Calling for a joint effort

Social work area in China is still in a backward position, let alone the efforts on community development. The lack of professional social workers and the overall low community participation lead to a poor image of community in China. Actually this concept was rarely brought up by people. Though for China there is still a long way to go in terms of community development, a joint effort should be made by two parties: the professional and non-professionals.

Local policy, demographic change, and outside investments all threw a growing variety of challenging issues to communities. As a result, the problem-solving capacity of a community must be created and put in motion. But who are considered to be responsible for solving the problems? When thinking about community development, people often rely on professionals. When it comes to community participation, a wider range of non-professionals, usually the community residents are expected to be involved  Both parties share equally important responsibilities in community development.

It is true that community problem-solving is about change and development, which relies heavily on professionals. Professionals can be managers, organizers, investors, educators, researchers, and more, working in communities to tackle important social problems and seize opportunities to promote change. They may get involved in a wide variety of community issues, such as housing, health care, education, environment, economic development, and public safety. They contribute to a comprehensive community change. For examples, community needs police to maintain order and enhance the public safety.

However, problem-solving is also a democratic process which needs the community participation with a broader population to be involved in and to contribute to the generation of ideas, decision making process and responsibility sharing. According to Richard Florida,"cities are not built from the top down, but from the organic, bottom-up, community-based efforts to strengthen and build on neighborhood assets." In this process, it is essential to engage non-professionals such as community residents, business owners, shop keepers, and local workers in the process of solving problem and making changes. Thus, the inclusion of a large number of non-professionals is necessary. Nicholas Lemann also pointed out that: "Bottom Up, Not Top Down. The people who know the most about the needs of poor neighborhoods are the residents; therefore, poverty programs should be designed and implemented by them, not imposed from above by mayors, members of Congress, social workers, intellectuals, Federal bureaucrats or other authority figures."

Thus, the development of the neighborhoods or community can not be entirely handed over to government or other professional developers. The engagement and enabling of local residents participate and build on community assets. The video shows the rebuild process of a neighborhood called Ravine Pintade in Haiti which was destroyed by the 2010 earthquake. The reconstruction project was based on a comprehensive and integrated planning process that involved experts, like architects and engineers, but also relied heavily on the participation of residents in the planning and decision-making required to rebuild the entire community. Now with the collaboration between the professionals and residents,  not only is the whole neighborhood living in better houses, also many of the problems they faced with inadequate water and sanitation have been addressed. 

The importance of building the links

A more sustainable way

I used to live in a city famous for its prosperity and urbanity in China. Our family moved to the city ten years ago. The city is known as one of the special economic region which was favored by some central government policies and had gone through a period of rapid growth. Back to decades ago, the city was once a small fishing village. But with the exceptional geographic advantage the central government decided to push the economic development of the city and make it a new economic center. Investment and talents were attracted from all over the country to the city in the past two decades, gave the city the best conditions to become one of the symbolic developed city in the South China. As a result of the talent introduction policy, a large group of new immigrants became crucial and dominant part of the city. They are highly competitive and ambitious, mastered the main operation and development of the city. As a result, the majority of the original people from the local area were somewhat marginalized since most of them were only trained with fishing and business trade.

As for me, I have always liked the city and felt proud of the harmonious environment and urbanity until I started my internship in a local newspaper. In the newspaper company there was a reporter who likes digging unknown facts about the city, the facts that were not allowed to be presented in our newspaper and the other mainstream media presses. So he chose to put them on his personal blog. He was originally from the local area and had seen its tremendous transformation from a fishing village to a modern city. He told me that there are a lot of places where people usually don't see and are hardly able to see. Places where the city bus lines failed to reach to and people can barely drive to given the unclear road sign. People always enjoy the life in the city because they are kept away from some "abandoned" areas, some blind spots of this modern city.

The reporter took me to some of these places during my internship, and what I saw worried me: there is this school poorly constructed and staffed in a very remote area of the city which was built for some students from needy households. It is not covered in the bus line, and the road to the school hasn't been repaired for a long time, so that students have to walk to the school for maybe up to hours. The classrooms were made with materials of the least quality, and stairs shake when people step on. There is also this neighborhood hidden in an unnoticed area of the city, which is made up of several extreme poor households. Clean water can not be guaranteed, let alone grocery stores. There is a river came across the neighborhood that is polluted and stinky, and sitting by the river was a small discarded factory.

Those were just a small corner of the unpleasant scenes of the city. There places were isolated from the other urban areas, and kept from the public's eyes. PETER APPLEBOME once pointed out that the image of cities in the public mind is not what the city really looks like. He also mentions  in his article "As Urban Blight Worsens, Victims Find Their Isolation Is Deepening" that the isolation of the urban poor is growing. However, what's more are out there besides these visible phenomenon? People always choose the convenient way to see the problem, turn a blind eye to the increasing rate of unemployment, and the ever widening gap between the rich and poor. But all these factors exacerbated and are still accelerating the lopsided development of this city.

This special immigration phenomenon and poor urban development planning added to a serious urban strain: the city becomes overcrowding and there is not enough resources to meet the basic housing and health needs of the existing population. The city was segregated and the poor areas remained unnoticed and lack of attention. People would argue that although the immigrants brought prosperity to the city, they also took advantage of most of the resources and left the local people little chance to improve their living. But I would say the less considerate urban development planning should take the fall for that. There is no policy favor the local residents or even refer to how to arrange their unemployment. There is no policy concerns the over-pursuing on environment. The unsustainable development caused damaged environment, unemployment, people leave at poverty line, large gap of individual wealth, etc. In a word, it caused the longevity of the city development.

To eliminate poverty and maintain the urban social justice, is the fundamental means to achieve the sustainable development of urban society. Community or neighborhood are the basic living units for urban area. However, the uneven development among different communities hugely affects the urban function, damages the city stability, causes poverty, and hinders the overall sustainable development.

Urbanity is how residents interact with each other and with the world. It should be about relationships, trust, hope, responsibility, and above all, community. But now we can seldom see our dream picture of the city. We see urban environmental degradation, which is often described to be directly correlated with rapid urban growth and industrialization. Urbanization is driven by a shift of jobs from agriculture to industry and services. Economic opportunities become more and more concentrated in urban areas. Behind all the rapid development, people are paying high price by putting increasing pressure on environment and disadvantaged urban residents. What is worse, because of urban poverty, the poor become the most affected by and at the same time contributing to environmental degradation. Usually, more disadvantaged neighborhoods in urban area encounter the most serious environmental problems.

So how can we establish a comprehensive urban anti-poverty system? In the process of urban development, the economic development, social development, and environmental well-being must be addressed together to achieve a sustainable development. Ignoring any aspect would bring down the other two, which implies that the importance of the interconnection of all the three aspects We need to increase the sustainability of urban resources. Initiatives could involve improving the social security, employment, health care, education, and housing, etc. The sustainable development means long-term synergy through changes in every aspects of city planning to stay within the limits of available urban resources. It is true that starting something new is often more attractive than fixing what we already have. Thus planning and developing in a sustainable way can be more convenient and economic in the long-run.

Population diversity leads to prosperity?

The United States is famous for its diversity and openness. People believe in the power of diversity, thinking that each individual's unique background and life experience add value to the whole society. Coming from a rather conservative and racially homogeneous country, I haven't experienced much diversity in my life, although it is not hard for me to imagine the difficulty of coordinating the cultural and ethical differences. Diversity in a community can be a double edged sword, it can either boost prosperity or cause chaos.

Jane Jacobs emphasized the importance of neighborhood diversity. But how about the population diversity? Cities such as New York, DC, Los Angelas, and San Francisco. These are cities with high living standards, and they are often associated with a more diversified population structure. They are also cities with high population mobility and changing demographics. The growth and development of these cities comes from their ability to embrace diversity and welcome newcomers. This fact undoubtedly challenged many people's stereotypes: Isn't it true that cities with more ethnic diversity and immigration often have higher crime rates thus leads to a general lower property value?

I believe it should not be a yes-or-no question. When you take the city or region as a whole to think about this problem. It is true that people experience rapid economic development, high living standards, and high property value in cities that are considered to be more diversified. Richard Florida once wrote in his article about How Pittsburgh's prosperity depends on diversity. He said:"The region was built by immigrants - the hard-working Italians, Irish, East Europeans, Jews, African Americans and other groups that powered this region's path to greatness as a center for heavy industry." The video below shows that America is facing a future defined by a diverse and multi-ethnic population. It is becoming a inevitable trend. 

It is true that diversity becomes a important theme today and can be a contributory factor to the uniqueness of a community. When comparing the prosperous cities high property value, we can easily find some commonalities among them: financial center, high population density, and high income level. People are usually driven towards areas with better living standards, which leads to a more diversified population construction. As a result, the dynamic between city and its population would be: a city with better living condition will attract more talents from different places, more rich people, and more resources to come, ultimately it will leads the city to be more prosperous and to attract more resources. Generally population diversity nowadays is linked to a higher property value. Neighborhoods with higher ethnic diversity, including Latinos, Asians, and African Americans, experienced higher housing appreciation over the decade. 

However, when we try to examine the inner environment within a city, high level of stratification comes in sight. It is easy to find segregation based on racial identity. Some districts are labeled by color and are considered as dangerous. Areas where the property value stays high are still dominantly white. There is a lack of common identity among people, thus generated many subcultures and segregation among different racial groups. These phenomenon imposed a negative effect on the community. The property value keeps low in a community with high crime rates because no one wants to move in. If a community failed to promote an understanding of, and appreciation for its cultural and racial diversity, the population diversity can become a damaging effect on the prosperity and property value. Unfortunately, this structural phenomena is still perpetuating racial segregation.  

The challenge is, how do we turn the population diversity into an advantage in community development. We want make people interact in a harmonious manner regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other backgrounds. But at least we know that diversity is important in influencing the urban community in many ways, and openness says a lot about a community. Just like Richard Florida said:" The key to growth in the new economy is to be open and have low entry barriers for human capital."