Over the past three decades, China has shocked the world by its unprecedented process of urbanization under which more than 400 million rural peasants have become urban residents. Coming along with this unprecedented process of urban transformation has been the massive and swift conversion of many rural villages into “new urban neighborhoods (cungaiju shequ)”. Within these new urban neighborhoods, those self-organized grassroots organizations, namely Villagers’ Committees and rural cooperatives, have been re-organized into Residents’ Committees and Shareholding Cooperatives respectively. All villagers legally become urban residents without having to move to cities as the local governments have changed their hukou from “agricultural” to “non-agricultural” status. However, these new urban residents are different from their counterparts in conventional urban neighborhoods, given their continual reliance on the traditional, collective institutions and village assets. In this context, how to ensure effective development of these new communities under rapid transition and to strengthen local capacity building are presenting formidable challenges to grassroots governance transformation in these new urban neighborhoods.
在过去的三十年里，中国有4亿多农民转为城市居民，这一前所未有的高速城市化进程震惊了世界。伴随着快速的城镇化进程，许多乡村迅速转变为“新型社区（村改居社区）”。在这些新型社区中，自组织，即村民委员会和农村合作社，已分别改组为居民委员会和股份制合作社。地方政府将村民的户口从“农业”转为“非农业”，所有村民都合法成为了当地的城市居民。然而，这些新型社区居民与传统城市社区居民不同，因为他们保留了传统的集体组织和农村集体资产。在此背景下，如何确保这些新型社区在快速转型过程中的可持续发展以及如何加强地方治理能力建设，是当下新型社区的基层治理转型面临的严峻挑战。

This workshop aims at seeking theoretical and methodological reflections on community research in urbanizing China. It will cover several main themes as follows:
• Property Rights Reforms and Shareholding Cooperatives
• Grassroots Elections and Democracy
• Village Revival and Redevelopment
• Institutional Capacity building for Community Governance
本次研讨会旨在探讨中国城市化进程中有关社区研究的理论和方法，主要的议题如下：
• 产权改革和股份合作社
• 基层选举和民主
• 村庄复兴和重建
• 社区治理能力建设