Collaborative governance: A potential approach to preventing violent demolition in China

Due to the unbalanced and confrontational state-citizen relationship, China's urban redevelopment has been accompanied with continuous violent conflicts, which to a large extent damages the public image of Chinese government in recent years. This article first overviews the governance dilemma underlying China's violent demolition from the perspective of institutional arrangement, and then argues a collaborative approach can be a remedy for the dilemma. After the introduction and definition of collaborative governance, this article demonstrates its application in preventing violent demolition with the Caojiaxiang project in Chengdu as a case. It is found that collaborative governance is advantageous in enhancing the legitimacy of governance, increasing the potential to find effective solutions, and enhancing the trust between government and citizens. Despite the disadvantages of collaborative governance, including limited effect and the dependence on social capital, quality of stakeholders' interaction and leadership, this paper argues the success of Caojiaxiang project may be duplicated given the following institutional requirements are met: 1) an institutional procedure to establish and operate evictees' association in urban redevelopment projects; 2) an effective complaint system for the upper-level government to monitor the malpractice of lower-level government; and 3) an judicial system independent of local governments and legal proceeding over any illegal behavior in demolition.     

地方政府行为变迁与城市战略规划演进

由于学科背景的差异,国内学者对于城市战略规划的认识存在诸多分歧。城市战略规划是"地方的事",要准确理解城市战略规划的起源、作用及其核心理论和方法论必须从地方政府行为特征入手。改革开放以后,随着国内外社会经济形势的变迁,我国地方政府已经经历了"企业经营型政府"和"城市经营型政府"两个阶段。与之相适应,我国城市战略规划也经历了产业主导和空间主导两个阶段。在当前经济社会面临重大转型和城市政府正在朝着"治理型政府"演进的时代背景下,我国的城市战略规划要以治理理论作为核心理论,积极推进城市战略规划从"政府主导"向"多元协调"转型、从"重结果"向"重过程"转型、从"宏伟叙事"向"嘘寒问暖"转型,使战略规划不仅真正成为凝聚社会各界的共同愿景,更要成为政府实现"善治"的政策平台和重要工具。     

The redevelopment of peri-urban villages in the context of path-dependent land institution change and its impact on Chinese inclusive urbanization: The case of Nanhai,China

Following nearly three decades of urban sprawl, China's urbanization has entered a new era of land redevelopment that encompasses built-up land in villages in a manner that is unprecedented. Village redevelopment involves both dramatic institutional change and governance restructuring. The extant literature on this redevelopment focuses primarily on top-down initiatives launched by urban governments, paying little attention to villages' responses as actual landholders. Through a case study of village redevelopment in Nanhai, this paper examines villages' behaviour during periods of institutional change and their interactions with urban governments to shape final outcomes. Institutional uncertainty emerges during path-dependent institutional change, as revealed through the absence of effectively executed planning control and unclearly defined profit sharing. As a result, villages and urban governments sign incomplete contracts for entire redevelopment plans. Such agreements result in disordered competition for land rents that take the form of villages ‘holding up’ the government that has previously made a commitment to the village pursuant to the contracts. Villages maximize their profits and attenuate the government's role in ensuring public revenue, whereas government compromises related to development control challenge the capacity of limited public governance. The government's concessions related to profit distribution result in increased inequality between more prosperous villages and other groups, such as migrant populations and remote rural villages. Research findings contribute to a comprehensive understanding of newly created governance in redevelopment and call for a critical evaluation of existing urban renewal policies to ensure that urbanization is an inclusive process.     

Shifts in governance modes in urban redevelopment: A case study of Beijing's Jiuxianqiao Area

Despite modes of governance having been recently identified, little research has explained the impetus for the formation and transformation of these modes of governance in an authoritarian political setting. This paper aims to close the gap by combining fragmented state and grassroots governance with institutionalism's “structure–agency” framework. A case study of Jiuxianqiao's redevelopment was undertaken to analyze its shifting modes of governance. The research found that the mobilized citizens and the Central government with its priority on social stability indirectly resulted in the formation of an alliance, which strongly counteracted the pro-growth coalition between Chaoyang's District Government and private enterprises in Jiuxianqiao redevelopment. Consequently, the alliance of the Central government and society moved the transformation from the realm of public–private governance to a more inclusive type of governance in urban redevelopment. However, additional research is needed to verify its generality in China's urban redevelopment.     

Political economy and urban planning: a comparative study of Hong Kong,Singapore and Taiwan

This study compares urban planning mechanisms that operate within Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The political economy of Hong Kong is in a state of flux. While the power of the government and the corporate interests remain largely intact, they are challenged by pro-China interests and a democratizing civil society. The land use planning system reflects this power contest. In face of both strong resistance from the development industry and China's eagerness to perpetuate a market-led society in post-1997 Hong Kong, the outcome of the power contest remains uncertain. The state-centred political economy of Singapore has bred a top–down land use planning system centrally controlled by the government. Not only has the government dominated the plan making process, the legislation has entrusted the public sector to scrutinize and guide private development through a discretionary development control system. The government is able to mobilize resources to implement plans with the tacit consent of a regulated and meritocracy-based society. In contrast, Taiwan's multi-layered government structure and its complicated relationships with business interests (`gold-power' alliance) within a cultural milieu with scant respect for rules and regulations, have produced a complex and yet loosely coordinated land use planning system. The Urban Planning Law emphasizes plan making and implementation by the public sector at the district level, but local authorities lack resources to implement plans. The regulatory development control system, to a large extent, is abused by the community and land use zoning is not taken seriously in general. As plan amendments can be made behind closed doors, the `gold-power' alliance has tried to rezone land for speculative purposes. The impact of the recent democratization process on the society's legal attitudes and the roles of planning in urban governance in Taiwan remains to be seen.     

Corporatist implementation and legitimacy: The case of privatisation in Swedish public housing

‘Corporatist implementation’ plays an important role throughout the Swedish rental sector. It is based on close ideological affiliations and adherence to common policy objectives among the Social Democratic government and the organised interests in the public rental sector. In this article, I describe how it works in rent policy as well in the programme for widened tenant influence over housing management and renewal In the mid‐1980s, however, the public landlord association invited a private company to manage and renew problem estates in public housing. The methods used by that company are examined and found to be in conflict with the objectives hitherto shared by Social Democratic governments and the ‘recognised’ interests in the public rental sector. I then go on to discuss the implications for the legitimacy of the existing ‘corporatist implementation’ structure, suggesting that a ‘de‐legitimisation’ of that structure would prove too costly and difficult for government Once such a structure is established, the sector's governability may increase, but politicians will find their range of options for change substantially limited.     

行业特色教学基地建设推动“实践育人”的模式探究——以重庆大学舆情专业人才培养为例

近年来,党和政府扎实推进网络强国这一国家战略,不断完善网信工作领导体制机制,加强网信人才队伍建设等。在高校普遍尚未设置"网信""舆情"专业情况下,如何敏锐把握新兴专业人才需求的市场变化,培养符合行业特色的紧缺专业人才,已经成为摆在政府和高校面前的一大课题。分析高校在舆情专业人才培养方面存在的问题,基于问题研究建设行业特色的实践教学基地模式,并通过重庆大学多年实践探索,以期为全国舆情信息人才联合培养提出可供借鉴的创新模式和实践路径。     

Which Chinese cities are more inclusive and why?

China's household registration system allows local governments to control migration by limiting migrants' eligibility to local public services. Many cities exclude migrant residents from important social benefits, which reduces labor mobility and contributes to the socioeconomic gap between migrants and urban natives. This study measures the extent of China's local migration restriction from the perspective of inclusive provision of public services and explains cross-city disparities. We define urban inclusiveness as the extent to which migrants can access social benefits provided locally and construct an urban inclusiveness index using factor analysis. We find significant cross-city differences in urban inclusiveness toward migrants. Statistical analyses suggest that local fiscal capacity and labor demand, instead of cultural tradition, are the major determinants of urban inclusiveness. We further use the gap between the inclusiveness toward high- and low-skilled migrants to measure local skill-based migration selectivity. We find that more developed cities, i.e., cities with larger populations, higher levels of gross regional product per capita, and greater shares of industrial sector, are more selective based on migrants' skills, while cultural openness does not help bring down skill-based selectivity. Our research suggests an instrumental view of migrants in China's urban policy that contributes to social inequality and the lack of labor mobility, which can restrict China's development in the long term.     

Construction business system in China: an institutional transformation perspective

During the transformational period from a planned economic system to a market-oriented one, China's construction business system is in an intermediate stage of development. The developing business system has played an increasingly important part in regulating the relations between various actors in the building sector, but the disordered situation in the construction market has fully revealed the shortcomings of the system. Using international experience and practice for reference, China is making efforts to promote the construction business system with Chinese characteristics. The institutional change involves reforms in legislation, property rights, price mechanism and the investment system. The crucial issue lies in deregulation, but this is difficult to realize for a government-led reform. Only if government's control and intervention are decreased enough can the construction market and related professional bodies play their proper roles so that the development platform of China's construction industry can be gradually perfected.     

New Professionalism: the post-industrial context

Definitions and perceptions of professionalism are continually challenged and transformed by public need, government interaction and institutional organizations. When the goals of those three entities are focused on near-term results, this poses a significant threat to the integrity, value and relevance of professional services. When the individual and corporate professional's profit margin, corporate shareholder responsibility and news media sensationalism are factored in, this short-termism dynamic is greatly magnified. Built environment professions are seen as particularly vulnerable to this threat, given that investments in buildings and infrastructure have long-life and high-performance service expectations. This commentary responds to the Building Research & Information special issue entitled ‘New Professionalism’ (2013, volume 40, number 1) and situates the predicament of built environment professionals within an emerging historical transition: that of the post-industrial information society with its characteristic knowledge workers and cybernetic bases of production. Long-term virtues of the built environment mission such as sustainability, public good and evidence-based design are shown to be reflections of the transition from industrial era short-termism to post-industrial systemic foresight. This commentary supplements the special issue papers with a discussion on the broader academy's potential role in breaking the stranglehold of contemporary short-termism in the built environment professions.     

Private Rental Housing in Hong Kong

This paper examines selected aspects of housing policy and its influence on private rental housing in Hong Kong. Its ambitions are modest, in part because so little research has been conducted on the sector, as a consequence of the small size of the sector as well as the concentration of socio-political, economic and policy analyses on the other major housing sectors, namely public renting and home ownership. It is argued that a fundamental function of private renting, to provide a functional substitute and counter-balance to distortions in the market for private home ownership, has been systematically undermined in Hong Kong. In spite of its historical importance in meeting Hong Kong people's housing needs, the sector's decline has been steep and it can now be fairly described as a marginalised tenure, despite incomplete structural adjustment post- Asian Financial Crisis. It is suggested that a fundamental reason for the decline of the private rental sector has been the impact of government policy, which undermined the private rental sector and thus an important element of the market mechanism in housing provision. The government's ideology of home ownership has also functioned to transfer lower middle-income families into the owner occupied sector. Although the Hong Kong government has not been as overtly hostile to this sector as governments have been elsewhere, it nevertheless also seems to envisage no real role for the private rental sector in a housing delivery system molded by policy preference for home ownership, rather than fostering viable economic competition by also facilitating an efficient private rental sector.     

Environmental development and governance in western China since 2000: a case from Guizhou Province

This paper adopts political ecology as an analytical framework, along with a case study approach, to assess environmental development and governance in western China under China’s Western Development Strategy. This study of the Beipan River Basin, Guizhou Province, revealed that not only has environmental quality in the Basin improved, but public awareness and local governments’ willingness regarding environmental protection have been enhanced since the year 2000. Challenges remain. Future environmental effort in western China demands a long term and holistic approach including: financial investment and law enforcement by central and local government, public participation, and the capacity building of local governments.     

黔东南州土建类专业基础建设人才需求分析与建议

为立足地方,服务地区,彰显办学特色,了解贵州省黔东南州土建类专业基础建设人才的现状及需求情况,对黔东南州内66家企(事)业单位进行调研分析。调研发现:基层用人单位原有专业人员知识结构滞后,对土建类高层次及专业技术人才的需求大,市场上水利水电、城乡规划、路桥等专业人才匮乏。为此,凯里学院建筑工程学院从强化专业建设、人才培养、课程设置、实验室建设、校外实践教学等方面实现办学转型,最终为用人单位培养了一大批具有创新能力和工程实践能力的高素质应用型土建类人才。     

台湾地貌改造运动

台湾每年的公共工程建设预算达数千亿台币。公共工程的类型,包含了各级道路．桥梁．车站．机场、港口品。渔港,学校．行政厅舍．新市镇。农地重划．风景区．河海工程．水岸．造林．水土保持工程等,不胜枚举,长期以来,台湾地貌即被这些公共工程所形塑,以往这些工程,上焉者虽然满足其原定功能,却无暇顾及生态可持续．环境美学．人文历史．社区参与等多元价值,而有“治一经损多纬”的问题。下焉者可能连原定之目标都无法达成。地貌改造运动的目的,即在重新界定公共工程制造者的价值观．公共工程的决策过程以及制造流程。过去数年间过地貌改造运动,我们已经局部扭转了若干粗制滥造的现象,改变了参与公共工程的公务员及专业者的价值观,此一运动以可持续发展为核心价值,隐含了减量．朴素与崇尚自然的环境美学,这一价值观通过政府根关部门与专业界的全面动员,必将逐步渗透到所有的公共建设,而及于台湾各个角落,台湾的民间工程,往昔房地产开发的豪华浮夸风园泡沫经济的崩溃而稍有转向,趋于理性简朴。城市市民也逐渐重视生态保护,而形成一种素朴的生活哲学,以公共工程为起点的台湾地貌改造,若可以与民间工程的理性设计潮流合流,则将可以相互激荡,而产生一种以可持续与朴素为主的环境美学观,再假以社区营造所产生的地域特色,则台湾岛屿与城市的地域美学,将可以逐渐成型,这也正是台湾地貌改造运动的终极目标。     

Housing Investment Trusts: A New Structure of Rental Housing Provision?

Recent governments in Britain have sought to attract financial institutions into private rental housing in order to increase the scale, professionalism and reputation of the sector and thereby to 'modernise' private landlordism. In 1996, in order to provide an attractive vehicle for the financial institutions to invest in the sector, the government introduced legislation permitting the establishment of housing investment trusts. These residential property companies have a reduced tax liability compared with normal property companies. However, no housing investment trusts have so far been established and none seem likely to be set up. This paper reports on qualitative interviews with financial institutions to examine why housing investment trusts have proved to be a policy failure. It is argued that the rules governing such trusts did not reflect the normal operations of a property company and that the existing structure of housing provision in the private rented sector was itself an obstacle to the modernisation of private landlordism.     

中国国家公园社区共管机制构建框架 研究

中国国家公园社区共管机制构建对于实现保护目 标、保障社区权益、降低管理成本具有重要意义,但面临政策 模糊、内涵不清、类型庞杂的问题。基于文献调查法、案例研 究法、实地调查法和访谈调查法,明确了中国国家公园社区共 管机制建设的概念、目标、主体和客体,提出了基于社区管 控、扶持、协商、协议和合作五大类15个小类的社区共管机 制构建框架,分析了各类社区共管机制的适用条件和范围,从 法律、体制、市场、资金和社会5个方面指出社区共管机制建 设的实施路径。创新性地提出了中国国家公园社区共管机制构 建的理论框架,深化了对自然保护地社区共管的理论认识,为 各个体制试点的社区共管机制类型选择、国家林草局社区相关 政策制定提供参考依据。     

重庆瑞达城市规划设计有限公司招聘启事美国"特别区"政府之经验与启示研究——兼论中国设置跨界功能区的基本思路

美国是一个以大都市区为主的地方政府多元化、复杂化的国家,但在其无序化的背后保持着区域治理的有序化和有效性。通过研究美国特区政府的运作模式发现,其跨界治理具有明显的有效性,具体而言,特别区能够提供区域性、专业化、多元化的公共服务,这是其生存与发展的核心价值;特别区具有独立的政府特权,为独立自主地运转提供了强有力的政治保障;特别区是美国协调地方政府横向关系的常规化制度安排。这些对我国大都市区的跨界治理具有一定的借鉴价值。本文提出我国在行政区划不做大调整的前提下应尝试"跨界功能区"的实践探索,尤其是在长三角、京津唐等成熟区域率先设立跨界"特别规划区"的跨界治理新单元。     

英国建筑专业体制变革的动态与启示——读Edge报告《协同谋变革》有感

环境领域的多学科智库Edge的研究报告《协同谋变革》反映了英国建筑专业体制变革的最新动态。本文从"新型专业化"的角度简要介绍该报告的背景和主要内容,分析从中可能得到的启示。报告提出的建议涉及到以下领域:(1)专业伦理和公共利益;(2)教育、资质和知识体系的开发;(3)专业组织以及专业与政府的关系;(4)各专业之间的战略协同。这些建议对我国建筑专业体制的改革具有借鉴作用。     

The Future of the Countryside and the Future of the Planning Profession

Taking the relational nature of participatory governance as a point of departure, this paper interrogates the attitude, behaviour and thinking of planners in urban Zimbabwe. Particular emphasis is placed on the planners' interaction with the public. The discussion analyses one city's planning system as it implements an ambitious “governance outreach programme” which involves interacting with youths who are using public space illegally. The central argument of the paper is that it is difficult to operationalise participatory governance in planning mainly because the relational nature of governance requires planners to act in ways that conflict with their preferred role as technical experts. The discussion exposes how pointless it can be for bureaucrats to interact with the public, when the participants' attitude, means, behaviour and style express no confidence in the institutional framework. The paper suggests that the transformation from government to governance is not merely procedural, and requires a deep cultural change on the part of planners.     

The transformation of regional governance in China: The rescaling of statehood

Urban entrepreneurialism and intensive inter-city competition prevail in post-reform China, which has been extensively documented in the literature. However, decentralization is not the only characterisation of China's changing central–local relationship since 1978. Since the 2000s, economic development and agglomeration in China have created more scope of and need for collaboration. Regional collaboration is valued and driven by both central and local government. The aim of this research is to present various types of ‘regionalisation’ initiatives and examine the development of regional governance in China. It is found that there are two main actors leading the current regional practices, that is, the central government (the top-down mechanism) and local government (the bottom-up mechanism). Nevertheless, in terms of institutional arrangement, there has been no formal regional institution or informal regional coalition for either of the mechanism thus far. Moreover, both bottom-up and top-down regional governance initiatives lack substantial participation and multilateral negotiation between cities. There are essentially two different readings of the rationale of regional governance. While the bottom-up collaborative development is envisioned by the local entrepreneurial government to use regional competitiveness to promote local development, the top-down national and regional agenda is used by the central government to tackle discretionary local development. Therefore, the emerging regional governance in China is hybrid and complicated. With reference to the Western theoretical perspectives of state spatiality, state rescaling and politics of scale, this study argues that the emerging regional practices in contemporary China represent another round of changing statehood after governance downscaling to the urban level. This is in response to the territorial problems such as administrative fragmentation and excessive competition caused by earlier decentralisation and localism. It is held that, however, the state rescaling process is not a straightforward process but ridden with conflicts and tensions. Different actors at different spatial levels are articulating their vested interests at the regional scale. The building of regional governance is hence contested by complex inter-governmental politics, especially the division of central–local power and responsibility.