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Urbanization enters a critical phase of deep development
2019-12-18
Recently, the "National New Urbanization Plan" was released. Chen Yajun, Deputy Director of the Development Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated in a media interview that China has entered the decisive stage of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It is currently in an important period of economic transformation and upgrading, accelerating the advancement of socialist modernization, and also at a critical stage of deepening urbanization development.
Recently, the "National New-type Urbanization Plan" was released. Chen Yajun, Deputy Director of the Development Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated in a media interview that China has entered a decisive stage of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It is currently in an important period of economic transformation and upgrading, accelerating the modernization of socialism, and a critical period for the deep development of urbanization. At such a crucial juncture, urbanization must be scientifically planned and systematically deployed to strive for a new type of urbanization with Chinese characteristics and scientific development. Chen Yajun said that relevant departments will soon introduce supporting policies related to household registration, land, funds, housing, basic public services, and policies to support the development of small and medium-sized cities, especially in the central and western regions. Meanwhile, pilot projects of different levels and types will be carried out in different regions focusing on establishing a cost-sharing mechanism for the urbanization of agricultural migrant populations, diversified and sustainable urbanization investment and financing mechanisms, city establishment models that reduce administrative costs, and reforming and improving the rural homestead system.
A "Unique" Plan
Q: This is the first urbanization plan issued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, which is of great significance. Why was such a plan formulated?
A: China has entered a decisive stage of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It is currently in an important period of economic transformation and upgrading, accelerating the modernization of socialism, and a critical period for the deep development of urbanization.
Over the more than 30 years since the reform and opening up, China's urban population has increased from 170 million to 730 million, an increase greater than the entire population of the European Union, achieving remarkable accomplishments. However, many contradictions and problems have accumulated, such as a large number of migrant workers and their accompanying family members struggling to integrate into urban society, inefficient and extensive use of urban land, unreasonable urban scale, structure and layout, and increasingly prominent urban diseases, all of which have seriously affected the healthy development of urbanization.
China's urbanization rate has exceeded 50% and is undergoing a rapid transition from a traditional agricultural society to a modern urban society. If the urbanization goals are correct and the direction is right, a new path can be forged that will help maintain sustained and healthy economic development, accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading, better address agricultural, rural, and farmer issues, strongly promote regional coordinated development, and foster comprehensive social progress. If the direction deviates, it may trigger a series of problems, as painfully experienced by Latin American countries.
At such a crucial juncture, urbanization must be scientifically planned and systematically deployed to ensure a new type of urbanization with Chinese characteristics and scientific development. Therefore, formulating the National New-type Urbanization Plan is critical. The plan clarifies the future urbanization development path, main goals, and strategic tasks according to the new requirements of following the path of new-type urbanization with Chinese characteristics and comprehensively improving urbanization quality. It coordinates institutional and policy innovations in related fields and serves as a macro, strategic, and fundamental plan guiding the healthy development of urbanization nationwide.
Q: The plan was released after several revisions. What are the difficulties and highlights?
A: The drafting of the plan can be traced back to the "Suggestions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" issued on October 27, 2010, which clearly proposed to "scientifically formulate urbanization development plans." From the end of 2010, the country began preparatory work for the plan's formulation, and it was officially released by the Party Central Committee and the State Council in March this year. The process took more than three years due to the broad scope of urbanization, heavy coordination tasks among departments and localities, and more importantly, because the plan has some unique features:
— This is a plan that corrects the fundamentals, with a core focus on people. The main subject of urbanization is people, and the fundamental purpose is for people. In the past, insufficient attention to this caused many problems. The plan returns to the essence of population urbanization, making people-oriented the primary characteristic of new-type urbanization. The strategic tasks fully consider people's needs: promoting the urbanization of agricultural migrant populations aims to gradually solve the problem of 234 million migrant workers and their families settling in cities and enjoying basic public services; optimizing urbanization layout aims to reasonably arrange about 850 million urban residents spatially by 2020; improving urban sustainability aims to raise the production and living standards of urban residents; and promoting integrated urban-rural development aims to enable all residents to share the achievements of urbanization and modernization.
— This is a plan for transformational development, with a key focus on improving quality. Currently, China's urbanization is at a historically critical period, with a more profound impact on economic and social development and a more complex internal and external environment. Traditional speed-driven urbanization is unsustainable, and urbanization transformation and quality improvement are imperative. Based on this understanding, the plan abandons expansionist, speed-driven urbanization, focusing tightly on comprehensively improving urbanization quality and accelerating the transformation of urbanization development methods, consistently adhering to the path of new-type urbanization with Chinese characteristics, which governs the entire plan.
— This is a plan for reform and innovation, focusing on overcoming institutional obstacles. Urbanization transformation and development cannot be achieved without institutional and mechanism reforms and policy innovation, releasing development potential through reform dividends. The plan makes special arrangements for reforming and improving institutional mechanisms, involving population management systems, land management systems, funding guarantee mechanisms, urban housing systems, ecological environment protection systems, and administrative division innovations. The content is rich and is a key focus of the plan. For difficult issues that have not yet reached full consensus and require in-depth research, pilot demonstrations will be used to advance, fully reflecting the reform principle of combining top-level design with pragmatic trial and error.
Planning and layout centered on "people"
Q: The urbanization targets set in the plan are about 60% urbanization rate of the resident population and about 45% urbanization rate of the registered population by 2020. On what basis were these targets proposed?
A: The use of two urbanization rate indicators is caused by China's unique dual urban-rural system. The dual urban-rural structure is common, but the dual urban-rural system caused by the household registration system is unique to China. The urbanization rate of the resident population is an internationally accepted indicator, and to facilitate international comparison, we adopted this indicator. After years of rapid urbanization development, we expect the urbanization rate to slow down in the future, with an annual urbanization rate of about 0.9%, so we set the target at about 60%.
Since the urbanization rate of the resident population cannot objectively reflect the true situation of China's urbanization rate, we also set the urbanization rate of the registered population as an indicator. According to relevant statistics, in 2012, the urbanization rate of the registered population was about 17 percentage points lower than that of the resident population. By 2020, after the registered population urbanization rate reaches about 45%, the gap between the registered population urbanization rate and the resident population urbanization rate will be 15%, achieving a reduction of about 2 percentage points in the gap. How to achieve the target of 45% urbanization rate for the registered population? Calculations show that this requires about 100 million agricultural migrant populations and other resident populations to settle in cities. Although this target is difficult to achieve, there are currently 234 million migrant workers who need urbanization, plus about 10 million new migrant workers and accompanying family members each year, and about 300 million agricultural migrant populations will need urbanization in the future. Even if the target of about 100 million agricultural migrant populations and other resident populations settling in cities is achieved, basic public services still need to be provided for two-thirds of the population.
Question: How should the core idea of "people-centered urbanization" reflected in the "Plan" be understood?
Answer: The essence and core of urbanization is people-centered urbanization. Past urbanization did not pay enough attention to this, resulting in a series of problems such as migrant workers drifting in cities and prioritizing places over people. The Plan establishes the concept of people-centered urbanization as the core in its guiding ideology, taking people-oriented as the primary principle. The goals and indicators are designed around "people," and the four major strategic tasks are also aimed at meeting the needs of "people." The entire Plan is structured around "people," from current issues to future directions and strategic tasks.
Centering on people-centered urbanization, the primary task is to gradually solve the problem of integrating the large number of migrant workers entering cities. The Plan promotes people-centered urbanization through two balanced paths. First, relaxing household registration restrictions. The core indicator is to enable about 100 million agricultural migrants to settle in cities by 2020. The Plan makes significant breakthroughs in household registration reform, adjusting the standards for large, medium, and small cities based on settlement needs. Second, for those without household registration, by establishing a residence permit system for the floating population and linking the provision of basic public services to years of residence, the Plan ensures that migrants without household registration can gradually enjoy basic urban public services. Following this approach, the Plan sets five basic public services: children's education, employment and entrepreneurship service systems, social security, basic medical care, and affordable housing.
Taking urban agglomerations as the main form
Question: Overall, what is the main idea for the future urbanization layout?
Answer: By 2020, China's total urban population will reach 850 million, and in the longer term, it may peak at around 1 billion. Reasonably arranging the distribution of this population across the eastern, central, and western regions, as well as large, medium, and small cities and towns, is crucial for the coordination of population, resources, and environment, and for the overall modernization effort.
The Plan proposes taking urban agglomerations as the main form to optimize urbanization layout and form. This aligns with global trends and China's realities. Globally, the flat expansion model of single large cities has been gradually abandoned, and urban agglomerations have become the main form of urbanization in developed countries. Examples include the Northeastern US urban agglomeration, the Great Lakes urban agglomeration in North America, the London urban agglomeration in the UK, the Northwestern European urban agglomeration, and the Pacific urban agglomeration in Japan. These agglomerations concentrate large amounts of economy and population in relatively small territories, becoming core areas supporting economic development and international competition. Given China's basic national conditions—large population, limited land, and relatively low resource and environmental carrying capacity—it is impossible to develop only large cities or only small towns. China's large cities have developed relatively quickly; according to UN data, among the 23 cities worldwide with populations over 10 million, 4 are in China. However, developing only large cities leads to incurable urban diseases due to overpopulation, while unilaterally developing medium and small cities and towns against the rules causes huge resource waste. The scientific approach is to rely on the platform of urban agglomerations, promote coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and towns through division of labor and cooperation among cities.
In the urbanized areas defined by the National Main Functional Area Plan, a "two horizontal and three vertical" urbanization strategic pattern is constructed, with the land bridge corridor and the Yangtze River corridor as two horizontal axes, the coastal corridor, Jingha and Jingguang corridors, and Baokun corridor as three vertical axes, relying on urban agglomerations and node cities along these axes, with other urbanized areas as important components, promoting coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and towns. The Plan calls for optimizing and upgrading eastern urban agglomerations and cultivating urban agglomerations in central and western regions. Currently, the three major eastern urban agglomerations are relatively mature, but given China's large population, relying solely on these three is insufficient. New urban agglomerations need to be cultivated to gather industries and absorb population, becoming new growth poles driving balanced national spatial development and leading regional economic growth. The Plan proposes accelerating the cultivation of urban agglomerations such as Chengyu, Central Plains, Mid-Yangtze, and Harbin-Changchun, and clarifies that the central government is responsible for planning and implementing urban agglomerations across provincial administrative regions, while provincial governments are responsible within their administrative regions.
Question: The Plan proposes to "improve the sustainable development capacity of cities." How can the sustainable development capacity of cities be improved?
Answer: Improving the sustainable development capacity of cities involves a wide range of aspects, including resource conservation, ecological protection, and tasks in economic and social development. The overall requirement is to accelerate the transformation of urban development modes, optimize urban spatial structure, enhance the capacity of urban economy, infrastructure, public services, and resource environment to support population, effectively prevent and manage "urban diseases," and build harmonious, livable, distinctive, and vibrant modern cities.
Strengthen support for urban industrial employment, optimize urban industrial structure, and create a good environment for employment and entrepreneurship. Adhere to the path of synchronized development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization; promote deep integration of informatization and industrialization, positive interaction between industrialization and urbanization, and coordination between urbanization and agricultural modernization; promote urban economic transformation, upgrade industrial advantages, cultivate urban innovation vitality, create a good environment for employment and entrepreneurship, and enhance industrial support and employment absorption capacity.
Reasonably control urban development boundaries, optimize internal urban spatial structure, and promote compact urban development. Following principles of unified planning, coordinated advancement, intensive and compact development, balanced density, and effective environment, renovate and upgrade central urban functions, strictly regulate new town and new district construction, improve urban-rural fringe environments, increase urban space utilization efficiency, and improve urban living environment. Strengthen construction of municipal public facilities and public service facilities, enhance basic public service supply, and strengthen support capacity for population concentration and services. First, prioritize accelerating urban public transportation development. Second, strengthen municipal public facility construction, building a safe, efficient, and convenient network of life service and municipal public facilities. Third, improve the basic public service system, reasonably layout public service facilities according to trends in permanent urban population growth and spatial distribution.
Adapt to the requirements of new urbanization development, improve urban planning and construction levels, integrate people-oriented, respect for nature, heritage, and green low-carbon concepts throughout the urban planning process; follow new concepts and trends of modern urban development, promote comprehensive development of green, intelligent, and cultural aspects of cities. Innovate urban management methods and improve urban governance structures.
The Plan focuses on implementation
Question: What measures will be taken next to implement the Plan?
Answer: The preparation of the Plan is only the first step; effective implementation is more critical. It is necessary to unify thinking, gather consensus, and focus on the following key tasks for implementation:
First, assign responsibilities for implementing the Plan. Break down the goals and tasks determined by the Plan item by item, clarifying responsible departments and work requirements.
Second, introduce supporting policies. Relevant departments will introduce supporting policies related to household registration, land, funds, housing, basic public services, and policies supporting the development of small and medium-sized cities, especially in central and western regions.
Third, prepare supporting plans. Organize relevant departments and regions to prepare key urban agglomeration plans across provincial administrative regions, guide localities to prepare new urbanization plans tailored to local conditions, and strengthen coordination with the national Plan.
4. Conduct pilot demonstrations. Focus on establishing a cost-sharing mechanism for the urbanization of agricultural migrant populations, diversified and sustainable urbanization investment and financing mechanisms, city establishment models that reduce administrative costs, and reforming and improving the rural homestead system. Carry out different levels and types of pilots in different regions.
5. Improve infrastructure. Enhance the integrated comprehensive transportation level of urban clusters in the eastern region, promote the construction of high-speed railways and expressways between major cities within urban clusters in the central and western regions, and strengthen the connections between small and medium-sized cities and towns with main transportation lines and hub cities. Strengthen the construction of municipal public utilities and public service facilities to improve support capacity for population concentration and services.
