For example, he is very positive about the kind of direct democracy he saw in Belmont, MA (the classic New England Town Meeting), and viewed that as a cornerstone of American society, along with a shared vision of innovation and development.
Fundamentally, the core pieces of America that Wang looked up to were the same pieces of policy and legislation that were pushed in the Progressive Era [0] as well as by FDR as part of his New Deal [1] and LBJ as part of his Great Society [2].
In essence, the vision that Wang and Xi are pushing within China today is basically an Authoritarian but also decentralized version of the Great Society and New Deal.
[0] - https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-wo...
[1] - https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-wo...
[2] - https://library.fiveable.me/apush/unit-8/great-society/study...
I thought it's fairly common to live in a town with a town hall meetings or PTA meetings? Or visit city hall or met your city council in elementary school?
It's the norm in most suburban towns (use the local PTA meeting as the Town Meeting instead depending on the suburb).
If you live within a big city, then it's a different story of course (city government is absolutely not community driven), but only 12% of Americans live in Urban areas/cities [0] and 69% live in suburbs.