Abstract: Since “community” was established in China in the 1980s as an administrative concept and a practical policy instrument, planning scholarship has paid insufficient attention to the concept’s sociospatial and temporal relationships, while community planning and community action have remained strongly oriented toward remedying material deficits. Combining theoretical and empirical analysis, this article examines the social dimensions of community and community planning. It clarifies the conceptual relationship between community and society; unpacks the social meanings of community as a collectivity; critiques quantitative, standards-based assessments of community conditions; and extends both socialpathology and social time-space approaches to community analysis. By shifting between societal and community perspectives, it also explores community-based responses to social problems. The article then identifies potential social issues embedded in community planning and argues for incorporating forward-looking social analysis and innovative exploration of social questions into the planning process, thereby overcoming technical difficulties that are, in fact, rooted in social problems.