同乡组织是近代上海的重要社会中间组织。在政府缺位和政府管理能力不足的情况下, 同乡组织在近代上海外来人口管理中发挥了重要的社会控制、冲突协调、利益维护作用。它们的存在不仅有助于外来人口的正常流入和退出, 而且也有助于外来人口的融入, 从而在一定程度上推动了近代上海城市化进程的良性运行。如何充分发挥社会中间组织的积极作用, 仍是今天上海外来人口管理中的一个值得思考的问题。

The fellow society (an organization of people from the same birth place) was an important non-governmental organization in modern Shanghai. Under the circumstance of government imbecility, the fellow society played important roles in social control, conflict harmonization and interest protection in modern Shanghai's administration of non-native migrating population. Its activities not only helped to conduct normal immigration and emigration of alien population, but also to strengthen alien population's fusion, thus promoting modern Shanghai's urbanization. It is still a considerable issue to fully exert positive functions of non-governmental organizations in current Shanghai's management of alien population.