On November 5th, the Shanghai Federation of Social Sciences Association (SFSSA) and the Publicity Department of the CPC Jiading District Committee jointly organized the “Integration, Development, and Sharing: the ‘Wangdao Jialitang’ Theoretical Dialogue on Innovative Urban Governance and New City Development”. This event focused on the theoretical and practical aspects of two significant concepts: the “People-Centered City” and the “Whole-Process People’s Democracy.” During the event, the organizers launched the “Integrated Co-Governance and New City for All” people’s city-themed citywalk routes and discussed how the innovative theories of the Party could guide and promote new practices in the new era.

At the event, three scholars elaborated on innovative urban governance from different perspectives within the context of a people-centered city.

“The ‘e Jia Ren’ and ‘Jia Governance’ platforms in Jiading are impressive, representing a positive exploratory practice of platform-based operations to gather public opinion,” observed Wu Jiannan, Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at SJTU, Executive Deputy Dean and Chair Professor of the China Institute for Urban Governance. He emphasized that the digital transformation of grassroots governance requires a shift in management philosophy. Such a shift may start with innovative solutions to the most fundamental practical problems. It is necessary to involve all relevant parties in the design of digital transformation, establish a multi-departmental joint planning mechanism, form vertical links between different levels of government, and create a platform for conveying public demands.

Huang Xiaochun, a professor in the School of Sociology at SHU and President of the Shanghai Community Development Research Association, regarded the whole-process people’s democracy as an effective path to achieve fairness and justice in the allocation of public goods, to establish a social governance community based on the practice of mutual construction, mutual governance, and mutual sharing, and to promote community identification. He considered it to be most important to tailor operations that should be governance goal-specific, issue-specific, and stratum-specific. It is also necessary to explore performance evaluation models that might help the establishment of grassroots democracy, and facilitate the integration of the concept of whole-process people’s democracy into grassroots governance.

Li Weili, an associate professor in the School of Marxism at Fudan University (FDU) and Executive Director of the FDU Party Building Theory Research Base, noted that in grassroots governance, Party building plays two key roles: linkage and supplementation. The functions of regional Party-building communities, grid-based Party branches, and neighborhood Party committees are distinct. To achieve effective collaboration in grassroots governance, it is essential to integrate these three elements, with the neighborhood Party committees taking the lead, by sinking resources through Party building processes, enhancing self-governance and co-governance management abilities, and establishing a governance system compatible with neighborhood fabric and needs.

Representatives of urban governance workers from various streets and towns also engaged in interactive discussions with the three scholars on issues such as personnel management in different regions, data sharing, and how to attract more social autonomy forces to join in integrated governance.

“Wangdao Jialitang” and “Social Science Jiayou Station” are grassroots theoretical dissemination platforms jointly established by the SFSSA and the Publicity Department of the CPC Jiading District Committee. By organizing a wide range of social science experts to carry out lectures, research, discussions, and other activities at the grassroots level, they aim to respond to public concerns with thorough theoretical propaganda, diagnose and offer strategies for grassroots development by providing scientific theoretical interpretations, and drive deeper theoretical research through solid practices. They will provide intellectual support for the modernization of urban governance and strong momentum for the construction of Shanghai as a people-centered city.