Chengzhongcun, literally “villages in cities,” are a particular product of urbanization over the past few decades in China and a unique manifestation of when urbanization of villages in the suburbs reaches a certain stage. Since the reform and opening up, especially amidst rapid urbanization, part of the land in fringe areas of cities and towns has been appropriated, household registrations of residents have been changed from agricultural to non-agricultural status, and administrative organizations have been reorganized from rural village committees to urban neighborhood committees. As a result, some villages have gradually been incorporated into urban regions but failed to fully integrate into the urban system, becoming distinctive villages within cities. These villages represent special, hybrid communities in need of special attention and treatment.

Hybrid and complicated nature

Villages in cities relate to, yet differ from, both traditional urban communities and rural villages. They are neither genuine villages nor towns, demonstrating an urban-rural mixed structure and representing a transitional social community with distinct social characteristics.

First, villages within cities lie between urban and rural spaces and exhibit elements of both. They intermingle urban infrastructure and rural culture. In terms of infrastructure, residents’ housing, transit, public utilities, facilities, and spaces have been significantly improved. Particularly after reconstruction efforts in recent years, they are now effectively on par with urban communities, and in some cases superior to older communities in downtown areas.

Culturally, residents’ lifestyles, customs, and cultural identities retain traces of the rural societies they originate from. From surveys, we found that many residents opened up jigsaw-like vegetable plots in front of or behind their homes. In each traditional Chinese festival, such as Qingming (Tomb Sweeping Day) and Dongzhi (Winter Solstice), acts of paying homage to ancestors were often seen in front of residential buildings. Moreover, residents still identify with old or former neighbors and remain attached to their established networks. In some communities, special venues have even been built to meet residents’ needs for holding weddings or funerals in accordance with rural traditions.

In addition, the governance of villages in cities features a mix of urban and rural models. Officially, residents’ household registrations have been converted from rural to urban status, and urban neighborhood committees have been instituted to replace rural village committees, but the villages usually preserve rural economic cooperatives. In some villages, the neighborhood committees are still elected by registered residents only, instead of by all residents. Community governance often refers to village self-governance and rural governance mechanisms, giving rise to a unique “dual governance” phenomenon.

In short, villages in cities are not entirely divorced from the rural social system, but they also do not fully integrate into the urban system, displaying overlaps of urban and rural attributes.

Subject to multiple factors, communities of villages in cities are diverse and complicated. First, they tend to be diversely populated. Some residents of the villages reaped exorbitant amounts of compensation for government appropriation of their collective land and may own considerable self-built or placement housing, which they can rent out for supplementary income. These residents constitute a relatively wealthy group of owners within the communities.

In addition, convenient locations, low rent, and low living costs attract many tenants from outside the villages. Some communities have utilized collective funds to build apartments that exclusively cater to migrant workers. As such, housing owners and tenants have become the principal residents. The two groups vary markedly in terms of identity and role, rights and obligations, bringing into being the pattern of “one community, two worlds.”

Even within the owner group, diversity and differences are prominent. Some middle-aged and elderly owners are unemployed due to a lack of non-agricultural skills, while some young owners have no entrepreneurial or employment motivation because they are financially affluent from relocation compensation and rental income. These two groups comprise two types of unemployed community members.

In the villages where relocated residents assemble, some of their household registrations, Party organization affiliations, and collective economic relations remain in their previous rural villages, resulting in a separation of registered and actual residences, as well as identity diffusion.

Moreover, community affairs in these villages are extremely intricate. Rural “leftover” problems are common, such as confirmation of homestead ownership, shareholding confirmation in economic cooperatives, collective economic operation and income distribution of cooperatives, and disposal of compensation for land appropriation. Furthermore, there are issues arising later from urbanization and the reconstruction of villages in cities, such as unfair compensations for demolition, disputes over housing placement, and family conflicts invited by demolition and resettlement. Urban community construction and governance issues like construction of civilized communities, management of the migrant population, property management services, and residents’ assimilation into cities, also loom large.

Urbanization of villages in cities is a long-term, comprehensive evolutionary social process. On one hand, the villages vary from one to another due to different conditions and development situations, as well as differing local policies for construction and reconstruction. Each community has its own characteristics. On the other hand, the villages are still undergoing urbanization. In different urbanization stages, they have shown a range of disparities with different community conditions and problems.

Systematic community construction

Broadly speaking, villages within cities form a comprehensive social community. They should not be regarded simply as a physical space for survival or an economic field for production. Accordingly, the national people-centered new urbanization strategy dictates that community construction of villages in cities should be a systematic social reconstruction project. Consideration should be given to the organic integration of land, environment, industries, and residents, rather than merely improving the living environment and transforming industries.

In past reconstruction of villages in cities, there was a tendency to overlook the people in favor of physical aspects. While spatial reconstruction, environmental enhancement, and industrial upgrade were emphasized on the surface, the deeper issues of urbanizing the people and rebuilding social relations were neglected. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the social nature of community construction in these villages, giving more priority to the urbanization of residents.

In villages within cities, housing owners and tenants reside and live alongside one another, forming unique symbiosis and interest relations. Community construction in these villages concerns both groups, necessitating overall planning and coordinated management. Local governments should follow the national drive to share social benefits and move toward common prosperity, to actively explore models of shared social reconstruction, and construction for common prosperity of all residents in the communities.

As marginalized and transitional communities amidst urbanization, villages in cities necessarily need to be further urbanized. However, continued urbanization of these communities is a progressive, long-term process. Physical projects like housing expropriation and demolition, and living environment improvement can be completed fairly rapidly, but social reconstruction, including rebuilding of social relations and social integration into cities, is a very long and complex process. This requires community construction to reflect the strategic orientation of China’s new development philosophy and its new urbanization drive, highlighting the history and inheritance of changes in these communities. It is essential to craft effective construction models according to the special and specific conditions of these villages in cities, while respecting historical facts, in order to gradually advance the urbanization of these communities.

Tailoring governance models

The governance of villages in cities is special and sophisticated, involving numerous difficulties and problems. The most notable challenges are listed below.

The first is institutional supply. As a special community type, villages in cities need a set of simple yet highly efficient governance institutions which reflect a modern governance orientation and are suited to actual village conditions. The central authority should strengthen top-level design to make unified, principled basic institutional arrangements. Local governments should, in line with national laws and central policies, make institutional innovations and work out indigenous community governance systems based on local realities. Communities of villages in cities should themselves exert their initiative and formulate operational governance rules in accordance with community conditions on the ground. Based on their respective roles and responsibilities, the three parties should reinforce institutional construction and work together to gradually construct a systematic, effective community governance system.

Second, efforts are needed to accurately identify demands arising from community governance of villages in cities. It is necessary to build a demand evaluation index system to comprehensively and systematically assess demands for the community governance of villages in cities, under the guidance of scientific demand evaluation theories and methodologies.

On one hand, it is crucial to holistically evaluate and structurally analyze overall community governance demands and identify general and special governance needs. On the other hand, we should classify specific types and analyze the many levels of community resident groups’ needs for a better life. In the process of demand identification, the complexity of residents’ needs and the difficulty of identifying the demands should be recognized. It is important not only to evaluate residents’ expressed needs through questionnaires and the like, but also to use different methods and means to identify their regulative, perceptive, and comparative needs to make demand identification accurate.

Xiong Jing is an associate professor from the School of Marxism at Ningbo University of Finance and Economics. Lu Fuying is a professor from the School of Public Administration at Hangzhou Normal University.