Urban villages are special communities that have emerged along with China's industrialization and urbanization. In many mega-cities and super-large cities, the existence of urban villages enables numerous migrant workers to settle and gain a foothold in the city at relatively low cost. However, for a long time, due to weak infrastructure, major safety hazards, and lagging social governance capacity, urban villages have become areas prone to disputes, conflicts, accidents, and criminal cases.

Modernizing governance of urban villages is both a tough "hard nut to crack" and a "mandatory question" that must be confronted head-on. Starting in April 2023, Xiamen City in Fujian Province has been advancing the renovation of all 108 urban villages in the city under the concept of modernized governance, with a plan to take three years to turn urban villages into livable, work-friendly, smart, and harmonious modern communities through Party-building leadership, resident participation, and multi-party investment.

Addressing risks and hazards so that urban village residents can "live safely"

Xin'an Village in Xinyang Subdistrict, Haicang District, adjacent to an industrial park, has a population of about 100,000 and is the most populous urban village outside Xiamen Island. The village has 2,125 rental buildings, dense overhead cables, long-term overloaded water and electricity supply, prominent problems such as illegal structures and street-stall operations, and once had long-standing high incidence of fire accidents and various cases.

In Xiamen, nearly 60 percent of fires and public security cases occur in urban villages. "We must let the people live safely," said Zhang Zhihong, vice mayor of Xiamen. Targeting the safety hazards and living environment problems in urban villages that bear on the vital interests of the people, Xiamen has increased fiscal input, with state-owned enterprises such as power and telecommunications operators participating jointly, to leverage social investment, improve urban village infrastructure, investigate and eliminate various safety hazards, and enhance the people's sense of security.

Villager Qiu Shuhui of Xin'an Village owns 45 rental rooms. "What I worried about most before was a tenant's electric bike catching fire. Since last year, the village has carried out unified planning and fire-safety technical upgrades, with electric bikes parked uniformly outdoors and fire doors added, so tenants and we alike feel much more at ease," she told reporters.

Reporters saw in several urban villages that alleys have been opened up, fire stations built, fire patrol vehicles added, and some villages have customized "new-type hose-laying vehicles" suited to narrow urban village roads and equipped full-time emergency and comprehensive governance teams. In the event of a fire or other accident, emergency response can be in place within 3 to 5 minutes.

Advancing the burying of cables underground so that villagers can "look up and see blue skies." Luo Bin, a second-level staff member of State Grid Xiamen Electric Power Company, told reporters that the power department has dispatched dedicated teams to reside in villages, conduct detailed surveys, re-plan strong- and weak-current wiring, and expand transformers or install transformer boxes to eliminate electricity hazards. "We have launched power upgrade and renovation in 71 urban villages and completed renovation in 42 villages."

Li Decai, director of the Xiamen Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau, introduced that since advancing modernized governance of urban villages, Xiamen has taken "burying cables underground" as the entry point, adding 5.8 million meters of weak-current optical cable, adding 220,000 kVA of power supply capacity, and removing 1.02 million square meters of illegal structures. Through addressing various risks and hazards, from January to August 2024, fire accidents in urban villages across the city fell by 41.7 percent year on year.

Party-building leadership and digitalization consolidate the foundation of governance

The key to forming a governance synergy is to integrate grassroots governance resources through Party-building leadership. Lai Zuhui, director of the Social Work Department of the Xiamen Municipal Party Committee, said that while strengthening village (community) Party organizations, Xiamen has improved the four-level organizational structure of "subdistrict Party working committee—community Party committee—village and community Party branch—villager Party group" and explored a "grand Party committee" deliberation and consultation platform for urban villages led by community Party committees, extending the Party-building reach to the nerve endings of urban villages.

Walking into Malong Community in Dianqian Subdistrict, Huli District, the streets are spacious and tidy, and looking up one can see the "wireless beauty" of blue skies. "In just over a year, Malong Community has changed beyond recognition, and this could not have happened without the support and participation of the people," said Tang Dada, secretary of the Party working committee of Dianqian Subdistrict. The community has established a comprehensive governance committee under the leadership of the Party committee, inviting villagers and Party member representatives to participate, organizing weekly activities including policy briefings, joint discussion and consultation, and inviting representatives to supervise construction, so that more people can participate in urban village governance.

One of the difficult problems in urban village governance is the complexity of the population, unclear circumstances, and an unclear baseline. Xiamen is exploring the digitalization of information about people, land, matters, objects, and conditions in urban villages, striving to build smart communities and enhance governance capacity.

Huangcuo Community in Binhai Subdistrict, Siming District, is located on the scenic Island Ring Road, backed by mountains and facing the sea, and is a popular tourist destination with nearly 3 million visitors a year. Due to dense population and high mobility, it is difficult to grasp in real time the number of rental housing units, risk and hazard points, and other conditions.

On the smart management platform of Tatao She urban village in Huangcuo Community, information on buildings, vehicles, and roads is displayed in real time on a large wall screen. Zhao Ke, secretary of the Party working committee of Binhai Subdistrict, told reporters that each village in the subdistrict has sorted out various types of information in its jurisdiction, with grid workers collecting it one by one and entering it into the platform to achieve dynamic management and drive digital operation of urban village governance.

"Smoke is rising from the rooftop of Tongji Building; send someone to the site immediately." At 5:51 p.m. on July 2, staff of Houpu Community in Huli District monitored this situation from the smart platform and issued an early warning at once; community grid workers quickly arrived at the scene and completed handling promptly.

Wu Xinkui, secretary of the Huli District Party Committee, said that Huli District has built a digital management platform and established a comprehensive station building integrating functions such as a 5G equipment room, a smart platform command center, and grid services, achieving real-scene modeling of urban villages. Since the platform was established, it has identified and issued early warnings for more than 10,000 incidents, improving the informatization level of urban village governance.

In 2023, criminal police alerts in the first 25 villages where Xiamen advanced modernized governance of urban villages fell by 35 percent. In the 46 villages advanced this year, criminal police alerts fell by 23.98 percent year on year in the first half of the year, and public security police alerts fell by 9.71 percent year on year.

Emphasizing cultural continuity and enhancing the "blood-making" function

Reporters' research found that most urban villages in Xiamen have a single source of village collective income and low land output, but many urban villages have profound cultural and historical heritage and rich cultural heritage resources such as cultural relics, historic-style buildings, and historic districts, and still retain the original traditional village fabric.

In advancing modernized governance of urban villages, Xiamen emphasizes protecting and passing on historical and cultural resources, fully tapping their modern value, revitalizing and utilizing them in light of local conditions, and planning cultural and creative industries as well as industry-academia-research formats.

In Huangcuo Community, a once dilapidated "Huangcuo Brigade Building" has been given new life. This two-story brick-and-stone building constructed in 1964 carries the memory and nostalgia of Huangcuo as a village on the coastal defense front line, but was later sublet for use as small processing workshops and the area became cluttered and dilapidated. Through repair and reinforcement and landscape renovation, the brigade building, auditorium, and square have been turned into exhibition halls such as a contemporary art museum; the old houses have been revitalized and have gradually become the "popularity and appearance" highlight of Tatao She.

Tapping resource endowments and doing a good job in cross-Strait integration. Houxi Village in Houxi Town, Jimei District, is a traditional cultural protection village in Fujian Province and preserves a City God Temple built during the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty. Su Guohui, deputy secretary of the Jimei District Party Committee, said that in the renovation, Houxi Village simultaneously planned industrial upgrading and created a cross-Strait youth entrepreneurship base, which has now begun to take shape and attracts more than 1,000 college students from both sides of the Strait each year for exchanges and study tours.

While passing on and protecting cultural continuity, Xiamen emphasizes the use of market-based means to bring more social capital into urban village governance. By introducing platform companies and establishing project companies as joint ventures with village collectives, it conducts integrated operation of public facility construction, smart platform management, and industrial upgrading in urban villages, develops diverse business formats in urban villages, and enhances the "blood-making" function.

In Weili Community of Huli District, reporters saw that idle land once overgrown with weeds is being turned into a cultural and creative block, container shops and other business formats are being laid out, abandoned old houses are being repaired, and public facilities such as basketball courts, parking lots, and residents' narrative gardens are being planned and built; the community is radiating new vitality.