Urban Governance System Research Articles

Enhancing the synergy governance capability of urban communities based on Bayesian network: A case of Jinan city

The rapid pace of urbanization has brought about a plethora of challenges for urban communities, prompting the advocacy of collaborative governance as a means to tackle management issues effectively. However, fostering strong collaboration among multiple governance entities remains a significant hurdle in urban communities governance. This study addresses this challenge by exploring the complex structure of urban communities' collaborative governance systems, with a focus on enhancing collaborative governance capability. Drawing on Bayesian network (BN) theory and utilizing the case of Jinan, this article investigates the intrinsic mechanisms of achieving collaboration in urban communities. This study establishes a Bayesian network model for collaborative governance of urban communities, providing a visual representation of the intricate interactions among multiple governance entities. We employ a data-knowledge-driven approach for BN structure learning. This approach tackles issues such as the lack of cyclic dependency capability and the impact of small datasets on model accuracy. Furthermore, we analyze the collaborative mechanism through Bayesian reasoning. The findings underscore the pivotal entities and five key factors that significantly influence collaborative governance capability. Lastly, policy implications are drawn to enhance the collaborative governance capability of urban communities.

Dual Systems of Urban Villages: Autonomy and Informal Governance Mechanisms of Yuan Village in Guangzhou

Implementing demolition and transformation policies in urban villages is essential for effective urban governance. However, these villages possess distinctive governance models and entities that set them apart from general urban and rural communities. This study examines the autonomous “informal governance” process in Guangzhou's Yuancun urban village through a case study approach. It investigates the formation mechanisms of the “dual system”. The study underlines the significance of grassroots innovation and the Chinese Communist Party's role in attaining governance autonomy. Despite the government's aim to integrate urban villages into the urban governance system, persistent challenges arise from these unique models and entities. The Village Company plays a pivotal role in promoting stable governance through participatory practices and economic advantages. Resolving the complex issues in urban villages necessitates integrated economic, political, and social solutions. Empowering the Village Company to handle specific public affairs can facilitate the transition towards the modernization of grassroots governance.

Organizational features of the reform of local self-government in 1870 in the county towns of the Central Chernozem region (on the example of the Tambov province)

Importance. Cities in Russian history have always been distinguished by their special social, political, economic and cultural status, which was also manifested in internal organizational aspects. For almost two and a half centuries, there has been a domestic city government, which has gone through many modernization stages and has become an important socio-political institution in the field. In this regard, the issues of continuity and traditions in its development remain important. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze the organizational features of the urban reform of 1870 in the counties of the Central Chernozem region.Materials and Methods. The source basis of the study is the materials of the State Archive of Tambov region and published publications of the Tambov Provincial Statistical Committee. Various legal acts are used to describe the mechanisms of regulatory regulation of urban selfgovernment. The methodological basis of the research is based on the principles of objectivity, historicism and consistency.Results and Discussion. The process of implementing the reform of urban self-government in 1870 in the provinces of the Central Chernozem region lasted for several years and was mostly completed only in 1873. This situation was explained by a number of reasons: firstly, the law did not contain norms aimed at the transition from the old system of urban governance to the new one, secondly, the legislator did not set a strict time frame related to the implementation of the reform, thirdly, urban societies themselves slowed down the process of reorganizing local government, making numerous mistakes in procedural There are internal disagreements among the electors.Conclusion. The formation of a new system of self-government in the county towns of the Central Chernozem region had a number of common legalized and arbitrary features. The “delayed” procedure for the enactment of the law made it possible to organize elections in provincial centers and form the practice of work of supervisory authorities. In some cities, the implementation of the reform was slowed down due to the incompetence of representatives of urban societies involved in the modernization of local governments. Finally, the censorship policy of the state and the unsettled mechanism for nominating candidates served as the basis for serious competition and numerous complaints that delayed the process.

The way to improve the quality of new smart city public service under the demand heterogeneity

Due to the diversity, difference and dynamics of residents' needs, the improvement of public service quality is faced with many challenges. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to improve the path of public service quality of new smart city under the heterogeneity of needs. This paper first introduces the background and basic concept of the new smart city, as well as the development process of the new smart city in China. This paper discusses the heterogeneity of residents' needs in the new smart city, and explains the impact of these heterogeneous demands on the public service quality of the new smart city. This paper also discusses how to accurately locate the service demand by strengthening demand research, optimize the resource allocation and realize the balanced development; promote service innovation to solve the impact of demand heterogeneity on new smart city, public service supply, public service resource allocation and public service innovation, as the reference direction for the improvement of public service quality of new smart city. Finally, this paper analyzes and systematically looks into the future of the new smart city to meet the direct needs of the public's survival, life, development and other social needs, as well as promoting the modernization of the urban governance system information and governance capacity as the main goal, and commits itself to the path design of improving the quality of public services.

Are cities genuinely healthy? Diagnosis of urban development from the perspective of adaptive capacity

As urban diseases continue to emerge with the acceleration of urbanization, the transformation of urban governance concepts and systems must be urgently promoted. In dealing with the complex systemic problem of city governance, the concept of adaptation in complex adaptative system (CAS) theory has shown obvious advantages. This approach provides a new perspective for solving this problem in the face of the unprecedented complexity of current disasters. However, research on urban adaptation is currently hindered by imprecise terminology, significant bias, and insufficient empirical evidence. This study reinterprets the concept of urban adaptation in conjunction with CAS theory. The formula for the functional expression of urban adaptation is derived using dissipative structure theory. Indicators are then selected to describe the system of urban adaptive capacity. An adaptive decision support framework is established that covers 29 quantitative and 8 qualitative indicators. The adaptive performance of 12 sample cities is analyzed. Finally, this study provides corresponding planning paths for optimizing urban adaptation based on the evaluation results. The research findings can assist city managers in comprehending the actual situation of cities and provide a basis for formulating targeted governance programs.

Study on Resilience Governance Ability of Urban Communities Under the Interplay of "Pressure-structure-process-capacity"

In the era of VUCA, emergencies and public crises in the process of urban governance under the perspective of complex systems are constantly impacting the safety, stability and order of urban operation. As the nerve endings of the urban governance system, communities are the front line of guarding urban security, and it is urgent to pay attention to the theoretical and practical exploration of community resilience governance. This paper analyses the influencing factors of community resilience based on the practice samples of epidemic prevention and control in 23 communities in S city, using the grounded theory. Based on the theoretical framework of community resilience governance of "pressure-structure-process-capability", it is extracted that the community, under the role of "pressure brought by the epidemic", can be adjusted through the "structural adjustment of the governing body" and "whole process of governance", which are the most important factors of community resilience governance. It is extracted that the community can generate "community resilience capacity" under the pressure of "epidemic" through the "adjustment of the structure of governance body" and the "construction of the whole process of governance chain". On the one hand, this study is dedicated to the localisation of the integration of community resilience theory, and on the other hand, it contributes to the modernisation of community safety governance practices and capacity building.

Planning and construction of the British concessions and settlements in modern East Asia (1845–1876): Shanghai, Yokohama, and Tianjin

ABSTRACT Under British informal imperial policy, East Asia’s system of concessions and settlements rapidly spread and promoted modernization. Especially in the mid- to late nineteenth century, the formative phase of the concession system, Shanghai, Yokohama and Tianjin embraced modern Western urban planning and architectural ideas by implementing Land Regulations (LR). A comparison of institutions, policies and mutual influences resulting from British colonization in these three cities can reflect the intricate internal and external factors that shape their local modernization, which helps explain the urban development trajectory in East Asia. However, existing studies lack comprehensive comparative analysis, exploration of institutional motives for spatial formation and examination of correlations between urban management patterns. Therefore, this study aims to situate the relation between colonialism and modernization in East Asia through an analysis of promulgation process, content changes and spatial impact of LR, the fundamental law of the concessions. This study shows that LR had an inheritance influenced by Consul Alcock. Characteristics of modern urban planning emerged in management and space. The modernization process was shaped by the development of the British native urban governance system, changes in colonial policy and the different social contexts of China and Japan.

Urban governance systems in autonomous territories of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: The cases of Croatia-Slavonia and Austrian Galicia (1867-1918)

There is still no consensus on the definition of urban governance, which can be attributed to gaps in its empirical foundation across both time and space. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867-1918), with its complex state structure, serves as an ideal historical and geographical subject for unveiling aspects related to the birth of modern urban governance within a Central European context. To conduct comparative research, this study examines selected cities from two territorial autonomies of the empire: Zagreb, Osijek, Varaždin, and Zemun from Croatia-Slavonia, and Lviv and Cracow (Krakow) from Galicia. Urban governance within territorial autonomy, particularly from a historical standpoint, is a unique subject that lacks a substantial presence int he literature of urban studies and territorial autonomy. In this paper, an analytical framework was developed based on the key components of the transformation thesis of urban governance and metagovernance theory. The findings of the study indicate that the process of designating territorial autonomies and the various political factors behind them significantly shaped the formation of urban governance systems.

Enabling asset-based community development solutions: Pro-poor urban climate resilience in Kumasi, Ghana

Cities of the Global South, such as Kumasi, Ghana, face elevated risks from climate change, and current adaptation efforts are failing. Ghanaian cities are beset by weak urban planning capacities and inadequate finance to contend with climate risks, with the poor being swept aside. Given that the urban poor are excluded from official climate interventions, coupled with the fact that weak institutional and stakeholder coordination presently exists, community-led approaches to climate change are critical in providing a minimum localised climate-specific capacity. A preliminary investigation of two largely established informal settlements in Kumasi assessed residents' and local planning authorities' sensitivities for community-led approaches to climate risks. Our research: (i) investigated perceptions of the nature and evidence of climate change; (ii) examined respective knowledge on the asset-based community development approach (ABCD); (iii) identified and examined the influence of the ABCD approach in building resilience to climate change impacts; and (iv) probed the challenges with its implementation in informal settlements. We surveyed 367 households, six governmental agencies and conducted focus group discussions for relevant data. Respondents demonstrated a good understanding of the most salient manifestations of climate change: flooding, heat, and drought events. The absence of formally recognised associations and the challenges associated with utilising community assets and households' high expectations for government aid impede ABCD pathways. We conclude that mainstreaming ABCD within urban planning and governance systems can be enhanced by emphasising the co-benefits, better alignment with a shared vision of climate adaptation and transitioning towards an inclusive urban planning future.

Spatial-temporal traffic data imputation based on dynamic multi-level generative adversarial networks for urban governance

Complete and accurate traffic data lays an essential foundation for urban governance and intelligent transportation system. Data missing is an inevitable issue in road network analysis with the expansion of urban roads and increasing application of data monitors. Data imputation is regarded as a cost-effective approach for solving data missing problem. However, the spatial-temporal features of massive traffic data have not been comprehensively considered in the previous related studies, and non-uniform distribution of missing data often causes poor results. Therefore, we propose a dynamic multi-level generative adversarial networks (MLGAN) model for the imputation of large-scale spatial-temporal traffic data. The model first captures the spatial-temporal features of traffic data through composite features extractor based on the bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BGRU) and the graph convolutional network (GCN) structure. Then, different sampler structures with varied missing rate are adopted to analyze the feature data and present the reconstruction results. Enhanced by the dynamic stratification strategy, the model is less sensitive to the variation of missing rates. Finally, data imputation experiments are conducted to validate the proposed approach using the data collected from the PeMS dataset. The results show that the proposed model has superior data imputation performance on large-scale dataset compared with the traditional models.

Bringing together urban systems and food systems theory and research is overdue: understanding the relationships between food and nutrition infrastructures along a continuum of contested and hybrid access

Urban dwellers’ food and nutritional wellbeing are both dependent on infrastructure and can be indicative of wider wellbeing in urban contexts and societal health. This paper focuses on the multiple relationships that exist between food and infrastructure to provide a thorough theoretical and empirical grounding to urgent work on urban food security and nutrition in the context of rapid urban and nutrition transitions in the South. We argue that urban systems and food systems thinking have not been well aligned, but that such alignment is not only timely and overdue but also fruitful for both thematic areas of research and policy. We draw in particular on work within wider urban political economy and political ecology that can be classified as part of the ‘infrastructural turn’ that is influential with urban studies but little acknowledged within food studies. Drawing on these literatures helps us to better understand the interrelationships between people, things and ideas that make up both infrastructure and food systems. Policy, planning and research relating to both food and urban systems cannot afford to ignore such interlinkages, though much policy still operates on the neat assumptions of progressive connectivity to ‘the grid’ and formal food retail. Instead we argue how in many urban governance systems, a variety of hybrid mechanisms—on and off the grid, public and private formal and informal—better represent how urban residents, particularly the most marginalised, meet their everyday food and infrastructural needs along a continuum of gridded and off-grid access.

La médina de Tunis de la vulnérabilité à la résilience

The medina as a trace and witnesses of our past, are they able to have a present and a future by adapting? These vulnerable territories need to be resilient in order to overcome the risks to which they are exposed. These ancient fabrics, designed according to ancient logics, must adapt to modern mobility and technologies’ requirements; They must face new social logics and new governance’s ways. Competing with the new centralities, they face their own functional vulnerability. They have to adapt to the climate change’s vagaries and meet sustainability standards. Through empirical work, it studies the stakeholder’s system and the resilience of the medina of Tunis. The approach proposes to assess the resilience of the medina, as an urban fabric, social system, governance system, and architectural design, by studying the hazards the system faces and the forms of vulnerabilities it exhibits. The article demonstrates that the Tunis medina is a fabric that has shown adaptability to the risks and natural and anthropogenic hazards it has encountered - crises and socio-economic changes, heritage degradation, rural exodus, health crises - and especially its bioclimatic design makes it more resilient to new climate challenges. However, the study identified a set of physical, social, systemic, and organizational vulnerabilities that hinder resilience and the protection of human, economic, as well as architectural and urban heritage interests

A Solution-Extracted System for Facilitating the Governance of Urban Problems: A Case Study of Wuhan

Recently, rapid urbanization around the world has spawned several urban problems. Although a large amount of experience has been accumulated throughout the process of global urban problem governance, the knowledge has not been optimally utilized. Furthermore, there is a dearth of mechanisms with which to distill and employ past experiences in addressing emerging urban problems. Consequently, in this study, based on the CBR method, we establish a mechanism called the Solution-Extracted System of Urban Problem Governance (SESUPG), aiming to find solutions to the diverse array of existing urban problems from previous experience. The main steps for obtaining a suitable solution for a specific urban problem in a target city through the SESUPG are as follows: (1) Calculate the similarity to retrieve the most similar cities. (2) Extract the possible solution through similar cities. (3) Case–solution modification before solution adoption. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism, the air pollution problem in Wuhan, China, was tested to verify the effectiveness of the SESUPG as a case study. As a result, four policy recommendations were extracted by the SESUPG, and all of them proved to be effective in mitigating air pollution problems in Wuhan. The system proposed in this study can aid decision makers in the selection of strategies and solutions when addressing urbanization issues and guiding the process of mining effective experience for the promotion of urban governance levels.

How can the construction of social credit system in the context of digitalization empower grassroots governance? — A Case Study of “Moral Bank” in Yuyao City, Zhejiang Province

The 20th Party Congress report proposed to improve the grid-based management, refinement of services, information technology to support the grassroots governance platform, and improve the urban and rural community governance system [1, p. 24]. Grass-roots social governance is the basis of the entire national governance system, which concerns the vital interests of millions of people. At present, the government concentrates funds and material resources on infrastructure construction, and while the hardware environment at the grassroots level is improving, the construction of soft power is seriously lagging behind, and residents’ awareness of participation and public spirit are seriously lacking, so grassroots governance needs to be transformed. The basic function of social credit system is to form incentives and constraints for various subjects with the help of credit evaluation mechanism, so as to realize effective social governance. The establishment of social credit system can not only create an environment to serve social governance, but also provide important support for the modernization of social governance system and national governance capacity. Thus, under the strategic choice of building a comprehensive social credit system, combining an effective social credit system with grassroots social governance is an inevitable choice for China’s future development. Meanwhile, along with the accelerated development of digitization in China, the digitization of social credit system construction has become a powerful boost to promote credit governance. The digital transformation of social credit system can fully activate the path of credit information formation and collection in the traditional social credit system, optimize the operation mechanism and application scenario of credit evaluation mechanism, and thus maximize the functional utility of credit-enabled grassroots social governance. Based on this, this paper attempts to take the many challenges faced by grassroots governance as a logical starting point, take the “moral bank” in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province as a case study, trace how the construction of social credit system empowers grassroots social governance in the context of digitalization, explore the operation mechanism and practical effects of it, and extract corresponding insights.

Evaluation of smart city construction efficiency based on multivariate data fusion: A perspective from China

In the face of urban development challenges brought about by high-speed urbanization, smart cities have been recognized as a necessary way to promote the modernization of urban governance systems and governance capacity. Therefore, the establishment of a scientific and comprehensive evaluation index system is crucial to the sustainable construction of smart cities. Based on existing research, this study innovatively uses multivariate data to construct an evaluation index system for the construction level of smart cities, and then systematically evaluates the smart city construction efficiency of 37 cities from 2016 to 2021 using the Super-efficiency slack-based model considering undesired output and the Malmquist index. Finally, measures are proposed to promote the orderly and healthy development of smart cities by combining domestic and international experience in smart city construction and policy recommendations. Results show the following: (1) Overall, the imbalance in the efficiency of China’s smart city construction between regions has improved, but a gap remains in the central and western regions in comparison with the east. (2) The improvement in smart city construction efficiency correlates with regional economic development, showing a gradual decrease from east to west. (3) The evaluation results can provide theoretical support and a decision-making basis for relevant government departments to optimize smart city development planning and scientifically formulate smart city development policies.

TSE-Tran: Prediction method of telecommunication-network fraud crime based on time series representation and transformer

Telecom network fraud has become the most common and concerning type of crime and is an important public security incident that threatens urban resilience. Therefore, preventing a continuous rise in telecommunications and network fraud will help establish a resilient urban governance system. Undertaking the spatiotemporal forecasting of telecommunications-network fraud trends is of significant importance for aiding public security agencies in proactive crime prevention and implementing targeted anti-fraud campaigns. This study presents a telecommunication network fraudulent crime prediction method called TSE-Tran, which integrates temporal representation and transformer architecture. The time-series data of telecommunication-network fraud occurrences were input into the TimesNet module, which maps the sequence data to a more precise feature representation tensor that accounts for both intra- and inter-cycle features. Subsequently, the data are fed into the transformer-encoder module for further encoding, capturing long-range dependencies in the time-series data. Finally, occurrences of future telecommunication network frauds are predicted by a fully connected layer. The results of the study demonstrate that the proposed TSE-Tran method outperforms benchmark methods in terms of prediction accuracy. The results of this study are expected to aid in the prevention and control of telecommunications and network frauds effectively strengthen the resilience of urban development and the ability to respond to public security incidents.

DISCUSSION OF PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS BASED ON INTELLIGENT DATA ANALYSIS TECHNOLOGY UNDER THE BACKGROUND OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

In the past few years since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the public has been under tremendous pressure. Family, career, emotions, and other aspects are constantly pressing people's psychological defense of life. Modern urban governance is a centralized reflection of the urban space carrier and resource platform. Strengthening the public's guidance on mental health problems is conducive to promoting the modernization of urban governance system and governance capacity, improving the level of urban governance and the ability of grassroots to resolve conflicts. To study people's psychological changes and endurance in this situation, relieve the psychological pressure caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak, and ensure people's mental health, we propose an assessment method for psychological health based on data intelligent analysis, which is used to solve public mental health problems in modern urban governance. First, we extract information on sleep quality and physical exercise of people in pandemic areas through an online questionnaire survey. Then, we can achieve an overall picture of the public's mental state in the COVID-19 pandemic by analyzing the psychological changes of public and the aggregated information. To evaluate the performance of the public mental state management method proposed in this study, we invited 1000 people to complete a comparative experiment of a questionnaire survey on the Internet. The questionnaire included information about physical activity at home and sleep quality. Home exercise information mainly includes exercise duration and exercise mode, while sleep quality information includes sleep score, sleep duration, and proportion of deep sleep. Through experiments, we find that the method we propose can realize the accurate identification and analysis of the changes of people's psychological conditions in modern cities. Moreover, it can provide data support and technical support for people's psychological counseling under the background of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Practice Path and Internal Logic of Urban-Rural Community Integration Governance

The community is the basic unit of primary-level social governance, and the transformation of community governance practices in the urban-rural dual field to an integrated path is a key measure to promote the modernization of urban and rural primary-level social governance systems and governance capabilities. China's urban communities are characterized by rich basic resources but lack of endogenous power, and rural communities are generally in the initial stage of construction but have a solid cultural consensus. Based on the Functional Course Theory, this study analyzes the differences in the development of urban and rural community governance in China and reveals that the disconnection of institutional systems, lack of interaction between organizations, and disjointed governance models are the reasons for the large differences in the development paths of urban and rural community governance. Institutional interdependence, structural complementarity, and method of mutual learning are the footholds of the integrated development path of urban and rural community governance. In the context of urban-rural integration, it is necessary to coordinate urban and rural community governance and promote community governance innovation through urban-rural social interaction, gradually narrow the gap in community governance paths, and promote the integration of urban and rural social governance.

СОЗДАНИЕ ЭЛЕМЕНТОВ ГОРОДСКОЙ НИЗОВОЙ СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ АВТОНОМИИ И ЛОГИКА ИХ СТРОИТЕЛЬСТВА: НА ОСНОВЕ АНАЛИЗА МОДЕЛИ САМОУПРАВЛЕНИЯ «ГОСТЕВАЯ КОМНАТА» В РАЙОНЕ ЦИНПУ, ШАН, КНР

. In 2019, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee emphasized the "acceleration of modernizing urban social governance," which has significant theoretical and practical implications. In 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee further proposed requirements such as "strengthening and innovating urban social governance" and "improving the level of urban governance and strengthening risk prevention and control in mega-city governance," pointing out the direction for the next step of modernizing the urban governance system and governance capacity. Urban social governance is an important dimension of national governance and plays a pivotal role in the national governance system. This requires accurate analysis and clarification of the relationship between national governance and local governance, grassroots governance and social governance, urban governance and county-level social governance, and village governance, and promoting the organic combination of the "system of self-governance, governance based on moral principles, and governance by law," to truly achieve the orderly social operation of self-governance, governance based on moral principles, powerful governance by law, and orderly politics. The construction of the institutional framework and mechanism innovation of urban social governance requires the governance content and behavior to be located in appropriate spatial areas and governance units, to flexibly and conveniently form combinations and reconstructions of governance units of different levels, types, and subjects according to local conditions. To optimize the spatial scale of urban social governance, shift the governance focus downwards, and continuously consolidate the pivot and base of modernizing urban social governance, in order to better form a rural-urban integration social governance system with top-down linkage, horizontal interaction, facility connectivity, and data integration, and effectively give full play to the value and function of grassroots governance units to undertake the heavy responsibility of promoting the modernization of national governance.

Geographies of COVID‐19

Geographies of COVID‐19