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Multi-Level Housing Governance in Rural Settlement Lin & Jia

words, the township has become the border The elderly authority still played an
between the country and society. The important role in the display of politics in the
authorities whose power is higher than the countryside. A notable difference between the
townships directly represent the elderly and the intellectuals of traditional
administrative power of the state and belong society is that they are not actually detached
to the category of the state. The organization from the formal organization of the village
or administrative division below the township but are within the system and have certain
does not have the nature of the state authority.
administrative organization and belongs to The family and the associated lineage are
the category of society. always the basic units for observing the
In the new period, township officers have political structure of Chinese rural society.
a clear bureaucratic structure. Their behavior However, since the beginning of the transition
directly affects the development of rural into modern society, this situation has
politics. The township cadre system is undergone changes. As the society continues
composed of two major rules of identity and to divide, lineage forces have been impacted
rank. Township officer mainly refers to the in several ways. Since the founding of the
staff of the township regime. According to the New PRC the foundation of power of the rural
sequence of posts prescribed by the national lineage has been shaken through the
recognition system, towns and townships cooperation and collectivization movement.
generally belong to the ke (科, department). The class division has replaced the affinity of
In the new period, “township governance” blood, and the social function of family and
is the dominant force that reflects the state lineage has even been cancelled. After the
power. “village governance” is the foundation implementation of the household contract
that reflects the community authority. In these responsibility system for remuneration in the
organizations, the formal organization of 1980s, the family’s economic interests have
village belongs to the state’s political power been affirmed by the state’s laws and given
system, but it is not a government new content. In connection with economic
organization. The village party branch is the interests, the legal status of rural families has
core of the village-level power organization. also been restored to a certain degree. On
The villagers’ committees, as self-governed many occasions, the family has become an
grass-roots organizations, are changing the actor in rural politics. The family’s interest
political nature and operational paths of the structure has become the basis of the rural
village’s political methods. Township social and political order. It not only contains
government and village governance information on many rural public powers, but
organization are co-dependent. also is the fundamental reason for
At the same time, the villagers’ group is understanding the stability and turmoil of the
an important part of the village governance rural political order.
structure. It is also a force that cannot be
ignored in rural politics. The villagers’ group 5. CONCLUSION
is not only the most common collective In this research, vernacular houses are seen as
economic organization in China’s rural a dynamic process instead of a constant entity.
society at the moment, but it is also a The dynamic process is constituted of a series
community organization composed of natural of continuous temporal segments. With this
villages. It is the most basic living research perspective, the rural built
environment for villagers and an integral part environment is portrayed as a continuum of
of the village governance structure. By law, temporal segments of settlement.
the villagers’ group is a collective economic The rural built environment is visualized
organization and is the owner of collective as an integral part of multiple spatial layers
land. with different scales. Different spatial levels
are the result of observing the space through

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