Services and surveillance during the pandemic lockdown: Residents’ committees in Wuhan and Beijing

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a lockdown of Wuhan, and strict control was imposed in many major Chinese cities, including the national capital of Beijing. Residents’ committee workers at the grass-roots level have played a critical role in the enforcement of the government’s pandemic prevention and control measures, through their day-to-day service and surveillance as local community managers. This article examines their work in Wuhan and Beijing neighbourhoods during the most critical periods of the outbreak, from late January to June 2020, and the challenges the workers faced as executors of the government’s community-based prevention policy. The two cities have developed different community strategies because of very different epidemiological situations and city functions.

Focus Group Discussion on Youth Participation in Vertical Housing Neighbourhood Space

Focus group discussion series were set up at the vertical housing of Kerinchi People Housing Project, Lembah Pantai with two different groups in separate venue and time. The analysis was done by using Atlas.ti after transcribing and coding the audio-taped of discussion, searching for networking on youth participation. The findings show youth demandingly indoor space compared to outdoor space due to open space inadequacy and absence of space quality yet lost the sense of belonging. Furthermore, the residents' committee neglected youth participation in the decision-making process or meeting with the committee has resulted youth for not to participate in the community actively. Keywords: youth; vertical housing; neighbourhood space; focus group discussion eISSN 2514-751X © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

Youth in Vertical Housing Neighbourhood Space: A Focus Group Discussion

Focus group discussion series was set up at the vertical housing of Kerinchi People Project Housing, Lembah Pantai with two different group in separate venue and time. The analysis was done by using Atlas.ti after transcribing and coding the audio-taped of discussion, searching for networking on youth participation. The finding shows youth demandingly indoor space compared to outdoor space due to open space inadequacy and absence of space quality yet lost the sense of belonging. Furthermore, the residents' committee neglected youth participation in decision-making process or meeting with the committee, has resulted from youth not to actively participate in the community.

Empowered Autonomy: The Politics of Community Governance Innovations in Shanghai, China

This paper examines the nature, process, and implication of recent community governance reforms in Shanghai with a focus on the potential role of these institutional innovations in generating social solidarity as heralded by social capital and civil society theories. Case analysis demonstrates that the practice of democratic governance creates institutional space and organizational resources for informal, public, and day-to-day engagement among residents. The elected residents’ committee system has become an extraordinary source of community sociability and solidarity. This is summarized and explained by the notion of “empowered autonomy,” in which state-led governance reforms stimulate and thicken horizontal networks and norms of reciprocity within a society.

The 'Shequ Construction' Programme and the Chinese Communist Party

In recent years, the community development programme called 'Shequ Construction' has been making rapid progress in China. The discussion surrounding the programme focuses on how to adjust the relationship between the street offices (which fall under the jurisdiction of the government) and the shequ residents' committees (defined as the people's self-governing entity). The programme has also led the debate over the position and role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the newly reconstructed shequ. While the party's Organization Department proposes the unification of the shequ party branches and shequ residents' committees, others maintain that the shequ party branch should be differentiated from the shequ residents' committee, which is still viewed as an agent of government. They say 'the greatest advantage of the CCP is that it is the embodiment of social power and it is not a non-socialist external force like the administrative organ'. Their proposal raises further questions: How should the party change its direction and guidance within the framework of the separation of government and society? Will this affect the party's ability to continue to provide society with effective 'guidance' and become representative of society? This paper will provide some clues to help answer these questions.