Existence Form And Governance Dilemma Of "Mixed Rural- Urban Community"

Urbanization and its resultant changes in urban-rural relations are the core topics of classical sociological research.In general,urbanization is a process in which cities expand constantly and incorporate surrounding villages.Since 1990 s,with advancement of Reform and Opening,China has started a new process of rapid urbanization.The urban-rural dual structure established from the Planned Economy era of China has had then disintegrated,and the rural population began to migrate to the cities in large numbers in various forms.In the transformed rural-urban fringe areas,local villagers that had already been living here and newly imported migrant-worker tenants who just found residence,urban residents of commercial housing and also “peasants moving upstairs” all live in the same area.Various sized corporations,industrial sites,and along with the villages interweave into each other in this fringe.All of this mixture constitutes a unique form of “mixed rural-urban community”.This phenomenon has led to an unprecedented blending of urban and rural elements in a new social pattern,which has tremendous impacts on rural-urban social development and social governance,deserving more detailed investigation.This paper intends to investigate qualitatively from the perspective of sociological research and introduce local variables into the field research on the “mixed rural-urban community” of several city-side villages on the fringe of C city.Following the framework of “space-relationship-organization”,this paper focuses on the dynamic process of spatial form generation,relationship form development and organizational form transformation of the mixed rural-urban community,followed by discussions of basic strategies of its social governance.Firstly,this paper carries out empirical research on the existence form of mixed rural-urban community from three aspects,which are space,relationship and organization:(1)From the perspective of spatial analysis,a certain kind of “problematic space” or “variational space” can be revealed.The direct planning of the national urbanization development strategy is founded on the system of urban development zone systems and has to balance among various interest demands.As a result,a series of complex changes have taken place in the overall space of the rural-urban fringes and in the micro-space of the farmyards.New cities have sprung up,and the spatial structure of old villages has rapidly disappeared,forming a new-old interlaced spatial appearance.The main manifestations are the disorder of village landscape,the overlapping of courtyard living space,the space congestion caused by population upside-down,the mixing and staggering of enterprise productive space and residential space,etc.While in the villagers' resettlement areas and commercial housing residences,there has been a “mixing” and “interaction” between peasants moving upstairs and urban citizens,which constitutes another spatial landscape of the mixed rural-urban community,and posed a severe challenge to the social governance in rural-urban fringes.(2)As a specific type of community,mixed rural-urban community and its internal relationship and interactions also present a variety of new forms of existence.Unlike the normal sense of urban or rural communities,because of unprecedented population mobility,there are many kinds of people living in the mixed rural-urban community,such as local villagers,migrant workers,urban residents and so on.Among them,the relationship between the villager landlord and migrant-worker tenants is the most influential.The relationship between the two seems to be established through the “leasing relationship”,but in fact far exceeds the scope of leasing and has rich social connotations,among which there are “attraction and affinity” based on the leasing relationship,shallow relationship with a sense of boundary as the old Chinese saying goes “well water does not concern river water”,the landlord's “soft restraint” and fierce criticism of tenants,and the outsider's indifference and “absolute no participation” in village affairs.The above-mentioned multi-faceted interaction and attitude constitute the real social relationship and existence form of the mixed rural-urban society.In addition,the “conflict” or “affinity” between enterprises and local villagers,the distinction and interaction between peasants moving upstairs and urban residents also constitute an important aspect of social relations on rural-urban fringe,showing a more complex social connotation.(3)The organizational form of the mixed rural-urban community is “multi-leveled”.Since the composition of the population in the mixed rural-urban community shows a special diversity,the grassroots organizational form is inevitably imbedded with a double structure correspondingly.The so-called "multi-leveled structure" mainly refers to the existence of both villagers' committee and residents' committee in rural-urban-fringe areas,forming a new organizational form of multi-leveled structure characterized by “villagers' committee and residents' committee in parallel” and “villagers' committee plus residents' committee”.Secondly,examining the “mixed rural-urban community” from the perspective of social governance,we will find that the grass-roots social governance on rural-urban fringe is facing many governance dilemmas including “space variation”,“relationship alienation” and “organization difficulties”.The alienation of basic social relations,the loss of village/community identities,the disintegration of public space,and the absence of multi-subject participation have greatly affected and restricted the development of social governance on rural-urban fringes.In the process of mixed community space governance,we should not only strive to resolve the problematic space or contradictory space from the macro perspective of policy planning,but also try to promote the microspace governance and make a good construction on public space as a governance strategy.At the same time,we should discover the meaningful relationship connections in seemingly chaotic social forms and apply them to the practice of grassroots social governance.In addition,given the practical experience of the two modes of “villagers' committee and residents' committee in parallel” and “villagers' committee plus residents' committee”,we should actively promote “comprehensive governance”,strengthen the connections between the villagers' committee and residents' committee,and construct a “multi-leveled structure” in the grass-roots autonomous organization system of suburban villages.Thirdly,on the issue of the future trend of the mixed rural-urban community in rural-urban fringes,this paper emphasizes that it will continue to exist for a very long term.Because of the long-time imbalance between urban and rural development accumulated by urban-rural dual structure,the deep contradiction caused by the “compressibility” of social changes in rural-urban fringes in the context of rapid urbanization will take a long time to resolve.However,we should also keep in mind that with the rapid development of China's economy and society,and the implementation of the national strategy for rural revitalization,the urban-rural dual structure and the new urban-rural dual structure will be largely disintegrated.For a long time,mixed ruralurban community has been symbolic as the further development of urban-rural dual structure and compressed development.For a typical landless peasant or a migrantworker tenant,one bears the imprint of poverty and backwardness of the countryside.While in the city-side peasants' resettlement communities,there is also a social gap between the peasants moving upstairs and urban residents.However,with the development of rapid urbanization and the narrowing of the urban-rural gap,the mixed rural-urban community will continue to exist as a landmark of “urban-rural integration” and become a symbol of progress of the times.