Status Quo and Prospect of Community Construction in Chinese Cities

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 12, 2002

Status Quo and Prospect of Community Construction in Chinese Cities

In China, along with the gradual improvement of the market economic order, the service awareness of governments at various levels has been constantly intensified, community construction has given increasing expressions to mutual-aid and cooperative relations and the abilities of self-governance and taking care of oneself, this directly involves the community's basic functions and concerns the improvement of the level of "human solicitude" in urban construction.

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Human Solicitude Prevails in Communities

With the gradual weakening of the role of work units, the community service function has stood out prominently. Besides improving the connotation and quality of residents' cultural life, communities are increasingly playing the "leading part" of human solicitude in the aspect of constantly satisfying the universal needs of residents.

The Zhongshan District of Dalian City this year has invested over 100,000 yuan in setting up a community employment mutual-aid organization, the "Hongshun Community Weaving" unit, which provides laid-off workers with free use of sites and weaving tools, organizes them to engage in manual weaving to produce woven works of art for the Republic of Korea (ROK), it has given jobs to more than 300 older laid-off workers. At present, the district has established 40 such community units for the unemployed and laid-off workers, accounting for 57.1 percent of the district's total.

Through an unimpeded community service network of telephone hotline and online paging, residents of the Shijingshan District of Beijing have enjoyed supra-convenient digital community life ahead of time. Apart from reporting to police and hospitals for help, the service network can provide over 20 items of service, including help for hourly job, dredging sewage, distributing clean vegetables, repairing household electric appliances and information consultation. Possibly encountered demands in daily life can almost all be satisfied by the community network.

Shanghai currently has 300,000-odd octogenarians; among these old people, over 280,000 lack the ability of taking care, or can only partially take care, of themselves, so providing service for the "elderly at home" is an important content of the government's "Starlight Program". Its community service centers have been praised as having "high standards, complete service facilities and rich content of activities."

Relying on various types of community service facilities, Nanjing City in Jiangsu Province has universally set up service networks for the elderly, the disabled, families of revolutionary martyrs and servicemen, laid-off workers and families with material difficulties, as well as service series including service for the convenience and benefit of the people, request for help and mutual aid, household service and rehabilitation, developing multi-level and all-directional community services. An army of 150,000-strong community service volunteers, relying on the community's neighborhood service station, has begun to turn the previous provisional, shock voluntary service activity into fixed, regular service at one's door. In such communities, people live and work in peace and contentment.

Establishing Self-Governance Communities

To get community construction close to the actual needs of the people, some affairs have to be decided through consultation by the residents themselves, because the residents themselves are clear about their own wishes and requirements. On this basis, if there are differences in the wishes and demands of different residents, then consultation and coordination can be conducted, and this will naturally lead to various kinds of cooperation, and good, logical and reasonable plans can be found. Such a process of mutual coordination is a "function" of the community. In light of the need of everybody, constructive proposals can be set forth, mutual consultation conducted and methods of implementation found out, this is what self-governance is meant.

Noted sociologist Fei Xiaotong pointed out the demand of such self-governance constitutes a new factor of the community organization. Optimized, reasonable social life can bring the residents' living quality to a new stage in a down-to-earth manner.

Due to the long-term influence of the planned economic system, administration-styled management exists to varying degrees in the neighborhood committee, a mass organization, its color of self-governance is dim, the degree of resident participation is low and the cohesive force is weak. At present, China's community construction is prompting the government to enhance its service functions, gradually weaken its administrative order to communities, thus enhancing the community's self-governing abilities.

The Haizhu District of Guangzhou City has organized a "Community Forum" where residents hold regular discussions on hot issues of their own concern, effecting a change from receiving others' education to airing opinions by "themselves". From the end of 1999 to early 2000, Nanjing City introduced a mechanism of competition to the democratic election of director to the neighborhood committee of the community; multi-candidate election is practiced in a wide area. In this city, governments at various levels should not willfully replace the head of the community. In March this year, the Huaihai Neighborhood Committee of Baixi District disbanded the administrative organ of the street office and set up the community's administrative affairs handling center, which was hailed as a revolution in the reform of China's urban administrative system.

The Huaihai Road Working Station, as a civilian-run non-enterprise unit, which combines specialized social service and community self-governance, takes as its aim to satisfy the diversified demands of the community, guide the community residents in their mutual help, provide convenience for residents' contact, study, recreation, leisure and work, and create a warm and harmonious community atmosphere. Through the establishment of a community welfare service institution which integrates community service, community culture and community sports into one entity and which is not aimed at making profits, the Huaihai Road Working Station is exploring a new model for community construction and development characterized by government guidance, multi-party cooperation, organization management and citizen participation.

Experts point out that on the basis of active mobilization of resident participation by the basic-level government, it is necessary to timely and fully delegate power to residents, increase opportunities for them to participate in decision making, and try as far as possible to hand the public affairs directly related to the residents from the community level to the resident for making decisions by the residents themselves.

By People's Daily Online

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