A Study On Devolution Of Powers From Shenzhen Municipal Government To Govern At A Sub-municipal Level By The Analysis Of The Urban Renewal Program Of Luohu District

As for modern cities,devolution of powers from municipal government to district authorities refers to a clear and reasonable definition of the respective rights and responsibilities between these two levels of authorities which shall manage economic and social affairs to conform the objective laws of the market economy.The devolution can assure the efficient operation of the government,such as providing public services and goods.Because of the fact that our country has not formulated or promulgated legal norms for the division of the powers between the municipal and district governments,there is no clear and concrete guidance on the division of municipal powers.Usually,provincial(or municipal)governments can determine the scope of municipal and district powers by their own to meet the economic and social development and practical needs.Shenzhen is a typical city which has seen rapid urbanization and development since the Reform and Opening,and it is still growing rapidly now,but the prospects and effectiveness of development are increasingly constrained by limited space,so urban regeneration has become the inevitable choice to cope with the bottleneck and plays a vital role in the future development of the city.Some problems lay bare in the process of urban renewal in Luohu District,such as responsibilities overlap,unreasonable assignments and imbalanced rights and duties between municipal and district governments,declining efficiency of administration,and so on.What is the status of these problems? How to understand and solve these problems? It is worthy of being studied and the main content of this paper.This paper discusses the conflicts of governmental duty allocation in the Renewal Program and reform attempts carried out by Luohu District Government by mean s of analyzing the problems that have not yet been fundamentally solved in the pilot project and new problems aroused from the reforms.The main research methods include literature research,multi-case study and interviews.In detail,this paper summarizes the relevant theories and scholars' opinions on the allocation of government affairs,and sums up the relevant cases and other empirical and interview materials in the field of urban renewal in Luohu.This paper summarizes the following main problems arising from the pilot scheme in Luohu and analyzes their reasons: 1)the unequivalence of rights and responsibilities caused by non-synchronization of delegating powers and transforming duties in the process of governmental function transformation;2)unclear subjects of government powers and responsibilities caused by the main shortcomings in determining the scope of the vertical governments' rights and duties,such as the sameness,arbitrariness and non-normative features;3)uncertainties in assignments of rights and duties brought by the changing public policies;4)information communication failure under a closed governance system which makes it difficult to conveying information between corporations,communities and residents timely and effectively.This paper refines some successful experience from several developed countries' policies to allocate governmental rights and duties,and put forwards a series of opinions and suggestions in order to perfect the powers allocation between municipal and district governments,including introducing legislation to determine governance scope,administration by different categories and levels,encouraging the balance in diversified and equalized assignments,innovating governance models,and so on.