Abstract
China has experienced the largest and fastest urbanization in the worldwide history, but there are also serious problems such as environmental pollution, barbaric land expansion and inadequate governance. In order to promote urban ecological progress and high-quality development, China is exploring new modes of urban governance like the so-called approach “City Physical Examination” (CPE for short). Guangzhou is a pilot city to carry out such an approach of government-citizen collegiality. The CPE mainly includes the following steps: firstly, the municipal government and research institutions work together to develop a CPE index system covering 50 indicators in 8 categories; Secondly, through the combination of quota and randomization, a survey with a sample size of more than 200,000 was conducted to sketch citizens’ residential satisfaction to urban infrastructure. Thirdly, the data of CPE index are collected and studied through the extensive collaboration of the four scales including city - district - town - street - community. The empirical part of this study points out that there are 9 major problems such as garbage siege and traffic congestion in Guangzhou. Coping with these problems, this study has formulated detailed improvement measures from four aspects, including policy formulation, standard specification, action plan and key projects. The findings were highly valued by the municipal government and reflected by the government annual report and the work plan for the next year. In addition, the CPE should be continuously improved through the long-term mechanism of "yearly physical examination and five-year evaluation" and related information platform monitoring.
