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Unlike many developed countries where sustainable development has been implemented at neighborhood scale, sustainable planning research and action has still been concentrated at the national level and little has focused on the neighborhood level in China. This issue was highlighted by the demand of facilitating sustainable development and significa...
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Context 1
... municipal governments have delegated comprehensive functions to 'shequ' and the latter has rapidly developed in structure and function following the Central Government's instruction to 'strengthen grassroots regime construction' [60]. The urban local governance structure has become a multi-layer system consisting of the governments and autonomous organization as shown in Figure 2. The governments include municipal governments at the top, district government in the middle, street office at the bottom while the autonomous organization mainly refers to Community Residents' Committee (CRC). ...
Context 2
... regime construction' [60]. The urban local governance structure has become a multi-layer system consisting of the governments and autonomous organization as shown in Figure 2. The governments include municipal governments at the top, district government in the middle, street office at the bottom while the autonomous organization mainly refers to Community Residents' Committee (CRC). ...
Context 3
... the role of shequ in implementing governmental policies at lowest local level and getting feedback is irreplaceable within the local governance structure. Politically, although shequ is named as an autonomous organization and mainly accountable to the shequ residents, the operation of CRC was largely affected by the street office, especially financial and human resource issues (as the dashed line in Figure 2). This institutional arrangement and somehow bureaucratization is criticized for hindering the shequ autonomy. ...
Context 4
... the role of shequ in implementing governmental policies at lowest local level and getting feedback is irreplaceable within the local governance structure. Politically, although shequ is named as an autonomous organization and mainly accountable to the shequ residents, the operation of CRC was largely affected by the street office, especially financial and human resource issues (as the dashed line in Figure 2). This institutional arrangement and somehow bureaucratization is criticized for hindering the shequ autonomy. ...
Context 5
... municipal governance hierarchy, as shown in Figure 2, is a three-level vertical system. There has been evidence of frequent or even inevitable intervention of Street Office, which is the agency and lowest level of urban local government, with community autonomy in terms of top-down (Street office to Community Residents' Committee) financial allocation and human resource nomination authority, etc. (Expert 1). ...
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... The results of the survey showed that self-organized renovation is significant for a community's sense of place, identity and development in the sustainable transformation of society. Zhang et al. [20] showed that most of communities received little support from national policy and local governance. Self-organized renovation is a key step to engaging neighborhood residents and fostering a bottoms-up approach into the planning and decision-making process. ...
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... Their regeneration must confront multifaceted issues. China's old urban neighborhood renewal (OUNR) policies and processes, after multiple updates in the past 20 years, have expanded from simply upgrading housing stock to greening the entire neighborhood, gradually incorporating sustainability goals in the social, economic, environmental, and institutional dimensions [1]. This article engages with the increasing call for improving long-term practices. ...
... Recently, a sense of urgency to address urban sustainability has accelerated policy experiments in many urban renewal initiatives, such as the Eco-City, Sponge City, and Zero-Waste City [22]. The evolution of both the SCD and OUNR programs reflects this experimental strategy [1]. Thus far, the SCD initiative has allowed 30 pilot cities to explore solutions for socio-environmental issues (water in particular) under SCD regulations and technical guidelines. ...
... In China, because most sustainable development research and action have occurred at national to city scales, neighborhood-level research remains scarce [1,50]. Comprehensive sustainability evaluations of the SCD/OUNR pilot projects have yet to occur. ...
Globally, old urban neighborhood transformation has become a new urban sustainability focus for its significant contribution to the United Nation’s Sustainable
Development Goal 11. A regeneration-oriented approach is particularly important for
Chinese cities with a dwindling land supply, obsoleting infrastructure, and inadequate standard of living. Using a mixed-methods approach informed by BREEAM Communities, we examined two Chinese initiatives - old urban neighborhood renewal (OUNR) and sponge city development (SCD) - through a comprehensive study of pilot project sustainability, policy emphases and gaps, and broader governance implications. We found that SCD’s top-down technocratic management was highly efficient in enhancing neighborhood hydrological functions and physical environment. However, successes were undermined by the lack of climate considerations and civic participation. Besides actionable recommendations for applied scholarship and policymaking in China, we provide insight into how the OUNR/SCD initiatives may broadly inform worldwide urban regeneration practices through project and policy experimentations that build adaptive capacity.
... As discussed above, a strong NSOC can facilitate positive impacts on the interactions between residents and their neighborhoods, and thus also foster sustainable development of neighborhoods [33]. However, although numerous NSOC studies have been conducted in recent years, there is currently no study that maps the knowledge structure whilst also pointing out the research trends in this field. ...
The literature on neighborhood sense of community (NSOC) has undergone a period of rapid growth in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current state of knowledge on NSOC by mapping the knowledge domain and identifying the development trends of this field. A total of 1214 articles that were obtained from the Web of Science core collection between the years 1986 and 2022 served as the data sample, and Citespace was used as the tool for bibliometric analysis and visualization for this study. The results indicated: (1) NSOC research continued to attract the attention of scholars in recent years; (2) NSOC research covered a wide range of subject categories, including urban studies, public health, environmental studies, social work, and urban planning; (3) the Journal of Community Psychology appears to be among the most influential journals, with the greatest infiltration in NSOC research; (4) the collaboration networks of authors and institutions need to be strengthened, and the USA is the country that had the most publications and the strongest influence; (5) the knowledge framework was mainly based around 10 clusters, including place attachment; social life; urban form; community organization; exploring adolescents’ sense; psychological sense; cultural capital; Perth, Western Australia; mental well-being; and neighborhood planning. The scope of existing NSOC research covers a wide range of subject areas, including the concepts of NSOC, the measurement scales of NSOC, the impact of the neighborhood built environment on NSOC, the meditating role of NSOC between the built environment and residents’ mental health and subjective well-being, and the relationship between NSOC and other social factors. NSOC research in rural areas, NSOC research of immigration populations, NSOC research in the context of smart communities and cites, and the relationship between NSOC and health will be the focuses in future studies.
... This empowerment is an important and valuable suggestion and effective supplement in the process of urban governance, so that the ideal urban planning public participation becomes possible. Social justice based on human equality, dignity, and rights is one of the core objectives of urban governance [30]. Participatory videos offer the public a greater opportunity to speak. ...
... Everyone should be an independent individual, a representative of themselves, and put forward their own views and express their own voice. Participatory videos bring a wide range of public participation, provides the possibility of expression and a voice for various groups of society-within a certain range-and alleviate the plight of some vulnerable groups marginalized by mainstream society [30]. As a form of relatively 'accessible' visual art, images can break the elite monopoly of art to some extent, help marginalized groups to accumulate cultural and social capital, and become a means for marginalized groups to build their own subjective spiritual space so as to realize the shaping and production of the social space [31]. ...
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... The lack of collective experience and memory of living together makes the creation of community identity in Chinese urban neighborhoods very difficult (Zheng, 2016). Local residents are also found to lack awareness, willingness and/or opportunities to participate in public affairs and community governance, especially in policy-making process (Zhang et al., 2018). In this paper, however, we seek to draw attention to the rejuvenation of community in urban China under the COVID-19 pandemic, represented by the thriving spontaneous groups led by the civil society. ...
The persistent COVID-19 pandemic has continuously brought the basic level of urban governance to the forefront. Urban community governance in China involves both state-led and civil society-led governance. Whilst previous studies have noted the weak civil society and delocalization in modern China, recent research reveals the re-localization trend shown during the pandemic. In this brief research report, we seek to provide a detailed account of the hyper-local dynamism within civil society in responding to the public health emergency, focusing on the thriving spontaneous groups in Shanghai during the COVID-19 outbreak in March and April 2022. By dissecting the multi-level, multi-actor governance, we reveal the significant roles played by spontaneous groups in complementing state-led governance and in building united urban communities in combatting the worst effects of COVID-19. We outline the types and organizational structure of various spontaneous groups. We also critically reflect on their implications and potential in advancing urban community governance in China. We argue that there is an imperative need to further explore how these spontaneous groups can catalyze transformative changes that can for example empower grassroots actors and motivate wider public participation in community decision-making.
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Establishment of facilitation offices in deteriorated neighborhoods of Tehran for more than a decade has led to a significant transition from top-down and authoritative intervention into a bottom-up and participatory-based renewal; one of the important parts of this transition is the adoption of a distinct approach to provide neighborhood development plans (NDPs). This approach is based on the identification of the main problems of neighborhoods, attention to all dimensions, adaptation with parallel and upstream plans, and activation of the participation of local communities and collaboration of stakeholders in public, private, and third sectors. In this paper, the neighborhood development planning approach to the problem of deterioration and obsolescence in Tehran is defined; the most important parts are the content, features, process of provision, executive framework, and assessment phases of the plan. Despite the necessity of urban renewal-regeneration integrated and systematic planning, the challenge of ignoring the unique characteristics of neighborhoods will be addressed by NDPs Scaling and Framing. Actually by defining a new level in medium and short-term plans, Tehran Municipality changed the approach of urban planning. Developing a dynamic, flexible, partnership-driven and scalable framework for dealing with the urban decay to correctly identify the neighborhoods key issues and the point solutions has been the new approach's main objective.
... Given many sustainability assessment tools for neighbourhoods, such as LEED (-ND), BREEAM (Communities), TAHER, CASBEE (-UD), DGNB (-NSQ), and Beam Plus ND, have taken effect globally, systematically and locally reviewing the effect of the included factors in shaping neighbourhood development is important. China is one of the largest and quickest developing countries and has undergone significant sociopolitical transitions since the 1980s [18]. Challenges such as traffic congestion, land overdevelopment, declining social capital, environmental deterioration, urban sprawl, and social inequality, have spotlighted neighbourhood sustainability issues [19]. ...
Can sustainability and liveability be simultaneously pursued at the neighbourhood level? Adopting neighbourhood satisfaction as a proxy to indicate liveability at the neighbourhood scale, this paper investigated how the residential subjective perception of sustainability factors interacted with neighbourhood satisfaction in the context of three different neighbourhoods in Chengdu, China. This began with a comprehensive literature review to construct the neighbourhood sustainability framework. Then, a total of 510 cross-sectional questionnaire surveys was conducted in Chengdu. Logistic regression was employed to investigate significant associations. The findings revealed that the ‘sense and habit of energy saving’ is the only sustainability factor that is negatively associated with neighbourhood satisfaction in commodity-housing neighbourhood. Compared with intangible factors, tangible or physical sustainability factors are more likely to contribute to improving neighbourhood satisfaction and suppressing moving intention. The study also evidenced the contextual differences of significant associations among danwei, resettlement, and commodity-housing neighbourhoods coexisting in transitional China. This calls for adaptive and contextual rather than standardized, top-down strategies for developing sustainable neighbourhood planning to simultaneously promote sustainability and liveability in Chengdu, China. Finally, a specific contextual framework was provided as policy implications for developing local and adaptive solutions.
... This emergent agenda has also been enhanced by a commitment to the discourse of 'ecological civilisation' within the 13th Five Year Plan which establishes an emphasis on greener forms of urbanisation. 1 To date, the realisation of this new agenda has proved challenging. Although a number of sustainability projects have been initiated at the local level (Shi et al., 2016), the development of sustainable neighbourhoods has been hindered by a number of identifiable barriers, including poor policy articulation at the national level, lack of appropriate standards and assessment tools, ambiguous legislation, and inadequate public participation (Shi et al., 2016;Zhang et al., 2018). Overcoming these challenges is likely to call for concerted efforts for reform from actors at all spatial levels. ...
... It is likely however, that if GI is to make a key contribution within Chinese urban areas that knowledge will need to be developed which can help overcome numerous pre-existing sustainability challenges. Firstly, there is a concern that whilst the ongoing policy of 'opening up communities' through the erosion of traditional Danwei work unit structures could encourage community empowerment, that it may also lead to an exposure to undesirable forms of new infrastructure (You, 2016;Zhang et al., 2018). Developing an appreciation of those physical attributes that communities value could enhance an understanding of potential trade-offs. ...
Rapid urbanisation has resulted in a series of urban sustainability challenges. Green infrastructure, with its associated emphasis on multifunctionality, has been advocated by scholars and practitioners alike as a key part of responses seeking the transition to sustainable urban environments. In support of this, a number of assessment frameworks have emerged which seek to assess green infrastructure needs and opportunities. Increasingly it has been recognised that such frameworks will need to provide a greater degree of emphasis upon social and perceptual values and focus more actively upon the neighbourhood scale. This need is particularly apparent within a Chinese context. Research on the role of green infrastructure within China, however, has tended to prioritise comprehensive city-wide or regional assessments. To date, there have been very few studies at the neighbourhood level which have attempted to consider both objective and subjective GI characteristics and how barriers might be mediated. In response, this paper seeks to develop an improved understanding of neighbourhood level GI needs. Through the use of both objective and subjective indicators linked to levels of green infrastructure provision and satisfaction, we outline how strategic responses might be developed to different neighbourhood contexts to aid a more adaptive and spatially sensitive approach to sustainable urbanisation.
