Lessons for community governance from the polycentric governance model in urban villages: based on the effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention and control in different types of communities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in 2020

Urban villages mainly refer to rural settlements in China, whose agricultural land have been used by cities during the process of accelerated urbanization, but the homesteads are left and surrounded by the cities. Before 2005, urban villages were considered as “social tumours”, and were widely criticised for their disorganised physical space and unmanageable floating population. However, urban villages are also the first choice for migrant workers because of their low rental prices. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the two cities with the largest number of urban villages in China, these villages accommodate about 50% and 70% of the city's population respectively, of which about 90% are migrant workers. Yet during the epidemic, there were surprisingly few confirmed cases in urban villages, and in even smaller proportions compared to the vast migrant population they house, which is assumed to be the main distribution chain for the virus. Of hundreds communities in Guangzhou and Shenzhen with confirmed cases, there are only about 20 urban villages, less than 10% of the total. This research selects Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which have the highest total population and a relatively high proportion of floating population, as the case cities. Then it groups the releases according to the category of commercial housing communities, urban villages and old communities, and uses the social network analysis function of ROST CM6 software to analyse the connectedness of actors, action spaces and measures taken in the epidemic prevention in different communities. It found that, unlike the centralised governance model of commercial housing communities and old communities, urban villages present more of a polycentric governance model. In this way, they have advantages in policy publicity, floating population identification and material supply. Urban villages are networks of social relations based on blood ties, which cannot be replicated in other types of communities. Nevertheless, with the growing awareness of citizenship among community residents, it is an indisputable fact that community self-organisations are developing and playing an increasing role in community governance. The community governance in the future shall focus on the overall interests of the community residents, maximise the participation of different community parties, encourage the community to own a certain amount of properties, and create a polycentric community governance mechanism together.