Zhu Yushu
Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University.
Habitat Int. 2015 Apr 1;46:44-53. doi: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.10.013.
The scholarship in building community capacity by way of cultivating community social capital and community spirit through neighborhood design has spawned heated debates in urban and community studies. This paper contributes to this scholarship by examining the neighborhood contexts of grassroots participation in Chinese contemporary urban communities. In particular, it explores the relationship between neighborhood communal space and community participation, using a city-wide survey of 1,809 households in 39 commodity housing estates in the city of Guangzhou. It is found that local residents' participation in community affairs is conditioned by both the social milieu (measured by the overall level of social cohesion) and the physical environment (indicated by effects of communal space) of a neighborhood. Notably, communal space exerts positive indirect effects on grassroots participation by facilitating the development of place-based social capital and neighborhood attachment. These findings point to a civic virtue of communal space and provide nascent evidence regarding neighborhood contexts of grassroots participation in urban China.
通过邻里设计培养社区社会资本和社区精神来建设社区能力的学术研究，在城市和社区研究领域引发了激烈辩论。本文通过考察中国当代城市社区基层参与的邻里环境，为这一学术研究做出了贡献。具体而言，本文利用对广州市39个商品住宅小区1809户家庭的全市范围调查，探讨了邻里公共空间与社区参与之间的关系。研究发现，当地居民对社区事务的参与受到邻里社会环境（以社会凝聚力的总体水平衡量）和物理环境（以公共空间的影响表示）的制约。值得注意的是，公共空间通过促进基于场所的社会资本发展和邻里依恋，对基层参与产生积极的间接影响。这些发现指出了公共空间的公民美德，并为中国城市基层参与的邻里环境提供了初步证据。
