Exploration and evaluation of the reform of capital planning institutions in the early days of the founding of New China:Centered around the restructuring of the Beijing Urban Planning Commission in January 1950
The capital planning work has spanned 75 years,and the planning agency,as the mainstay of urban planning,have undertaken reform and exploration in line with development requirements at different stages.Precisely due to the capital's special status,Beijing faced quite complex circumstances when conducting urban planning in the early days of New China's establishment,and there were numerous puzzles in the study of Beijing's urban planning history:Why was the first comprehensive urban planning of Beijing only proposed in 1953?What were the achievements of research on comprehensive urban planning prior to that?These questions are closely related to the planning institution at that time,the Beijing Urban Planning Commission(hereinafter referred to as the"UPC"),and need to be clarified through rigorous historical research.Established on May 22,1949,the UPC of Beiping City underwent two significant restructurings before its dissolution in February 1955:the first restructuring at the end of January 1950 and the second in July 1953.As for the first restructuring of the UPC,it was an institutional adjustment organized by Beijing's government agencies after the founding of New China to adapt to the needs of the new social system.After the restructuring,significant changes occurred in the UPC's institutional nature and functions.While previous research has produced some achievements regarding the establishment and related work of the UPC,this paper starts with its first restructuring,analyzing the inducements,process,and changes of the institutional adjustment,and further evaluating the effectiveness of the UPC's first restructuring.Firstly,the early establishment and work of the UPC are sorted out.Initially established as a deliberative body under the Construction Bureau,the UPC relied mainly on the planning office of the Construction Bureau for technical personnel.The work carried out during this period could be divided into two aspects:the investigation of the city's current status and the planning of the new urban area in the western suburbs.Secondly,the background and reasons for the UPC's first restructuring are summarized.Even before the founding of New China,Liang Sicheng wrote to the mayor of Beiping City,suggesting that based on the UPC's planning and management authority,the large-scale adjustment of the organizational structure of the Beijing Municipal People's Government at the end of 1949 and the Soviet experts'suggestions on the adjustment of institutional functions provided favorable opportunities for the UPC's restructuring.Besides,there were also strong motives for restructuring within the UPC.Finally,the UPC's first restructuring is summarized from three aspects.After the restructuring,the UPC became a powerful department with both planning research and administrative approval functions.Leadership changes occurred,and the total number of committee members increased significantly.The institution's technical strength was significantly enhanced,and its subordinate institutions were continuously improved and adjusted.By analyzing the reasons,background,and changes after the UPC's first restructuring,it is believed that the UPC achieved the following results after the institutional adjustment:it improved organizational structure and clarified job responsibilities,curbing the phenomenon of slow work progress;it conducted exploratory research on the comprehensive urban planning scheme of the capital,laying the foundation for the first comprehensive plan;it completed the research on a batch of key regional planning projects,providing a necessary basis for administrative management and urban construction;it improved the UPC's administrative management and law enforcement system,initially establishing a planning land approval system;and it continuously strengthened the function of architectural examination,laying a solid foundation for large-scale construction in the capital.Judging from the progress of the capital's planning and construction work from 1950 to 1953,the UPC has made remarkable achievements in many aspects,and the results of the reform of the planning institutions have been very obvious,which has helped to promote the smooth development of various construction activities in the capital,and should be fully affirmed and highly appraised.Of course,this restructuring was not flawless,and one of its shortcomings from the perspective of the development and changes in Beijing's urban planning undertaking was that it was slow to formulate a relatively mature urban master plan after the first five-year plan began in 1953.This is because in the early stage of large-scale urban construction in the capital,under the condition that there is no sufficient experience,a mature model,and a slightly weak technical force,it is by no means easy to scientifically formulate the overall urban plan of the capital Beijing,and the comprehensiveness and maturity of the work of the UPC are limited to a certain extent,and it is difficult to avoid the imperfection in the handling of certain problems.We should have a little more understanding and sympathy for this.
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