to create access to ground floor flats and enable illegal commercial uses—there are still more than 140 illegal developments in the Xinyuan Xili community today. 120 of these are illegal structures or buildings that need to be demolished. When community officers tried to convince residents to remove their illegal structures, however, they replied: “Why don’t you first remove the illegal developments around the primary school. Then I’ll remove mine.” Thus, reiterating that intensive power and profiteering have a significantly negative impact on community governance, and create problems that cannot be resolved at the community level or by community efforts alone.

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Associational Relationship, Collective Space, and Community Planning: The Everyday Infrastructure of Urban Communities in China Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

Abstract

10.1

Through examining selected urban communities in Shanghai and Wuhan, China, the paper argues for a correspondence between the social governance of a community and the spatial organisation of a xiaoqu (small district), which constitute the everyday infrastructure of China’s urban communities. This correspondence is unpacked by analysing the entanglement of formal and informal means that keep this everyday infrastructure functioning. Embodied by and enacted through collective spaces and associational relationships, this entanglement reveals a collective agency, essential to the everyday life of Chinese urban residents. These two sets of relationships, the correspondence and the entanglement, are condensed, amplified, and materialised by the on-going, nationwide community regeneration carried out through community planning. Community planning is, in essence, a social design mediated by spatial design, in which resident participation is essential. Arguably, the exploration of this emerging system of community planning and the role and responsibilities of residents in managing community affairs is rendered the new frontier of restructuring urban governance in China. Keywords













Social governance Community planning Collective space Associational relationship Everyday infrastructure

Introduction

When asked about what a community (shequ) is, people who live in, govern, and plan communities have different answers.1 Resident A: “A community is a big family in which people are always in touch with each other.” Resident B: “A community is the supporting organisation, ‘the parents’ house’, the backbone, and place where problems are solved.” Resident C: “A community consists of the residents’ committee and the sub-district office who serve the residents.” An officer of a residents’ committee: “A community is a circle, artificially drawn by the government in order to govern.” A party secretary of a subdistrict office: “A community is the area in which the daily activities of residents take place.” An officer from the planning bureau of a district government: “A community is the basic unit of governance.”

As officially described by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the P. R. China, a shequ is a community consisting of residents living within an area, usually determined by the administrative territory of a residents’ committee.2 This definition implies that, while maintaining its meaning as a social unit, the community has been specifically redefined as the lowest political and administrative unit of China’s urban society. A xiaoqu (small district) is a residential neighbourhood, an essential part of a community, and the basic spatial module of urban residential areas in China. The emergence of the xiaoqu coincided with the shift from a socialist planned economy to a market-oriented economy in China, starting in the 1980s. Under the planned economy, the danwei (work unit), a unit of total planning run by the state, assigned living, work, and communal services to the urban 1

J. (Cyan) Cheng (&) School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, London, UK e-mail: [email protected]

These answers were collected during interviews held in Wuhan, Shanghai and Beijing, China between July to September 2018. 2 See the General Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Opinions of the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Promoting Urban Community Building in China, 2000.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_10

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population. The restructuring of the danwei separated working, living, and service provision. A result of the privatisation of housing and urban land reform, the xiaoqu relieved the state from the “heavy burden” of providing services to urban residents, instead making service provision a responsibility of the private sector. The social governance of a community unfolds in the spatial organisation of a xiaoqu, together constituting the everyday infrastructure that most of China’s urban population—more than 800 million people—depends on. In China’s urban communities, the formal and informal infrastructures are deeply entangled, both socially and spatially.

10.2

The Correspondence Between Community and Xiaoqu

With the danwei system dismantled, a community system was introduced through a national programme of Community Building (shequ jianshe) in 1991, and has since regulated China’s urban population. Central to Community Building is the redefinition of the role of the residents’ committee and the sub-district office in urban governance.3 The former is officially defined as a grassroots organisation for the self-governance of residents and the latter a detached agent as part of the district government. In most cases, a community is managed by a residents’ committee in collaboration with property management companies from the private sector. A range of key governance functions of the residents’ committee include issues of security and mediation, welfare and service, population and family planning, environment and sanitation, culture and education, and supervision and liaison. Covering almost all aspects of daily affairs, the residents’ committee is the terminal of social services and welfare based on a face-to-face relationship with residents in the community, while the sub-district office has the responsibility and executive power for the strategic governance of a number of residents’ committees as well as resource distribution. These two levels of governance constitute the urban grassroots organisation in China. At both levels, a local branch of the Communist Party is integrated. This is evident in the provision of cultural and educational activities that promote party propaganda. The residents’ committee and sub-district office are undoubtedly a political organisation of the central government that brings the party to the people. As argued by Fulong Wu, housing privatisation has not made urban residents less dependent on the state, but rather led to an enhanced state presence

through the professionalisation of the residents’ committee.4 Therefore, despite restructuring towards a market-oriented economy, the Chinese state has never truly retreated from the urban grassroots. Rather, the role of the state is shifting from direct government (through the danwei) to governance (through the community). Although there are general policies created by the central government, China’s urban governance system allows for and in fact encourages municipal governments to test out different governance approaches. Successful experiments and pilot projects may become national policies for other cities. This is an important aspect of the governmentality of the Chinese state. Thus, policies, sizes, and areas of a community and xiaoqu vary from city to city. In this paper, Shanghai and Wuhan are the main contexts for discussion. Within the differentiated community system, Shanghai is an exception, as a community is set at the sub-district level. For example, the Hongmei Community consists of 13 residents’ committees that manage an overall population of ca. 31,000, 22 xiaoqus, and one urban village within the Hongmei sub-district (Fig. 10.1). In contrast, Wuhan exemplifies a community set at the residents’ committee level. For example, the Geguang Community with an overall population of ca. 5200 is managed by the Geguang Residents’ Committee, and the Geguang Xiaoqu constitutes its main administrative area5 (Fig. 10.2). While the boundary of a community as an administrative unit may be drawn and redrawn in accordance with changing policies, the boundary wall of a xiaoqu demarcates the physical realm of a community. The Hongmei Xiaoqu, one of the 22 xiaoqus of the Hongmei Community, was built in 1996 as a typical example of a planned xiaoqu with market housing (Fig. 10.3). A boundary wall encloses 10 multi-storey buildings, each separated from the next by green spaces in the front and back. Each residential building has several entrances with a staircase that serves two or four standardised housing units per floor. All the housing units sharing a staircase make up a “building unit” (danyuan), a sub-organisation of the whole residential building. This is also evident in the numbering found in the xiaoqu: residential buildings are numbered from 1 to 10, and building units are numbered from 1 to 22. Resident representatives are elected per building unit. The masterplan of the Hongmei Xiaoqu shares the same organisational principles as the Geguang Xiaoqu—which was the residential neighbourhood of two danweis that later merged into one xiaoqu—from an enclosing boundary wall to a unit organisation of housing See Fulong Wu, “Housing privatization and the return of the state: Changing governance in China” in this book. 5 In addition to the Geguang Xiaoqu, the Geguang Community also manages 5 buildings in the Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu located in the adjacent block. 4

3

Both the residents’ committee and the sub-district office existed in the danwei system. But they mainly played an assisting role in government due to the domination of the danwei.

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Shanghai 6340.50 km2 ; Population 24,183,300 (hukou 14,456,500); 16 Districts; 105 Sub-districts, 107 town and 2 townships; 4253 Residents’ Committees and 1590 Village Committees

Xuhui District 54.93 km2; Population 1,085,600 (hukou 920,800); 12 Sub-districts and 1 Town; 305 Residents’ Committees

Zoujiazhai Urban Village

Hongmei Sub-district (Community) 5.98 km2; Population 30,839 (hukou 18,369); 13 Residents’ Committees; 22 Xiaoqu and 1 Urban Village

Qinbei Residents’ Committee Household 627; Population 2800 (hukou 1028)

Hongliu Xiaoqu Community Governance Structure Party Committee + Community Committee Overall 7 people Party Secretary - 1 Other Members of the Two Committees (Grid Workers) - 5 Other Community Workers - 1

Policy: Localisation of committee members ‘Urban governance as delicate as embroidering’ City-wide Community Regeneration phase I 2015-17, phase II 2018-20

Hongmei Xiaoqu

Qinbei Residents’ Committee

Hongmei Xiaoqu

Hongliu Xiaoqu

Built in 1996;10 Buildings Household 360; Rental rate 50%

Built in 1987-88; Household 154; Rental rate 60%

Owners’ Committee Property Management Company

Owners’ Committee Property Management Company

Zoujiazhai Urban Village (traditional village - commune - urban village) Registered Household 44 Population: hukou ca. 300 without hukou ca. 1300 Self-Organisation Teams (7+7)

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Fig. 10.1 Administrative structure and aerial view of Qinbei Residents’ Committee, Hongmei Community, Shanghai, 2018

Wuhan 8569.15 km2 (built urban area 585.61 km2); Population 10,892,900 (hukou 8,536,500); 13 Districts (and 5 Functional Zones); 156 Sub-districts, 1 Town and 3 Townships; 1319 Community Committees and 1825 Village Committees

Hongshan District 480 km2 (actual management area 220.5 km2); Population 1,049,000 (hukou 650,000); 9 Sub-districts and 1 Township;

Guanshan Sub-district 35 km2; Population 283,000; 38 Communities;

Geguang Community

Geguang Xiaoqu

0.06 km2; Population 5234; Household 1524

Community Governance Structure Party Committee + Community Committee Overall 10 people

Yufeng Jiayuan

Party Secretary & Community Leader - 1 Other Members of the Two Committees - 5 Other Community Workers - 4 (Among them, part-time Grid Workers - 4) Policy: 883 Plan (2000) Three-party Coordination; Red Property Management

Geguang Community Danwei history

Geguang Xiaoqu

Yufeng Jiayuan

Lataishan Xiaoqu

Household 920 Population 3800 (hukou 3200) 18 Buildings; 3 Grids

Household 216 5 Buildings; 1 Grid (located in another xiaoqu)

Household 100 (Only responsible for ‘people not the land’)

Household 288 (To be relocated)

Property Management Company Owners’ Committee

Fig. 10.2 Administrative structure and aerial view of Geguang Community, Wuhan, 2018

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(Fig. 10.4). Therefore, the systematic arrangement of housing—into a residential building, building unit, and individual housing unit—divides the population of a xiaoqu into smaller, manageable groups. In both cases, the distribution of communal facilities also plays an organisational role, with the central communal space and the main entrance of the xiaoqu forming two focal points. In Geguang, the service centre, which accommodates

the residents’ committee offices and activity rooms for residents, marks the central point of the xiaoqu, and a long pavilion and communal playground alongside a few convenience stores and an information wall that form a “communal corridor”, linking the residents’ committee building to the main entrance of the xiaoqu (Figs. 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7). In Hongmei, all these basic elements are more or less the same, but arranged more tightly, with the pavilion and

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153 1. Guard’s Room 2. Supermarket 3. Long Pavilion 4. Electricity Room 5. Clinic

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playground occupying the centre that is linked to the main entrance by a row of planting beds with information walls on both sides (Figs. 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10). The service centre occupies the first floor of a long building on the edge of the xiaoqu, whose ground-floor accommodates a row of small restaurants and convenience stores. They form part of the xiaoqu boundary, facing the outside street. This is partially due to a lack of space inside the xiaoqu and partially because

the Qinbei Residents’ Committee also manages another Hongliu Xiaoqu and Zoujiazhai Urban Village. While providing for social interactions and leisure activities by residents, communal spaces inside a xiaoqu create a realm in which residents monitor others and themselves to ensure they obey accepted norms of social behaviour. The main entrance of the xiaoqu, on the one hand, monitors the coming and going of residents and visitors, and

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Fig. 10.5 The “Service Centre for Party Members and the People” for the Geguang Community

Fig. 10.8 The communal playground in the Hongmei Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.6 The long pavilion in the Geguang Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.9 An information wall near the entrance of the Hongmei Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.7 Entrance gate to the Geguang Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.10 The entrance of the Hongmei Xiaoqu with security guards

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155

on the other, serves as an important point of communication within the community. Here, information walls or bulletin boards often display a range of items from recent state policies or moral guidelines endorsed by authorities to communal activities for residents. In this way, the residents of a xiaoqu are trained to be well-behaved and self-reflective. In short, while demarcating the physical boundary of a community and the administrative territory of a residents’ committee, the spatial organisation of a xiaoqu embodies governmental functions of urban grassroots governance in China. Correspondence between the community and the xiaoqu is thus the spatialisation of the governing and policing of the everyday life of Chinese urban residents. Fig. 10.11 The “service lobby”, in the Service Centre of the Geguang Community

Fig. 10.12 The “mah-jong room” in the Service Centre of the Geguang Community

Fig. 10.13 The “women’s home” in the Service Centre of the Geguang Community

10.3

Collective Space and Associational Relationships

In a way, what is outside the boundary wall of a xiaoqu belongs to the public city, and what is inside the walls of a private flat is often considered domestic. Between the xiaoqu boundary and the flat walls is a superimposed realm in which daily communal lives take place and urban grassroots governance is conducted. The Property Law of the P. R. China codifies that, in addition to “a usufructuary right or real right” over their flats, owners have “common ownership and the right of common management” of shared areas and properties in a xiaoqu, such as roads and green spaces.6 These involve a myriad of stakeholders, all the owners, the residents’ committee, and the property management company and the owners’ committee if applicable, with shared and personal interests entwined and formal and informal mechanisms interwoven. Communal facilities and spaces are intended for use by residents from the xiaoqu or the community, such as the “service lobby” in the Geguang service centre, though sometimes residents from other xiaoqus can be invited to join activities as guests, such as the “mahjong room” and “women’s home” in the service centre (Figs. 10.11, 10.12, 10.13). In other words, what makes a communal space fundamentally different from a public space outside the xiaoqu is that it has a clearly defined user group. In addition to shared ownership, this user group is also defined by shared welfare services based on China’s household registration system (hukou), making a community the basic unit of population management. This administrative function of a community differentiates sharing between residents in Chinese xiaoqus from that of gated communities outside China, who simply share property. The social bond between users is further reinforced by everyday use, and the frequency and intensity

6

See Article 40 & 70 in the Property Law of the P. R. China, which came into effect in 2007.

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Fig. 10.14 The ground-floor residential units converted into a hair salon, repair shop in the Geguang Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.15 The ground-floor residential units converted into a repair shop in the Geguang Xiaoqu

J. (Cyan) Cheng

of social interactions taking place in these spaces. It is this reciprocal reinforcement of a socio-spatial correspondence that makes shared spaces in Chinese xiaoqus collective.7 Underpinned by this socio-spatial correspondence, the perception of a xiaoqu as a collective realm also facilitates spontaneous alterations and unintended uses for both shared and personal interests. In all the xiaoqus we studied, it is common to see ground-floor residential units converted for commercial uses to provide daily services to the community —such as a hair salon, repair shop, and convenience store— as well as ground floor extensions for personal living spaces built on shared land. There are also temporary forms of appropriation, for example, drying peanuts in the communal playground or drying laundry in the bicycle storage shed (Figs. 10.14, 10.15, 10.16, 10.17, 10.18, 10.19 and 10.20). Moreover, even when there is no collective space, residents improvise to meet their needs, for instance, a temporary open-air lobby created in front of the entrance to a building unit (Fig. 10.21). The unintended uses of communal spaces constitute a layer of informal infrastructure in the xiaoqu, which is temporary, opportunistic, and associational. Conducive to this informal infrastructure is, in essence, an elastic perception of the collective, or in other words, an ambiguous and negotiable boundary between what is collective and what is private. This blurred boundary is underpinned by the elasticity of social relationships in “a society of acquaintances”.8 In this sense, the ambiguity and negotiation, crystallised by an entanglement of formal and informal spatial infrastructures, are constitutive to a sense of community. The entanglement of formal and informal infrastructures is not only manifest in the space of the xiaoqu but also in community governance. Based on interviews with subdistrict offices and residents’ committees in Shanghai, Wuhan, and Beijing, one shared problem in community governance stands out: a lack of resources and executive power needed to fulfil the administrative responsibilities of the sub-district office and residents’ committee. To address this problem, Shanghai, one of the most advanced cities in urban governance in China, has launched a study on, and subsequently promoted, the “localised management” (shudi guanli) model in 2014.9 As part of a new approach to urban

7

Fig. 10.16 The ground-floor residential units converted into a convenience store in the Geguang Xiaoqu

The notion of a collective space originates from the Collective Forms in China workshop, a visiting school programme of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, co-directed by Sam Jacoby and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng between 2016 and 2017. 8 The concept “a society of acquittances” is coined by Xiaotong Fei. See Xiaotong Fei, From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992). 9 Following a government-led study on social governance and urban grassroots, known as the “No. 1 Project” in Shanghai, in 2014, the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee published “Opinions on Further Innovating Social Governance and Strengthening Grassroots Building” and its six supplementary documents in 2015.

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Fig. 10.17 The ground-floor residential units converted into a garden in the Geguang Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.18 The extension of a ground-floor unit in the Miaosan Community

Fig. 10.19 Communal playground used for drying peanuts in the Geguang Xiaoqu

Fig. 10.20 Bicycle storage shed used for drying laundry in the Miaosan Community

Fig. 10.21 A temporary open-air lobby in front of the entrance to a building unit in the Geguang Xiaoqu

158

governance, the Shanghai Municipal Government has freed sub-district offices from responsibilities of attracting investments and promoting economic growth, while making the social governance of a community its core responsibility. This signals a shift in focus from extensive urban growth to comprehensive urban governance. The localised management model entails greater decision-making power and a greater capacity to mobilise both financial and human resources at the sub-district level.10 What comes with these, as part of the policy, is further integration of the Communist Party structure in grassroots organisation. Central to the implementation of this new model is the localisation and professionalisation11 of the sub-district and residents’ committee officers. For example, in the Hongmei Community, the ratio of officers who are also local residents in the Hongmei Sub-district reached 98% in 2018. In the practice of community governance, especially face-to-face governance, networks of personal relations within the community have played a crucial role, and are complementary to the formal governance structure of the residents’ committee, owners’ committee, and property management company. This informal infrastructure of governance is implicitly recognised and facilitated by the new model of localised management in Shanghai. In essence, the informal infrastructure of governance points to a need for a closer, more stable, and longer-term relationship between the people who govern and those who are governed. The resident representative system of the Qinbei Residents’ Committee in the Hongmei Community, Shanghai is an exemplary case of such intervention. To deal with the number of overwhelming tasks distributed among only seven staff members, the party secretary of the Qinbei Residents’ Committee increased the number of resident representatives from one per building unit to two, resulting in a total of 62 resident representatives. To be elected as a resident representative, support from a minimum of ten fellow residents is needed, which largely depends on personal relationships. While it may not be possible for the residents’ committee to establish a close relationship with all residents, this becomes more feasible through the appointment of 62 resident representatives. In this way, a network of intermediaries between the residents’ committee and residents themselves is established.

J. (Cyan) Cheng

Compared to the overall population managed by a residents’ committee, resident representatives form a very small group. To assist their positive influence among residents, the Qinbei Residents’ Committee promotes “star residents”. A story widely shared in the Hongmei Xiaoqu tells the story of a recently retired resident known for drinking heavily and anti-social behaviour, who managed to recover from this due to the care provided by the attentive and sympathetic staff of the residents’ committee, especially the party secretary. This resident is now a resident representative and volunteer manager of the shared activity room in the Hongmei Xiaoqu, and a well-respected member of the community. He is among the “star residents” displayed on the information wall at the entrance of the Hongmei Xiaoqu, each of whom is identified as a role model for different aspects of community life. This adds symbolic value to the system of resident representatives, through which a network of nongovernmental authority is cultivated and legitimised. The strength of this network derives from its embeddedness within the community, and resonates with how power and authority is exercised in a society of acquaintances. However, in contemporary urban communities, it is not a complete but reconstructed and partial society of acquaintances that underlies the network of resident representatives or, more broadly speaking, community activists. Through this, social relationships become associational. In other words, an associational relationship is a social relationship that has an impact on and conditions social practices. The effective governance of the Qinbei Residents’ Committee is thus not so much attributable to institutionalised practice, but rather results from an instrumentalisation of associational relationships.12 Associational relationships, on the one hand, facilitate the production and monitoring of normative behaviours in a community, and on the other, underpin the provision of social care that is not explicitly in the form of healthcare or childcare, but rather diffused and embedded in day-to-day living.

10.4

With Community Building as an on-going national project, urban communities in China have started experiencing a first round of regeneration through community planning. The

12

10

However, the localised management model at the moment still operates within a hierarchical structure of urban governance. This means that political tasks from higher-level administration still dominate grassroots governance, rather than the other way around, that is, tasks derived from the everyday management of the community determining grassroots governance. 11 The professionalisation of officers is based on recruiting people who have higher education levels and are younger, and provides higher salaries.

Community Planning

Apart from using the resident representative and star resident approach, the Qinbei Resident Committee also organises regular volunteering work in the xiaoqu. For example, every Thursday around 30 residents are joined by officers from the residents’ committee to pick up rubbish together in the xiaoqu. Interviews indicate that residents enjoy activities like this, and some of them referred to picking up rubbish together as a weekly group exercise. Other activities like this include guiding and promoting waste sorting (dry refuse, wet trash, recyclable waste, and hazardous waste). Three residents and one officer form a team, which is on duty for half a month.

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Wuhan 8569.15 km2 (built urban area 585.61 km2); Population 10,892,900 (hukou 8,536,500); 13 Districts (and 5 Functional Zones); 156 Sub-districts, 1 Town and 3 Townships; 1319 Community Committees and 1825 Village Committees

Jianghan District 28.29 km2; Population 830,000; 13 Sub-districts; 108 Community Committees

Shiji Huating

Beihu Sub-district 14.5 km2; Population 153,000; 15 Communities and 2 Administrative Villages;

Miaosan Community 0.43 km2; Population 3526 (hukou 2526)

Old Xiaoqu Area (incl. Jintai and Yuanchen Guoji)

Community Governance Structure Party Committee + Community Committee Overall 12 people

Wanhao

Party Secretary & Community Leader - 1 Other Members of the Two Committees - 5 Other Community Workers - 1 Grid Workers - 5 Policy: 883 Plan (2000) Three-party Coordination; Red Property Management

Miaosan Community

6 ‘Old’ Xiaoqus (ex-danwei housing)

Jintai

Yuanchen Guoji

Wanhao

Shiji Huating

Household 332 Built in the 1980s No property management company

Household 64 Built in 2002

Household 273 Built in 2002

Household ca. 300 Built in 2002 (residential & commercial)

Household 189 Built in 2001 (residential & commercial)

0

100m

Fig. 10.22 Administrative structure and aerial view of Miaosan Community, Wuhan, 2018

emerging community planning system is closely related to the changing practices of urban planning and urban design in China,13 which has seen a shift in focus on the planning of urban expansions to the regeneration of existing urban areas. This has coincided with a shift of scale from large-scale plots for real estate developments to that of neighbourhoods in which community life and community governance take place. This shift was recently codified by the Standard for Urban Residential Area Planning and Design (GB50180-2018) by the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development of the P. R. China in December 2018. The existing three-level organisation of urban housing—from large to small: the residential area, the xiaoqu, and the housing cluster—first implemented in 1994 and modified in 2002,14 was replaced by

a new four-level organisation of 15 min, 10 min, 5 min pedestrian-scale neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood blocks.15 This restructuring highlights a spatio-temporal focus on urban residents, foregrounding the factors of daily life. In fact, in terms of a diagrammatic comparison, a 5 min pedestrian-scale neighbourhood is roughly the administrative area of a residents’ committee, and a 10 min pedestrian-scale neighbourhood is that of a sub-district office.16 Thus, it could be argued that the idea of a pedestrian-scale neighbourhood or living circle is,17 in planning terms, deliberately aligned with the idea of community as a governance unit. In the most basic sense, community regeneration aims to improve the deteriorated physical infrastructures of xiaoqus through a collaboration between district and sub-district governments, the residents’ committee, design professionals, and residents themselves. A typical example of this is the

13

Discussions around community planning started in China around the 2000s. See for example, Wei Zhao and Min Zhao, “From Residential Area Planning to Community Planning” 从居住区规划到社区规划. Urban Planning Forum, 2002 (06): 68–71. It has become a heated topic since the 2010s. 14 See Code for Urban Residential Areas Planning and Design (GB50180-93). According to Act 1.0.3 as modified in 2002, standard Warren Kanders ranges of population and household numbers are: (1) residential area 30,000–50,000 (10,000–16,000 households); (2) xiaoqu 10,000–15,000 (3000–5000 households); and (3) housing cluster 1000–3000 (300–1000). This design standard has been subject to a series of modifications since first implemented in 1994, yet these figures have remained the same. Here, the residential area normally refers to an area under the jurisdiction of a sub-district in a city.

15

In the 2018 Standard, the population sizes of the four levels are defined as the following: (1) 15 min pedestrian-scale neighbourhood 50,000–100,000 (17,000–32,000 housing units); (2) 10 min pedestrian-scale neighbourhood 15,000–25,000 (5000–8000 housing units); (3) 5 min pedestrian-scale neighbourhood 5000–12,000 (1500– 4000 housing units); (4) neighbourhood block 1000–3000 (300–1000 housing units). 16 Yifan Yu, “From traditional residential area planning to neighbourhood life circle planning” 从传统居住区规划到社区生活圈规划, City Planning Review, vol. 43, no. 5 (May 2019): 17–22. 17 The term “pedestrian-scale neighbourhood” in English is specified in the 2018 Standard, though the direct translation is “living circle”.

160

J. (Cyan) Cheng

1. Community Policy Station 2. Community Activity Room 3. Jintai Xiaoqu Guard’s Room 4. Bicycle & Motorcycle Storage 5. Wuhan City Maternity Hospital 6. Metro Station 7. Bus Station ad

gxiao

Ro West

Road Xibeihu

Huan

6

7 4 6 2

1

5

Qingnian Road

3

5

N

Housing

Facilities

Greenery

Boundary Wall

0

20m

Fig. 10.23 The Miaosan old xiaoqu area masterplan, 2018 (Original map provided by Environmental Art Research Centre of the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, and additional survey information by Xiaomao Cao and Jingru (Cyan) Cheng; Redrawn by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng)

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Associational Relationship, Collective Space, and …

regeneration project for the Miaosan Community18 in Wuhan, led by the Environmental Art Research Centre at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, commissioned by the Beihu Sub-district Office, and financed by the Jianghan District Government (Figs. 10.22). This regeneration targets an old xiaoqu area consisting of 10 residential buildings and 342 households, which faces problems of ageing electric wires, underground pipes, building facades, and so on19 (Fig. 10.23). To aid community regeneration, a community planner system has been introduced,20 which varies from city to city. For example, in Shanghai and Beijing, a community planner is a planning or architectural design professional who is appointed by the district government and works at the sub-district level, while in Wuhan, community planners are a group of resident representatives from the community. Nevertheless, despite these differences in who community planners are, it recognises the need to have a planning process that is more embedded within the community, establishing a closer and longer-term relationship between stakeholders. Closely related to this, a participatory planning process is widely advocated in community planning guidelines,21 with the aim of fostering community-level self-organisation. While resident participation and community self-organisation are still in their infancy, having been tested in different cities, some common problems are already evident. For example, the Miaosan regeneration project reveals problems of partial feedback and limited engagement due to a participation process that heavily relies on a group of elderly residents,22

18

The Miaosan Community is managed by the Miaosan Residents’ Committee and has an overall population of ca. 3500 in 6 “old xiaoqus” of ex-danwei housing and 4 “new xiaoqus” of market housing. 19 These are among the seven issues identified by the Beihu Sub-district Office in the introduction to the Miaosan regeneration project. All seven issues are around the ageing physical infrastructures in the old xiaoqu area. 20 Shenzhen was the first city in mainland China to promote the community planner system in 2012. However, the Shenzhen experiment was to appoint division-level (chuji) government cadres as community planners. Therefore, it was more an adjustment of the urban governance system than a real community planner system. More recently, in January 2018, the Yangpu District Government in Shanghai launched a community planner system that officially appoints 12 professionals from planning, architecture and landscape architecture from the Tongji University as community planners for12 sub-districts and towns within the Yangpu District respectively. This signals an institutionalised attempt to introduce design professionals as a long-term stakeholder in the community. 21 See for example the section “1.7 Key Agendas” in The Technical Guidelines of Working Mechanism & Design for Community Planning in Wuhan, drawn up by ATA Architectural Design Ltd. In June 2018. 22 In the Miaosan regeneration project, resident participation occurs through a series of interviews and group discussions joined by the residents’ committee and the design team. It is observed that, for sessions held between July and September 2018, the residents who attended these events are more or less the same group of roughly 10 people, and all of them are above 60 years old.

161

whose living circle and circle of social interactions have with age become increasingly aligned with the socio-spatial domain of the community.23 At the same time, the interests and needs of the middle-aged and younger residents are not well represented. Moreover, a social and spatial fragmentation particular to its danwei past has made the Miaosan community more of an administrative unit than a social one.24 This weak sense of community has led to a lack of shared interests, something that is fundamental to community self-organisation. It is thereby clear that the process of community planning is inherently entwined with the push-and-pull of stakeholders and social dynamics within the community. Community planning is, in essence, a social design mediated through spatial design, which facilitates and embodies negotiated relationships of economic interests, political power, and social capital.

10.5

Conclusion

This paper has focused on two sets of relationships: correspondence between the social governance of a community and the spatial organisation of a xiaoqu that constitutes the everyday infrastructure of urban communities in China and, building upon the first, has highlighted the entanglement of formal and informal means that keep this everyday infrastructure functioning. This entanglement, which is embodied by and enacted through collective spaces and associational relationships, reveals a collective agency, one that derives from China’s collectivisation through the danwei system and thousands of years of agricultural history crystallised in the society of acquittances. This agency still plays an essential role in the everyday life of Chinese urban residents.

23

Based on our interviews, their areas of daily activities have been gradually reduced from a radius of 30 min walking distance to 5 min, and a 15 min walking distance is considered far. Moreover, many of the elderly residents have been living in their xiaoqu over a few decades, and thus have formed a closer bond with their fellow residents and the residents’ committee. All of these make them the group most willing to participate. 24 Miaosan’s old xiaoqu area is made up of ex-danwei housing built in the 1980s by six different danweis, and later, due to close proximity, these 10 buildings became one community in 2002 during the Community Building policy in Wuhan. The old danwei identity is still very present, and there are no owners’ committee established and no property management company involved. The maintenance of all the residential buildings is currently managed by the residents’ committee at a minimal standard. This is also why the condition of physical infrastructures in this old xiaoqu area has deteriorated so fast. Spatially, the residential buildings belonged to different danweis and are still separated by boundary walls. Also because spaces are highly fragmented, there are almost no communal spaces in this old xiaoqu area. During group observed discussions, residents were primarily concerned with their personal interests or issues around their own residential buildings within the boundary walls.

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In the on-going nationwide community regeneration, carried out by current community planning, these two sets of relationships are condensed, amplified, and materialised. Community regeneration is a moment of re-distributing and re-balancing resources and interests within a community. Community planning is thus a process of collaboration and negotiation between stakeholders, one that extends beyond the completion of physical renovation and is perpetual in its

J. (Cyan) Cheng

nature. Resident participation in this process can be understood as giving a voice to residents and equipping them with the skills needed to self-organise communal affairs. Arguably, exploring this emerging system of community planning and the role and responsibilities of the residents in managing community affairs, presents itself as the new frontier of restructuring urban governance in China.

The Governance of Urban Community Spaces: Fieldwork Report on the Geguang Community, Guanshan Sub-district, Hongshan District, Wuhan City

11

Xuelin Zhang

Abstract

Community space is a “third space” in between urban public space and private space. In this space, different government bodies, the sub-district office, residents’ committee, owners’ committee, property management company, and other stakeholders interact with one another, thereby shaping community governance. Taking the Geguang Community in Wuhan as an exemplary case, this paper analyses residential property rights, public facilities, and governance organisations in order to discuss these mechanisms of community governance. In general, increasing coordination between the “three carriages”— the residents’ committee, owners’ committee and property management company—leads to decreasing complaints and disputes in urban xiaoqus. This paper finds that establishing an effective three-party coordination can create an effective governance system. One that is capable of dealing with difficult urban community governance issues and is essential to the modernisation of urban grassroots governance. Keywords









Community space Residents’ committee Owners’ committee Property management company Community governance

11.1

Introduction to the Geguang Community: Historical Transformations

The Geguang Community is not a new commodity housing community, but is made up of former residential neighbourhoods of two danwei. It was formed in 2002 by X. Zhang (&) School of Journalism and Communication, Wuhan University, Wuhan, P. R. China e-mail: [email protected]

combining the Tanhei and Geguang Residents’ Committees during a merger of the Wuhan Jiangling Tanhei Chemical Industry Company (known as the Tanhei Factory) and the Wuhan Gehua Group Company (known as the Gehua Group). The Tanhei Residents’ Committee managed 288 households for the Tanhei Factory, while the Geguang Residents’ Committee managed 920 households for the Gehua Group. But even before this, the Tanhei Administrative Department and Tanhei Residents’ Committee were made up of the same pool of Tanhei employees in what is known as the “two signboards, one team” model, meaning that the same person is part of two teams. The Tanhei Residents’ Committee mainly reported to the sub-district office while managing family planning, divorce, dispute mediation, and hygiene etc. The Tanhei Factory also managed its own services such as a canteen, kindergarten, clinic, and workers’ dormitory, however, after the restructuring of the danwei system, the government and open market replaced the danwei as provider of welfare and services. At the end of 2009, as part of a large-scale community restructuring that saw 42 communities in the Guanshan Sub-district reduced to 27, the Xiangbishan Community was eventually absorbed by the Geguang Community. At present (2018), the Geguang Community serves 1524 households and 5234 residents. It includes all of Geguang Xiaoqu (with 920 households, resident population of 3200, and a floating population of 600), five buildings in Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu (with 216 households), 100 relocated households in Lataishan Xiaoqu, and 288 households still to be relocated. These relocated households are registered in the Geguang Community through the hukou (household registration) system, but are managed by a different residents’ committee. Geguang Xiaoqu is the largest residential neighbourhood in the Geguang Community, whose residential demographic consists of former workers from the Tanhei Factory, the Guanshan base of the Gehua Group, and 8% of new residents who bought their flats on the open housing market. After the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_11

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X. Zhang

Tanhei Factory and Gehua Group merger, the old Tanhei workers’ dormitories and factory buildings were demolished to free up land for new commodity housing and shopping mall developments, with residents relocated to Geguang Xiaoqu. The land and buildings of Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu are under the administration of the Donghu High-tech District, whereas the hukous of residents living in the five buildings of the xiaoqu are registered in the Geguang Community, which is administered by the Hongshan District. The offices for “two committees” (residents’ committee and party committee) and residents’ activity rooms of the Geguang Community are all located in the Geguang Xiaoqu. In 2000, when the “Community Building” movement was nationally promoted, the municipal government of Wuhan introduced Project 883. Each residents’ committee was thereby tasked with creating a community service station led by governmentemployed officers responsible for administrative affairs. In 2002, after the Tanhei Residents’ Committee and Geguang Residents’ Committee merged, its combined staff included: seven members of the two committees, one officer for minimum living security and one for social security. Based on the sub-district office “big department” (dabuzhi) reform in 2016, community population, and the implementation of a grid management system starting in 2016, based on its community population and the grid, the staff of the Geguang Residents’ Committee was reduced to ten people, which consisting of six members of the two committees within the residents committee and four officers for community affairs.1 There are four grids in the Geguang Community, and grid officers are normally the existing staff from the residents’ committee. Staff salaries are relatively low despite a pay rise in 2017. Here, the standard salary for the community party secretary—also the leader of the residents’ committee— was raised from 3030 to 3300 yuan per month, and the salary for an officer from 2070 to 2400 yuan per month. Salaries vary slightly depending on educational qualifications, experience, social work qualifications and so on.

11.2

Housing Ownership Types: Ex-DanweiManaged Housing and Commodity Housing

The Geguang Xiaoqu has 18 residential buildings, with No. 1 and 2 built in 1994, No. 3 and 4 in 1996, No. 5, 6 and 7 in 1998, and Nos. 8–18 in 2003. Housing in the Geguang

1

The residents’ committee is in fact made up of two separate committees, the residents’ committee and the community party committee (whose name should be the committee of XXX Community branch of the Communist Party of China), and the leader of residents’ committees (leader or director) and the party secretary are often the same person.

Xiaoqu has been subject to two “buy-out” (maiduan) processes. The first allowed danwei staff to buy a 60% share in housing ownership and the second 100%. The Geguang Xiaoqu is typical for ex-danwei-managed housing. After the housing reform, “two certificates” were obtained (the State-owned Land Use Certificate of the R. R. China and the Property Ownership Certificate of the P. R. China), which allowed it to be sold and purchased freely on the housing market, thus, in terms of legal ownership, rendering this housing similar to that of commodity housing. However, there are two main differences in service provision and property management between ex-danwei-managed housing and commodity housing. The first is to whom the service is provided. While ex-danwei-managed housing provides services for a defined group (previous danwei workers), new commodity housing does not, since people become residents by buying their flats on the housing market. Second, ownership differs. Commodity housing owners have full condominium ownership—including the ownership of their flat, co-ownership of public areas and properties, and co-management rights over public areas and properties—while ex-danwei-managed housing owners have partial condominium ownership—consisting of flat ownership and co-management rights of public areas and properties. In other words, their ownership only covers the floor area of their flats, excluding any public areas such as roads and green open spaces, which are still owned by the danwei, who is thus entitled to all income generated by these public areas and properties. In Geguang Xiaoqu, despite the Gehua Group verbally agreeing to grant co-ownership of some public areas and properties, no formal agreement has been signed. This leaves the ownership of public areas and properties undefined, and has led to various disputes and conflicts. When the Gehua Group restructured in 2014, its workers received a last “buy-out” payment of 6300 RMB for each year of employment. In turn, the Gehua Group relinquished its direct responsibility for former workers and their housing. However, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises and dismantling of the danwei system in Wuhan remained largely incomplete, as one department was always left to manage danwei assets and the affairs of retired workers. Even after restructuring, Geguang Xiaoqu retained a property management company from the Department of Housing Management of the Gehua Group. These ambiguous ownership conditions, multiple stakeholders, and the demographic specificity of the residents—typically constituted by former danwei workers—all complicate effective governance in the xiaoqu.

11

The Governance of Urban Community Spaces: Fieldwork Report …

11.3

165

Communal Spaces and Public Facilities

11.3.1 Public Facilities Within the Community Most of the Geguang Community is made up by residents of the Geguang and Yufeng Jiayuan xiaoqus, which are only separated by a small street. The office building for its residents’ committee was built in 1988 by the Tanhei Factory following a government call for residents’ committees to develop tertiary industries. Located in Geguang Xiaoqu, this building is five-storeys high, with its fourth and fifth floors providing activity rooms for ten resident groups. When the current party secretary of the Geguang Community came into power, he provided new public facilities to meet the residents’ social needs. The Community Culture Pavilion, which he built in 2012, is a frequently used public space for residents to relax and socialise, while new asphalt roads installed in 2013 have greatly improved traffic congestion and the general living environment. In addition, a project to renovate parking spaces in 2015 (Fig. 11.1), initiated by the residents’ committee in partnership with the property management company and owners’ committee, reduced conflicts over parking.

Fig. 11.1 Road in the Geguang Xiaoqu with renovated parking space on one side and the community service centre in the background. Photograph by Yizhuo Gao

11.3.2 Public Facilities Around the Community Although the Wuhan Guanggu No. 1 Elementary School is within 5–10 min walking distance from Geguang Xiaoqu, it is outside the school’s allocated residential neighbourhoods, and thus pupils have to attend a school that is a 10–20 min drive away. There is a community clinic, but residents are unhappy with the doctor and therefore avoid using it. The nearest hospital is the Third Hospital in the Wuhan Guanggu Guanshan Branch. There is a supermarket nearby and a row of illegal extensions for small shops attached to the boundary wall between Geguang Xiaoqu and Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu. Some were built by ground floor residents in the Geguang Xiaoqu by covering the space between their flat and boundary wall to create rooms for rent or small shops (Fig. 11.2). Similar structures built by residents of Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu were forcefully demolished by residents of Geguang Xiaoqu. This is an example of the informal appropriation of public spaces in a xiaoqu. Some small restaurants can be found along the street separating Geguang Xiaoqu and Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu (Fig. 11.3), which according to local residents, are mainly used by migrant workers. There used to be a large vegetable market within a 5 min walk, but due to bad management, it was not very popular and eventually had to close. Other vegetable markets are

Fig. 11.2 Extensions attached to the boundary wall of the Geguang Xiaoqu. Photograph by Yizhuo Gao

Fig. 11.3 Restaurants along the street separating the Geguang Xiaoqu and Yufeng Jiayuan Xiaoqu. Photograph by Yizhuo Gao

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relatively far—around a 30–40 min walk. One of these is the Xinzhu Road Market, a large wholesale market that is attractive to residents because of its low prices. Residents are mainly middle-aged to elderly retired danwei workers with only a modest retirement salary of around 2000–3000 yuan per month, which also has to cover health-related expenses. This example questions the popular belief in “15 min living circles” in the planning of urban xiaoqus and public service provisions. While a 15 min radius defines a relatively small-scale autonomous living area, one should ask: What is the relationship between small-scale living modules and the larger urban system? And how does the stratification of residents and their activities relate to urban spaces?

11.4

Community Governance Organisation: The “Three Carriages”

11.4.1 The Property Management Company The fee for property management services in xiaoqus with commodity housing derives from a mix of state guide prices and market pricing, while the fee in old xiaoqus (danweimanaged and ex-danwei-managed xiaoqus) is only based on guide prices by the state. The fee is calculated based on the building’s structure (brick-concrete or frame structure), height (multi-storey, high-rise), and whether or not it has lifts. As Geguang Xiaoqu is an old xiaoqu, its property management fee is only 0.25 yuan/m2 per month. Although this low charge could be almost considered a form of welfare, collection rates are only around 10%. Since the company’s restructuring in 2014, the collected overall property management fee was around 70,000 yuan. There are several reasons as to why residents do not pay their fee: First, property management services used to be provided by the danwei for free. Ex-danwei workers are not accustomed to paying for services and they also feel that, having been laid off, they are owed this by their previous danwei. Second, as staff of the property management company are not trained professionals, residents are not satisfied by the level of service it provides. Thus, the property management company has been running at a deficit and has had to rely on the xiaoqu’s shared income (parking fees, shop rents, advertisement fees, etc.) and subsidies from the Gehua Group. Third, in this community, residents’ affairs are mainly managed by the residents’ committee, which has earned wide support from residents and, in addition, the residents of old xiaoqus tend to turn to the residents’

committee whenever they have problems and feel that the property management company is unnecessary.

11.4.2 The Owners’ Committee In 2004, the Gehua Group nominated some residents of Geguang Xiaoqu to establish an owners’ committee. However, this was not officially approved by or registered with the sub-district office and property management office of the District Housing Management Bureau, and did not actually function well. At the end of 2012, another owners’ committee was established by the Sub-district Office and the Geguang Community Residents’ Committee. Registered in 2013, it has seven members: a director, a vice-director and five committee members, with five-year office terms. In August 2018, a new committee was elected. The director of the owners’ committee, a former worker in the Gehua Group, had worked as a project manager in the Ju’an Property Management Company since 2006, and is thus experienced in property management. Moreover, he led the resident’s appeal to mayor in order to defend the interests of Geguang Xiaoqu, earning himself the respect of its residents.

11.4.3 The Residents’ Committee A community residents’ committee is both an autonomous organisation of the people and an organisation at the lowest level of the government regime building. Therefore, it is both social and political in nature. The community party branch and the residents’ committee together form the most important community organisation in the urban governance system. The secretary of the community party committee and the director of the residents’ committee are often the same person, and even though the committees have different roles in community affairs, they are essentially one entity, whose staff are usually called “community workers”. In academia, the residents’ committee, owners’ committee and property management company are commonly referred to as the “three carriages”. Effective community governance depends on how well they work independently and collaboratively. At present, however, the owners’ committee often fails in creating a successful self-governance by property owners. In addition, xiaoqus with an owners’ committee are still relatively few and conflicts in property management remain very common. This is thus a key problem in grassroots governance in China’s cities.

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The Governance of Urban Community Spaces: Fieldwork Report …

11.5

Innovation in Community Governance: Three-Party Coordination and Red Property Management

11.5.1 Three-Party Coordination In order to address common dissatisfaction among residents with regards to the owners’ committee and property management company, the Wuhan Municipal Government advanced two innovative policies: a three-party collaboration and a “red property management”. Moreover, guiding the establishment and re-election of the owners’ committee was the responsibility of the property management office under the district housing management bureau (tiao tiao), but this responsibility has now been transferred to the sub-district office and community residents’ committee (kuai kuai). The Wuhan government demands that every xiaoqu that meets legal criteria in establishing an owners’ committee2 must have one, which changes the governance role of the community residents’ committee. Even though the community residents’ committee is legally responsible for the supervision of the owners’ committee, it only used to assist and coordinate, while the District Housing Management Bureau was effectively in charge. However, when this responsibility was transferred to the sub-district office and community, the community residents’ committee took on a leading role in the establishment, guidance, and supervision of the owners’ committee, as well as in the resolution of disputes between owners, the owners’ committee, and the property management company. As the “three carriages” have a rather parallel relationship, the residents’ committee often lacks the means and power to guide, supervise, and coordinate the owners’ committee and the property management company. In fact, getting things done largely depends on personal relationships. The community-based, three-party model advanced by the Wuhan Municipal Government, enables the appointment of staff across the three committees and regular joint meetings to discuss important and difficult issues of community governance. Generally speaking, the party secretary and leader of the residents’ committee is also the chief supervisor of the property management company, while the project manager of the property management company is also the vice-leader of the residents’ committee. When possible, the leader or members of the residents’ committee is also elected

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to the owners’ committee. In this way, the interaction and cooperation between the committees is improved and institutionalised by a three-party governance model. Of course, this does not guarantee an effectively coordinated governance between the committees. Good community governance cannot be simply determined by institutions, but good institutions can facilitate good governance.

11.5.2 Red Property Management By requiring all residential xiaoqus in Wuhan to have an owners’ committee, and by promoting the three-party coordination model, the organisational and institutional foundation for coordinated community governance was created. Although the “three carriages” have a parallel relationship, the leading residents’ committee has limited power and resources. Its effectiveness largely depends on the community party secretary’s (community leader’s) ability and accountability. With the three-party coordination, the Wuhan Municipal Government introduced a “red property management” model, which provides property management for old xiaoqus and also responds to the challenge of community governance by empowering the community residents’ committee (party branch or party committee). The “red property management” project requires all property management companies that meet the criteria to establish their own party branch, through which the community residents’ committee can directly intervene in the property management company; from party brand to party branch. This increases the governance capability and power of the community residents’ committee.

11.6

Practice and Effects of the Three-Party Coordinated Community Governance

By establishing a three-party coordination and promoting a “red property management”, a coordinated community governance has been realised that improves the effectiveness of grassroots governance. This has two main tasks. The first is the execution of political tasks, which is usually central to the working of community governance, employing a dynamic governance approach that mobilises various stakeholders to accomplish the task. A well-ordered three-party coordination can form a united force of governance and effectively accomplish political tasks.3 The second task is the gover-

2

According to the guidelines published by the Wuhan municipal government in 2012, to establish an owners’ committee of a xiaoqu needs to meet one of the two following conditions: First, the privately owned floor areas exceed 50% of the overall floor areas of the xiaoqu; Second, the privately owned floor areas exceed 20% of the overall floor areas and have been in use for minimal two years.

3

Having failed to earn the title of National Civilised City for four consecutive times in 12 years, Wuhan finally succeeded in 2017 after the establishment of a three-party coordination model in 2015.

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nance of daily community affairs. The three-party coordination is relatively effective in meeting public demands by residents and in providing public goods in the community. In Geguang Xiaoqu, the three-party coordination approach has helped to better address a series of important issues, for example: 1. The regeneration of parking spaces. Since the xiaoqu was built soon after the economic reforms, it did not include many parking spaces. However, the number of cars surged recently, resulting in a severe car parking shortage. Many owners complained to the property management company about this, who then developed a proposal with the community residents’ and owners’ committees. They proposed to convert some green areas into 150 new parking spaces without losing the overall green area in the xiaoqu. The implementation involved multiple stakeholders, requiring not only collective consent from all owners, but official approval by government bodies. To avoid an escalation of dissent and convince those who initially rejected the proposal to agree, the three-party coordinated governance proved effective.4 2. The renovation of water pipes and water tanks, as well as the distribution of community funds, used the three-party coordination approach. The community residents’ committee or the owners’ committee first initiated an investigation to understand residents’ needs, based on which a proposal was put forward and later agreed on. 3. The issue of shared income in Geguang Xiaoqu. There has been no shared income for the owners’ committee since it was established in 2012. Being ex-danwei-managed housing, the ownership of public areas and properties and the income generated by them remains ambiguous. As the Gehua Group has verbally agreed that open public spaces in the xiaoqu (roads and green areas) should belong to the residents, and income generated by them is also the residents’. This raises the problem of income distribution between committees. The problem is currently being resolved by the leaders of the owners’ committee, community residents’ committee and the

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property management company in a typical three-party coordinated approach.5

11.7

Urban Community Governance

Community space is a “third space” in between urban public space and private space. Different government bodies, the sub-district office, residents’ committee, owners’ committee, property management company, and other stakeholders interact with one another in this space, with each stakeholder having specific duties. They need to perform their own duties while supporting, coordinating and collaborating with others, forming an “organic solidarity” in Émile Durkheim’s terms. In general, increasing coordination between the “three carriages” leads to decreasing complaints and disputes in urban xiaoqus. This coordination is therefore one of the key challenges for current urban governance. Thus, community three-party coordination and “red property management” are of great significance for the modernisation of urban community governance in China. The essence of property management is that all owners represented by the owners’ committee jointly manage public spaces in a xiaoqu. There are two approaches to property management: self-management or outsourcing professional property management companies. As property management requires professional knowledge and skills, in practice most property management in commodity xiaoqus is outsourced. Only a few small residential xiaoqus self-manage or provide basic cleaning and maintenance services themselves, because the cost of hiring professional companies is either too high or the work is commercially unattractive. Owners want the best service at the lowest cost and a property management company wants to maximise profits. Thus, the owners’ committee needs to represent the collective interests of the owners and supervise the property management company, but it also needs to support it in order to provide better services, especially when having to deal with residents violating regulations, behaving unreasonably, or deliberately delaying paying property management fees. When working well, the owners’ committee supervises the services of the property management company on behalf of all owners. The property management company is collectively commissioned by all owners to manage the

4

First, the proposal had to be ratified in an owners’ congress meeting by a two-third majority. Half of the owners who owned cars supported it. But those without a car and living on the ground floor rejected the proposal and there was concern that objecting, so-called “nail households” would obstruct construction. Once this was jointly resolved by the three parties, the proposal had to be approved by the government department in charge of open green spaces.There were three main sources of fund for this parking space regeneration project: a community fund by the government, a project fund, and 600,000 yuan from the Gehua Group.

5

The preliminary proposal by the party secretary for the use of existing shared incomes: to subsidise the property management company for its service provision; for office expenditure of the owners’ committee, which is 1000 yuan per month. In addition, to slightly increase the property management fee, of which 0.1 yuan/m2 per month goes to the owner’s committee for the maintenance costs of public areas and properties beyond 1000 yuan.

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The Governance of Urban Community Spaces: Fieldwork Report …

physical, public spaces in a xiaoqu, but also the behaviour within these spaces, for example, renovation and construction without permission, growing vegetables in public spaces, water pipe leakages and so on. While a property management company can manage physical properties relatively easily, it is rather difficult for them to manage people, because they lack the means of enforcement and can only try to persuade people not to violate regulations. This is not just ineffective, but can also cause disputes and upset owners, who might stop paying the property management fee in return. But if the property management company does not prevent violation of public rulers, it may upset the rest of the owners, who might threaten to stop paying the property management fee as well. The property management company therefore needs assistance from the owners’ committee in the following: (1) to mediate disputes between owners and the property management company from a neutral position; (2) to manage owners who violate xiaoqu regulations and the public order of xiaoqu governance; and (3) to collect property management fees. While those not paying their property management fee can be sued in court, this will only escalate conflict. Therefore, the owners’ committee plays an important role in collecting fees and persuading those who do not pay, but also in mediating interests of owners’ and property management companies. In practice, most owners’ committees do not work well, causing a structural problem in the “three carriages” system. With rising expectations on the quality of life and the xiaoqu living environment, complaints and disputes about property management services have surged. The urban grassroots organisation of sub-district office and the residents’ committee is one possible way to solve this structural problem. In the past, the owners’ committee and property management often relied on the property management office of the district housing management bureau for guidance and supervision. But the disputes in property management exceeded their capacity to deal with them, as they normally only have two to three staff members. Therefore, when the central government ordered that urban governance should

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move to lower and more local levels of administration, city governments made the sub-district office and the residents’ committee responsible for the owners’ committee. The residents’ committee in the “three carriages” model refers not only to the committee itself, but also to the community party organisation and the political resources related to the sub-district office and district office. On the one hand, higher level government departments rely on the residents’ committee to enter the community in what is called “thousands of threads above coming into one needle below”, meaning that the residents’ committee is responsible for implementing a wide range of political tasks from many different upper-level government departments. On the other, the residents’ committee needs to coordinate with the sub-district office and other relevant departments in order to mobilise resources in response to demands by residents or community governance issues. Therefore, an urban grassroots organisation based on the sub-district office and residents’ committee can resolve a structural dilemma between owners, the owners’ committee, and property management company. Thus, the members of the owners’ committee should be carefully chosen to ensure they are impartial, responsible, and have enough time. When facing difficult situations, the residents’ committee should actively coordinate between the sub-district office and property management office among others. The residents’ committee should also supervise the owners’ committee to implement governance instruments such as the owners’ regulations and rules of owners’ self-governance alongside discussions of community affairs. It is the active involvement of the urban grassroots organisation—based on the sub-district office and residents’ committee—that has helped cultivate self-governance and overcome structural problems between owners, the owners’ committee, and property management company. Establishing an effective three-party coordination between the “three carriages” can create an effective governance system. One that is capable of dealing with difficult urban community governance issues and thus essential to the modernisation of urban grassroots governance.

Problems, Analyses and Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance

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Yapeng Pu

Abstract

This article is a summary and discussion of work in urban grassroots governance through the lens of practice. It includes three subjects of enquiry: problems in urban grassroots governance, the analysis of these problems, and working strategies. These are discussed from the perspectives of economic and social development, the stakeholders of governance, and operational frameworks and methods. This multi-faceted elaboration of urban grassroots governance is an attempt to clarify and outline its basic framework. Nonetheless, this paper does not present a holistic view of urban grassroots governance. The main discussions are directly derived from the rethinking of grassroots realities, which may provide references for those involved in research and practice in this area. Keywords

Community governance

12.1




Social governance

Introduction

This article reflects some of the author’s thoughts on practical work dealing with urban grassroots governance. First of all, in urban grassroots governance, one constantly faces all kinds of problems. To clarify these problems, one inevitably needs to analyse and investigate their causes. At present, these causes are mostly attributed to public policies. But this inevitably invites a further need to rethink the factors that influence the implementation and decision-making of public policies. Problems in social governance are not the result of a linear logic, nor that of a simple causal chain. While it is Y. Pu (&) Association of Shanghai Community Development, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

reasonable to attribute social governance problems to objective conditions, the focus of social governance lies in “people”, in the sense that public policies are in practice implemented and enacted by people and must benefit the people. Therefore, social governance problems must also be defined from the perspective of the “people”. Moreover, social realities are admittedly affected by macro factors, but social behaviours that are specific to and vary from person to person are its real, direct influence. What affects these social behaviours are “small events” that reveal different subsystems and the conflicts between them, through which each individual experiences social reality. These must be carefully examined if they are to be brought into a harmonious relationship. In this light, a strategy, rather than a search for “rules” of social governance, should be defined as a way to seek balance. This article adopts the format of notes, however, each paragraph could be expanded into a stand-alone article. The thinking behind some of its content is limited to the context of practice, which is shaped by strong geographical limitations, and characteristics of time and characteristics of the people. Moreover, in spite of employing an analysis from multiple perspectives, this article should not be considered comprehensive. Rather, its intention is to provide references for those who wish to further understand this area of governance.

12.2

The Main Problems in Urban Grassroots Governance

[1] Ill-acclimatised theory and the blind following of existing practice. In China, the theoretical basis of social governance has been dominated by Western theory for a long period of time. However, since social and cultural factors play a key role in the discourse of Chinese governance, no direct foundation for Western theories has formed in the Chinese cultural context. Furthermore, these theories have been

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_12

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studied in a fragmented way and mechanically applied, which makes them largely ineffective. Therefore, the current status quo is that empiricism and administrative authority constitute important standards for grassroots governance. Dealing with the grassroots level, the macroscopic perspective is too broad, as its symbolic meaning is far greater than its actual significance, while the microscopic perspective is too narrow and too trivial, and often falls into the quagmire of specific problems. [2] The lack of the individual perspective in grassroots governance. The process of China’s modernisation inevitably demands the modernisation of grassroots governance and governance systems. For a long time, there have been grand narratives and perspectives, which have understood modern Chinese society through the lens of a larger modernisation process throughout human history as well as the lens of a transition from a traditional society to a modern society in China. However, at the grassroots level, one should look at China’s modernisation process from the perspective of the development of different groups and even individuals, and should rationally analyse its impact on these groups and individuals. The analysis should be rational but also infused with a humanist concern for people. This should be a deeply shared understanding at the grassroots level. [3] Multiple stakeholders not moving sufficiently in the same direction. As social governance involves multiple stakeholders, each stakeholder needs to take on the right role. The problems encountered in social governance are, first, a problem of identifying and coordinating interests, second, a problem of a sense of community and feelings, and, finally, a problem of thought, spirit, and belief. The problem of interest deserves most attention and coordination in grassroots governance. The rules on how to coordinate problems of interest can help form an atmosphere in which a sense of community and compatibility in the community can be achieved. The coordination of interest also requires rules, which may reflect the need for a rule of law at the grassroots level of modern society. At the grassroots level, the ideas held by various groups are asymmetric. Residents apply a certain logic when defending their own rights, while applying another when assuming responsibilities. As does the government. Sometimes it utilises the tools of law and policy, and sometimes it is unclear about the boundaries of its interventions, inadvertently disturbing the balance of interests at the grassroots level. The roles of the public government, social organisations and individual residents in grassroots governance are thus ambiguous. [4] The particularities resulting from rapid urban development. Chinese cities have created a “compression of time and space” through rapid urban development (Fig. 12.1). Ideas and mentalities, for example, change simultaneously, but sometimes in opposite directions. In terms of spatial organisation, unbalanced developments have

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led to drastic spatial disparities. Therefore, the notion of “particularity” is a myth in grassroots governance, including the particularity of space, the particularity of the people, the particularity of public policy, and so on. In such a “compression of time and space”, many historical problems remain. These problems are in fact paradoxes of equality: policies that were implemented “fairly” have proven to be relatively unfair over the course of history, likewise, policies that were “fairly” implemented in one place, are not implemented consistently in another. All these are not serious problems on their own. But, due to the compression of short time periods and the compressed, overlapping spaces in which they occur, a feeling of inequality is amplified. [5] The inertia of the planned economy. Today, as the idea of the “danwei man” gradually disappears, China gradually gains the basic characteristics of a modern society in which the social man becomes the subject. However, the framework of grassroots governance in this new social context should be more comprehensive. Faced with governance problems, beliefs formed in the era of the danwei man are still present, which, more or less, tend to rely on a top-down, regulated system or institutional arrangement to solve issues of grassroots governance. As for social individuals, they always tend to find “the other” to be responsible for social problems, as in the institutionalised danwei era. Self-consciousness and a loss of individuality are thus two parallel trajectories that define contemporary Chinese social psychology. [6] The way in which the grassroots government “assumes responsibilities” is not always reasonable. With the government continuously pushing for the advancement of grassroots governance, what kind of approach is “reasonable”? Borrowing from Pareto optimality in economics, such advancement is reasonable if participation is on a voluntary basis and participants benefit. However, in social governance, the “economic man” hypothesis is not valid, and the principle of voluntary exchange is not applicable. An expected return is thus an economic problem, but also a social problem. Especially when one party involved in such a transaction is the government (or the public sector), as unreasonable transactions may be produced. Currently, direct government involvement has spawned a great number of unreasonable expectations of return, often unintentionally breaking the balance of interests at the grassroots. [7] An effective force yet to be formed through public participation. The public’s awareness of participation in grassroots governance is gradually improving. However, the public also tends to disregard grassroots public affairs, which is evident in selective participation in the affairs of residential districts, expressions of selfishness, a lacking sense of community, and the lack of a process and framework that facilitates compromise etc. At the same time, the public shows great distrust in public power and “the other”.

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Problems, Analyses and Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance

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Fig. 12.1 Aerial views of a multi-storey xiaoqu in Shanghai. Photograph by Yapeng Pu

[8] The dilemma of the Residents’ Committee. In the grassroots governance system, the Residents’ Committee holds a key position in the functional set-up. However, the functional roles of a Residents’ Committee are contradictory. A Residents’ Committee is to embody the residents’ self-governance and autonomy, and simultaneously work as an extension of administration. The Residents’ Committee faces the challenge of unifying these two aspects when undertaking concrete work and defining its objectives and tactics, such as how to unify contradictions, the task of which demands highly skilled and experienced Residents’ Committee cadres. It is thus a misunderstanding to consider grassroots governance as “grassroots affairs”. Grassroots governance is in need of more top-level design. The dominant power of grassroots governance does not lie in the grassroots, and the dominant power of community governance is not in the hands of residents. In the urban grassroots governance system, an inverted pyramid structure of power and a pyramid structure of community affairs are thus formed. [9] The Owners’ Committee (owners’ assembly) is a difficult element of grassroots governance. It is an entity of pure rights, but no obligations, which represents the typical mentality of residents. The Owners’ Committee is likely to become an obstacle in grassroots governance. Accordingly, public policies by the government often put the Owners’ Committee in a position that does not involve taking on any responsibilities. But the grassroots government has devoted much energy in working with Residents’ Committees, in order to hold them accountable and give them responsibilities in grassroots governance. Yet, there are very few ways to integrate the Owners’ Committee and there is no obvious starting point. [10] Property management seems to follow market behaviour, a transaction between property owners and the property management company, but this is not entirely true. Property management is unlikely to become fully

determined by the market. Therefore, it is impossible to select good property services merely based on market rules. The purchase of property management service and its delivery processes are relatively complicated, and evaluation, supervision, and pricing require professional knowledge, which goes beyond the capacity of ordinary property owners. In addition, the Owners’ Committee faces moral risks and cannot always simply represent the interests expressed in the owners’ assembly. According to the current management model, a rational approach for property management companies is to provide the minimum service, as long as residents do not complain too much or it follows an unspoken understanding with the Owners Committee.

12.3

The Analyses of Problems in Urban Grassroots Governance

[1] Grassroots governance is complex, but the risk of social instability is low. A residential district is a miniature model of society, and the overall societal context determines the basic state of the residential district. The behaviour of individual residents is influenced by factors of law, culture, family ties, social relations, and their own capabilities and accomplishments (suzhi), which are generally “selfstabilising”. People are inclined to do good and stay settled in a given place, which creates an internal balance in the residential district. Therefore, in the overall context of national and social stability, although the residential district is complex and full of contradictions, the risk of social instability is low. [2] Many problems in grassroots governance are associated with the grassroots government. An important perspective in analysing the state of grassroots governance is the way in which administrative power enters the residential xiaoqu. Administrative power entering the xiaoqu must comply with the operative rules of public power: equality,

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justice, transparency, standardisation, and its concrete implementation. But these rules are not so easy to apply. If a fire occurs in an old residential xiaoqu and causes losses, the normal response from the grassroots government would be to immediately strengthen the xiaoqu’s resources and ability to fight the outbreak and spread of fire. Yet, the grassroots government will not ask xiaoqu residents to raise funds to improve this “firefighting ability”, as the xiaoqu is a private space. The grassroots government will not make new public policies either, as this is not within its remit. This complicated set of values related to how administrative power enters the xiaoqu may be further understood by analysing the government’s constant attitude of “not in my backyard”, while also having “sky-high ambitions” when it comes to the regeneration of squatted areas and old housing. [3] Grassroots governance should involve various stakeholders, but is more likely to form a binary structure at the grassroots level. This is mainly due to the grassroots government being “the only dominant force”. In grassroots governance, the grassroots government is full of subjective impulses of “goodwill”. But, no matter how good the project is, entering at the grassroots level is likely to disrupt any existing balance of harmony (Yi Chi Chun Shui). To re-establish this balance takes time, requires the participation of multiple stakeholders and, more importantly, requires rules that are widely accepted and strictly implemented. The party committee and government as a stakeholder should follow these rules too. At present, traces of government dominance are evident in much of its work. In fact, in grassroots governance, even if the government acts completely in the public’s interest, it is still likely to conflict with the interests of some groups. In grassroots governance, the government has authority, willingness, and relatively infinite resources, all of which constitute “one side”. Then, no matter how many other stakeholders there are, they can all be reduced to the “other side”. This is the reason why grassroots governance is likely to form a binary structure: the grassroots government in confrontation with all other stakeholders. [4] The lack of real public issues in grassroots governance. These issues always derive from needs and problems. In an urban commodity housing xiaoqu, if the property management is fully qualified, the urban grassroots democracy would have nothing to discuss. But it is difficult to formulate any public issues among residents at the xiaoqu level. This is because individual residents can directly deal with the government and society, and are unlikely to have much contact with the Residents’ Committee, who primarily works as an extension of the administration. Therefore, grassroots governance has no social base. This reveals a microcosm of the “atomisation” of grassroots society in megacities. Many high-quality commodity housing xiaoqus thus face the problem of low participation in communal

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activities. There are two possible explanations: first, these groups frequently engage in economic activities, while not engaging in social activities; second, these groups are engaged in social activities, but these social activities do not overlap with the spaces they live in. [5] The triangular relation between the “three carriages” of the grassroots. The Residents’ Committee (the party organisation in residential areas), the Owners’ Committee, and the property management company have a triangular relation. This triangular relation embodies three tendencies in grassroots governance: the operational framework of public power, a democratic decision-making mechanism based on one person one vote and a market mechanism. There is a strong tension between these three, with each having its own internal logic, rules of operation and specific external relations, such as those with administration, service providers, and various other groups. All of these are intertwined at the grassroots level. Although trivial, these are the problems grassroots managers face on a daily basis. [6] The simplistic implementation of grassroots democracy. Grassroots governance employs a direct democratic approach, which is achieved through the direct election principle of one person one vote. But, how can a shared will be effectively achieved at the grassroots through this? In reality, this form of democracy both solves and causes problems. Many workers at the grassroots level have a simplistic understanding of this important work and believe that many problems in grassroots governance can be solved by such democratic form. One person one vote means equal rights. However, in xiaoqu affairs, residents are in many cases not on an equal rights basis. The real grassroots governance condition is as follows: the minority obeys the majority and the majority obeys the minority. Depending on the situation, the “square effect” (with WeChat having become the market “square”) is at work, with those shouting loudest listened to most, which can lead to the election of committee members or representatives who will fail to meet their obligations. Cases like this at the grassroots level are numerous. Furthermore, the principle of one person one vote should be applied differently for different matters. A simple majority, absolute majority or unanimous vote are all available options. Therefore, the institutional arrangement of such grassroots democratic form needs to be refined and improved in concrete grassroots operations, and these procedures must continuously be proven to be effective and simple in practice. [7] Socio-spatial analysis of resident participation. In a wider sense, spaces for human activities can be divided into three main categories: production space, living space, and consumption or leisure space. One of the difficulties in social governance is that these three types of space tend not to overlap for modern people. Production spaces, living spaces, and consumption or leisure spaces are highly separated,

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Problems, Analyses and Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance

which makes it impossible to understand an individual from a reading of any one space alone. How has this phenomenon influenced grassroots governance? Looking back at traditional society, these three spaces highly overlapped for individuals of an agrarian society, forming a “deep” (shendu) society of acquaintances. “Relationship” (guanxi) was the principle that determined social governance and formed insurmountable constraints for the individual. Under the planned economy in cities, the “danwei man” was the dominant group. At least here the production space and living space of an individual overlapped, and the individual was attached to the danwei organisation. Therefore, “organisation” was the internal logic of social governance and also imposed strong constraints on individuals. Moving towards a modern urban society, the two aforementioned dominant rationalities are no longer valid. The separation of the three types of spaces gives the individual an opportunity to “escape” the all-encompassing traditional social structure, while society loses the strong social constraints of individuals. In this context, the “rule of law” should be the inherent principle of social governance. [8] The analysis of the grassroots governance should use multiple perspectives or multiple paradigms. Borrowing the social facts paradigm, the social definition paradigm and the social behaviour paradigm from sociological theories, the analysis of grassroots governance must fully understand the various factors in grassroots society and their interrelationships, and continue to rethink all of them. Furthermore, this analysis should also include a comprehensive study of the value-based system, willingness, capability, and understanding, and methods used by participants in grassroots governance, as well as their actions and actual effects. While in practice these methods may be beneficial to grassroots governance, they may also make problems more ambiguous. In the actual work of grassroots governance, analysis and intervention take place simultaneously. The overall cycle of analysis, decision-making, execution and feedback is likely to be broken down into many small cycles, which can be developed in a spiralling way. Therefore, instead of static thinking, analysis should be fully integrated into the constantly changing state of the grassroots.

12.4

Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance

[1] The objective of grassroots governance is to abandon the presupposition of the so-called specific ideal model and to seek a harmonious balance. The so-called “ruling and governing the world” (zhi tianxia) and “stabilising and reassuring the world” (an tianxia) are not as favourable an approach as to “be harmonious and peaceful with the world” (yu tianxia an). If the final concrete goal could be ever

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achieved, it should be achieved “indirectly” rather than “directly”. All systems in grassroots governance should be stable and rational, so that the public can have trust in the government. Such trust is part of necessary shared values and it is the government’s commitment to a future. In modern society, due to rapid development and changes, problems are constantly emerging, which makes the commitment to certain standards more important than that to specific operations. Governance problems, however, cannot be equated with management problems, or even with administration problems. The working assumption of first defining the so-called objectives and then implementing them is absurd. [2] Shifting grassroots governance from an order-based to a rule-based approach within a value-based system. Grassroots governance should first shift from a primarily order-based approach to a rule-based approach. Then a new set of rules for grassroots governance can be formulated within a value-based system. Regarding the various aforementioned problems in grassroots governance, as well as an analytical perspective of these problems, the core problem is a lack of value. It is thus difficult to form a value-based rule system. While the order-based approach inevitably implies “static” objectives as well as “standardised” requirements, the value-based approach can have flexible objectives. More importantly, it stimulates a drive for self-realisation, which enables grassroots governance to operate within “socially tolerable” boundaries of rules, customs, and values. [3] Understand the organic character of societal development. The harmonious state of grassroots governance lies in a dynamic balance, which “grows” out of the forces of various stakeholders. The urban space has “grown”, social culture has “grown”, and social rules (public order and morals) have “grown”. It is important to acknowledge this internal “organic characteristic” of grassroots governance, and that “strong intervention” and “non-intervention” in grassroots governance are equally harmful. Between the evolving and balancing processes of grassroots governance, many paradoxes undoubtedly emerge. In other words, the advancement of grassroots governance at an operative level has always occurred alongside paradoxes. The pursuit of balance also reflects on issues of risk management. “Stability outweighing everything else” is a kind of useful approach, as long as it does not obstruct the advancement of grassroots governance. [4] The predictability of public policies. This is in fact a value-based requirement as well as a rule for important strategy. Predictability is made possible in a value-based system, and policies are thus more fair, more effective and more forward-looking. Public policy should be predictable, long-term, and consistent. A predictable increase in welfare is very important and beneficial to grassroots governance. At the same time, policies should be “produced” in a

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predictable manner and at the “most appropriate” time after problems have occurred. [5] The working scale and working principle are equally important in grassroots governance. Paradoxes occurring in governance often manifest in the form of two opposite understandings or tactics, which may or may not hold true in actual practice. This is mainly due to insufficient understanding of the main contradictions, the main causes of these contradictions, and the primary and secondary relationships of these causes. Therefore, when solving problems, people may treat superficial problems as fundamental problems and long-term problems as short-term problems, applying a simplistic solution to complicated problems and thus often misjudging priorities. While paradoxes derive from contradictions, paradoxes can also be resolved by contradictions. In the past, the grassroots often pursued a large-scale, purely “result-oriented” approach, which has led to grassroots governance becoming either a game of vulgarised principles and flexibility, or a rigid principle of “one size fits all” that does not take into consideration its impact on particular individuals. In fact, the principle is always constant. What should be followed is a workable scale of intervention that does not contradict the principle. It should be consistent with the principles, their application and fully respect the particularity of individuals. [6] The devil is in the detail (xijie jueding chengbai). In actual situations, when facing issues of public interest, problems should never be ignored because the interest attached to them is minor. Otherwise, “the broken window effect” follows. The root cause of many long-term maladies are minor problems, and this is especially evident in large, densely populated cities. When dealing with small problems in reality, the grassroots managers should realise that when seemingly facing a corridor, a building, a xiaoqu or a sub-district, they actually face the entire city and even the entire society. [7] The role of grassroots government in governance should be more indirect and simpler. So-called “indirectisation” means that in modern society special and complicated problems should be delegated to specialised institutions and organisations, while the grassroots government upholds a bottom line. “Simplification”, on the other hand, suggests that the philosophical direction pursued at the beginning of setting up a system should tend towards the simple; forming a framework through which complicated issues can be managed and governed by simple principles. What is key to governmentality is to understand and manage the fundamental (ben), then the peripheral (mo) will follow. In this way, administration can be simple but effective. The grassroots staff are often overwhelmed by the workload and get the fundamental (ben) and the peripheral (mo) in the wrong order. It is worth learning, especially for grassroots governance, how traditional Chinese societies managed to

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achieve governance objectives at very low administrative cost. [8] Understand the general through the particular and solve particular problems through a general framework. Too many problems that should not be dealt with by the grassroots government are given to it. In the work of grassroots governance, one always feels occupied with and constantly confronted by various problems. In conventional thinking, it is perfectly normal to expect that a grassroots government is busy. From a different point of view, however, demanding grassroots workers to solve a systemic problem at the local level, not only demands twice the effort but results in half the outcome. This should be taken into consideration to better understand why the grassroots government is always busy. If laws and public policies are comprehensive in urban grassroots governance, with clearly defined responsibilities, rights, interests, and timely sanctions for violations, the grassroots government may be saved from unnecessary costs of human and material resources. [9] “Affective governance and rule-based governance” are the “right hand and left hand” of working strategies. In general, it is widely believed that the Residents’ Committee should fully understand the needs of residents and have a close relationship with them. This kind of work needs to be face-to-face, hence it can be called “affective governance”. In modern society and in megacities, there is another side: rules and procedures. Both are equally important in grassroots governance. In many cases, the “relationship” (guanxi) principle and “organisation” (zuzhi) principle still play a role in grassroots governance. [10] The relational structure of stakeholders in community governance (the “centralisation” and “decentralisation” of community governance). In grassroots governance, the relational structure of participating stakeholders is formed by real conditions. It is more of a horizontal organisational structure and a tendency of decentralisation of each participating stakeholder is evident. But the need for “centralisation” in the process of grassroots governance contrasts with this. If there is no centre in the governance structure, the problems are very obvious. It would make it difficult to reach agreement and result in additional effort, higher communication costs and inefficient resource allocation. This centralisation, however, should not only be supported by the administration, but all stakeholders. [11] Internal force and external force. Grassroots governance is an open system, but it has dynamic boundaries. In general, as in the case of the aforementioned residential xiaoqu, the main stakeholders of governance, public issues, conflicts and contradictions are largely internal, even though external forces are occasionally involved. The various governance stakeholders in a xiaoqu, as well as the public issues involved and the various conflicts deriving from them, simultaneously interact with the entire society. But, the

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Problems, Analyses and Strategies in Urban Grassroots Governance

feature of “relative boundaries” still holds true. A balance will be formed regardless of the state of governance. If the balance is disrupted, external forces will actively or

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passively enter xiaoqu governance and create a new balance. However, excessively introducing external forces will cause instability and undermine this internal balance.

Politics at the Grassroots: “Socialized Governance” in Tianjin’s Neighbourhoods and Villages

13

Sophia Woodman

Abstract

13.1

Despite the tumultuous changes in China over the past 40 years of ‘reform’, this chapter shows that there is a degree of continuity between the Mao and post-Mao periods in how politics works at the grassroots. A consistent feature is that connections formed through institutions sited at a micro-scale in urban neighbourhoods and rural villages generate a particular form of rule I term ‘socialized governance’. This intimate, situated, face-to-face politics provides state agents with effective means to exercise persuasion and control over people, but also creates channels for citizens to pursue claims and raise grievances, and at times, even collectively hold local leaders to account. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a set of parallel local institutions in Tianjin, north China —two resident committees and two villager committees —the chapter explores the mechanics and dynamics of this relational form of governance. It shows how politics at this micro-scale involves the formation of a local moral sociality that shapes how people think about equality and inequality, and about what they are entitled to ask of the state. The intimate connections of guanxi mean that emotion and its management are a central part of this local politics. Keywords







Socialized governance Local politics Entitlements Resistance




Citizenship




Introduction

In my field sites in urban Tianjin, when talking with a person facing some kind of difficulty that required help from the government, one of the questions that was regularly asked was where the person’s guanxi (connections) were. The answer was meant to identify possible sources of help for that person in resolving their problem. I found this intriguing, as rather than locating problems via a typology of bureaucratic agencies and their administrative remits, the question sought to find which institution was “responsible” for that person, in a general sense. The answer to the question of where one’s guanxi are has to be an institutional one, and from the perspective of the person seeking to solve a problem, the more powerful the institution, the better. This mode of thinking harks back to the recent past of “work units” (danwei) that had incorporated over 90% of urbanites by the end of the Mao period in the late 1970s. As a form, the work unit combines into one institution the key components of citizenship: civil, political and social; work and social reproduction. Industrial restructuring in the 1990s and 2000s led to mass layoffs, and many work units either ceased to exist, or were radically diminished in scope. In the post-Mao reforms, resident committees and villager committees respectively replaced urban work units and rural communes as this institutional anchor,1 and now serve to connect citizens to the state at a micro-scale, with each committee encompassing from several hundred to several 1

S. Woodman (&) School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected]

Resident committees existed in the Mao era as an institutional framework connecting the state to the minority of urbanites outside the “work unit” (danwei) system. In the 2000s, in the wake of dissolution of many work units following industrial restructuring, they were given an expanded role as “community resident committees”. However, many work units remain in existence, particularly associated with prestigious forms of employment, such as state agencies, universities and large state-owned companies. At the time of my fieldwork, some 31% of the Tianjin population remained attached to work units. Villager committees emerged in the early post-Mao period, replacing a sub-commune administrative level usually known as the “brigade”.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_13

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thousand people in their administrative remit. Most of the women who worked in the Tianjin resident committees I studied had been laid off from work units, and were now employed in what were seen as “welfare jobs” in the committees. Envisaged as parallel “basic level organizations” in the 1982 Constitution, the committees have a constitutional mandate to represent people and act as a site for participation, while also providing social welfare to the needy. In the late 2000s when I conducted my study, the committees were responsible for administering most non-employment based welfare programmes, and had become a key avenue for claims on state resources. They also shaped the physical and ideological conditions of each place, and thus the environment for pursuing livelihoods, particularly in the informal sector. A consistent feature of the style of governing across the Mao and post-Mao periods is that individuals are made legible to the state through place-based institutions. Analysis of China’s hukou system of household registration generally concentrates on its contribution to producing the urban-rural divide. Less remarked, but just as significant, is the way the hukou system fixes the administrative recognition of each person in a particular locality, reflecting an administrative ideal of local citizenship (Woodman 2016, 2018). This model of local citizenship enables what I call “socialized governance”, a personalized mode of integrating citizens through guanxi connections. This is not new—the need to develop direct personal links with citizens was emphasized in the communist base areas even before the Party took power in 1949 (Bray 2005)—but takes on distinctive forms in the context of market reforms that have attenuated the connection of official guanxi to employment for most people. Establishing guanxi relations with each person recognized as a member of their territory is a key task of these basic level organizations. These relationships have the potential to extend state control, and can blur distinctions between social conformity and political compliance. But by contrast, citizens may use guanxi with agents of the state in the committees for their own purposes, as these connections can be a channel through which individuals and collectives make claims and exert pressure from below. The intimate scale and form of interactions creates conditions for a face-to-face politics that means governing is as much social as governmental, as citizens themselves generate forms of inclusion and exclusion based on collectively-generated social norms and their refraction in built forms and social geographies. The embedding of decision-making on livelihood issues in organizations that are simultaneously state and social, means that what makes collective sense in a particular locale can be of crucial importance for daily life, but affects some more than others.

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Routine emotion work is a crucial aspect of socialized governance, and metaphors of governance are overwhelmingly familial, such as the aspiration that these institutions should be a “big family”. However, as with many families, this is no guarantee of harmony. The terms of inclusion within these collectives are contested and continually changing. In the rest of this chapter, I briefly describe my field work sites and the sources of my data, and proceed to give some illustrations of the dynamics of socialized governance in action. These illustrations aim to show the importance of the committees as a “social” space for generating collective norms and holding leaders to account; the way socialized governance can operate as a channel for individual and collective complaints; and the impact of community norms on livelihoods and ways of thinking about entitlements.

13.2

Parallel but Distinctive Institutions

This chapter is based on fieldwork in Tianjin Municipality in northeast China in 2008 and 2009. Over 10 months, I did ethnographic research in two resident committees and two villager committees. I wanted to compare urban and rural citizenship through these parallel institutions that are rarely compared, as the assumption is that urban and rural sites and institutions have very different logics. But I found the comparisons—identifying similarities and differences that sometimes crossed the rural-urban divide—to be fruitful in my enquiry into relationships involved in local citizenship. The two resident committees are in broadly similar urban neighbourhoods in different districts of the city. The two villager committees are in parts of Tianjin Municipality designated as “rural”, but one is in the peri-urban area, and one is quite far from the city proper, up in the mountains. Each has a distinctive character, related to its history, configuration of space and social characteristics. Of the two urban neighbourhoods, “Rising China” is characterized by contradictions between upwardly and downwardly mobile urbanites; while “Progress”, as its name suggests, has a strong socialist identity.2 “Zhang Family Village” is located right on the edge of the city proper and is rapidly urbanizing, with the village on its way to becoming a corporation through engagement of the village elite with the global economy. By contrast, “Dragon Peak Village” is using its remote mountain location to develop its economy through tourism, directed primarily at domestic holidaymakers from the surrounding region.

2

All real names of places and people have been changed to protect the anonymity of my informants.

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Politics at the Grassroots: “Socialized Governance” …

During the period of field work, I spent between a month and a half and three months visiting each committee, observing their daily work, including interactions between residents and committee workers and leaders. I participated in events, and offered to help with whatever tasks they could find for me to do, although my perceived high status as a university “teacher” created some difficulties in this. I swept floors, made tea, stamped documents and was even sent off one day to be a data entry clerk at the local street office. While my field work was centred on the offices of each committee, I also walked around each neighbourhood or village on a regular basis, and paid attention to what I could learn from their physical features and use of space. The space of the resident and villager committees is both administrative-governmental and social in character. All committees generally have dedicated space for these functions within the neighbourhood or village, although the size, quality and use of this space varies greatly. Since the committees I studied were all considered “models”, recognized as such by higher-level agencies, each had space considered appropriate for their functions. Their “model” status was one of the reasons I, as a foreign researcher, was introduced to them for my field work. To some degree, the committees operate as an administrative arm of the state for the neighbourhoods and villages they cover, playing a key role in the implementation of various state policies. As mentioned above, they handle all non-employment related discretionary welfare benefits, particularly the “minimum livelihood guarantee”, a benefit for the poorest people; deal with population planning matters; often manage local sanitation and environment, sometimes alongside property management companies; cover local “security” matters, including keeping track of people deemed a “threat” to “stability” according to certain set criteria, such as Falungong members, released convicts and repeat petitioners; and in the case of villager committees, exercise collective control over and decide on allocation of village land. They are supposed to be a point of contact for any grievances and complaints by residents of their areas, in part due to their constitutional mandate to represent people and act as a site for the legitimate exercise of political rights. In their day-to-day work, the committees are supposed to generate a sense of cohesion among residents. Both resident and villager committees are tasked with keeping track of the people in their area, which has both administrative and pastoral aspects. So they are responsible for recording changes in people’s situations, as well as extending neighbourly help and concern. In practice, the extent to which the committees and their workers engaged with local people was variable, depending in part on the extent to which each committee’s jurisdiction was coterminous with more organic community relationships.

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In the urban sites, each resident committee worker was supposed to cover a “beat” in the neighbourhood, in which they were expected to get to know the situation of the people, visiting the sick and bereaved, dealing with conflicts and ensuring they could call on people when needed to join committee activities. Villager committee staff also had specific beats, but drew more heavily on networks of kinship in carrying out their work, as well as shared collective identity linked to economic interests involved in control of land and resources.

13.3

The Politics of Gossip and Talk

The two villager committees both had imposing, purpose-built buildings, which housed both their committee activities and their corporate arms that managed the collective businesses of their respective villages (Fig. 13.1). By comparison, the space occupied by the two resident committees was much more provisional, reflecting the lack of independent resources of these institutions, which rely almost exclusively on funds from local government (Fig. 13.2). But each had a couple of offices and an activity room within their neighbourhoods, and these were spaces in which committee workers, local “activists” and people who had administrative business with the committees gathered. As community gathering places, the committees were sites for what I call the “politics of gossip and talk”. As such, they could potentially become an alternative public sphere in which community norms were defined, contested and elaborated, and leaders were held to account. For example, around all the committees, there was a lively critique of “leaders” that distinguished them from “ordinary people”, and in these conversations, committee staff sometimes situated themselves in the latter category. Oppositional talk was most evident in socialist Progress, where the present was often compared unfavourably to the past, and there were complaints about corruption and the munificence of benefits enjoyed by officials—particularly health insurance—in contrast to other city dwellers. Such talk reflects the more relaxed climate towards critical speech in the post-Mao era.3 Informal conversations went on in the interstices of conducting administrative business, attending social events (such as singing club, a dance or a talk), or participating in “volunteer” activities (such as a regular “foot patrol” of activist “volunteers” around the neighbourhood and fundraising for charity), and involved committee staff as well as residents.

3

Certain surveys have found that people’s assessment of expansion of freedoms in China is greatest in the area of freedom of expression (see for example, Shi and Lou 2010).

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Fig. 13.1 The three-storey banners that draped Dragon Peak’s office building confirmed the official recognition received by the village’s economic strategy, thus legitimizing the approach of village leaders. Photograph by Sophia Woodman

Fig. 13.2 The office of the Progress Resident Committee is along a small lane at the back of the housing compound, in the one-storey temporary building on the left of this picture behind the parked taxi. Photograph by Sophia Woodman

The fact that oppositional talk occurs in the semi-public space of a state-mandated institution is significant. As part of their constitutional role, resident and villager committees are seen as a legitimate arena for expression of grievances. Researchers have noted that moral norms are a key dimension of legitimacy for the Chinese state (Shue 2004), and I argue that the politics of moral judgement can be particularly effective in the context of the face to face politics of the committees, where gossip and talk cannot just be ignored, but must be addressed in some way.

An example from my field work was the response to allegations of voting fraud in the first stage of triennial elections in Zhang Family Village. As a consequence, the election process had been halted a month before I began my field work. The dispute quickly shifted to being about the distribution of benefits from the village’s collective property. But the election process itself could not be used to discuss or resolve these issues openly. During this period, the incumbent village leaders twice prepared open letters defending themselves against the

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Politics at the Grassroots: “Socialized Governance” …

charges of corruption and lack of attention to the livelihood of villagers. But their superiors in the township would not allow them to distribute these letters, due to an unwritten prohibition on “canvassing for votes” (la piao) in Tianjin. So village cadres had to go door to door talking to people to address the claims their critics were circulating on internet bulletin boards and occasionally in anonymous postings on village notice boards. Only when a new modus vivendi had been reached through informal negotiations among the power centres in the village, could the election go ahead. Crucially, village leaders could not just ignore the gossip about them—especially when it had been brought to the attention of higher-level leaders. Traces of comparable contention were evident in Dragon Peak Village, although the events in question were in the past. Its remote mountain location meant the village had historically been quite impoverished, villagers told me. When the leaders proposed that the development strategy for the village should be to promote tourism, including “farmer guesthouses” and walks into the mountains, other villagers derided them as “mentally ill”. The two key proponents of this shift, the Party Secretary and Manager Zheng, the dynamic woman who ran the village’s corporate arm, described to me a long process of persuasion, including taking villagers on trips to sites where this development strategy was being tried. They also had to address concerns that their approach would increase inequalities in the village —which had evidently been the case. While some villagers had become rich as the village became a prime destination for weekend tourists from Tianjin and Beijing—especially the families of the Party Secretary and Manager Zheng—those who were unable to profit from this strategy faced real difficulties in their livelihood. Ironically, at the time of my fieldwork, the condition of the most impoverished family in the village was attributed to their being “mentally ill”. This family was the Wei brothers, two men in their 50 s, neither of whom had ever married. The Wei brothers grew most of their own food in the area around their house and on a nearby plot. They told me their house, a traditional one-storey brick and tile building with wood lattice windows, had been built some thirty years before when their father was still alive (Fig. 13.3). Although it seemed in good repair when I visited them, Manager Zheng described it as “dilapidated”. She said their living conditions had been an important criterion in the decision of higher levels to approve the village’s application for welfare support for the brothers under the “minimum livelihood guarantee” scheme, along with elder Wei’s chronic illness. “Modern” housing had thus become a key measure of prosperity in this village, with traditional buildings and livelihoods symbolic of people’s failure to keep up.

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The village elite’s framing of the Weis’ poverty in terms of mental deficiency and inability to change in line with “advanced thinking” and improve their “quality” (suzhi) obscured how the village’s collective shift away from previous sources of income—animal husbandry, fruit growing and mining—had destroyed these men’s livelihood. The village had borrowed large sums to invest in the infrastructure to support the tourism economy, and had no money left even for small payments to poorer villagers, which had been made in the past. There was no doubt that the biggest and busiest guesthouses in the village belonged to the cadres and their families. This was not merely a local affair. Dragon Peak’s model of “development through tourism” had been affirmed at the highest levels: national and municipal endorsements of various aspects of the village’s strategy were emblazoned on three-storey high banners in primary colours hanging from the villager committee’s new building, the most imposing structure in the village. All people could do was grumble about the amounts of money being spent on constructing amenities for tourists, and the lack of welfare benefits for villagers who needed them. This example demonstrates the fusion of public and private purposes that occurs in these settings, where social logic is affirmed by state logic, justifying the allocation of resources and the assessment of value. Crucially, these logics are a matter of persuasion, of creating a new rationality within a particular community, rather than merely imposing a new vision. This involves shifting social norms of what is sensible and reasonable; in this case, perceived lack of acceptance of such norms was framed as “mentally deficient” or “mentally ill”. Thus socialized governance means that distinctions among citizens are based in a local moral sociality that forms the character of places over time, and conditions how people think about their entitlements, and how they act upon them. The association of the local moral order with the state-mandated committees increases its power: elites draw on their connections to the state to legitimize local distinctions among citizens. The Wei brothers case reveals how ideas like “quality” are mobilized in political projects in specific social contexts.4 Terms like “quality”, “advanced” and “modern” are not floating discourses, but operate within specific social relations, as well as marking space and shaping what people think of as appropriate forms of life. The blending of state and society in socialized governance amplifies the local effects of such discourses.

The extensive literature on “quality” (suzhi) (see for example, Yan 2003; Jacka 2009; Sun 2009) has sometimes tended to neglect such variability in its uses. 4

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Fig. 13.3 The Wei brothers’ house and garden was one of the few traditional buildings in the village still in use. The village leadership referred to it as a ‘dilapidated house’, an expression of the poverty of its inhabitants. Photograph by Sophia Woodman

Another example is how “quality” was used to make distinctions in the Rising China between upwardly mobile urbanites and their poor neighbours, who were said to be “low quality” people. Just across town in Progress, however, the discourse of “quality” was rarely heard, a reflection of different attitudes in the two places towards poor people. In socialist Progress there was no stigma about receiving welfare, for example, as illustrated by the case of Mrs Zhang, described in the next section.

13.4

Strategies of Compliance and Complaint

Socialized governance is not a one-way street; state agents do not set the terms of the local moral order on their own and are also constrained by social norms. Face to face politics can provide resources for citizens, albeit within the scope of this local moral order. In this context, citizens may artfully combine different forms of politics to pursue their agendas, ranging from protest, gossip and talk, to apparent compliance. The story of Mrs Zhang, a long-term resident of Progress who had been bedridden for a decade, illustrates this well. In the middle of winter, her husband suddenly disappeared, leaving her without the daily care she needed. In this city district, there is no system of emergency home care, so the staff of the Progress residents’ committee had to step in to help. Sister Wang, the welfare worker, visited Mrs Zhang

several times a day, often after working hours, helping her to use the toilet, bringing her cooked food, and feeding the stove that kept her one room warm. Sister Wang’s solicitude was controversial in the resident committee. Some of the other workers questioned whether the committee should have to provide such services to residents. One said, the resident committee is “not an old people’s home”. After a search, they found a rural migrant woman to look after Mrs Zhang at the very minimal salary she could pay. Mrs Zhang gets the minimum livelihood guarantee, supplemented by a very small pension from her former employer. After this episode, Mrs Zhang penned an effusive letter thanking the resident committee in general and Sister Wang in particular for assisting her in her adversity. The Progress Party Secretary had the letter copied onto red paper more than a metre high and posted in one of the neighbourhood’s noticeboards. Mrs Zhang’s apparently compliant act reveals several dimensions of socialized governance in action. Firstly, it was no accident that the letter was publicized at a time when the triennial elections were imminent: the Party Secretary wanted to let local residents know that the committee under her leadership was doing “real things” for local people. From Mrs Zhang’s perspective, the letter’s praise blurred the distinction between neighbourly concern and state responsibility, effectively asserting a personal claim for future care, as well as making the provision of such assistance to others a community norm. It also put the issue of the care deficit in

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Politics at the Grassroots: “Socialized Governance” …

her case on the public agenda in the neighbourhood. Despite her straightened circumstances, Mrs Zhang was said to have “good guanxi” and could use the telephone by her bed to raise concern about her situation and ensure it was addressed. Progress’s socialist ethos as a set of local social norms shaped the response to Mrs. Zhang plight, as well as how it was publicized. Another dimension is the importance of the committees’ role in the management of emotions in their day-to-day work, both the emotions of people suffering hardship, and the emotions of the community. While Mrs Zhang used compliance as a strategy to raise concern about her situation, some residents deployed more transgressive tactics. An example is Second Brother, severely disabled since childhood, who wanted to be given his own housing. As well as visiting the Progress Resident Committee office once or twice a week in his motorized three-wheeler to inquire with Sister Wang about this request, on more than one occasion, he staged a silent sit-in at the local street office, the lowest level of formal government. One such sit-in took place while I was attending a training event with Progress staff at the street office building. As we were leaving, we saw Second Brother sitting on the floor in the middle of the lobby, chain-smoking and waiting for someone to come and talk to him. Immediately the Progress staff surrounded him and tried to persuade him to leave. After a time, he agreed to go with them, and dragged himself down the steps of the building and into the seat of his three-wheeler. Sister Wang and I walked along beside him towards the Progress office, and for a time, the Party Secretary joined us on her bicycle. She said to him, “You know, if you keep doing this, Sister Wang could lose her job!” This comment relates to the central state’s policy that holds local officials responsible for any protests occurring in the area in their jurisdiction, including preventing petitioners from taking complaints to higher-level authorities (Minzner 2006; Wang 2015). Avoiding such “factors of instability” is a key measure of the “harmonious society” valued by the state. Ostensibly such policies are a form of pressure on local authorities to resolve complaints arising in their regions, but they also create incentives to prevent such occurrences. While resident committee workers are not state officials, and thus theoretically these policies should not apply to them, this story shows how these responsibility systems and ethos are passed on down to them along the administrative chain. Seeking to prevent regular petitioners from complaining to higher authorities was a constant concern of the urban committees, especially at the time of major national events, and one of their main “security” tasks was keeping track of repeat petitioners. For Second Brother, the state’s efforts to keep complaints within the locality where they arise, made his silent protest a

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powerful transgressive tool to pursue his aims. His story reveals the dual character of socialized governance, in that it made it possible for him to deploy both a politics of compliance and one of complaint. One the one hand, he engaged with the people he knew at Progress, followed their direction and listened to their persuasion—following his trip to the street office that day, Sister Wang and the Party Secretary spoke to him for about an hour in the office of the community police next door to the resident committee. On the other hand, he took advantage of the concern about complaining outside the neighbourhood to press his case. In addition, his connections with local state agents gave him opportunities to raise his grievance, and made these representatives, some also neighbours, feel obliged to help him. Following Second Brother’s sit-in, Sister Wang agreed to write a letter to the local housing bureau asking that he be given a flat. While these two stories reveal how citizens may strategically deploy connections of socialized governance for their own aims, this does not mean that all grievances would meet with such a measured and friendly response. For example, people identified as “troublemakers”—as was the case for one petitioning family I encountered at Progress—can find even routine administrative business impossible due to that status (Woodman 2015; Potter and Woodman 2012). The complainants in Zhang Family Village faced several days’ detention when they publicly raised the election fraud charge. And while local complaints may be used to seek resolution for the daily difficulties of residents, they do not address concerns about systemic problems, or generally result in policy change. The kind of bargaining involved in this intimate sphere is a modality that is used more generally by the local state to deal with grievances, as a means of forestalling the potential “instability” caused by the escalation of local complaints (Lee and Zhang 2013). And when collectives at this level unite in a common cause—particularly when local leaders join—they may exert significant pressure for resolution of larger grievances (Zhu and Ho 2008; see for example, Wang 2012; He and Xue 2014).

13.5

Conclusion

These illustrations of socialized governance in action reveal some features of how politics worked at the grassroots at this particular juncture. As a relational form, socialized governance depends on the extent to which the administrative ideal of local citizenship is achieved in any specific place. For the state, locating citizens in place makes them legible, while situating them in a net of social entanglements means a blending of formal and informal authority that often blurs distinctions

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between social and state rules. This means each place is the site for the formation of a local moral sociality that conditions how people perceive and act upon their entitlements, and how they participate in the local state’s projects. The association of the local moral order with committees gives it increased power, as it can draw on state discourses, symbols and policies to legitimize distinctions among citizens. But at the same time, relative expansion of freedom of expression means that as well as making citizens legible and governable, institutional spaces on the edges of the state like the committees can become sites for the articulation of resistance and critique. The relational mode of engagement provides avenues for citizens to pursue claims and, to some extent, hold leaders to account at local level, if only by embarrassing them. While my examination of socialized governance in action has focused on resident and villager committees, this perspective may be useful for understanding relational dynamics in other settings. Many urbanites remain in work units, which have a similar logic, and other types of formal and informal institutions may also play analogous roles, such as workplace dormitories for migrant workers, universities for students and so on. It is also important to note that the degree to which citizens need or wish to engage with such state-sponsored institutions varies by factors including age, gender and class, and in the other direction, the state’s forms of provision for citizens also differs (see for example, Tomba 2014). The intimate scale of these interactions also means that emotion and its management is central to the way socialized governance operates. For the committee workers, managing difficult feelings—grievances, bereavement, disputes—was daily fare. Citizens, too, were able to mobilize emotions in various ways to shape the character of each place. The patient listening of some committee workers, can ease the suffering people feel facing straightened circumstances, in a period of rapid and destabilizing social change. These intangible features, however, may be threatened by displacement with more bureaucratic-rational forms of governance under rubrics of “professionalization” and “rule of law”.

S. Woodman

References Bray D (2005) Social space and governance in Urban China: The danwei system from origins to reform. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA He S, Xue D (2014) Identity building and communal resistance against landgrabs in Wukan Village, China. Curr Anthropol 55(S9):S126– S137 Jacka T (2009) Cultivating citizens: suzhi (Quality) discourse in the PRC. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 17(3):523–35 Lee CK, Zhang Y (2013) The power of instability: unraveling the microfoundations of bargained authoritarianism in China. Am J Soc 118(6):1475–1508 Minzner CF (2006) Xinfang: an alternative to formal chinese legal institutions. Stanford J Int Law 42(1):103–179 Potter PB, Woodman S (2012) Boundaries of tolerance: charter 08 and debates over political reform. In: Béja J-P, Hualing F, Pils E (eds) Liu Xiaobo, charter 08 and the challenges of political reform in China. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, pp 97–117 Shi T, Lou D (2010) Subjective evaluation of changes in civil liberties and political rights in China. J Contemp China 19(63):175–199 Shue V (2004) Legitimacy crisis in China? In: Gries PH, Rosen S (eds) State and society in 21st century China: crisis, contention, and legitimation. Routledge, New York, pp 24–49 Sun W (2009) Suzhi on the move: body, place, and power. Positions 17 (3):617–642 Tomba L (2014) The government next door: neighborhood politics in Urban China. Cornell University Press, Ithaca Wang J (2012) Shifting boundaries between the state and society: village cadres as new activists in collective petition. The China Q 211(September):697–717 Wang J (2015) Managing social stability: the perspective of a local government in China. J East Asian Stud 15(1):1–25 Woodman S (2015) Segmented publics and the regulation of critical speech in China. Asian Stud Rev 39(1):100–118 Woodman S (2016) Local politics, local citizenship? Socialized governance in contemporary China. The China Q 226(June):342–362 Woodman S (2018) All citizenship is local: using China to rethink local citizenship. In: Citizenship and place: case studies on the borders of citizenship. In: Lyon CM, Goebel AF. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, London, pp 253–84 Yan H (2003) Neoliberal governmentality and neohumanism: organizing suzhi/value flow through labor recruitment networks. Cult Anthropol 18(4):493–523 Zhu J, Ho P (2008) Not against the state, just protecting residents’ Interests: an Urban movement in a Shanghai Neighborhood. In: China’s embedded activism: opportunities and constraints of a social movement. In: Ho P, Edmonds RL, Routledge, London; New York pp 151–70

Developing a Community: The Case of Renheng Cuizhuyuan’s Community-Making in Nanjing

14

Nan Wu

Abstract

Community making has gradually developed since 2008 and become an important form of governance in mainland China. Taking the Cuizuyuan Community in Nanjing’s Yuhuatai District as an example, this paper discusses how to implement community making in a large-scale, newly built commodity housing community. It discusses how to turn strangers into acquaintances, how to facilitate the formation of community clubs and social capital, and, building on these, how to enable community consultation and deliberative democracy. In other words, how to make a community more harmonious and enable residents to participate in community affairs. By analysing the development process, management approach, and core values of the Cuizuyaun Community, this paper hopes to provide methods and examples for the improvement of China’s community making. Keywords









Community making Community participation Deliberative democracy Social capital China

14.1

Introduction

When new China was established, Chinese society transformed from private to public ownership, and gradually a planned economic system was put in place. The state provided until then social welfare through work units that were, for example, formed by administrative organizations, social

N. Wu (&) Nanjing Center for Community Mutual Aid Association, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

and industrial enterprises, and the army. The residential community of a work unit embodied an organization characterized by a self-contained system in which, to some degree, an “acquaintance society” as coined by Xiaotong Fei was formed. This work unit-based welfare system not only provided its labour force with labour insurance but free housing, healthcare, and education. After the reform and opening up of China, its planned economy gradually became a market economy, whereby the supply of urban housing was transferred from the work unit to the market. In the late 1980s, rapid development of commercial housing changed the structure of the “acquaintance society” formed in the work unit system. Strangers thus became neighbours not because they worked together, but because of their choice to buy property, however, coming from different cultural and social backgrounds, they had no immediate relationships or shared forms of trust. There were often conflicts, notions of distrust, and an attitude of “not-my-responsibility” when confronted with problems. It even seemed that “bad money drives out good” (known as Gresham’s Law). At the same time, with the creation of private property rights, people’s awareness of their individual rights, especially their civil rights, increased. Are we missing the good old days and trust? In the decades following the reform and opening up, the loss of trust has become a growing social problem with the rapid development of a market economy. This is not an isolated problem particular to one community but instead requires the attention of all communities in order for each to find their own solution. What then, are effective ways of forming communities in practice, and how do suitable methods or starting points differ in the development of each community? What is the direction that Chinese communities should take? Taking these questions into consideration, the following turns its attention to the inception and development of community-making (shequ yingzao) in Cuizhuyuan, Nanjing.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_14

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14.2

N. Wu

The Bamboo Community Mutual Association

Nan Wu, also known as Agan, is a Chinese architect. In 2004, he bought a house in Renheng Cuizhuyuan in Nanjing and moved into it the following year. In 2008, he joined relief efforts after the Wenchuan Earthquake, where he witnessed death and life. After that, he spent about half a year living in Europe with his wife and began to think about his personal values and how to do more for society (Fig. 14.1). When returning to China at the end of 2008, a tennis court was built in Cuizhuyuan. As a tennis lover, he established a tennis club with his neighbours, and within a couple of years, it became the largest community-based tennis club in China. Shortly after promoting the club on the internet, Agan got to know many of his neighbours, which not only allowed him to practice tennis but make new friends. “We realized that every person might have problems or needs, but can’t find help. Yet, the person able to help might live next door, and you just don’t know.” Day after day, more and more residents joined the club. While initially motivated by

Fig. 14.1 A hand-drawn map of Cuizuyuan Community

a personal interest and hobby, it became a bridge connecting residents and contributed to building a harmonious and beautiful community. Agan had once stood and campaigned as an elective candidate for the Cuizhiyuan property owners committee. After witnessing a resident being treated unfairly in the process, however, he decided to withdraw from the election and posted a declaration: even in failing to become elected as a committee member, he was still determined to serve his community. Thus, in November 2011, Agan initiated a non-profit social organization called the Bamboo Community Mutual Association (BCMA), with the aim of getting people involved in a book donation project and community flea market. With the purpose of undertaking work to empower the community, the association quickly developed and was officially registered in March 2013, at the Civil Affairs Bureau in the Yuhuatai district of Nanjing, as the Nanjing Yuhua Cuizhu Community Center. In the beginning, a few residents questioned his motivation, some even accused Agan of misusing communal funds for a private trip to the USA. But Argan was in fact leading a

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Developing a Community: The Case of Renheng …

group of residents, who were committed to community-making, on a study trip to the Sun Lake Country Club, where a Chinese-American lives who also has a property in Cuizhuyuan. The Sun Lake Country Club is a gated community for the elderly, with more than 3000 households and good public facilities including clubs, a golf course, tennis courts and a swimming pool. While similar to the Nanjing Renheng Cuizhuyuan with its many clubs, this community also runs its own TV station and monthly magazine, and people enjoy their community life. Agan was greatly inspired by what he saw and heard and asked: “Why can’t we achieve the same by making better use of the available resources in our community?”.

14.3

Methods to Empower a Community

The BCMA is based on five core values or aspects: people, culture, geography, economy and public space. It aims to build a better community by inspiring the dedication and volunteerism of community residents, launching non-profit community activities, finding potential leaders willing to share responsibilities, encouraging the establishment and development of new clubs based on personal interests, supporting community governance, organizing activities that meet the everyday needs of community residents, and finally, to support all of these objectives by providing professional assistance. It further aims to create a platform for mutual support, inspire a spirit of volunteering, raise awareness of and participation in charity, increase satisfaction with one’s living environment, restore trust and relationships within the community, and regain a “spirit of contract”. All this has empowered people to take part in more community activities, take initiative in public affairs, and coordinate community resources for the benefit of everyone. 1. Be a Supportive and Empowering Organization As a voluntary, self-motivated, and supportive grassroots community and social organization, the BCMA has taken on important social responsibility to inspire neighbourhood interaction, promote a harmonious community culture, support self-organized organizations with professional advice, participate in governance planning, and develop local resources as part of an asset-based community development system. The association uses its local grassroots advantage to widely motivate community residents to participate in public affairs and activities for the public good, enrich its cultural life, and improve its residents’ quality of life. At the same time, it advocates socialist core values, encouraging

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self-organized activities and services, and participation in “civilization building” events, such as the promotion of “community role models” and the “civilized family”, the support of traditional culture, and the upholding of public order and good morals. It does so in order to create a good and mutually supportive atmosphere and enhance the residents’ sense of belonging, responsibility, and honour (Fig. 14.2). 2. Build a Democratic and Multi-dimensional Platform for Cooperative Community Management Leaders, Empower Self-organizedIn order to solve two main problems in the unbalanced relationship between different organizations in the community and a lack of communication between them, the BCMA has set up a communication platform that incorporates the community residents committee, property owners committee, property management organization, and the association itself. The residents committee serves as a “leader”, committed to advocating and implementing policies, bringing funds in, and effectively empowering community organizations. The property owners committee—representatives elected by property owners— serves as a “supervisor”, giving advice and deciding on what the property management organization must deliver. It also ensures a balance in its committee to avoid power being monopolized by a few in the community. The owners’ committee should further establish specialized committees for regulations, architecture and planning, facilities and equipment, security, sanitation, and greenery and landscaping that affect the whole community. The BCMA as “coordinator”, promotes community development, activates the community environment and, through long-term effort, finds and nurtures community leaders that are selfless, accountable, and willing to take on community affairs for the public good (Fig. 14.3). The relations between the four parties in the community are like that of a football team, everyone performs a particular role to support one another in achieving one common goal: a better community. Joint meetings are held on a monthly basis to democratically discuss important, urgent or difficult issues by considering both the wishes of the majority of residents and opinions of the few that disagree, with the aim of finding solutions together (Fig. 14.4). 3. Seek Leaders, Empower Self-organized Organizations, and Set Up a Volunteer System The BCMA has become a typical representative of the grassroots community and social organization, having empowered residents to self-organize, manage, and create a community. It unites the community like a family by

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Fig. 14.2 Key aspects of the Bamboo Community Mutual Association: vision, community affairs, stakeholders, key resources, and financial support

Fig. 14.3 The four party communication platform

Fig. 14.4 Four party collaboration model as a football team

building trust and organizes or empowers residents based on carefully identified real needs and by actively bringing residents with similar needs together. The BCMA organizes a community flea market four times annually, sporting events three times per year, and largescale activities twice a year. Throughout these events, the association collects comments and feedback via surveys. According to wishes and needs expressed in these surveys,

new clubs might be launched to meet them. Currently, there are 87 self-organized clubs, including 18 clubs in support of public affairs, 11 for different cultural subjects, 17 for sports activities, 19 related to education, 5 to help the poor and those in difficult life situations, 14 for the healthcare of the elderly, and 3 dealing with environmental protection, with all aiming to meet the needs of residents and enrich their quality of life.

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Developing a Community: The Case of Renheng …

Fig. 14.5 The flea market of Cuizuyuan Community

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The BCMA provides consultation on how to implement standardized management in self-organized clubs or organizations. It thereby advocates the values of “choose to trust, take part, share responsibility, and be supportive” to stimulate a sense of ownership according to its two key principles. Encouraging residents to “pay for their own needs” and cultivate volunteering, these two key principles are as follows: “non-profit doesn’t mean it’s free” and “who advocates is to take responsibility but will also benefit”. Based on these values and principles, a self-organized club can operate and manage itself, with the association supporting their development by helping with resources. Based on shared visions, the working model of one community leader taking responsibility should gradually shift to that of a team sharing responsibility. When residents understand how to set up and run self-organized community clubs, more leaders will emerge. The BCMA provides advice to self-organized clubs on how to create a clear management structure, identify the needs of residents, efficiently manage events and activities, manage finances in a transparent way, and make non-profit organizations financially independent. Once clubs are established, regulation and management protocols should be implemented to ensure their development. At the same time, new clubs are advised on how to maintain and encourage volunteers. It is important to note that the reward for volunteers is appreciation of their work and should not be economic, i.e. subsidies or material rewards should not be the main incentives for volunteering. Generally, motivating volunteers should initially focus on capacity building and instigate feelings of honour in undertaking work, and then provide institutional incentives, material incentives, and subsidies (Fig. 14.5). 4. Motivate and Promote a Unique Community Culture

Fig. 14.6 A community activity for children

Fig. 14.7 An activity of the Community Supports Community project

Community development can be related to requests and wishes made by any resident. Having practiced for many years, however, the BCMA has developed a typology for their own community projects—these are interrelated but remain independent. Comprehensive platforms were created for children in the Cuizhuyuan community to encourage parents to share their resources and participate in the Unconquerable Children’s Club. It organizes the ‘Mingzhi Children Book House’ library to meet the children’s reading requests, and trains them to practice as little architects by teaching them how to find solutions through design thinking (Fig. 14.6). Interest clubs such as sports clubs and salons can be a good starting point for young and middle-aged adults to get involved in community life. While pursuing their own interests, they are motivated to share responsibility in community affairs and support the development of their clubs and membership.

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Fig. 14.8 The community magazine Bamboo Garden Happy Life

For the elderly, who are most likely to get involved in community life, a college for the elderly is not only a platform for learning something new and developing interest groups, but for developing forms of mutual support between members and improving home-based elderly care services. Market activities such as flea markets are most likely to gather people from within the community, and present a good opportunity for the display of self-made products to promote different clubs, and to gather information on residents’ needs and potential resources in the community. The Community Supports Community project, that aimed to develop long-term mutual relationships between communities, was initially launched with the pairing of an urban community and rural community. As this project has developed, a large number of community leaders and donors have participated and continue to do so (Fig. 14.7). 5. Build a Multi-dimensional Communication Network As not everyone knows or can know every resident in the community, the BCMA makes concerted efforts with active residents who motivate others to engage with and promote the various clubs to their neighbours, relatives and friends. Exploring all available channels to make the clubs known, they do so in order to inform those who might be interested in certain activities, increasing membership and keeping the club active. The association has created an online WeChat account, named “Association Secretary”, to assist the hosting of about 10 clubs, including the Unconquerable Children’s

Club, a home-based elderly care club, and a WeChat public platform. The BCMA also uses traditional forms of advertising, for example they advertise through the Bamboo Garden Happy Life community magazine, flyers, and banners to effectively disseminate information and reach out to all community members, young and old (Fig. 14.8).

14.4

Social Impact of Cuizhuyuan Community-Making

Adopting the operating model discussed above, the BCMA has trained and empowered more than 100 community organizations, and assisted in the organization of more than 300 activities that benefited about 10,000 participants from 3000 households in the community. It has launched 9 iconic projects; the Unconquerable Children’s Club, the Mingzhi Children Book House library, the Little Architect, a sports fitness club, the Rainbow Room, a community salon, a college for the elderly, home-based elderly care, and the Community Supports Community project. Aimed at meeting the needs of residents from all age groups, these projects bring out the best in volunteer leaders by empowering them to share responsibilities for community affairs and serve the public good. Furthermore, the Renheng Cuizhuyuan Community has committed to volunteering for about eight years to teach “Zhi Shan Qian Cheng” (Caring for the Future of Guizhou) in a rural area of the Guizhou Province, partnering with the Nanjing Southeast University (which has led to a series of community supports community projects) (Fig. 14.9).

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Developing a Community: The Case of Renheng …

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Fig. 14.9 A network of community-making

A list of the successes and impacts of the Bamboo Community Mutual Association: • To support Chinese community development and promote its operating model, the BCMA published an official Community-Making Handbook, Version 1.0 in December 2013. The handbook sets out how community-making can succeed in practice, based on BCMA’s experiences, and has had a positive impact on 5000 residential communities throughout 30 cities, including Nanjing, Chengdu, Beijing, Wuhan, Shunde, Quanzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Suzhou by providing more people with the skills needed to build better communities. • In 2014, the BCMA partnered with enthusiastic social workers to found the Chinese Community Development and Empowerment Association, which has become the biggest community neighbourhood development platform in China. • In the beginning of 2015, the BCMA worked with the Dafang Community in Nanjing on their communitybuilding, and within one year, 47 self-organized clubs were created. • In June 2015, the BCMA worked with the Taihu International Community in Wuxi on their community-building, and within three months, 40 active self-organized clubs were set up. • From 2016 to 2018, the BCMA supported Chengdu’s Urban and Rural Community Sustainable Development by sharing their experience and providing practical assistance. • From 2017 to 2018, the BCMA promoted community planning and empowerment through on-site training. In 2018, it served as a community planning mentor in several districts of Chengdu, training local community workers and leaders.

14.5

Conclusion and Discussion

In mainland China, different models and approaches of community-making are being widely explored, whether top-down and government supported or bottom-up, developing from the grassroots. Based on our observations throughout this ongoing process, four common problems can be identified that need to be considered: 1. A task-oriented approach to administration and dominance of the residents’ committee can make community self-organization difficult to realize. 2. The interpersonal relationships between community residents is weak and residents lack recognition of, and commitment to, community-making, which results in a low level of public participation. 3. Community-making lacks financial security, and local resources within the community are not effectively used. 4. There is an insufficient cultivation of self-organized clubs and social organizations in the community. The operating model of the Renheng Cuizhuyuan community in Nanjing has been successful in connecting government and the people, and effective in supporting a community to overcome the above four sets of problems. Based on this, the following observations and suggestions are made for future community development: 1. Since the work unit system has largely dissolved, most residents lack a sense of community. Organizing activities related to shared hobbies and interests will help bring people together again, and enable potential volunteers and leaders to be found while increasing a sense of involvement. When strangers become acquaintances and

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friends, social relationships are established. When the number of clubs is increased, so too is communal action. 2. In the process of community empowerment, it is important that community social organizations play a supportive role. It is advised that they mainly support the exploration and allocation of resources, mobilizing and empowering more self-organized clubs and organizations to promote community realization. During this work, it is important to hold on to TWO principles: “non-profit doesn’t mean it’s free”, and “who advocates is to take responsibility but will also benefit”; and FIVE operating rules: (i) create a clear management structure, (ii) identify the needs of residents, (iii) efficiently manage events and activities, (iv) manage finances in a transparent way, (v) make non-profit organization financially independent. In addition, instead of following the funder’s brief without questioning full communication with the funder during the project’s early stages is essential. This is in order to clearly convey the purpose and necessity of community-making, and prevent a mere quantitative evaluation of the project in terms of activities and participant numbers, which would push social organizations into a passive corner. 3. Due to the diversity and different functions of local communities, it is advised that the residents’ committee mainly focuses on public affairs, serving as a leader. They should manage all the resources, interpret policies and their meaning for the community, and support professional community-based social organizations to take on public welfare roles. In the process of communitymaking, residents’ committees often start believing that the staff of other social organizations belong to them, disregarding their independence and requiring them to undertake some of their work while intervening in internal affairs at will. The consequence of this is that, in the eyes of the residents, the residents’ committee and other social organizations become one, which is not conducive for social organizations to find their own ways in addressing community problems. 4. When a community has to some extent been activated, community consultation processes and democratic discussions will play an important part in positive and effective community governance. Therefore, residents should have the right to speak, and should be encouraged to speak out. It is also necessary to establish a framework that enables shared dialogue and encourages the orderly participation of residents, using different forms of communication to empower and guide them in raising reasonable, legal, and rational demands. When the interests of the minority are compromised, rather than ignore their positions, speak up for them. A minority obeying a majority is not the best option at all, but a compromise. Through multi-level communication, many existing

N. Wu

problems can be resolved. This not only takes into account the wishes of the majority, but the interests of all residents, so as to realize the goal of good community governance. 5. The establishment of a multi-level platform of community consultation and democratic discussion is an ongoing process. Usually, there are many problems that have historical causes, and there are conflicts of interest between different parties. To persuade all parties to participate and share resources requires evaluation and analysis in each specific case. When beginning to establish a democratic platform for the discussion and consultation of community affairs, it is better when the residents’ committee first takes the lead. If other stakeholders cannot engage well, the committee can help them to first resolve urgent problems in order to build good relations in the long term. In general, the management structure of a social organization is relatively weak during the initial stages of its establishment, thus, they are advised to pay attention to community cultivation and empowerment to ensure the equality of each self-organized club. It is also suggested that an organization should go outside the community to mobilize more resources, which will give them a stronger voice in community-making. However, the residents’ committee, the property management organization, and the property owners committee may also take the initiative to hand over some of their rights and remits to social organizations, empowering them to better serve their community. When issues arise, if they can be fully resolved by one party, it is suggested to do so. If this is not possible, a consultation meeting should be arranged. During this consultation, it is important for parties raising issues to remain open-minded and not to conceal information, while other parties should be generous and try to find a solution that benefits all. Through continuous and comprehensive community empowerment, community conflicts can be effectively alleviated. This reduces the administrative burden on the government, which can instead focus on how to best serve its citizens. It further creates a harmonious community atmosphere and encourages staff to support a better community— realizing a highly self-motivated, self-organized, and self-managed community. At the same time, once the community is activated, the needs of the residents identified, solidarity formed, and—through the use of the internet— communication has become cheaper and more effective, participation is improved. The Bamboo Community Mutual Association is a good and useful example of transformations in China that have so far occurred during the development of social capital and community.

Part IV Community Planning: From Planning to Design

From “No Holes in Walls” to “Street and Community Renovation” in Beijing: A Transformation of Urban Governance?

15

Yan Tang

Abstract

Starting with the project of “No Holes in Walls”, initiated in Beijing in 2017, this paper analyses the different views on this campaign-style urban renovation, and reveals its fundamental cause and purpose from the perspectives of national strategies and the decentralisation of Beijing’s population and non-capital functions. It argues that the campaign has partly promoted the transformation of urban governance in Beijing, for the city now attaches more importance to micro-scale renovation, high-quality improvements of existing urban areas and participatory planning and design approaches. Based on several practical case studies in which the author was involved, such as the development of Design Guidelines for Streets and Communities in the Chaoyang District, the renovation of the Shizhengnan and Zhuzong communities and the improvement of the Olympic community park, the paper discusses concrete urban governance transformations initiated by the campaign and related changes in street and community renovations, including a refined management, participatory planning, balanced interest between different stakeholders and a reform of the government’s and residents’ roles. It proposes future directions for work focused on urban governance reforms in Beijing.

media reports, community bulletin boards and banners hanging on the street, one can see that this is the result of a three-year special action plan called “No Holes in Walls” by the Beijing government, aiming to achieve “a relocation of non-capital functions and a high-quality growth”. These so-called “holes in walls” mainly refer to the phenomenon of first- or second-floor rooms in residential buildings facing a street having been transformed from living spaces into commercial uses without government permission. This generally involved making holes in the external walls and changing them into doors or windows to facilitate the needs of businesses. By converting the lower floors of residential buildings along the street into business premises, property owners or tenants gain additional economic benefits that a residential building cannot provide; that is why this phenomenon emerged in Chinese cities from the late 1980s onwards, along with the reform and opening up process, and gradually increased with economic growth. To stop and correct this kind of illegal construction, the “No Holes in Walls” campaign, which was recently fully implemented in Beijing, is a special governmental plan that aims to clean up violations of existing regulations. This includes regulating the commercial use of residential buildings and the illegal alteration of building façades.

15.1

Keywords








“No holes in walls” Urban governance Street renovation Community renovation Beijing




Since 2017, Beijing citizens have witnessed a significant change: many street shops they often went to, were either demolished, shut down or blocked off (Fig. 15.1). From Y. Tang (&) School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

Different Views on “No Holes in Walls”

There are two different views on the “No Holes in Walls” campaign. Those who support the actions argue that in accordance with legal requirements in China: “there must be laws to go by, these laws must be observed and strictly enforced and law-breakers must be prosecuted”. It is thus necessary and reasonable to dismantle long-established illegal construction and to forbid illegal business and illegal road occupancy, so as to create a better and fairer social environment with less potential risks, as well as a strong legislative system and good social order. As many bars and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_15

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Fig. 15.1 “No Holes in Walls”: demolition of informal street shops in Beijing.

clubs enabled by holes in walls often create noise, ruin the public environment and are potential fire hazards, local residents who are troubled by them are pleased to see these new urban renovation projects. The Action Plan for the Three-Year (2017–2019) Environmental Improvement of Back Streets and Alleys in the Core Area, issued by the Beijing municipal management department, has the aims of implementing “no illegal construction, no holes in walls, no illegal parking, no illegal road occupancy, no illegal overhead lines, no illegal façade changes, no illegal billboards, no road damage, no illegal business and no fly tipping”, as well as “creating a group of exemplary streets and lanes featuring a good public environment, good social order, good morality, good co-creation and co-development, and a good public atmosphere” (Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Management and The Office of the Capital Spiritual Civilization Construction Committee 2017). Generally, the actions of “No Holes in Walls” target illegal construction, without providing any compensation for their demolition. Before taking formal actions on these holes in the walls, the sub-district officers inform tenants and property owners in advance by posting notices on street walls, sending flyers out to each household and personally communicating with the people concerned. During the process of dismantling and blocking off “holes”, legal door and window openings, as detailed in the building’s original drawings and documents, are kept by the government contractors. However, the actions of “No Holes in Walls” has also provoked some criticism. Leading to a disappearance of facilities and street vitality, many people complained that the community became less convenient and less attractive. In fact, the reasons why holes in walls existed for such a long time, is that they largely met the daily needs of citizens. As “informal” commercial services, featuring small-scale retail and having a scattered distribution, they effectively covered a shortage in government supply of public facilities and enriched street activities. Having a flexible business and operating model, they could instantly respond to market changes and make adjustments to meet the changing needs of citizens. From this perspective, holes in walls are seen to contribute to the effective operation of the city. In addition,

Source Photographs by the author

business owners or tenants who economically benefited are, of course, reluctant to lose their source of income and established lifestyle. In the face of strict policies, however, they have no legal rights to negotiate, as the development or use is illegal, and some non-local tenants have had to leave Beijing because of a loss in low-cost business opportunities. Scattered all over street corners, former windows and doors that are now blocked off with new bricks, are like ugly scars on buildings. Consequently, it has become very urgent to restore the landscape and the function of streets and neighbourhoods after the removal of the holes in the walls. Some of the alleys and streets are becoming rather depressing and have lost their former dynamic and crowded street life. Although some shops still tenaciously remain open after the campaign, to continue the owners’ or tenants’ way of living and provide for the public’s daily necessities and recreation, sometimes such business endeavours have resorted to unusual, even ridiculous, solutions—operating via a window-style shop front, displaying notice boards, and building new access “stairs”. For example, with the help of a small ladder and window, the original “Cellar Door” bar in Fangjia Hutong re-opened after losing its door during the renovation campaign. Its signage was replaced by one saying “Cellar Window”, adapting to its forced changes (Fig. 15.2).

15.2

Understanding “No Holes in Walls” in the Context of Decentralizing the Population and Non-capital Functions

Why did the holes in the walls in Beijing that had existed for a long time, suddenly become important and the subject of a renovation campaign? It is not really because Beijing has become less inclusive, but because of the illegality of these developments and Beijing’s new strategic development plan for an effective capital city. Being a typical Chinese megacity, Beijing has been plagued by many “urban diseases”, such as air pollution, traffic congestion and water scarcity, which are inseparable from an excessively large population and high density. Therefore, the Beijing City

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Fig. 15.2 Shops remaining open through small high windows after the campaign of “No Holes in Walls”. Source Photograph courtesy of Fei Zhai

Master Plan (2016–2035), issued in September 2017, not only clearly defines Beijing as a national political centre, cultural centre, international exchange centre and scientific and technological innovation centre (The People’s Government of Beijing City 2017), but also concludes that it is necessary to “further propel the regional coordinated development strategy of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Metropolitan Region by focusing on a relocation of Beijing’s non-capital functions, the transformation of urban development patterns, the improvement of urban governance systems and the effective tackling of ‘urban diseases’”. It then proposes clear goals for population decentralization and optimization of the functional structure of the capital in 2020 and 2035 respectively. Accordingly, in order to promote the outward relocation of population and non-capital functions, Beijing is lowering the short- and mid-term availability of urban-rural construction land to address “urban diseases” by strictly controlling and reducing its population size and a range of functions. Here, “non-capital functions” refer to functions other than those related to Beijing’s role of “four major centres” as mentioned above, such as regional wholesale markets and inefficient and polluting manufacturing industries that are not desirable within a capital city. In order to “decentralize people by removing non-capital functions (moving targeted functions and industries out of Beijing)”, the central government and Beijing’s governments at all levels have launched many substantial campaigns at both regional and community scales—one of which is that of “No Holes in Walls”—to effectively reduce land for urban construction and foster the migration of people in targeted industries or services. To be specific, Beijing’s measures to relocate non-capital functions, which have attracted widespread attention both at home and abroad, are reflected in three spatial scales that include the establishment of the Xiong’an New Area in the

south of Beijing (about 150 km away from Beijing’s city centre), the establishment of a city sub-centre in the east of Beijing (about 30 km away from Beijing’s city centre), an exploration of establishing a Central Administration District in the old city, and a comprehensive promotion of functional changes and relocations in the Beijing Central City. Of these, Hebei’s Xiong’an New Area and Beijing’s Sub-centre will be built to form two new wings of the Beijing Central City. 1. At the regional level, on April 1, 2017, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council decided to set up the “Xiong’an New Area” in the Hebei Province (Fig. 15.3), a new national-level area to host Beijing’s non-capital functions. Being one of the most important elements of the coordinated development of the BTH region, Xiong’an covers a total area of around 2000 km2, including 200 km2 for construction. It will be designed and built according to advanced global concepts and standards, so as to foster a new innovation-based development of the BTH region, and explore an optimized development model for densely populated areas. The Xiong’an New Area will help to change the existing “twin-centre” structure of the BTH region with Beijing and Tianjin as its cores, to a more balanced “triangular-centre” development structure made up of Xiong’an, Beijing and Tianjin, which is supported by a synchronous development of many other cities in Hebei like Tangshan. 2. At the city level, in 2016, after years of discussion and argumentation, Beijing officially launched an international consultation on the planning and design of the Tongzhou New Town. Situated to the east of central Beijing it will be the new Beijing Sub-centre, and announced that relevant Beijing municipal government organizations will gradually move from the central city to the sub-centre (Fig. 15.4). With a total area of around

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Fig. 15.3 The “triangular-centre” structure composed of Xiong’an, Beijing, and Tianjin of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Source Drawn by the author

155 km2 and a peripheral control area of about 906 km2, the sub-centre is to be built as a world-class harmonious and liveable town and to become a model of coordinated development in the BTH region. In the future, Beijing’s central city will focus on serving central and capital functions, while the sub-centre will focus on the management of local affairs. After three years of planning and construction, the Beijing municipal administrative centre was officially moved to Tongzhou on January 11, 2019, marking a reorganization of Beijing’s urban space and management structure. 3. At the central city level, Beijing is exploring the possibility of forming a Central Administration District in the old city, and is systematically implementing a change of industries, a regional market relocation, and the “No Holes in Walls” campaign among others. As the Beijing municipal government organizations are incrementally moving to Tongzhou, the core area composed of the Dongcheng and Xicheng districts (with a total area of about 92.5 km2) will gain better opportunities to develop into a unique centre to serve the central administrative functions of China. Drawing on relevant precedents in Washington DC, Beijing is closely studying the feasibility of the Central Administration District strategy,

Y. Tang

Fig. 15.4 The development of the Beijing sub-centre. People’s Government of Beijing City (2017)

Source The

considering how it might be realized through a spatial reorganization of the core area with the capital city’s functions, and through population and functional relocations. According to the Opinions of the Beijing Municipal Government on the Implementation of the Special Action of Relocation and Renovation for Quality Improvement (2017–2020), actions in support of a relocation of Beijing’s non-capital functions should follow the principle of being: “people-oriented, attaching importance to both relocation and renovation and improvement and optimization, with special actions to achieve population control targets and promoting related work in a comprehensive way including the key projects” (Beijing Daily 2017). In more detail, the major actions include: removing illegal construction; banning road occupancy, unlicensed business and “holes in walls”; regenerating rural-urban fringe zones; comprehensively renovating old communities in the central city; improving key areas in the central urban area; relocating general manufacturing industries and “fragmented, chaotic, and polluting” enterprises; transferring regional specialized markets to other places; decentralizing some public services; renovating underground spaces and group-rental housing; and regenerating the shantytowns, direct-controlled public housing, and illegal commercial-uses in housing.

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15.3

Transformation of Urban Governance: Street and Community Regeneration Based on Design Guidelines

From the above, it can be seen that the promotion of relocating Beijing’s non-capital functions still has the obvious characteristics of “top-down” decision-making and execution, which not only reflects China’s long tradition of a centralized political system, but also a “vertical” administration system that has existed since ancient times. China being a modern society with a highly developed economy and a growing sense of democracy, it is very important for cities to consider how to achieve an urban management transformation from an approach of “administration” to that of “governance,” from “vertical” to “horizontal”, and from “top-down” to “bottom-up”. Accordingly, the Beijing City Master Plan clearly proposes that “it is the public who ought to build and manage a city”, and that the city should “rely on and mobilize the public to participate in urban management” and “continue to improve the multi-role urban governance level”.1 However, in addition to the top-down process, Beijing’s action plans for removing population and non-capital functions have also involved urban renovation at sub-district and community levels, which emphasises their “autonomy” and helps to bring about a dialogue and cooperation between the government and all segments of society. Such dialogue and cooperation are indispensable for an effective implementation of the “No Holes in Walls” campaign, renovation of the physical and non-physical environments of old communities, and a realization of other grassroots improvements. From these, we can see that all related actions have partly promoted a transformation of urban governance in Beijing, for the city now attaches more importance to micro-scale renovation, high-quality improvement to built-up areas, and participatory planning and design. As described previously, many streets after the “No Holes in Walls” actions faced a series of problems, such as poor streetscapes, a lack of convenient service facilities and a loss of recreation and culturally creative groups. These problems cannot be solved with a one-time campaign, but need to mobilize all social forces to make continuous contributions to environmental optimization, facility improvement, and their continued maintenance. “As the Chinese saying of ‘destruction before construction’ goes, blocking off ‘holes’ is

1

To form a joint and sound interactive governance pattern, the Beijing City Master Plan proposes many measures such as enabling the public to easily join urban governance, fostering of social organizations, strengthening of the development of social worker teams, mobilizing of enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities and integration of administrative, market, social and technological means to modernize urban governance.

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not the purpose, but a measure that must be followed with a sufficient supply of facilities to guarantee the convenience of residents and a continuous, comprehensive improvement of the entire environment” (Beijing Daily 2018b). Just as one should have both a “face and insight” (Beijing Daily 2018a), the agenda of “Relocation and Renovation for Quality Improvement” should not only make residents enjoy a better street environment, but also provide a more convenient life. Therefore, in order to solve the problems caused by a closing off “holes”, the governments at all levels in Beijing have actively promoted urban design guidelines, street renovation schemes and street and community design guidelines to control a wider environmental renovation and long-term maintenance works. In addition, the government departments have also actively offered financial and technical support for implementing design guidelines, advocated public participation and collaboration and carried out micro-scale spatial renewal projects focused on the structural reinforcement of building, spatial improvement and facility maintenance of old streets and residential areas. These measures provide important opportunities to practice and to realize refined urban management, strengthen participatory planning, negotiate the interests of multiple stakeholders and promote the reform of the government’s and residents’ roles in planning and governance. The popularity of street and community guidelines in Beijing coincides with a global street and community development interest. Many countries and regions have carried out research on street guidelines and improving practices since 2000, and have successively released a series of guidelines such as the Global Street Design Guide; Streetscape Guidance 2009: A Guide to Better London Streets; New York Street Design Manual; Better Streets, Better Cities: A Guide to Street Design in Urban India. These guidelines are characterized by human-oriented control according to categories and zones, multi-sector coordination and inter-disciplinary cooperation, and their focus on the street expands from physical space to people-oriented development, from spatial road rights to human behavioural activities, from emphasizing design and construction to advocating advanced urban governance. In the following part, this paper thus elaborates the concrete transformation of urban governance and its effects on Beijing’s street and community renovation after the “No Holes in Walls” campaign, based on several cases in which the author was involved, such as the development of Design Guidelines for Streets and Communities in the Chaoyang District, the renovations of the Shizhengnan and Zhuzong communities and the improvement of the Olympic community park. In the end, it proposes possible future directions and work focused on urban governance reforms in Beijing.

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Fig. 15.5 From the Beijing City Planning and Design Guidelines (non-official version).

15.4

Multi-level Design Guidelines for Streets and Communities

Today, more and more Beijing citizens pay attention to urban development and their living environment, have a growing awareness of democratic matters, and are willing to get involved in urban planning affairs, which lays a significant foundation for the initiation of multiple stakeholder-based urban governance activities. For example, after the new Beijing City Master Plan was published in April 2017 for public consultation, two Beijing citizens made a non-official version of the Beijing City Planning and Design Guidelines that pointed out the existing urban development problems in Beijing through vivid sketches and concise texts. It pictures the expected changes, such as a “fine road networks rather than only big roads” and “convenient neighbourhoods rather than only buildings” (Fig. 15.5). This alternative guideline is a microcosm of the general public’s wishes for urban construction in Beijing. To address the different issues of urban renewal at different spatial levels, the municipal, district, and sub-district governments, as well as primary-level governance organizations in Beijing have introduced a series of guidance, planning and design guidelines and design schemes to meet the urban development requirements, which therefore forms a three-level design guidance system of “Urban Design Guidelines—Urban District Design Guidelines— Sub-district/Community Design Guidelines”. This system of guidelines covers almost all elements related to street and community renovation, providing regeneration or projects and practices with clear rules and examples to follow.

Source Jianren and Xiaonizi (2017)

1. At the city level, while compiling the new city master plan (2016–2035), Beijing has carried out a “comprehensive urban design” study and clearly defined Beijing’s image as “a charming capital, historic city, and urban model in a new era”. In September 2018, Beijing issued the Urban Design Guidelines for Street Renovation in Beijing, which is a more targeted guideline with sections on different types of streets and communities, providing an important basis for the planning, design and development control of various block elements. According to the guidelines, the streets of Beijing are divided into five types based on transportation and public services: trafficoriented, life service-based, comprehensive servicebased, silent zones and characteristic streets, while blocks and communities are divided into six types of large residential zones, business and trade zones, transportation hubs, industrial cluster zones, international exchange zones and governmental administration zones. Then, based on the characteristics of these different streets and functional areas, it further proposes specific development objectives and planning and design requirements. 2. At the urban district level, districts like Dongcheng, Xicheng and Chaoyang have successively issued guidelines for street and community renovation.2 Among them, the Design Guidelines for Streets and Communities

2

With a total area of 470.8 km2 and a resident population of approximately 3.7 million, the Chaoyang District of Beijing has jurisdiction over 24 sub-district offices and 19 regional offices. As the most modern and cosmopolitan district in Beijing, Chaoyang is the home of the CBD of Beijing, as well as many well-known attractions, such as the Sanlitun Village, Olympic Park and the Embassy Area.

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in the Chaoyang District, which was issued in January 2018 by the Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, is an important bridge connecting higher-level and lower-level design guidance (Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology 2018). These guidelines clarify specific technical requirements by establishing a comprehensive system consisting of “one program, ten principles, a 3 + X framework, 30 key control items, and five management and implementation frameworks”. Based on field research and big data analysis, these guidelines also develop an “interface-street-community” control to achieve a flexible management structure at multiple levels (Table 15.1). This has created a user-friendly division of street-types, a clear index for popularizing its guidance, and educated the public while facilitating government administration and providing an important technical reference for streetscapes and environmental improvements (Fig. 15.6). It proposes multiple governance innovation frameworks, such as public participation, public funding support, a system of responsible street managers and cross-departmental collaboration. Among them, specific approaches like the demolition of enclosed community walls, establishment of open communities, realization of a 15-mins pedestrian-scale service circle and so on, show the basic philosophy of these guidelines, which are to be people-oriented and public serving. 3. At the street and community level, almost all sub-districts in the Chaoyang District have developed planning and design guidelines for street renovation. Being at the end of the design guidelines system, these are more targeted, because they not only transmit the technical requirements of higher-level guidelines, but are also closely connected to design schemes and urban development. For example, the Planning and Design Guidelines for the Xiaoguan Sub-district Renovation (School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology 2019a) in the Chaoyang District, developed by the author’s team in December 2018, created a “community archive” for each community based on questionnaires and interviews to survey community needs and collect information on the development history, population composition, building functions, building conditions, etc., of communities. Based on this, these guidelines put forward an implementation plan consisting of “one figure, one table, and one project database”, to clearly define the renovation

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actions and projects that the Xiaoguan Sub-district will gradually carry out over the next five years (Fig. 15.7), forming a detailed engineering project library and implementation schedule.

15.5

The Xiaoguan Sub-district of Chaoyang: The Practice of Street and Community Renovation

In Beijing, Chaoyang is the first district to carry out the “No Holes in Walls” campaign. After the NPC and CPPCC National Committee sessions in 2014, the Chaoyang District Government soon included the “No Holes in Walls” agenda with six major special actions for environmental improvement in that summer. According to media reports, as of August 2018, the Chaoyang District cleaned up 34,506 unlicensed business units and 8408 holes in walls. In the follow-up process, renovation projects were financed by the local government, including improvements to the street landscape and existing facilities and micro-renewal of old communities. In addition, newly introduced policies required that the design of projects must obtain 100% consent from all residents concerned before implementation, which completely breaks with traditional government and technical elite-dominated regeneration approaches in China. Accordingly, a participatory planning and design approach that stresses residents’ needs and renovation desires have become more and more common and popular, so as to successfully reach agreement between the government, residents and planning and design practitioners through negotiation and co-governance. The renovation projects for the Shizhengnan and Zhuzong communities, as well as the Olympic community park in the Xiaoguan Sub-district, are key short-term targets identified in the Planning and Design Guidelines for the Xiaoguan Sub-district Renovation, and are expected to be completed by 2020. During the process of developing design schemes, the planning and design team and sub-district office adopted diverse approaches, including meeting with residents, questionnaires, in-depth interviews, door-to-door household surveys, new-year celebration activities and so on, to actively organize and foster public participation. These approaches accurately gather information on what residents need and obtain their consent and support for the renovation. Judging from the two communities’ residential participation in the design process, what residents are most concerned about, in terms of renovation, can be summarized by the following four aspects in order of priority: renovation of internal building facilities and the structural reinforcement

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Y. Tang

Table 15.1 Thirty key management items Landscape control guidelines

Overall control

Item 1

Overall coordination

Street interface

Item 2

Façade elements: windows and doors, roof, stairs, barrier-free facilities

Item 3

Bounding wall, fence

Item 4

Subsidiary facilities: board and sideboard, A/C outdoor unit, rain shed, etc.

Item 5

Building façade form: style, groundfloor area, street corner and opposite view, details

Item 6

Building mass

Item 7

Building height

Building form

Building texture

Item 8

Building texture and color

Building function

Item 9

Functions and mixed uses

Item 10

Entrances and exits

Item 11

Building control line

Interface space Street design guidelines

Street design

Street elements

Neighbourhood construction guidelines

X extension guidelines

Neighbourhood facilities

Item 12

Complete street design

Item 13

Pedestrian area and barrier-free design

Item 14

Building front area

Item 15

Facility belt

Item 16

Street furniture

Item 17

Public art

Item 18

Ground pavement

Item 19

Street corner park and greening

Item 20

Road signs and traffic signals

Item 21

Traffic organization and parking arrangement around bus stations

Item 22

Complete community, dynamic sharing

Item 23

Open neighbourhoods

Item 24

Customized service-based neighbourhoods

Small neighbourhood system

Item 25

Dense road network and small neighbourhoods

External facility

Item 26

Other external facilities

Green intelligent facilities

Item 27

Intelligent facilities

Item 28

Ecological streets and blocks

Item 29

Sponge (low impact) streets and blocks

Item 30

Green technology and green material

Source Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2018)

of buildings; more and better arrangement of car parking spaces; improving the environment both inside and outside the community; and providing more spaces for public activity. It is worth noting that due to different degrees of autonomy, residents in the two communities differed significantly in their participation. Having greater autonomy, the residents of the Zhuzong community have already established a good system to self-manage and self-maintain their community environment, enabling them to formulate clear and focused demands for investment and renovation by

the government, and are thus more concerned with the renovation of buildings rather than the external environment. With a weaker level of autonomy, the residents in the Shizhengnan community place great expectations on government investment and renovation, with equal demands for improving the buildings and the external environment, which is evident in the residents’ strong support for and trust in the design team and their enthusiasm. One of the most common issues in Beijing’s old communities is a shortage of public green spaces and activity

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Fig. 15.6 Street elements managed by different departments. Source Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2018)

Fig. 15.7 “One figure” proposed in the Planning and Design Guidelines for the Xiaoguan Sub-district Renovation. Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2019a)

Source School of

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Fig. 15.8 Preliminary scheme for the Olympic Square renovation. Left: Existing situation of the square; Right: Increasing public facilities to promote use by all age groups. Source School of Architecture,

spaces. However, due to limited available space, it is very difficult to increase green spaces within the community. Therefore, the renovation and full utilization of the Olympic Square, the only central green space in the Xiaoguan Sub-district (Fig. 15.8), has become a top priority for improving the overall public service quality of surrounding communities. Through a 10-hour-a-day monitoring of activities and the use of the square over many days, as well as in-depth interviews with the users of the square, the design team found that users were mainly the elderly or children who were not working. Thus, the square will be renovated by making full use of existing and increasing public facilities, especially those that can provide activity spaces for young and middle-aged people, so that all age groups can use the square. Therefore, the design team developed a renovation plan with micro-environments for the square based on five regeneration strategies, which are to develop: a runway, a court, a community garden, a comprehensive activity space and identifiable cultural characteristics for the square (Fig. 15.8).

Fig. 15.9 Transformation from an urban administration to an urban governance model

Y. Tang

Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2019)

15.6

Conclusion

In summary, despite controversies over the “No Holes in Walls” campaign in Beijing, while implementing a top-down relocation of non-capital functions, its follow-up initiatives —including the promotion of planning and design guidelines and street and community renovation and development— triggered a comprehensive transformation from traditional “urban management” to a modern “urban governance” approach centered around “multi-party participation” and “micro-scale space renovation” (Fig. 15.9). To be specific, instead of urban expansion, Beijing has attached more importance to improvements of the environment and developing support facilities and high-quality improvements to existing built-up areas through small-scale and micro-scale space regeneration and renovation projects. This means that urban development has shifted its focus from “scale” and “quantity” to “quality” and “effectiveness”, from large-scale space to micro-scale space, from general

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From “No Holes in Walls” to “Street and Community …

management to refined management. Among them, the most valuable change is that residents have started to engage in street and community renovation, which greatly changes the previous dominant top-down decision-making model, and truly moves urban administration towards an urban “governance” model that features multiple stakeholders, a process of negotiating diverse interests and a change in formerly prescribed roles of participants. In the future, Beijing will still face many challenges in an ongoing process towards comprehensive urban governance. These are manifest in: a lack of resident involvement, as they lack awareness and the skills to participate; the need for government and planners to further “delegate power to the people”, as they are still the main actors in most urban renovation projects; a lack of a systematic framework and means for the public to more effectively participate in decision-making; the uncertainty if urban development can achieve “co-governance and sharing”, as this still depends on the specific development opportunities and social networks of each community. In addition, from the perspective of optimizing public space and enhancing the charm and vitality of cities, the next step of street and community renovation in Beijing should focus on: optimizing the priority of uses in street spaces and continuously improving the street environment; creating a high-quality and people-oriented system of public spaces; strengthening design guidelines and public participation in the whole process of public space development from planning and design, approval and construction to management and maintenance; establishing a Responsible Planner System for all sub-districts; promoting the comprehensive renovation of old communities and gradually opening the enclosed neighbourhoods and work-unit courtyards; improving the quality of neighbourhood services and providing people with a convenient, safe and well-served living environment.

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References Beijing Daily (2017) The 2017 Work Plan for the Special Action of “Decentralization and Renovation for Quality Improvement” in Beijing. Available via http://bj.people.com.cn/n2/2017/0126/ c82840-29648962.html. Accessed 5 Feb 2019 Beijing Daily (2018a) Beijing: Priority Given to Repairing over 5,000 “Holes in Walls” to Guarantee the Basic Needs of Residents. Accessible via http://bj.people.com.cn/n2/2018/0606/c8284031670599.html. Accessed 5 Feb 2019 Beijing Daily (2018b) 3218 “Holes in Walls” Were Replaced by Open Space, Equaling to 1.2 “Olympic Parks”. Available via http://www. takefoto.cn/viewnews-1524705.html. Accessed 5 Feb 2019 Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Management and the Office of the Capital Spiritual Civilization Construction Committee (2017) Notice on issuing the action plan for the three-year (2017–2019) Environmental improvement of back streets and alleys in the core area. Available via http://www.bjwmb.gov.cn/xxgk/xgzl/ggl/ t20170410_819373.htm. Accessed 5 Feb 2019 Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2018) Design Guidelines for Streets and Communities in the Chaoyang District Jianren G, Xiaonizi (2017) Urban planning and design guidelines proposed by citizens after the publication of the Beijing City Master Plan. Accessible via https://www.sohu.com/a/136291118_651721. Accessed 5 Feb 2019 School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2019a) Planning and Design Guidelines for the Xiaoguan Sub-district Renovation School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and School of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology (2019b) Design for the regeneration of one street and two communities of the Xiaoguan Sub-district The People’s Government of Beijing City (2017) Beijing City Master Plan (2016–2035)

Rethinking Community Renewal

16

Lu Feng

Abstract

The essay argues that in the case of the recent community renewal movement in Shanghai, it is more important to focus on the reconstruction of the relationship between people and their place than the visual appearance of that place, helping people redefine their identity through spatial design and placemaking. Pudong’s “Colourful Community” project is used as a typical example that draws out the characteristics of this movement in recent years. By using the project of Beicai Town as a case study, this essay proposes that when compared with projects of landscape beautification—currently the most popular approach to community renewal—design forms a significant part of placemaking, intervening in the relationship between people and their place, and serving as an accelerant to processes of community building. Keywords

Shequ gengxin system




Beicai town




Shanghai




Pedestrian

The term community, when it is used in the context of architectural design for community development or community construction, generally means a kind of location-based community, an organic whole including a group of people and a common place or area where these people live and with which they are identified. The Chinese shequ was first translated from the English word “community” by Xiaotong Fei in 1933 in his translation of essays by Robert Ezra Park.1 As its inherent meaning is that of “shared in common”, a community can be cognized on two basic levels. One is a shared place, space or area. The other is a 1

Ma and Deng (2014).

L. Feng (&) Wuyang Architecture, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

group of people who share a common identity, interest, or value, etc. The relationship between these two levels can be seen as a significant concern for the idea of community, especially for the purpose of community development. The Shequ Gengxin (community renewal) movement has been recently regarded as a significant social and political project by the Shanghai government since their first official project, “Walking in Shanghai—Micro-renewal Projects of Community Space”, was announced in 2016 by the Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau. The movement can be seen as a sign of Shanghai’s urban development transition, from urban expansion to an urban renewal of existing environments on the one hand, and a spatial practice of grassroots governance led and promoted by the Shanghai government on the other. As a consequence, community renewal in Shanghai mainly focuses on updating public spaces and environments in residential areas, especially old residential zones. It is thus different from cases of community development in Britain and America, or the community construction movement in Japan that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. The projects of Shanghai’s community renewal are mostly focused on the transformation of physical environments, such as the refurbishment or reconstruction of public facilities—an updating of landscape rather than the self-organization, training, and empowerment of people, although the participation of community inhabitants is encouraged and seen as an important part of the renewal process. The character of Shanghai’s community renewal in its current stage can be summarized in four points. Firstly, the movement is driven by the government not inhabitants, however, their participation is wanted. Secondly, the renewal focuses on construction and the physical environment, and is therefore generally presented as a project of beautification, led and managed by local subdistrict offices and funded by the government. Thirdly, renewal is often a short-term project whose aim is to achieve immediately visible effects through environmental upgrades. And lastly, it

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_16

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Fig. 16.1 Sites of urban renewal projects for the “Colorful Community” in Beicai Town. Source Wuyang Architecture

can be better understood as the means towards a more effective and detailed governance of society rather than self-management of the community. The particularity of Shanghai’s community renewal movement can be therefore understood as a production and representation of social, political, and cultural institutions in contemporary China. Given its location-based understanding of community, it would be problematic if inhabitants could not be directly identifiable as the subject of a community. Due to Chinese land ownership laws, however, land belongs to the government and thus inhabitants have limited rights of use over a period of 70 years. Moreover, due to the rapid development and transformation of Shanghai, many inhabitants have been disconnected from their original community and moved to new residential districts over the last decades. Moreover, rapid urbanization in China has developed in parallel with social, economic, and political reforms. In this process, people have not only lost their relation to their territory, community, and place of origin, but also their original identity and place in society. For example, the danwei as the community form of Chinese collectivism in past decades, has gradually disappeared since the 1990s. In this context, the community renewal movement offers an important possibility to reconstruct the identity and subjectivity of inhabitants through a process of reconnecting them with their living area.

In 2018, the Pudong district government announced a three-year project called “Colourful Community”, which focuses on nine different categories of intervention referred to as “Active Street, Pocket Park, Slow-traffic System, Public Facility, Artistic Space, Alameda, Sport Field, Visible Green, and Corner Space”. All 36 subdistrict offices in Pudong were asked to participate and select projects from the nine available categories at the beginning of 2018, and had to be completed before the end of the year. From a review of the 50 finished projects, it is obvious that most are some kind of landscape project, including that of Pocket Park and Alameda. Landscape projects are mostly selected, as they are easier to complete in a shorter period of time, can be instantly recognized as visible improvement of the environment, and can be decided on without having to deal with complicated neighbourhood interests. Improved green spaces can also offer a comfortable and enjoyable environment that might encourage more communication and enhance the inhabitants’ sense of pride and, therefore, their sense of belonging to a community. However, what is ignored is that this emphasis on visual improvement insufficiently deals with recreating an identity for its inhabitants or reconnecting the shared identity of subjects and their shared experiences of a territory. The Pudong district government appointed 36 community planners as one-to-one consultants for the subdistricts, who

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Fig. 16.2 Proposed transformation of the boundary along the street of Project A (at the top the existing and at the bottom the proposed design). Source Wuyang architecture

Fig. 16.3 Proposed transformation of the corridor inside Project A (to the left the existing and to the right the proposed design). Source Wuyang architecture

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are senior architects or professors from architectural schools. But the role and job of the community planner as part of the “Colourful Community” project was never clearly defined and, in fact, planners played different roles depending on their personal interests and abilities. As the community planner of Beicai Town, a subdistrict close to the centre of Pudong, I suggested that the subdistrict government select the central area of Beicai Town to create an active pedestrian system for the community based on the unique features of that area. In the spring of 2018, I led an urban design studio for fourth-year undergraduate students from the Department of Architecture, Shanghai Jiaotong University, to study the area. After two months of investigation on site, we found some important characteristics that can be summarized as follows: firstly, the central area of Beicai Town is predominantly an old residential district, although there are several office and commercial buildings along a fast road passing through the area. Most residential buildings are five- or six-storey tall apartment blocks arranged parallel to each other, and were built in the 1990s and in the beginning of the twenty-first century as part of a resettlement plan for inhabitants moving out from the central zone of Shanghai. Secondly, due to different developers and various periods of construction, one residential urban block often consists of several residential estates, and the boundaries between them have changed from boundary walls to shared passageways. Formed inside of these residential urban blocks, the ownership of such passageways is difficult to define, however, as a consequence of negotiations between inhabitants, they could be regarded as forms of spatial production undertaken by the community itself, and can be found in many blocks. They show the potential of building up a pedestrian system that joins different residential blocks, creating a shared and connecting space for the whole residential area. However, this network is sometimes disrupted by segments of boundary walls or small facilities. Lastly, there are various community facilities, such as a community playroom, a neighbourhood committee and service room, a playground, and so on. Almost all of these facilities are linked by shared passageways, but some of them have not been kept in use. If these facilities were used more actively, as well as the spatial network of shared passageways that connect these facilities together, an active, friendly, and shared pedestrian and spatial system could be created inside the whole community of the Beicai central zone. This system represents a specific community space and a combination of infrastructures that belong to the inhabitants instead of a dualistic model of private-public space often defined by urban infrastructures. As there is no street life in the Becai central zone—there is only traffic and roads —this creation of a kind of displaced typology, a pedestrian system between blocks, is invaluable to community communication and the creation of “place” for the

L. Feng

neighbourhood. At present, however, there are few shops or public buildings on either side of the streets, and almost every residential block is gated and enclosed by a boundary wall. During the first year of the “Colourful Community” project, two interventions were suggested by my team (Fig. 16.1). They are located on either side of Lianzhong Road and face each other. On the east side is Project A, which is a long, single-storey building extending into the adjacent residential quarter. In the middle of the building, there is a wide, dark, semi-open corridor covered by a steel-plated roof, which can be entered directly from a gate facing the street. There was a sign here saying “Subdistrict Labour Protection Office of Beicai”, but only a small part of the building was being used. The corridor terminated in a bounding wall at its end, and it was not apparent that a neighbourhood committee office was located just behind that wall. In fact, the two sides of this wall were originally two parts of the same building, but now separated two worlds seemingly unaware of each other. Moreover, the neighbourhood committee office was connected to a shared passageway linking it with an adjacent residential block, and located next to a new playground that is currently under construction. We suggested removing the centre of the boundary wall in order to transform the dark, blocked corridor into a bright, shared green lane that would connect the neighbourhood committee office, passageway, and playground, and create a shared pedestrian network and common space. The project went beyond these initial plans, however, after the mayor of Beicai Town accompanied us on a site visit. The mayor decided that the office for Labour Protection would not remain there, as all governmental service offices in Beicai were already asked to move to the subdistrict service centre. Consequently, the office rooms along the proposed green lane could be replaced by various community facilities such as a barbershop, bookstore and post office, etc. (Figs. 16.2 and 16.3). This case demonstrates the outcome of positive cooperation in the design process of community renewal. Before renovation, the Subdistrict Labour Protection Office was separated from the residential urban block forming an enclave, however, following changes in use and rights of access, this place has been brought back to the community, enhancing community activities by creating a shared pedestrian and spatial network. Project B, on the west side of Lianzhong Road, dealt with an existing freestanding two-storey building, used as an office space for another neighbourhood committee, which was separated from the street by a boundary wall. The gap between the office building and boundary wall was less than one meter, filled with nothing but rubbish. Next to it, a billboard was placed on top of the boundary wall, and behind it was an isolated space without any apparent use. Adjacent to the building is a semi-open, small pocket park,

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Fig. 16.4 Proposed transformation of the street boundary along Project B (at the top the existing and at the bottom the proposed design). Source Wuyang architecture

Fig. 16.5 Design proposal for Project B. Source Wuyang architecture

which is connected to a shared passageway that leads to a residential urban block. The design strategy we proposed was quite simple. As well as enclosing the space behind the billboard, we asked for the boundary wall separating the office building and street to be removed (Fig. 16.4). In addition, we created a transitional space between the neighbourhood committee office and street life by adding a small porch to the building’s façade facing the street (Fig. 16.5). In doing so, this space was transformed into a place where people could stay and communicate with each other. This was not only achieved by turning the entrance of the office towards the street, but also by removing the closed

boundary wall that had surrounded the building. This further released the isolated space behind the billboard and changed it into a recreational, common space. The transformation of these two projects in Beicai Town not only improved the pedestrian environment inside of these residential urban blocks, but, more importantly and meaningfully, began to create a spatial network for community renewal. This is of course not to say that changing the physical environment immediately brings about a corresponding creation of community and an improvement of the inhabitants’ sense of identity and organization. What can be argued here, however, is that the meaning and value of

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Fig. 16.6 Proposed masterplan (in red buildings turned into community facilities and in grey the proposed spatial and pedestrian system). Source Wuyang architecture

L. Feng

such transformation is threefold. Firstly, it creates a change in the rights to use a space. In the old residential areas of Shanghai, it is common to see gated buildings and courtyards occupied by various government departments, which have become enclaves isolated from the community. Permitting inhabitants to use such spaces, can redefine the relationship between people and territory, and can thereby help in recreating a stronger community identity. Secondly, as a spatial product of early collectivism and later privatization in the process of urbanization, street life, in a traditional sense, has often been destroyed by boundary walls that dominate both sides of the street, rendering it a mere passage for traffic. It is therefore worthwhile to explore an alternative spatial typology, a pedestrian system instead of a public street. A shared pedestrian network, as mentioned above, understood as a system of common spaces rather than a so-called public space, can thus be seen as an approach towards community building (Figs. 16.6 and 16.7). Lastly, the role of design and the designer in improving the physical environment should be rethought in the context of community renewal. Compared with a simple “problem solving” approach, design could be redefined as a kind of accelerant that stimulates and improves processes of community building. The meaning of design might then not only be determined by the moment a design project is completed, but refers more to a process of designing, the cooperation between various resources that have been brought together, and further possibilities opened up by the transformation of the physical environment.

Reference Ma S, Deng M (2014) “Fei Xiaotong’s achievement in his translation work of social science. Chin Sci Technol Trans J 27(1):56

Fig. 16.7 Proposed masterplan for future renewal (in red buildings turned into community facilities and in grey the proposed spatial and pedestrian system). Source Wuyang architecture

Redefining Boundaries and Co-operative Operation: Design Strategies for Community Revitalization

17

Miao Zhang

Abstract

Urban communities in China are witnessing a dynamic transformation. Quickly aging residential districts and the need to refurbish old community facilities require a more comprehensive understanding of what design means and a rethinking of design methods. By exploring six case studies, this paper discusses different approaches adopted by MAT Office in the design and renewal of community space, which are: intervening at multiple scales of community spaces, redefining spatial boundaries, shaping new spatial typologies, modularizing functional requirements, multi-functional collaboration and the realization of individual values. Keywords

Community spaces typologies




Community renewal




Spatial

As the speed of new urban construction projects gradually slows down, urban planners and designers have started to focus on the regeneration of existing urban developments, of which residential districts account for the highest proportion. Thus, the adaptive reuse of existing spaces in communities has become increasingly important. As data shows, in 2014 there were approximately 4185 residential projects (including residential blocks and single buildings) in Beijing, with a total floor area of 240 million square meters. These figures include 1582 old residential projects that were completed before 1990, accounting for 25% of the total urban housing stock (Li 2007, pp. 59–63) and a construction area of about 58.5 million square meters.

The volume of residential projects, especially that found in the old quarters, reflects the size of an ever-increasing urban population, quickly aging residential districts and the refurbishment needs of old community facilities. While the improvements of a residential community can be quantified in material terms, the real challenge is to understand how different renewal strategies are synchronized with other functional spaces of the city when considering more comprehensive economic, cultural, social, ecological, and environmental relationships. In the following, the paper discusses six cases produced by MAT Office for the design of community public spaces, and their different approaches to the renewal of old communities.

17.1

Multiscalar Intervention

A community is a complex spatial system. It is constituted by innumerable layers of indicators such as: regional characteristics, traces left by time and the histories that shaped it, and the composition of its population. However, the space available for shared facilities in old residential districts is usually limited, and the changing needs of residents requires community space to become more refined and better integrated. In this case, architects and urban planners must strive to develop a more layered approach in order to revitalise existing community space through systematic spatial planning strategies. These strategies should operate across scales. On the one hand, architects should begin with the macro-scale of the community environment by resolving problems of vehicular and pedestrian circulation, public

M. Zhang (&) MAT Office Architecture and Design, Beijing, People’s Republic of China e-mail: theMATOffi[email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_17

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Fig. 17.1 Masterplan for the Xinyuan Xili Community

Fig. 17.2 Selected sites for intervention in the Xinyuan Xili Community

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gardens and leisure spaces, and establishing a series of renewal strategies for the use of open spaces in the community. On the other, a multiscalar intervention considers the community space, unused land, and inefficient spaces that should be carefully analysed by architects in order to form part of a new system that can accommodate all necessary communal facilities. Any intervention should thereby systematically link both macro and micro scales and contribute to the cooperation between community managers, residents, social organisations, property managers and designers, in order for all participating groups to communicate with each other and collaborate (Zhang 2018, pp. 22–25). To give an example of how this might be achieved, I will discuss the case of the Xinyuan Xili Community in the Chaoyang District of Beijing, which has gradually become a semi-public community during the extensive development of its surrounding urban plots. The starting point of our design

Fig. 17.3 Typologies of intervention for the Xinyuan Xili Community

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to upgrade this urban space lies in resolving the external urban interface of the Xinyuan Xili community that characterizes its main urban challenge. At the urban block scale, our proposal reorganizes the community’s internal Y-shaped road network and sidewalks in order to release redundant spaces that are presently disconnected or underutilized due to historical changes in the community’s fabric (Fig. 17.1). With this rearrangement of roads and the removal of illegally constructed developments, more space for potential public facilities is made available. In addition, this proposal equally identifies ten smaller development sites—either adjacent to existing buildings or leftover spaces—that offer opportunities to create prototypical interventions for new community spaces (Fig. 17.2). These prototypes are part of a design “tool-kit” for community spaces that provide service and cultural facilities, and are part of a larger adaptive strategy that proposes a

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Fig. 17.4 Garage-library proposal for the Xinyuan Xili Community

Fig. 17.5 Garage-library proposal for the Xinyuan Xili Community, internal view

series of potential spatial transformations. The selected sites for implementation include: existing parking sheds, public toilets, garbage stations, community entrances, and void spaces. Their proposed corresponding programmatic functions include a wide range of community services, such as: a Community Service Center, Community Facilities, Public Living Room, Wall Gallery, Garage Library, Exhibition Pavilion, Sustainability Education Center, and Community Farm (Fig. 17.3). The process of selecting and designing these sites has led to the establishment of a cooperative platform that involves residents, social organizations, administrative departments, investors and designers. It has also progressively promoted work on the renewal of the community (Figs. 17.4 and 17.5).

17.2

Redefining Spatial Boundaries

The Niuwangmiao South Community is an old residential district adjacent to some upmarket office buildings inside the East Third Ring Road in Beijing. After their renovation in previous rounds of community upgrades, basic problems were addressed and residential building elements were improved. Our design therefore focused on developing facilities that support a community lifestyle, especially for the ageing population. By clarifying the ownership of public buildings within the community, we identified public spaces in which we could intervene in order to transform them into public facilities (Fig. 17.6).

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Fig. 17.6 Masterplan for the Niuwangmiao South Community

For example, our study identified an abandoned bicycle shed near the community entrance—half of which was leased to the adjacent park and used as an office space, as it had not been in use for a long time. During a previous renovation phase, three sides of the bicycle shed had been converted into car-parking spaces, meaning that residential leisure spaces were squeezed into a smaller area on the opposite side of the community’s main road. Thus, our response proposed to adjust the secondary road and car-parking spaces in order to improve circulation and release an open space in front of the shed that could then be transformed into a public space. The bicycle shed was thereby converted into a community hall, integrating functions of gathering, training, reading, and exhibiting. At the same time, the front structure of the shed was redesigned as a community greenhouse (Fig. 17.7).

Following this internal reorganization of community space, existing spaces could be efficiently transformed and facilities for daily living needs improved to better serve the neighborhoods and changing lifestyles. By providing better community services, it crucially released pressures on wider-urban public facilities (Fig. 17.8).

17.3

Shaping New Spatial Typologies

In the 1980s and 90s, cities in China witnessed the large-scale development of housing and related facilities supporting the daily life of residents by enterprises and public organizations. During the subsequent diversification and commodification of housing, which also saw a change in property management, housing community facilities would

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Fig. 17.7 Isometric of proposal for bicycle shed renovation in the Niuwangmiao South Community

Fig. 17.8 Internal view of the bicycle shed renovation in the Niuwangmiao South Community

no longer meet the requirements of residents and their changing lifestyles. It is therefore worthwhile to explore the possibilities of architectural typologies that enable the adaptive reuse of residential architecture and public spaces within a community. For instance, the standard basement in a multi-storey residential building can be taken as a potential spatial typology within an existing architecture. These basements, typically divided into storage rooms for upper floor apartments, were later converted to house commercial functions or into temporary housing, which has created various security risks. A new analytical approach to these existing spatial typologies is therefore crucial in developing new design strategies through which existing communities can be adapted to accommodate changing local urban life (Fig. 17.9). Working with a typical case, we redeveloped a semibasement in a multi-storey residential building in the Huaibaishu North Community in the Xicheng District. The

basement was divided by load-bearing walls into a number of dispersed rooms of different sizes, and existing restrictions in height and natural daylighting significantly limited the use of these spaces. The design proposal therefore started with an analysis of security and evacuation requirements, and subsequently proposed to combine a linear ceiling form with floor signage to create legible circulation. The new signage system connected two exits at opposite ends of a central “corridor” (Fig. 17.10). Similarly, based on an analysis of available “scattered” spaces and possible public programs, different creative, educational, leisure and social functions were distributed throughout the basement, according to programmatic spatial requirements and restrictions imposed by the existing grid of load-bearing walls. In this proposal, different spatial and functional “behaviors” correspond to fixed, semi-fixed, and movable furniture types with various dimensions and functions, which create a coherent spatial order through a series of interior sceneries (Figures 17.11 and 17.12).

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Fig. 17.9 Typical basement floorplan of a multi-storey residential building

Fig. 17.10 Proposed plan for the renovation of the Huaibaishu North Community

Fig. 17.11 Isometric of spatial interventions in the “library” of the Huaibaishu North Community

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Fig. 17.12 Internal view of basement upgrade in the Huaibaishu North Community

17.4

Modularizing Functional Requirements

During the early development of urban residential areas in China, most designs of the community environment focused exclusively on meeting basic requirements, thereby lacking more comprehensive design ambitions. In fact, today, many public spaces insufficiently foster familiarity and communication between residents in a neighborhood. As a result, it is difficult to cultivate a sense of belonging and encourage participation within the community. Thus, during the gradual and necessary renewal of these communities, existing monotonous external spaces need to be redesigned and adapted in order to invigorate and improve the daily lives of residents. In the case of the Baihuan Community project, an empty square in the middle of the residential towers was renovated by introducing new outdoor seats, a playground, information and advertising boards, and an area for dance. The design aimed to develop a spatial organization that could systematically facilitate basic functions and create a new environment that totally differed from the original empty space. A set of modular grids were derived from the existing pavement, dictating different types of spaces and forms of furniture, such as: a new pavement, seats, terraces, grass areas, and sculptures (Fig. 17.13). The information boards were integrated into the signage system, creating a two-meter high sculpture that forms an important part of the open space’s identity. The design equally attempted to integrate different environmental requirements through a common design language that has a shared origin with modular small-scale units. Overall, the proposal significantly enriched the scenery of the community and encourages

residents to both experience and participate in public life (Figs. 17.14 and 17.15).

17.5

Multi-functional Collaboration

When residential communities reach a high standard of development and are well managed, community service must be correspondingly upgraded to a higher level. This occurs in the same way that public services and residential facility requirements change depending on age, occupation, interest and other demographic transformations. Thus, during this process, from the conception of a brief to the development of a spatial design approach and subsequent operation, the outcome of each development phase should be considered a product of cross-disciplinary cooperation and necessary negotiations and compromises between multiple stakeholders (Zhao 2009, pp. 6–9). The following gives an example of implementing this. The “Big Family” in the Dajiaoting Community is a neighborhood center in the Jinsong Sub-district Office, located in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. Before renovation, it was considered a typical unused space in the basement of a high-rise residential building. Wanting to transform this basement into a public space, however, the neighbourhood committee decided to adapt this area in order to meet the leisure and entertainment needs of local residents. Connected to underground parking, the original basement space was partitioned off by columns and walls, which made it not immediately suitable for community activities. Thus, the spatial requirements of multiple stakeholders were analyzed and collected, including consultations with the sub-district office, residents committee, owners’ committee,

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Fig. 17.13 Renovation masterplan of square in the Baihuan Community

Fig. 17.14 Activities in new public space after renovation in the Baihuan Community

Fig. 17.15 Public square after renovation in the Baihuan Community

representatives of residents and community clubs (Fig. 17.16). The team at MAT Office thereby developed a draft proposal based on their initial requirements, and subsequently formulated a final design brief in collaboration with these various bodies through several rounds of meetings and

workshops. This resulted in a distinct management scheme for the basement that was based on a new concept of “sharing” (Fig. 17.17). Having resolved the requirements of different stakeholders, the four main functions identified for

224 Fig. 17.16 Diagram of operational processes in the “Big Family” of the Dajiaotong Community

Fig. 17.17 Plan of the “Big Family” of the Dajiaotong Community

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accommodation in the site were: community education, social organizations, children’s activities, and clubs for the elderly while ensuring the separation of noisy and quiet areas, our project proposed the creation of a shared multi-functional hall with different uses and spaces. In this flexible space, activities such as meeting, workshopping, teaching, reading and game playing could take place. Taking the large book collection of the community as a design cue, the project transformed the path from the ground floor entrance to the shared underground hall into a 28-m long fixed bookshelf, which creates a constant “backdrop” for the community center (Fig. 17.18). As a result, one could say that the sharing principle heavily relies on the individuals’ “spatial participation” while living their daily life and reading or learning within the community space (Fig. 17.19).

17.6

Fig. 17.18 Internal view of the book shelf in the “Big Family” of the Dajiaotong Community

Fig. 17.19 Shared hall in the Dajiaoting Community Center

Realization of Individual Values

In the design for the renewal of old housing communities, the injection of new services in support of daily needs and life is in addition to, but as important as, the improvement of existing facilities. The individuals and organizations that provide these services are essential participants and enablers of community interactions, especially when well acquainted with the residents of the community. If those who provide contents and services come from the local community themselves, this not only gives individuals opportunities to be involved in such development, but also promotes the formation of stable social spaces. This is referred to as an “acquaintance society” that builds on social networking within a close and familiar group, and enables a community to undertake urban renewal schemes based on public participation (Yu 2005, pp. 59–63). The “Repair Shed of 2 square meters” is a temporary installation specially designed for a community facility in the Tuanjiehu sub-district. Located at the community entrance, the previous shed was built by a retired resident who has been living in the neighborhood for decades. He makes his living by fixing bicycles, changing locks and cutting keys for his neighbors. Because of his familiarity with local residents, the shed has somewhat become a spatial and social node within the community; people pass by, gather and chat around the shed, which is an essential part of how close relationships and a lively public atmosphere are created (Fig. 17.20). Based on this observation of community life, our design proposed to adapt and renovate the shed in order to formalize the inherent communal nature of this space. Through the transformation of this microenvironment, we proposed retaining and enhancing the vitality of individual participation in the community and its services. This manifested in new

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folding furniture and signs and the use of color in signaling a public space with various flexible activity zones (Fig. 17.21). We hope that this will encourage more social interaction and expand the services available to the community (Fig. 17.22).

17.7

Fig. 17.20 Existing view of the repair shed in the Tuanjiahu Community

Urban communities in China are witnessing a dynamic process of transformation. In this urban renewal, design should not only focus on beautifying the environment in which we spend our daily lives, but also embrace broader social goals of balancing the relations between time and space while contributing to the shaping of a shared community spirit. As we have seen, this requires more

Fig. 17.21 Concept diagrams of the repair shed in the Tuanjiahu Community

Fig. 17.22 Draft model of the repair shed in the Tuanjiahu Community

Conclusion

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comprehensive understandings of what design means and the various design methodologies available to us. In a context where a vast number of existing residential communities require adaptation and renovation, the key concern of urban renewal and its design is in establishing new ways of coordinating and combining spatial planning with public participation and social design, in order to develop spatial interventions that create benefits for the community (Xu and Yi 2019 pp. 152–159). The creative design thinking of architects and urban planners provides spatial evidence and realities that can bring together multiple stakeholders in a process of participation and collaboration with the common goal of improving community life. Thus, by developing a new approach to understanding design, design methodologies and the communication of design outcomes, we understand that our projects at MAT Office offer a critical contribution to new forms of community regeneration practice.

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References Li J (2007) ‘Renovation is urgently required, the status quo and evaluation of old communities in Beijing’. City Manag 3: 59–63 Xu M, Yi N (2019) From ‘community building’ to ‘community design’: observation on the development of Japanese community design from the perspective of Urban view. Time+Architecture, 1:152–159 Yu W (2005) Ph.D Thesis “Study on the theory and method of community planning: probe the community space that correspond to social principles. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou Zhang Lei (2018) Exploration of Urban renewal under the guidance of community building. Chongqing Architecture 12:22–25 Zhao M (2009) On the concept of community and planning for community. Time+Architecture, 2:6–9

18

Community Planning Based on Socio-spatial Production: The “New Qinghe Experiment” Jiayan Liu

Abstract

Keywords

Rapid urbanization and the rise of diverse community development needs have challenged existing models of community planning in China both in theory and practice. Community planning, especially when considered in a specific local and practice-based context, reveals many limitations of existing planning approaches. These include traditional urban planning techniques having a limited focus on spatial outcomes, and that basic planning theories are mostly imported from the West. Using a broader perspective of socio-spatial dialectic, this paper summarizes the development of Chinese modern residential planning, from residential district planning under a planned economy and housing estate planning in real estate developments to current community planning, which presents an important transition from “producing space” to a “production of space”, whereby the fundamental concept of “society” gradually replaces that of “space”. Based on an analysis of the main limitations and problems of former approaches, this paper discusses the community planning processes developed through the “New Qinghe Experiment” in the Haidian District, Beijing. Dealing with the prominent problem of an extreme imbalance between spatial and social development in the current Qinghe area, the key objectives, means and methods for a new type of community planning are proposed. These are based on three significant transitions: from “need-oriented” to “capital-oriented”, from “interest intervention” to “relationship intervention” and from “community construction” to “community building”.

Community planning Socio-spatial production New Qinghe experiment Producing space Production of space

J. Liu (&) School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

18.1











Background and Challenge of Community Planning

During China’s rapid urbanization, spatial development was given priority over the social development of the population, which has caused a problematic imbalance between social and spatial development. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2015, therefore put forward the building of a social governance structure characterized by multiple stakeholders and decision-makers, equality-based consultation, and co-governance, in which the urban community is key to realizing social development (Zhang 2014). However, when considering emerging community building and management approaches, traditional residential district planning and development models have exposed various problems of incompatibility, which call for a transition to community planning, and while still in its early stage in both theory and practice in China, it must respond to China-specific conditions. Contemporary urban development is multi-layered, and its challenges consist of multiple practical problems that urgently require an interdisciplinary integration of urban studies and planning. However, it is impossible to appropriately respond to and solve today’s complex community development issues merely through a mechanical superposition of “social studies” and “spatial planning”. Returning to an epistemology that takes community as a socio-spatial unity, it is important to rethink the mutually productive relationships between society and space, and to explore an

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 S. Jacoby and J. (Cyan) Cheng (eds.), The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6811-4_18

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appropriate and effective community planning approach in which interdisciplinary theories and actions are integrated. Urban planning is committed to “seeking solutions to urban problems from the interpretation of urban phenomena”, which requires an integration of explanatory and instructive theories (Leung 2012). Community planning, which acts at smaller scales, has an even greater need for this theoretical integration and localization. However, it has been restricted by the following theoretic predicaments: 1. The technical focus of traditional planning fails to pay attention to social forces and planning processes. Firstly, the predominantly technical methods of planning are focused on spatial design and give little consideration to socio-economic elements and the relationship between these elements and spatial forms. Secondly, planning tends to focus on its spatial outcomes, while the mechanisms of decision-making and the various social outcomes of the whole process are generally overlooked. 2. The perspective of socio-spatial dialectic lacks guidance for concrete actions. While the socio-spatial dialectic provides an important breakthrough for the integration of social and spatial studies (Soja 1980; Lefebvre 1991), this is not enough to guide community planning. Firstly, it recognizes socio-spatial interaction, but has no instructive theory for practical actions; secondly, its research perspective concentrates on macro urban and regional scales, but not the intermediate or micro scales of the neighborhood community; thirdly, the social class-based perspective emphasizes theoretical tensions between capital and power, but pays insufficient attention to increasingly diversified or even differentiated social forces found in reality. 3. Most Western instructive planning theories are not suitable for applied planning practices in China, as they lack a necessary localized, explanatory theoretical basis and practical verification (Leung 2014). Especially at the community level with its different neighborhood space, community network and institutional environment, more efforts should be made to undertake theoretical and practical explorations that are based on the specific context of China.

18.2

The Evolution of Residential Planning: From “Producing Space” to “Production of Space”

The main approaches of modern Chinese residential planning have experienced an evolution from a residential district planning in the danwei system and housing estate planning to the current community planning. This seems to

correlate with socio-economic transformations, but this causal explanation ignores the core concern of planning, i.e. “socio-spatial production” and its interrelationship with specific societal and spatial conditions. Considering the nature and context of the neighborhood community, three core elements are thereby intertwined (Liu 2014): territory (space), population (society), and cultural and geographical relationships (relationship). Therefore, community as a socio-spatial unity, requires a planning approach with a socio-spatial process of production, which means a fundamental shift in the objectives and mechanisms of planning and its outcomes. During the period of the planned economy, residential district planning was based on the danwei system, in which production, living and related spatial needs of the population were arranged in a unified way, and its overall size was basically determined by the number of households it served. In the 1980s, a flourishing real estate market led to a new commercial housing estate planning, and resulted in a diversification and refinement of spatial forms in response to socio-economic changes. In both residential district planning and housing estate planning, the purpose and output of planning are mostly directed towards the objective of “producing space”, through which comfortable houses, pleasant landscaped environments and appropriate support facilities are “produced”. However, in this process, the designing subject (planners or designers), the producing subject (government departments, developers, or builders), the operating subject (property or related management organizations), the administrating subject (grassroots management agencies) and the housing subject (residents), are often separated from each other in terms of time and social relations, and consequently cannot sufficiently interact. Therefore, spatial design and real demands are disconnected, causing a series of problems of social and spatial incompatibility. Since the beginning of this century, due to restrictions on the availability of urban development land and a growing need to renovate or regenerate old residential areas to address historical and long-term social underdevelopment and a degradation of the living environment, the attention of residential planning has gradually turned to the regeneration of existing building stock. Community planning was favored throughout China as a suitable response. Its main approach is to consult public opinion to understand the problems of a community and demands made by residents, based on which governmental agencies or related organizations determine a priority of needs in order to address the problems identified in their surveys (Sun and Deng 2001; Liu 2003; Zhao and Zhao 2002; Yang 2000; Huang and Luo 2014; Yang and Shi 2015; Shen 2015). Compared with the two previous planning models, community planning focuses on social development processes, which through a “production of space” aims to

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achieve objectives such as social justice, better health and poverty reduction. Hereby space is not just a final planning outcome nor just “produced”, but ultimately becomes part of an integrated process of spatial planning and spatial production through which a re-building of society is sought. The transition from “producing space” to a “production of space” reflects, to a large extent, the shifting focus of China’s contemporary urban development from a spatial expansion to the improvement of existing spaces. More importantly, it reflects a change in the significance of urban development: from focusing on economic and incremental physical development over the last 30 years to improving the quality of life and social development, as well as from focusing on the physical environment as planning outcomes to a process of planning concerned with social justice and integrated development. Through community planning, the concept of “society” has thus gradually replaced that of “space”, returning to the goal of planning: establishing a mode of action based on multi-stakeholder decision-making, co-governance and sharing in order to rebuild a bonded community with subject consciousness through the planning process, and develop the skills needed in the community to support sustainable development.

18.3

Reflections on Community Planning 1.0 and Its Limitations

In recent years, community planning has developed rapidly in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other big cities. Aside from the improvements to the social quality of life and physical improvements brought about by community planning, some problems have arisen. Based on surveys in different cities conducted by the author, the previous stage of community planning can be described as Version 1.0, with its main problems defined by three aspects of limitations, that of subjects, structure and production. Theoretical studies of community planning generally emphasize public participation and a concern for social relations and social integration (Xu and Wu 2002; Qian and Niu 2007; Yuan et al. 2015). However, in practice, community planning takes more of a top-down and elite-driven technical pathway that has many interrelated problems: ① adopting a project-based approach, it is difficult to guarantee its sustainability after the project implementation; ② mostly led by government agencies, the current one-way communication process, on the basis of which social needs are determined and public decision are made, is insufficient; ③ the top-down approach lacks community initiative; and ④ residents have a low sense of involvement as the government is the sole subject and decision-maker.

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The main cause of these problems is a deficient subjectivity of the community, with inadequate resources or empowerment in community planning. Unlike the development of new districts, community planning involves many social groups that have lived or worked in the community for many years. However, in most cases, these social groups are still excluded from the planning process, and from raising, discussing and deciding on the issues that concern them most. Even when they are involved, this is not directly in the planning process, but always only in a single aspect and mostly in a passive capacity, such as participating in questionnaires, surveys or public interviews. Thus, community members have a low sense of involvement, lack subject consciousness and a sense of ownership, and still complain a lot even after the government has invested in resources and made great efforts to make improvements. What is more problematic, is that the implementation subject, such as the planners, government agencies and constructors, will withdraw from the community once the project is completed, with community members continuing to feel irrelevant to the project, making it is difficult to maintain or develop community engagement and bringing serious challenges to a self-sustaining development of public space or facilities. At the same time, according to structuralist theory that has dominated planning, individual features are usually subsumed by more general characterizations, whereby residents are divided into different groups according to age, occupation, lifestyle, etc., while the neighborhood is assumed to be a coherent geographical unit with a natural community solidarity. In addition, relationships between individuals and groups, and the two-way flow of capital and interest in the network are ignored, making it difficult to recognize and utilize the power of specific local relationships in the processes of a social production of space (Liu 2014). In community planning 1.0, public resources are always only distributed within specific administrative areas based on the assumption by government departments and planners responsible for their allocation that the population is homogeneous. This kind of top-down public resource allocation is based on a territorial management structure that is likely to form a “welfare union”, which is characterized by self-enclosed and competitive group interests (Gallent and Robinsons 2015), and which can be a structural limitation. Moreover, due to the complexity of local conditions, only relying on external elites makes it often difficult to realize and coordinate local community interests, and can even lead to more contradictions within the community. Finally, the previous community planning approach in China usually has two modes: a spatial contribution based on the optimization of resource allocation and environmental improvements led by planning and construction departments,

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or a social improvement focused on community services and social care development by civil affairs departments. Although the community environment and social development at the grassroots level were largely improved by this community planning, it also exposed a serious problem of professional restrictions (Gu et al. 2013; Li 2014) in the disconnection between spatial disciplines and social disciplines that leads to a limitation of spatial production. This disconnection also results in an overemphasis of spatial outcomes and neglects the important social productive forces that should be part of this process. As the Commission on Global Governance proposed, governance is neither a set of rules nor an activity, but a continuous process (Yu 2002; Zhou and Dang 2013). While a focus on “producing space” inevitably advocates efficiency first, which highly compresses and simplifies participatory processes and decision-making mechanisms, a process-oriented “space production” focuses on how to produce rather than what to produce, which is conducive to rethinking the mechanisms of socio-spatial production.

Fig. 18.1 Location of Qinghe Jiedao

Haidian District Qinghe Jiedao

18.4

The “New Qinghe Experiment”: Towards Community Planning 2.0

The Qinghe area is largely located outside the northern part of the 5th Ring Road in the Haidian District of Beijing (Fig. 18.1). Historically, the Qinghe area was once an important military town and transportation hub, which functioned as a prosperous regional commercial center for over two centuries. With rapid urban expansion, Qinghe has changed from a rural town to Qinghe Jiedao, which is part of a peripheral urban group located in the central area of Beijing. Covering an area of 9.37 km2, it has 29 communities with a permanent resident population of around 139,000, including 93,000 who hold a local hukou. The Qinghe area has experienced a rapid urban transformation since the 1990s and various types of communities have emerged, such as resettlement housing, new commercial housing, affordable housing, low-rent housing, danwei compounds, military compounds and urban villages. Most major problems of China’s urbanization process and

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urban-rural differentiation can be found represented in the Qinghe area, therefore, it is a suitable case for research on diverse communities. From the perspective of social and spatial characteristics, there is a typical phenomenon of rich social and spatial differentiation, and even polarization throughout the history of the area. The first national industrial enterprises in China, such as the Beijing Woolen Mill and the Qinghe Woolen Mill, were established in Qinghe. After a recent relocation of factories and an industrial upgrade of the area, social space has become more complicated as several high-tech enterprises settled here, including Xiaomi and the Beijing Tongheng Planning, Design and Research Institute, which resulted in more and more young creative groups living and working there. As part of this transformation, a new 200,000 m2 shopping mall has been constructed adjacent to a chaotic wholesale market, and urban villages with a low-income migrant population are now close to high-end commercial housing that sells for more than 100,000 yuan per square meter. In 1928, sociologists Kaidao Yang and Shilian Xu together with students from the Yenching University carried out a famous rural development and sociological experiment in Qinghe Town to explore the promotion of grassroots social development in relation to economic, social and health issues, which was called the “Qinghe Experiment”. After nine years, the experiment was forced to stop because of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 2014, a “New Qinghe Experiment” was started, led by an interdisciplinary team organized by the School of Social Science and the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, with the aim to comprehensively improve the entire area through the promotion of community participation, especially of the grassroots society. As one of the main parts of the experiment, the community planning, led by the author, tried to explore a new type of community planning from the perspective of integrating social governance and spatial planning. Based on its investigations, the research team identified the current key problem of the Qinghe area as that typical for “semi-urbanization”, meaning a high imbalance in the spatial and social development of the area. Since the end of the twentieth century, the Qinghe area has seen a wave of large-scale urban development characterized by “infrastructural development—real estate development—industrial upgrade” due to the rapid development of the Zhongguancun Science Park and the Shangdi Science Park located next to Qinghe. Traditional townscapes were rapidly replaced by modern high-rise office buildings and commercial residential communities. However, the social development of the population seriously lags behind, which is reflected in: ① low social identity and sense of belonging. In the questionnaires and interviews, “lacking culture”, “dirty” and “chaotic” were

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the most common comments by residents, and some house owners in old communities even showed strong support for the demolition and relocation of their housing in return for high financial compensation. ② Low level of social integration. The polarization and segregation between the rich and the poor were high, with little interaction between neighbourhoods or even within the community. ③ Lack of publicity.1 Many residents had become “urban” because of the change in their hukou through acquisition of their farmland or resettlement. Although they have lived in urban apartments for dozens of years, it is still difficult for them to adapt to urban life, for example, they refuse to pay the property management fees, park randomly and litter (Fig. 18.2). Addressing the above problems, community planning in the Qinghe area rethinks the role of planning by integrating socio-spatial production into the process of design. It takes the public domain as its starting point, not only in a social sense, but also in the physical sense, emphasizing the need to cultivate urbanity and promote a people-centered process of development that is based on the building of community unity. In terms of its planning objectives, means and methods, the transformation of the following aspects are critical.

18.4.1 From “Need-Oriented” to “Capital-Oriented”: Exploring and Cultivating Social Capital In recent years, large-scale demolition and construction activities have fostered a dependency of community organizations and residents on top-down investment based on a need-oriented approach, while gradually losing the confidence and ability to take on responsibility themselves. The gap between endless demands for investment and relatively limited government resources will therefore inevitably lead to conflicts and shortcomings. To avoid this, community planning takes a capitaloriented approach, and makes exploring, cultivating and developing local capital one of its main objectives. The primary aim is to identify and manage local resources and to determine the value of these assets for the community. Through detailed studies of the region’s history and culture, and urban construction and socio-economic development, available resources are listed and evaluated, resulting in a map of assets to be considered in the future development of Qinghe, which can be taken as an endogenous source for the self-sustaining improvement of the communities. Through in-depth surveys, we found that rather than being a marginal

1

Publicity is used here in the sense of Jürgen Habermas’s term of Öffentlichkeit, which can be also translated as public sphere and publicness.

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Fig. 18.2 A typical old community in Qinghe Jiedao

“cultural wasteland”, Qinghe actually has a rich heritage including ancient city ruins from the Western Han Dynasty, the Qinghe Army Preparatory School founded in the early twentieth century, and the Qinghe Woolen Factory, the first Chinese woolen factory managed jointly by state officials and merchants. Through exploring the glorious history of Qinghe, self-confidence and a sense of belonging has come into being among residents. In recent years, industrial upgrades have attracted many institutions, technology and creative enterprises to settle. Through effective mobilization, these local institutions and enterprises have become an important local collective force to promote community development. Among many kinds of capital, social capital is critical to the sustainable development of a community, especially in Qinghe. Facing a status quo in which the individual social network gradually extends outwards beyond the neighborhood boundary (Liu 2014; Wellman and Berkowitz 1988), it is of great importance to re-utilize and cultivate local social capital in order to build a closely linked social network in the neighborhood. Thus, in an old community, which describes itself as “gathering low social classes”, the research team did not rush into designing spatial plans, but focused instead on exploring and fostering skills within the community by encouraging the ability for self-authorization and self-empowerment through a series of communal activities such as co-designing a community logo, co-working on building façade beautification, and organising an “Architect Experience Workshop” and “Children’s Art Week”, etc. Within just a few months, a number of residents skilled in arts, photography and weaving were found, and more than 20 local social organizations were fostered. At the same

time, a group of engaged families with young and middle-aged members were mobilized and organized into “architects’ families”, “miracle painters”, etc. These formed a local skill pool and driving force to generate self-governed renovation and development of the community.

18.4.2 From Interest Intervention to Relationship Intervention: Rebuilding Community Network Relationship With community planning understood as a means of intervention, it is less concerned with just understanding the “interests” of communities, but focused on building “social relationships”, which indicates a fundamental change from a core value of “power” to that of “rights.” While the former has a star-shaped and centralized distribution of power, the latter is rooted in a networked structure in which the rights of citizens form the nodes (Xiong 2011). In the former, competition and inequality are inevitable, because the sources of power are scarce, while in the latter, rights can be expanded and shared, and can flow through a collaborative network, absorbing more stakeholders that can then contribute to the decision-making process. Therefore, community planning is an interaction-, negotiation- and coordination-based form of planning that explores and re-builds the social ties through which citizens’ rights are enacted, and sees this citizen “consciousness” as essential to advancing the re-building and optimization of relationships that form a community network. In this way, the role of governmental departments gradually changes from that of having to take care of and execute everything themselves to that of authorizing and

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① Establishing a framework for discussions of community public affairs that complements the existing residents’ committee. In line with social governance innovation at the grassroots level initiated by the government, a public affair discussion committee in the community was promoted, which established discussion rules and a democratic consultation process. Its implementation has shown that members of the committee become an important social force in driving the development of a community and its actions and, elected from the community residents, can successfully represent the residents’ interests in joint meetings and discussions with the residents’ committee, property management agency and related organizations. ② Re-building a neighborhood relationship and developing its public nature through the redevelopment of public space. It is worth mentioning that the community development proposals coming out of a discussion system for community affairs were mostly centered on enhancing and improving public space. The planning of the beautification of building façades, the building of exercise squares, parking spaces and elderly-care service centers, etc., involved a process of proposing improvements and formulating appropriate development procedures, training skills, designing schemes, and continuously discussing and communicating with stakeholders, up until their eventual implementation. This was not only a process of proposing and realizing public affairs, but also a process of reproducing social relationships. While this might be a long process, it can transform an otherwise externally driven act of community “building”, gradually into a “self-governed” action by the community. The self-perception of residents thereby evolved from “self” to “others” and “us”, and from “what I want” to “what we can do”, reflecting a process of citizenization and a new emerging form of public realm (Fig. 18.3).

supporting, and the role of planners and professional social organizations changes from that of a performer to a partner and facilitator, while community residents and local organizations become the real actors. The Y Community is an example of this transformation of power relationships. This community suffered from a serious shortage of public space for community activities for a long time. When most residents appealed and voted during a consultation on converting a piece of deserted green land into a public space, a small number of residents strongly opposed this out of fear of noise caused by public activities. But the research team and residents’ committee did not simply implement the majority ruling. Instead, they organized various public space-related activities, such as a daily activity study of the residents, a public consultation, a design workshop, and wall painting, etc., to invite residents to think about the use and design of public space in the community and promote the creation of neighborhood relationships. Through the organization of many participatory planning activities and open discussions about the site’s design, the residents learned to listen to and understand each other, as well as how to negotiate in joint discussions through dialogue, which ultimately resolved the conflicts, and meant that a consensus on the conversion of the land was reached.

18.4.3 From Community Construction to Community Building: Relying on the Public Domain to Promote the Publicity of Residents Globally, community planning has seen a significant shift from a focus on “materiality” to that of “sociality”: from a government-led model focused on the development of the built environment to that of community building that highlights multi-stakeholder engagement and self-governance. Accordingly, two main concerns have driven the community planning practice of Qinghe: ① People: the ultimate goal of the “production of space” is a social one and not only that of producing space, therefore there is a need to understand and practice planning as an important means to adjust and produce social relationships. ② Publicity: the community is an important framework that links individuals, families and urban society. It is of great importance to cultivate a “public nature” of urban people, and especially to integrate those new to cities by developing a community based public domain (at both spiritual and physical levels), and realize a new urbanization that can build a harmonious and livable city (Leung 2012). The proposed community planning methods include:

18.5

Conclusions: Prospects and Rethinking of Community Planning

It has been more than four years since the “New Qinghe Experiment” started to explore grassroots social governance innovation and community planning in 2014. Our work and findings can be summarized as follows:

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Fig. 18.3 Location of Qinghe Jiedao

① The main aim is to stimulate social vitality and promote the capacity of community self-governance. The focus is always the community, specifically the cultivation of a subjective consciousness, developing the ability of community stakeholders and subjects to engage in community planning. ② The team works through interdisciplinary collaboration with great advantages. Understanding the community as a “social-space” unity, planning interventions require the collaboration of multiple disciplines. Our team brings together multi-disciplinary backgrounds from sociology, urban planning, architecture and social work. In particular, the combination of spatial and social disciplines emphasizes the focus on a process of interaction between planning intervention and social development. ③ Our planning approach adopts a long-term partnership. Different from the traditional method of project-based work, we develop a long-term collaboration with Jiedao and communities to help them formulate development strategies, provide advice and professional support for community capacity building, assist in the incubation of social organizations and contribute to pilot project implementation. The ultimate goal is to promote sustainable and healthy local growth. To deepen and advance existing work, the “New Qinghe Experiment” continues to pay special attention to the development of institutional frameworks and the cultivation of self-governance, which includes the support of: ① The optimization of the budgetary and financial system for community building.

② The establishment of a community planner system. This includes Jiedao establishing regulations and providing financial support, communities and organizations setting up interdisciplinary teams of planners, third parties providing skills training and assessment and community collaboration, which can provide long-term professional support to community development. ③ The incubation of community-based social organizations to provide local support for community engagement and community governance. Especially fostering hub-type social organizations serving at the Jiedao level to help the Jiedao and communities produce development strategies, improve capacity building, as well as introduce various social organizations and social services. In conclusion, the practice of the “New Qinghe Experiment” is devoted to exploring a new type of community planning based on socio-spatial production and integration, which considers the key problem of a high imbalance between spatial and social development as identified at the beginning. It takes “the development of people” as its main aim, focusing on the “production of space” processes in the building of social capital and social networks of relationships, in order to foster a community unity with consciousness of, and desirable skills for, self-development and self-maintenance instead of becoming a mere government concern. These reflections on community planning aim to bring attention to the important creativity of individuals in communities. Through a “production of space” process and the collaboration of multiple stakeholders, efforts are made to encourage people to explore their ability to contribute to the realization of a harmonious coexistence between people

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and nature, and between people themselves. Therefore, the real significance of community planning is not physical regeneration nor the development of new forms of participation, but the effect it has on the unity of a community in order to meet the fundamental social demands of a new urbanization strategy in China.

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