Community Governance Reform in Urban China: A Case Study of the Yantian Model in Shenzhen

Amajor feature of China’s urban transformation has been the breakdown of the danwei system and the consequent efforts at community building. Since the early 1990s when a movement for neighbourhood-based community building was launched, different practices have appeared and the urban community has changed remarkably. Whilst a number of works have documented this transition, few revealed in sufficient detail the dynamics of shaping the profile of community space. This paper argues that the government’s new-found priority on community building has facilitated the development of community autonomy and self-governance. The interplay of traditional administrative power and newly emerged community autonomous power drives the transition of the power structure at the grass-roots level in urban China. The Yantian Model of community governance in Shenzhen demonstrates how this transition unfolds as the reform of community governance embodies the interplay of these two different forces, probably with far-reaching impacts on state–society relations in urban China. * Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to the author, Linda Chelan Li, at: