Contemporary City Management And Its Philosophy

Urbanization is a overheated topic at the moment, while urbanization of the world has stridden over industrial civilization period into post-industrial civilization period featured with new globalization and new urbanization. With the coming of post-industrial society, intellectual economy is changing urban economic structure (industrial structure and interest structure) and meanwhile changing everything in the city from people's quality to city style, from social organization to outlook of value, from urban structure to urban function etc. In conclusion, the development of cities in the world has undergone profound change, and correspondingly city administration from basic concepts to detailed operation must have fundamental change. This brings forward questions for today's city scientific research and management scientific research, namely what's the general philosophy and detailed operation for city administration in post-industry society. Therefore this article puts city into the mega-background of post-industrial society while conducting research on today's city administration and its philosophy. Of course, China which is in the general layout of the world is in the process of switching from industrial society to intellectual society, from planned economy to market economy, traditional agricultural civilization to modem urban civilization. The task top on our agenda, as well as the ultimate purpose of this topic is to study the general pattern should be followed by urbanization process while switching from traditional agricultural civilization to modem urban civilization, and how to overcome the malpractices occurring in western urbanization process, and what kind of choice to make from macro-strategy to micro-operation for city administration with Chinese characteristics.This article conducts research by applying the subject knowledge of philosophy, city study, management, social study and so on in a comprehensive way, and by taking use of historical approach, logic approach, comparative approach, demonstration approach, and criticism approach. The whole article spreads research from three directions as follows. From history to status quo, namely to seize the theory and practice of modern city development and management through historical research of city development and management theories, especially through critical research of modern cities. From theory to practice, namely to catch response from modern city management through analysis of characteristics of post-industrial society and intellectual economy time, this response is also a response from theory to practice. From generality to individuality, modern city management concept is a radiation of modern management theory even modern philosophy into city management, which spells the relationship between generality and individuality, meanwhile the main purpose of this topic is solve the problems facing Chinese city management by referring to theknowledge of world urbanization process, which is also spells the relationship between generality and individuality.This article is divided into six chapters under three parts. Part I (Chapter 1-Chapter 2) is the basic part including study of city, city management and city management theory, which builds a theoretical platform for stuffy of modern city management. Part II (Chapter 3-Chapter 4) is the core part including the philosophy and basic characteristics of modern city management. Part III (Chapter 5- Chapter 6) is the purpose of study including the macro-strategy and micro-operation of modern Chinese city management.Started with city, the study object of city management, the article grasps the essence and development pattern of city from city development history, so as to get into the characteristics of city in post-industrial society. According to City Development History by Mumford and Fashion and Conflict by Ren Ping, the development of city is divided into following periods: (1) Ancient and mediaeval city-Gods' Homestead, (2) Modern city-symbol of sense, (3) Contemporary city-dissimilation of human nature. The purpose of the abovementioned review is to catch the essence of city in its historical evolution. City is artificial materialized environment, and behind all material forms of city you can find the hidden human factors. History of city reflects the consciousness and behavior of human in history, as well as spirit of times, so the study of city must be placed into the time background and time spirit. By reviewing the history of city development, we may conclude the following rules: the urban-rural relation displays the trend from "no difference between urban and rural" to "differentiated urban and rural" to "permeation of urban and rural", city status displays the trend from decentralization to centralization to decentralization, city scale displays the trend from small city civilization in mediaeval to big city civilization in modern time to township civilization of today, the relationship between basic characteristics of civilization and nature presents the trend from agricultural civilization to industrial civilization to ecological civilization, and urban culture appears the mixing and harmonization of sense and non-sense. As per the logical deduction of these rules, the modern city is featured as being decentralized, diverse, intellectual, global and ecological, which are the characteristics of the object of modern city management.Of course, the running of urbanization waves calls for the progressing of city management level. Naissance of city public economy, embarrassment of spontaneous urbanization and failure of administration urbanization stimulate the life of city management. City management is defined as broad sense and narrow sense. In my point of view, city management takes the long-term stability, harmony and sound running of city as its target, and conducts overall coordination, planning, control and continuation of city running system by taking use of human, financial and information resources. City management has characteristics such as median-cro of layer, intensiveness of space, complexity of structure etc. The content of contemporary city management is very rich as its object involvesvarious organization elements of urban community, and we can put it into four categories namely, social management, economic management, ecologic management, and infrastructure management of city.A good understanding of the management concept of contemporary city must be gained by going through the development of city management ideology (mainly comes out of the combination of city science and management science), which is a synthesis and system of city science, and shows increasing importance to management function strengthening. The maturity and subject split-up of modern management science also impels the birth and development of city management theory. Though coming into being a little bit late, city management theory develops rather quickly and has seen different schools of theory. In United States, there are six schools of city management theory. The theory changes quickly and develops more sophisticated with time. Especially in the background of post-industry time, namely under the influence of post modern ideological trend, some new thoughts occur such as city ecological ideology, new urbanism, city marketing ideology etc. All these set up a good theoretical platform for modern city management.The management concept of each time, each country and each nation is on one hand affected by the economic and social development status of the time, country and nation, and on the other hand un-separatable from the value outlook, moral guideline and way of thinking of that time, while all these cultural elements are affected by philosophy in a slow but lasting way. Modern city management concept is a radiation from modern philosophy into city management field. This article grasps the philosophy of modern city management from three layers. (1) From relationship between man and substance, it presents as man-focus concept. Such a man-oriented concept is displayed from two aspects. On one aspect, man is the subject of city management. Of course the subject refers to a kind of organizational system instead of individual person. Such an organizational system is developed from singularity to pluralism, but it represents the overall interest of all people of the society at that time no matter what kind of form it appears. One the other aspect, man is purpose of city management. City management takes man as its purpose, measure and standard. Sure man's needs are developmental, city management evolves from satisfying man's survival demand to attaching more importance to developmental demand. (2) From relationship between science and human culture, it appears the amalgamation of both. Look back on the history of city development, we may find the alternant development of scienticism and humanism, and the split-and-blending dialectic relation also runs through city construction and management ideology all the while. The city appearing before industrial civilization is the homestead of Gods. The Italian Enlightenment Movement and French Revolution expedite the man-and-sense-based enlightenment spirit in city culture. With the process of industrialization, urbanization process in is continuous advancement, and the combination of science and human culture in city construction and management reaches its peak. But with the establishment and popularity of plant system, instrumental rationality increaseday by day, science and humanism breaks, and science and sense no longer naturally accompany the inner heart of man, while becomes opposite forces. Industrial civilization brings up huge achievements, and meanwhile bring dissimilation. Man who just get rid of the rein of Gods falls into the evil hands of crazy instrumental rationality. In the first half of 20th century when western industrial civilization and capitalism entered into its late period, a series of inherent contradictions became visible gradually, and the core problem is the split of man and sense, which was then made of two completely conflictive lays in city development theory. Under such background, post-modernism ideology grew up. Pushed by informationization and intellectualization, city management not only pursues the scientificism of management, but also reflects humanism. It advocates the management atmosphere where scientific spirit and human culture support and penetrate into each other, so as to hit the purpose of effective and orderly management. Scientific element in city management requires city management to be regulated and in order with a set of system, being a kind of modern behavior mode, while the human element in city management requires the sense in management should not be cold scientific sense but human sense, and to attach importance to man's demand, respect man's function and fully exert man's enthusiasm, to display the order and effective management of city under the function of human sense so as to realize the combination of human culture and science, which is the basic trend of modern city management. (3) From relationship of part and entirety, it appears systematic concept. Systematic concept requires us to study object comprehensively in city management practice from the inter-relation, inter-restriction and reciprocity between city system and elements, between elements and elements, between city system and external environment, so as to handle problems in the most optimized way. To show systematic ideology, city management should follow the principle of entirety, relativity, dynamics and order.The complete innovation of city management ideology brings a complete innovation to city management methods. The subject, management behavior, and management methods of modern city management have appeared some new features and trends, which are concluded into the following four aspects. (1) monism and pluralism of city management. City government plays a primary role and function in city management, and bear uniqueness in city management. In this sense, the subject of city management has Unicity. But the subject of modern city management is a system, which is classified into two categories namely authority system and non-authority system, while the latter is getting more and more important. We must attach special importance to non-authority social system, namely the fostering of the third department and participation of citizens, which is beneficial to boost the socialization of city management. (2) Rigidity and flexibility of city management method. The increasing complexity of city management calls for the scientificism of city management. City management should follow certain system and rules to control and regulate the composing elements and activity subject of city, to secure the order of city, that's to say city management, cannot survivewithout "rigidity". But with the coming of post-modern society, city management is becoming more and more flexible. The flexibility of city management appears in two lays. The characteristics on the first lay is to highlight the function of cultural management in city management, which means to exert the function of culture to realize the benign circle of high efficiency and high morale in city construction and management through fostering of city spirit and construction of city culture. The characteristics on the second lay is to switch from the hardware management focusing person, money and material to software management. Software management including intellectual management, learning management and innovative management has become novel management patterns in modern city management. (3) The integration and digitalization of city management method. City management is comprehensive, from direct management to indirect management, from unitary administration method to economic method applying economy and administration. With the development of information technology, computer technology and space technology, city management methods are getting digital. People start using digital instrument to handle, analyze and manage the city as a whole, which facilitates the smoothness and coordination of man stream, material stream, money stream and communication stream, and greatly increases the efficiency of city management. (4) The administration and market of city management behavior. With the development of market economy, city construction and management enters into three-in-one mode of constructing city, managing city and running city. City government takes full use of market mechanism and market law and applies market approach to solve problems existing in city construction and management, to meet people's requirements of city environment.To grasp the ideology and trends of modern city management is the base of exploring modern city management in China. The final purpose of this article is to analyze city management with Chinese characteristics from the two lays of macro-management and micro-management. Macro management can be as big as a country or region, here we discuss the entirety of city and it comes down to the development orientation and path of a city. Let's focus on four issues. First is to discuss strategic management issue from the angle of city development strategy. Second is to put forward that city group, city loop and city zone are the pattern of future city in China from the angle of city system pattern. That is to say city system has three levels of pattern, the first level being city group led by few leading cities, the second level being city loop taking several central cities as radiation point, and the third level being city zone composing by many central cities. The key point is to make big cities bigger, make central cities stronger and make small cities special. Third is to correctly find city function orientation and implement city image strategy. To find city function orientation from space layout, historical tradition and comparative superiority, and then based on this to implement image strategy and build up city image. Fourth is to realize city update via city management innovation.City micro-management includes the establishment and improvement of each city managementsystem, operation and healthiness of management mechanism, as well as management of city environment and sanitation, city appearance, road and architecture.We will discuss the management system, main management functions and operating mechanism, and will not involve detailed management concerning economy, society and ecology. (1) Analyze the current city management mode of China and its disadvantages from the aspect of city management system, and sets up the management system of "managing in rows while taking the field management as its core" step by step. (2) Uphold five management functions, namely city management can be reduced to five functions as guiding, regulating, governing, serving and operating. (3) Call on community style of city management in operating mechanism. While for the moment community development needs further advancement, i.e. to establish and perfect stable financial mechanism, to fix community development target by adjusting to local conditions to improve community autonomy function, to boost fostering of community grassroots organizations to form good partnership of community development, and to set up law relationship for community development and to better city community management system.