The Neighborhood Effect In Urban Environmental Governance And Its Solution

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization of China, the contradiction between natural resources and environment are getting increasingly acute. Meanwhile, with the improvement of living standards as well as the enhancement of consciousness for environmental protection, people demand much more for better environment rather than the status quo. Besides, people pay more attention to a kind of phenomenon called "NIMBY-Not In My Backyard" in the process of governance of urban environment. As for the location and construction of some public facilities, such as the power plants which are based on the refuse incineration, magnetically levitated train suspension and freeway, even though they can benefit the public service in the fields of society, economy and convenient transportation, they may also probably be a threat to the living environment and health conditions. As a result, people living around the site of these facilities are likely to feel disgusting or even resist them. They don’t want such kind of facilities to be sited in their backyards. That is the so-called "NIMBY".Having a deeper insight into the reason why people is adhering to the antipathy towards these projects, it can be found that the benefits of these facilities are shared by the whole of social community while the risks of them are borne by only a few people around them. The conflict is essentially due to people’s livelihood instead of politics."NIMBY" may trigger social crisis if it is in lack of effective administration and policies. The occurrence of "NIMBY" and the solution to it do reflect the capability of general administration of a city.It’s a complicated issue to comprehensively understand the key points of "NIMBY" and properly code with it in the governance of urban environment. This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding the "NIMBY" phenomenon on the basis of the review of previous studies. And then a case study of Shanghai Jiangqiao refuse incineration power plant is illustrated with more information about the meaning of "NIMBY". This paper also applies questionnaires and interviews to probe deep into the site selection of another refuse incineration power plant in Waigang Town, Jiading District, Shanghai. Finally, we come to the policies which are feasible in China, enhancing the assessment mechanism of environmental impact, establishing the system of public participation, improving compensation for environmental damage, so that the "NIMBY" contradictions could be avoided.