People's commune 2.0 reconfiguration-developing a participatory strategy for upgrading Chinese post-Danwei community

Abstract

A major feature of China’s urban transformation was the breakdown of the danwei system and the consequent efforts at community development and community building. Chinese post-danwei community has become a meeting ground for citizen activities, business organization involvement and party-state intervention. No longer just a supplementary institution in state control, Danwei has to confront the crisis in the spatial, economic, political and social transformation. In the process of the revitalization, there is the dilemma between grass roots democracy practices and top-down state governance. This thesis therefore is to research and design a participatory democratic community model within the conception of the People’s commune 2.0 configuration. And the people’s commune 2.0 configuration is more like a methodology of a community-participation approach, synthesized a participation & communication strategy with a network-governance tool and a user-co-creation platform as the carrier for actors engagement patterns and potential spatial interventions in accordance with the local needs and resources, which could respond to the pragmatic issues mentioned in this project, shifting the conflicts caused by the possible trend of danwei-community regeneration agenda in current municipality means of planning and governance to positive interaction among different actors, creating a win-win situation with the equilibrium on actors voices, expectations and value, and promote participatory democracy development in local community, thereby securing the position of the post-Danwei residents culturally, spatially and economically.