Why can these 14 cities grab millions of people in ten years?

Wu Xiaobo Channel

2024-06-28 09:00Official account of Hangzhou Bajiuling Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd

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01 China's urban "war for people" Since the State Council issued the opinions on the reform of the household registration system in 2014, the economically active cities have completed a major improvement in the urban energy level, such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou, etc.

02Among them, 14 cities, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, and Hangzhou, have increased their permanent population by more than 2 million in the past ten years, which is in a leading position.

03The reason for the success of these cities lies in their economic hard power and social soft power, including developed economy, industry, infrastructure and inclusive and open environment.

04 However, Chengdu, Xi'an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Hefei, Kunming and other provincial capitals that have implemented the strategy of strengthening provincial capitals have attracted a lot of resources, but they have also aroused the disgust of netizens.

05 Overall, the future of these "cities of opportunity" will determine the future of humanity, and for those who are eager for change, the development prospects of choosing these cities will be even broader.

Technical support is provided by Tencent Hybrid Model

"Young people and those who are restless are the biggest driving force for the city's continuous revitalization."

Text / Ba Jiuling (WeChat public account: Wu Xiaobo channel)

The "war for people" in Chinese cities probably started ten years ago.

In July 2014, the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Promoting the Reform of the Hukou System, which eased restrictions on migration and allowed cities to set their own residency policies.

In December of the same year, Shenzhen, the "pioneer of reform", issued the "Shenzhen Talent Housing Measures", using rental subsidies to attract college students to settle down, firing the first shot of the "war for talents".

After that, up to the first-tier cities and down to the eighteenth-tier small counties, almost all Chinese cities participated.

Throughout the ten years of the "war for people", the economically active cities have all got the results they wanted, and completed the great improvement of the city's energy level.

Among them, 14 cities, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Suzhou, Changsha, Dongguan, Hefei, Kunming, Ningbo and Chongqing, have increased their permanent population by more than 2 million in the past ten years, taking the leading position.

This is quite a remarkable achievement in any era. You know, there are more than 60 countries with a total population of less than 2 million in the world. Two million people hold hands, forming a human wall that can span the whole of China.

The question is, why do these 14 cities have such a strong demographic attraction?

The core essence is not the "talent grabbing policy" issued by the government, but the economic hard power and social soft power of a city. The 14 cities listed above are all excellent cities with developed economies, complete industries, perfect infrastructure, inclusiveness and openness.

However, their resource endowments and methods of grabbing people are not the same.

From the perspective of the nature of cities, we can divide them into three categories: wealthy cities (Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou), industrially developed cities (Ningbo, Suzhou, Dongguan), and provincial capitals (Chengdu, Xi'an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Hefei, Kunming). Correspondingly, they also present three models, the dream model, the strong industry model, and the strong provincial capital model.

Next, the minibus will discuss the three modes and discuss the internal logic of the city's "people-grabbing war".

Dream Mode: Anyone can make their dreams come true here

If a first-class enterprise is a standard maker, then a first-class city is a dream creator.

What kind of city is considered a first-class city? For young Chinese people who are eager for financial freedom, the city with the largest number of listed companies, the largest number of wealthy people, the best entrepreneurial environment and the highest salary level must be the city they want to go to. Specifically, the four first-tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen) and the "new first-tier first" (Hangzhou).

According to the 2024 Hurun Global Rich List, a total of 3,279 billion-dollar entrepreneurs will be on the list in 2024. If calculated by place of residence, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Guangzhou have 91, 87, 84, 43 and 39 top entrepreneurs respectively, making them the five cities with the most top richest people in Chinese mainland.

According to the "Financial Competitiveness Ranking of Cities with Trillion GDP GDP" released by New Fortune magazine, the top five cities in terms of competitiveness scores are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou.

According to the 2024 Global Unicorn List, there are only five cities in China with more than 20 unicorns: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou.

These five megacities can be divided into two categories: Beijing and Shanghai are "old money", with a permanent population of more than 20 million before 2014, suffering from a serious "big city disease" and bent on reducing the permanent population; Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou are "new money", eager to catch up with Beijing and Shanghai in terms of population, economy and industrial scale, and are also activists in this round of "war for people".

As we all know, Shenzhen is the city with the fastest economic growth since the reform and opening up. The rapid economic growth has also brought some problems to Shenzhen, such as the lack of population. Surprisingly, Shenzhen's registered population at the end of 2014 was only 3.466 million, which is less than ordinary prefecture-level cities such as Kaifeng in Henan and Zibo in Shandong.

In order to make up for the shortcomings of the population, Shenzhen, which has deep pockets, has used its "money ability" to directly issue rental subsidies to college students who have settled down.

At the beginning, the standard was 6,000 yuan per person for undergraduates, 9,000 yuan for masters, and 12,000 yuan for doctors, but after 2016, it was increased to 15,000 yuan per person for undergraduates, 25,000 yuan for masters, and 30,000 yuan for doctors. If you settle in Nanshan District, Longgang District, Dapeng New District, Longhua District, and Pingshan District, the district government will issue another subsidy, and the happiness will be doubled.

As a result, college students from all over the country have set their sights on Shenzhen. At this time, rumors of high salaries continued to break out in all walks of life in Shenzhen, such as "the annual salary of public teachers in Shenzhen is 250,000 yuan", "the annual salary of civil servants in Shenzhen is 300,000 yuan", "Huawei's per capita dividend exceeds 500,000 yuan", and "Tencent's per capita salary exceeds 1 million yuan".

If you don't want to be a worker, you want to be your own boss, Shenzhen is also very tempting. If you set up a business in other cities, you have to pay 25% corporate value-added tax, but in Shenzhen's Qianhai New Area, it is only 15%. Shenzhen's entrepreneurial density has ranked first in the country for eight consecutive years, and there is one "boss" for every five Shenzhen people (222.7 commercial entities per 1,000 people).

No wonder some people say that Shenzhen is the "capital of making money". Under the temptation of real money, from 2014 to 2018, Shenzhen won the "National Population Increment Champion" for five consecutive years.

In 2019, Shenzhen's crown was snatched away by Hangzhou. At the end of 2019, Hangzhou's permanent population was 10.36 million, exceeding the 10 million mark for the first time, an increase of 554,000 year-on-year.

In 2020, Hangzhou introduced 436,000 new college students under the age of 35, more than double the previous year, and the net inflow rate of talents continued to rank first in the country. In 2023, the permanent population of Hangzhou will exceed 10 million, becoming the second "megacity" in the Yangtze River Delta.

The reason why Hangzhou can attract young people from all over the country is that Hangzhou has stepped on the rhythm of the times and enjoyed the huge dividends of e-commerce, live broadcasting, intelligent manufacturing and other outlets.

At the beginning of this century, platforms such as 1688, Taobao and Tmall, founded by Ma Yun in Hangzhou, supported half of the e-commerce rivers and lakes, and also attracted e-commerce talents from all over the country to Hangzhou. "Go to Hangzhou to open a Taobao store" has become a fashion.

After the rise of live broadcast e-commerce, more and more anchors and MCN organizations have moved to Hangzhou or opened new bases in Hangzhou. As of February 2023, Hangzhou has 32 comprehensive and vertical head live broadcast platforms, with nearly 50,000 anchors and more than 5,000 live broadcast-related enterprises registered, ranking first in the country.

The Regent International Building on the edge of the Qiantang River alone is home to tens of thousands of network anchors, shouting "Thank you for the rocket sent by the big brother" or "321 link" in a small cubicle. After the number of fans breaks through a certain level, the anchor team will buy the big flat in Binjiang District and live a "fairy life" that is the envy of hundreds of millions of young people.

According to statistics, in Hangzhou, the capital of e-commerce, Hangzhou's online retail sales in 2022 will be 1,049.63 billion yuan, driving the employment of more than 1 million people.

In addition to the "e-commerce capital", Hangzhou also has two important identities - "private economic capital" and "Silicon Valley paradise". In the "Top 500 Private Enterprises in China" released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, Hangzhou has 42 companies on the list, surpassing Beijing and Shanghai in the number of companies.

These private enterprises in Hangzhou have experienced the elimination of the big wave of market economy, with good economic benefits, many jobs, and an average salary, so they can also attract young people from all over the country.

Every young person who comes to Hangzhou to work hard has a dream, "to become the next Zong Qinghou" (entrepreneur), "to become the next Tsai Chongxin" (professional manager), "to become the next Simba" (Internet celebrity).

This may be the charm of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

Douyin e-commerce live broadcast base

Strong provincial capital model: gather the strength of the whole province to build a big city

If Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou have absorbed talents, funds and resources from all over the country, then Chengdu, Xi'an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Hefei, Kunming and other provincial capitals mainly look at the "help" of sister cities in the province.

Judging from the results, the permanent residents and registered population of these seven provincial cities are increasing, but the permanent residents of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Henan, Hunan, Anhui, and Yunnan will show negative growth in 2023.

Because these provinces are implementing the strategy of strengthening the provincial capital, they have piled up the high-quality resources in the province to the provincial capital.

Taking Sichuan as an example, Sichuan Province covers an area of 486,000 square kilometers, and Chengdu covers an area of 14,335 square kilometers, accounting for 2.9%. In 2023, the GDP of the province will be 6,013.29 billion yuan, and the GDP of Chengdu will be 2,207.47 billion yuan, accounting for 36.7%. Chengdu uses 2.9% of the province's land area to create 36.7% of Sichuan's GDP.

And other cities in Sichuan are powerless in front of Chengdu. The second largest city in Sichuan is Mianyang, which will only be 403.873 billion yuan in 2023, only 18.3% of Chengdu's GDP.

Not only is it far ahead in terms of economy, Chengdu is better than its sister cities in terms of education, culture and medical care.

As of June 20, 2024, there are 54 undergraduate colleges and universities in Sichuan Province, and 29 in Chengdu, accounting for more than half; There are a total of 8 "double first-class" universities in Sichuan Province, all of which are located in Chengdu. As of May 18, 2024, there are 16 national first-class museums in Sichuan Province, and Chengdu accounts for 7 of them.

Even so, Chengdu is still not satisfied, and wants to get more resources from its sister cities.

On May 16, 2016, the Sichuan Provincial Government issued a notice that, with the approval of the State Council, it agreed to change Jianyang, a county-level city managed by Ziyang City, to Chengdu City.

This means that Chengdu's land area has increased by more than 2,000 square kilometers overnight, Chengdu's population has increased by more than 1 million people overnight, and Chengdu's GDP has increased by more than 40 billion yuan overnight.

In order to allow Jianyang people to integrate into Chengdu faster, Chengdu set up the second civil aviation airport (that is, "Tianfu Airport") in Jianyang, and transferred some industries to Jianyang.

In this process, Chengdu people and Jianyang people were very happy, but Ziyang people couldn't laugh.

In addition to Chengdu, Xi'an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Hefei, and Kunming are also sideways in the province.

Xi'an is a thousand-year-old capital, and it is also the "holy land" of Shaanxi Province and even the entire northwest region, with extraordinary siphoning capacity.

In 2023, the permanent population of Shaanxi Province will be 39.52 million, and that of Xi'an City will be 13.0782 million, accounting for 33%.

Wuhan is the only sub-provincial city in the central region, and its popularity exceeds that of Hubei Province.

Many Hubei enterprises (such as Dongfeng Motor Group in Shiyan and Gezhouba Group in Yichang) will move their headquarters to Wuhan after reaching a certain scale.

The people of Changsha are holding back a lot of energy, that is, to surpass Wuhan in terms of economy and culture.

When Wuhan used the "Star Absorbing Dafa", Changsha was naturally not to be outdone. When Changsha's permanent population grew rapidly, there were many "hollow villages" and "hollow townships" in Shaoyang, Hengyang, Yueyang, Changde, Yiyang, Huaihua and other places.

Zhengzhou is backed by Henan, the largest province in China with the largest registered population, and there are too many spare resources to create some miracles.

The university with the largest number of undergraduates in the country is Zhengzhou University, which recruits more than 10,000 undergraduates every year. The hospital with the largest number of beds in the country is the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University

Hefei's success in the industrial economy is based on the cheap labor resources of Anhui Province.

After the rise of Hefei's home appliances, automobiles, semiconductors, e-commerce and other industries, many Anhui migrant workers who worked hard in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai returned to Anhui. The Internet celebrity "Crazy Brother Yang", who was born in Lu'an, opened a company in Hefei.

In recent years, Kunming has also promoted the action of "strengthening the provincial capital", and some enterprises and schools in sister cities have been moved over, and the population has naturally expanded.

Due to the increasing efforts of these provincial capitals to grab people, projects, and resources, it has aroused the disgust of some netizens, and some people have nicknamed them, "Cheng Habitual Sucking", "Anmu Sucking", "Covering Sucking", "Zheng Sucking", "Sucking Chang Sucking", "Sucking Fat" and "Sucking Clearly".

However, the implementation of the strategy of "strengthening provincial capitals" in the central and western provinces is also a last resort.

In front of the central and western provinces, there are two options: either engage in egalitarianism, guide talents, capital, technology and projects to disperse to various places, so that each city can develop in a balanced manner; Either there is a concentration of high-quality resources, give priority to the use of the provincial capital, let the provincial capital quickly become bigger and stronger, and then drive the development of "brothers in the province".

Practice has proved that the first road is not feasible, because the economic resources of the central and western provinces are not sufficient, and if the provincial capital is not built, then the other cities in the province will not be able to grow, and the young people of the province will be sucked away by the eastern provinces.

Jiangxi, with a population of more than 40 million, is because it has scattered too many resources to Ganzhou and Jiujiang, resulting in the slow development of Nanchang and its industrial lag behind Hefei, Changsha and other provincial capitals.

Strong industrial model: the industrial economy is developed and there are more jobs

When it comes to industry, we have to mention Suzhou, Dongguan and Ningbo. Although they are not provincial capitals, they have grown into economic cities with decades of hard work, and instead of being afraid of the siphoning of their provincial capitals, they can recruit millions of young and middle-aged laborers from other places.

Suzhou is known as the "strongest prefecture-level city on the surface", with more than 160,000 industrial enterprises, including more than 13,000 industrial enterprises above designated size. Suzhou industry is not only huge, but also very high quality, through the identification of 22,300 small and medium-sized science and technology enterprises, the number of effective high-tech enterprises reached 13,500, the number of which ranked second and fourth in the country.

In addition, Suzhou has also cultivated 171 national-level specialized, special and new "little giant" enterprises, 33 national manufacturing individual champion enterprises and 6 global "lighthouse factories".

Suzhou's well-developed manufacturing industry is not only able to attract young and strong workers, but also a large number of highly educated designers and engineers. Even Microsoft, Samsung, Panasonic, Emerson, Magna, Sanofi and other Fortune 500 companies have set up R&D centers in Suzhou.

The core business district of Suzhou Industrial Park

It is not surprising that such an excellent city has an average of more than 200,000 new people per year.

Ningbo, which has the same roots as Suzhou, is also a well-known industrial city in the country, ranking fourth in the "List of Top 100 Advanced Manufacturing Cities" released by CCID Consulting, one place higher than the provincial capital Hangzhou.

In 2022, more than 10,000 industrial enterprises above designated size in Ningbo will achieve a total industrial output value of 2.43 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%, and cultivate and form 8 100-billion-level industries such as green petrochemicals, automobile manufacturing, high-end equipment, electronic information, new materials, textiles and garments, and smart home appliances.

In addition to industry, Ningbo's commercial trade is also very developed, with a cumulative import and export of 1.28 trillion yuan in 2023. After all, the port with the largest cargo throughput in the world is located between Ningbo and Zhoushan.

The development of industry and foreign trade has made Ningbo a charming city, attracting young people from Anhui, Henan, Guizhou, Jiangxi and other provinces.

Dongguan, which is as famous as Suzhou and Ningbo, is also a major industrial and foreign trade city.

In terms of industry, by the end of 2023, Dongguan has about 210,000 manufacturing enterprises and about 13,800 industrial enterprises above the designated size, with a manufacturing system covering 34 industrial categories and involving more than 60,000 products, forming a trillion-level electronic information industry cluster, a 500-billion-level equipment manufacturing cluster, and four 100-billion-level industrial clusters.

Chang'an Town, Dongguan, manufacturing center

In terms of foreign trade, Dongguan's export volume will reach 846.087 billion yuan in 2023, ranking fourth in the country.

The industrial economy can naturally attract a large number of talents, and Dongguan has grown by 2.14 million people in the past decade. It is worth noting that since Dongguan was only a small county town before the reform and opening up, there were not many locals in Dongguan, and 70% of the permanent population came from other places.

The cases of Suzhou, Ningbo, Dongguan and other strong industrial cities prove that even if they cannot become municipalities and provincial capitals, they are still likely to become "talent gathering cities".

The revelation of the "robbery war".

For a city, economic development and population growth are mutually reinforcing.

On the one hand, in the past decade, these 14 cities have given full play to their administrative, locational, transportation, industrial, resource, cultural and other advantages, so they have won the "war for talent".

On the other hand, the addition of millions of people in these 14 cities will bring with them a larger consumer market, better infrastructure, more advanced industries, and a more prosperous culture.

This means that in the next few years, China's advanced productivity and frontier market opportunities will most likely be born in these 14 cities.

Good birds choose trees to perch on, and wise men choose cities to live in. If you're an aspirant with a thirst for change, take a good look at these "cities of opportunity."

If you have college entrance examination candidates in your family, you can consider filling in the universities in these cities. Sometimes, choosing a city is more important than choosing a university.

As Harvard University professor Edward Glazer said: Cities are the greatest invention and the best hope of mankind, and the future of cities will determine the future of mankind.

The author of this article is Rao Zufen | Responsible editor | Xu Tao

Editor-in-chief | Image source |VCG

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