In conducting a 3-month field observation, the authors found that both rapid development of the economy and an increasing crime rate in Guangzhou city have posed serious challenges to the neighborhood's traditional function of crime control; however, self-restructuring and strategic reform have enabled the neighborhood to play a new role in the system of comprehensive management of social order. In this study, a combination of open- ended and semi-structured interviews was conducted with government personnel, neighborhood committee staff members, police officers, and local residents. Direct observations were recorded in the streets, in high-rise flats, and in traditional housing units, in shopping areas, and in police stations. City newspapers and available local governmental documents were also reviewed. Under the reform efforts, public involvement is still considered important in crime prevention, but the Neighborhood Security Project has shifted its emphasis to a specialized unit, the team of safety protection. Some residents' participation has been reduced to a payment of a monthly security fee. Further, collective leadership has been partially replaced by a system of individual responsibility. By assigning security duties to individuals and penalizing those who fail to fulfill their contracts, the Chinese have developed a more effective strategy of crime control at the local level. There has also been a switch from community policing to organized policing. Police strikes against specialized types of crime and street patrol have become the focus of police work; consequently, the police-community relationship is deteriorating in urban China. Moreover, there has been a change from voluntarism to material incentive. 38 references