China And The Korean Community Building Compared

Community development has become an important priority during globalization and urbanization process in many nations. Since 1950's Community development movement which UN suggested has been a significant social development model. Both China and South Korea has experienced modernization process during relatively short period. Under conditions of structural changes in the society, it is true that the public administration has been requiring a new governing model. By building up a new regional administrative system, society can actively respond to rapidly changing socio-economical environment. Therefore both Chinese and South Korean central government implemented community development policy in 1990s. In particular, the government has endeavored to reform the public sector and provide the more competitive and efficient public services.By comparative analysis between Chinese and South Korean community development, this study explored their characteristics and common features. Especially, this study analyzed a case study of Shanghai's and Seoul's community development and community organizations focusing on community self-governing organizations.Although two nation's political, economical and cultural systems and backgrounds are different, there are some similarities between Chinese and South Korean community development. Both Chinese and South Korean communities are kind of administrative communities, which are divided by government's administrative management. Central government implements community development policy in order to play the effective role for social change and progress. It is government-driven, top-down reform. And both governments attempt to enhance residents' self-governing capacity.In addition, this study attempts to classify community organizations into five categories by analyzing their functions and features. They are Community administrative organization, Political party organization, Community self-governing organization, Community management economic organization and Other community organization. Based on the comparative analysis about community organization in Shanghai and Seoul, the result of this study can be summarized as follows. Community organizations in Shanghai and Seoul tend to be pluralistic and multi-central. Especially, resident's organizations which are informal and spontaneous are increasing. This study figured out that government-driven, top-down community development causes the decrease of formal self-governing organizations, such as residents' committees in Shanghai and resident self-governing committees in Seoul. At the same time, community organizations which are based on property right play more important roles in community self-governing function.