Neighborhood governance and residents' satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic in urban China: evidence from six major Chinese cities

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a stress test for local neighborhood governance, as the responsibilities of detecting/containing infections largely fell onto neighborhood-level actors. Working at the frontlines, residents' committees acted as grassroots government agents, together with property management companies (PMCs) and homeowners associations (HOAs), to implement pandemic prevention and control measures. Using survey data collected in six Chinese cities in 2021, this paper analyzes residents' satisfaction with pandemic control measures - a major task of neighborhood governance back then. The results show that greater roles of PMCs and HOAs led to higher levels of satisfaction. Meanwhile, satisfaction was positively influenced by residents' social capital and income, while COVID-19 infections and homeownership showed a negative impact. The results demonstrate the important role of non-state actors in enhancing governance efficacy within a largely top-down governance system. Meanwhile, homeowners tended to demand greater autonomy and prefer more participatory approaches. This study offers a nuanced and enriched understanding of the changing dynamics of neighborhood governance under shifting state-market-society relations by demonstrating how the otherwise less powerful non-state actors were empowered to combat the pandemic collectively. It also informs future policymaking to unleash the potential of bottom-up mechanisms to enhance neighborhood governance efficacy and residents' satisfaction.