Homeowner Association in Guangzhou’s Gated Communities: Development characteristics, Governance Efficacy and its Determinants

Abstract

With the breakdown of the Danwei(work unit) system and the deepening of social restructuring, housing structure in Chinese cities has undergone a profound transformation after more than two decades’ housing reform. Commodity housing estates become the predominant form of residential neighbourhoods, and give rise to a multiplex power relation entangling multiple stakeholders including the residents committee, property management company, and homeowner association(HOA). The current studies on HOA are mainly centered in the field of sociology, law and management sciences, and few is from geographical perspective, moreover, discussions on the institution are more than empirical studies, especially, qualitative analysis is highlighted and quantitative analysis is seldom used. Based on a large-scale household survey and in-depth interviews in Guangzhou in 2012, in combination of collective action, multi-center governance, community governance, we studied the gated community development characteristics and governance efficacy in Guangzhou, and analyzed the influence factors of governance efficacy by means of linear regression. We found that the current development of HOA in China is facing the problems such as imperfect legal environment, shortage of operation funds, lack of participation of the property owners, which is not good for the growth and promotion of 'civil society' and ‘collective action’, and difficult to form an effective 'multi-center governance order'. The governance efficacy of HOA is affected by a number of factors, including individual characteristics such as household registration, awareness and understanding of property management regulations, neighbourhood characteristics such as neighbourhood size, housing price, and neighbourhood disputes and public participation.

隨著單位制的解體和社會轉型的縱深展開,中國住區構成在住房制度改革的背景下發生了巨大變化,商品房住區開始成為中國住區的主要種類,并催生了以業委會、居委會、物業管理公司為主導的多元住區權力結構。現有的關于業委會的研究領域主要集中于社會學、法學和管理學領域,地理學界研究較少,且研究視角上注重制度探討,實證研究則較少;研究方法上側重于定性研究,定量研究尚未及時跟進。文章基于2012年在廣州市進行的大規模抽樣調查數據,綜合集體行動、多中心治理、社區管治3種視角,研究了廣州商住小區業委會的發展特征及其治理效能,并采用線性回歸分析方法對業委會治理效能的影響因素進行了分析。研究發現,當前業委會建設中存在法律環境尚未完善、運作經費不足、缺乏業主參與等問題,不利于'市民社會'的成長和'集體行動'的促進,難以形成有效的'多中心治理秩序'。在影響因素方面,業委會的治理效能受戶籍、物業管理法規了解程度等居民層面的特征,小區規模、住房均價等社區層面的特征,以及社區糾紛、業主參與等多元因素共同影響。