| Summary: | In February 2016, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council
of China issued the “Several Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council
on Further Strengthening the Management of Urban Planning and Construction”, stating that,
in principle, closed residential areas will no longer be constructed and will be replaced by the
promotion of the block system. This change in policy has aroused a great deal of controversy in
various circles of society in China. In 2017, Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, made
an innovative attempt to implement “small block regulations.” In 2018, the first “block system”
public rental housing district appeared in Beijing, the capital of China. These innovative practices
have promoted the pace of block system reform in China, but in general, the implementation of
block system reform is difficult. From the perspective of public opinion, it seems that many citizens
misunderstand the block system. This may be due to the complex interactions among community
environmental management, public security, privacy, and other factors where individual interests
and public interests meet. This article, from the perspective of the protection of civil rights, analyses
the advantages and disadvantages of the block system at the value level, distinguishes the differences
between the block systems of China, the UK and the US and then puts forward the theory that the
block system reforms for newly built and existing residences are different and should be implemented
independently. Concerning the key point of the block system reforms, the “greater difficulty in the
implementation of the block system reform in the existing residential quarters” is the proposal to
expropriate the commonly owned internal roads and appropriately compensate the residents. Finally,
to cope with the core issues effectively, this article advocates gradual implementation of the block
system reforms in China, including legislation, policy transformation, cultural construction, and pilot
trials to promote the success of the implementation.
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