Bringing City Back And Rethinking Of Resident Autonomy

Focusing on the empirical paradox between the de-administrative reform of communities and the diversification of community governance structure,this paper aims to re-understand the nature,logic and mechanism of community governance,which is the root of urban systems in China from the perspective of resident autonomy reform practice centered on the decentralization of state and society.This study conducted the field investigation in many cities and used the research method od case study.The theories of multi-center cooperative governance and country-social binary relations from western countries in the mainstream are not capable of guiding the modernization of China's community governance effectively.Based on the re-understanding of resident autonomy,this study will reveal the principle and mechanism of urban public order production in our country from the perspective of "central-local-public" interactive relationship in our country,then to cast some light on the modernization reform of community governance,which is the root of urban system.Under the decentralization of state and society,our country has gone through four administrative reforms aiming at resident autonomy,since the implementation of the community construction movement.In practice,however,it has fallen into the vicious circle from "community de-administrativeization-diversified governance reform" to "marginalization of neighborhood committees-fragmentation of community governance" and to "re-administration of neighborhood committees-integration of community governance"."Shenzhen Model" is the typical representative in this area.The resident autonomy reform has plunged into a dilemma,because of the strong endogenous demand of community for governmental function.The current cities have diverse living forms,such as village community,social housing community,and commercial housing community.According to the expenditure responsibility of urban public service and the modern fiscal balance principle,this study re-classifies them into nominal community and real community.Specifically,commercial housing community and social housing community belong to the real community,which are to be studied in this article,and village community is nominal community.The confusion between the nominal community and the real community led to the dislocation of the reform of urban community governance in "Shenzhen model".Under the open economic structure,urban real communities become a purely regional community due to the separation of blood-based and geography-based relations.The total social capital of resident individuals is composed of family relations,social relations and community relations.The differences in the total social capital and the structure of social capital for residents determine their endogenous dynamics of community engagement and participation.Community participation shows characteristics of "de-elitism," "aging," and "light-communal" public relations.Therefore,urban communities are neither completely "unrelated neighbors",nor the basis of resident autonomy with the core of regional,relationship,normative and identity.This requires the redefinition of the goals and social foundation of community building.Due to the "failure" of the path of community diversity governance in community public affairs,"functional classification-organizational separation-power structure change",it is necessary to re-examine the theoretical hypotheses and fallacious reforms behind the "three-point method of administration,service and autonomy".Based on the analysis of the concrete content,attribute characteristics and the generating mechanism of community authority in public affairs,this research reconstructs the classification system of community public affairs based on the scope of public goods overflow and monopoly.Then it puts forward that there is a unique semi-administrative-semiautonomous mechanism based on the core of community committees,besides pure administrative,market and autonomy mechanisms.Based on the analysis of the nature of the community neighborhood and the characteristics of the community public affairs,the generalist governance,in which the community committees serve as the core,is simpler and more efficient,flexible and responsive,compared with the specialist governance model.From three dimensions of the "article","block","country",the study has found that the transfer of government functions into the community is practical and reasonable.However,this does not necessarily lead to the mutual exclusions and conflictions between the administrative and autonomous functions of community committees.This is because China's community governance is a kind of chained governance structure with administrative,semi-administrative-semi-autonomous,and autonomous mechanism,instead of a multiple net-governance structure.The chained community governance structure is rooted in China's urban multi-level core political system and the double-layer governance mechanism that is combining the features of centralization and decentralization.This model is far different from the network governance structure in U.S.,which is rooted in the metropolitan multi-center political system and quasi-market competition and cooperative governance mechanism.Compared with the multi-center cooperative governance model in the metropolitan area of United States,the economic efficiency of the double-layer governance mode is not lower,while,at the same time,it helps to solve the problem of fairness,justice and other social efficiency problems in urban areas with some institutional advantages.With the gradual transition from urban development to urban management stage in urban centers in large cities,urban society has also been transformed from a simple society to a complex one.Under the background of the emergence of a large number of "rule of law surplus" affairs,the upward shift of urban economic functions and the downward shift of urban management and service functions,and the interests of the central government,local governments and the public have changed.Therefore,the distribution of power and responsibility among the vertical government in large urban areas and social governance mechanisms need to make the corresponding adjustments and reforms.At present,the focus of our country's reform of community governance modernization lies not in community de-administration based on the government and social decentralization,but in the construction of the institutionalized support and cohesion mechanism between the administrative,semi-administrative semi-autonomous,and autonomous mechanisms.