Webinar looks into megacity governance
Cyclists ride on a greenway in Xinjin County, Chengdu City, in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Photo: CHINA DAILY
Experts explored better governance of megacities at a webinar in late March.
At the 7th Capital City Governance Forum, participants discussed challenges and opportunities for megacity governance in the digital age.
In the digital age, megacity governance faces the challenge of responding to the core values of public management. In this regard, Yang Kaifeng, executive dean of the School of Public Administration and Policy at Renmin University of China (RUC), said that megacity governance should ultimately be committed to the creation of public welfare, public well-being, and public value.
“From the perspective of public management, we need to think about how to achieve a leap from governance concepts to a sense of gain for the people,” Yang said.
In addition, Yang said that the application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital transformation not only directly affects the efficiency and effectiveness of governance and other indicators, but also has an important impact on social structures, cultural cognition, and values.
RUC Vice President Liu Yuanchun suggested exploring megacity governance in light of the strategic system of the new development pattern. The new development pattern requires megacity governance not only to implement supply-side reforms, but also to become the vanguard of demand management.
Megacities should become leaders in digital society and the digital age, Liu continued. Megacity governance needs to play an essential role facilitating basic R&D in the coordinated innovation system consisting of governments, enterprises, universities, research institutes, and users.
The construction of “smart cities” is a hot topic in the field of megacity governance. Zhu Chunkui, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, said that the essence of smart cities is to empower megacities and solve “urban diseases” through technological innovation.
The development of smart cities in China has gone through three stages: digital cities driven by industry applications, smart cities driven by emerging technologies, and new-type smart cities driven by big data, Zhu analyzed.
In terms of governance, China has experienced development from e-government to digital government, and then to new-type smart cities. Experience indicates that effective construction of digital government and smart cities lies in unified online government service and unified online urban governance.
In essence, unified online government service aims to narrow the distance between citizens and the government through convenient measures both online and offline, and unified online urban governance aims to bring the government and citizens closer by establishing a problem-oriented approach to governance models, noted Wu Jiannan, executive vice president of the China Institute for Urban Governance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The two innovative measures have showcased how new technology has helped reshape government and governance, and realize a people-centered digital transformation.
Chengdu City’s bold ambition of becoming a “park city,” an urban planning initiative aimed at creating more green spaces and generating sustainable development, has received much attention. Jiang Xiaoping, Party secretary of the School of Public Administration at Sichuan University, said that the core elements of the “park city” initiative include harmonious coexistence of man and nature, quality of life, green development, cultural inheritance and promotion, and modern governance.
Li Wenzhao, deputy director of the Beijing Academy of Development and Strategy at RUC, said that cities are living bodies and organisms. Urban planning and construction should make cities “smarter.” At present, discussions of megacity governance have just started, and will continue to deepen in the future.
Edited by JIANG HONG
PRINT
CLOSE