There are new actions to promote new urbanization. Recently, the State Council issued the "Five-Year Action Plan for the In-depth Implementation of the People-oriented New Urbanization Strategy" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). The plan proposes to implement a new round of urbanization of agricultural transfer population, action to improve the level of urbanization in potential areas, and action to cultivate modern metropolitan areas.
This has set the general tone and roadmap for urbanization development in the coming period. Some of the new development directions identified in it will have a significant impact on the development of various regions, and some places will also usher in new development opportunities.
A new signal to relax the restrictions on domicile
The Plan sets out a series of requirements and objectives. Among them, the relaxation of settlement restrictions except for a few megacities has become one of the focuses of attention of all parties.
In effect, the request is a reaffirmation. In the past few years, the relaxation of household registration has been accelerated, and the threshold for settlement in small and medium-sized cities has been basically abolished, and a number of large cities such as Chengdu, Dongguan and Hefei have further liberalized and relaxed the restrictions on household registration migration, and many provinces have achieved zero threshold settlement in the whole region, including provincial capitals.
However, the "Plan" once again emphasizes that "comprehensively relax the conditions for settling in cities with a permanent population of 3 million to 5 million in urban areas, and improve the policy of settling in super-large megacities with a permanent population of more than 5 million in urban areas", which is still very realistic and pertinent. Because although the overall threshold for settlement in megacities has been significantly lowered, many of them still have some hard requirements. With the opening of a new round of household registration relaxation, except for a few megacities in the future, the threshold for settlement is expected to tend to zero.
The household registration threshold has always been an important influencing factor in the process of urbanization in mainland China. Because urban public services are set strictly on the basis of the registered population, even though some rural migrants have actually become urban permanent residents, they do not receive the treatment they deserve. This situation not only reduces the quality of urbanization, but also does not help to "fully release the huge domestic demand potential of new urbanization". Therefore, the "Plan" clearly states that promoting the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population is the primary task of new urbanization, which is a new signal of far-reaching significance.
By the end of 2023, the urbanization rate of the mainland's permanent population will reach 66.16%, and the plan clearly states that it will be close to 70% in the next few years, and this goal will not be difficult to achieve. However, it should be noted that by the end of 2023, the urbanization rate of the mainland's registered population will only be 48.3%, which is almost 18 percentage points lower than the urbanization rate of the permanent population. In other words, there are more than 200 million people who live in cities but do not enjoy the corresponding civic treatment. Therefore, the focus of future urbanization is to continue to promote the relaxation of restrictions on settlement except for a few megacities, and on the other hand, to "improve the system of providing basic public services in the place of permanent residence, and promote the relevant public services to go with the people".
Judging from the urbanization laws of countries around the world, when the urbanization rate exceeds 60%, the speed will slow down. However, the urbanization rate of household registration in the mainland is currently less than 50%, and there is obviously still huge room for tapping potential. The Plan proposes to promote the urbanization of the rural population as the primary task of the new urbanization, which means that the promotion of urbanization will enter a stage dominated by "stocking", which is obviously different from the "incremental" stage in the past, which mainly promoted the transfer of rural population to urban areas. Correspondingly, this also places new demands on cities. For example, the degree of fairness and protection of the treatment of permanent residents will increasingly become an important factor influencing the attractiveness of cities.
Of course, the traditional "incremental" space still exists. The "Plan" specifically mentions that it is necessary to carry out urbanization level improvement actions in concentrated areas with greater urbanization potential, such as central and southern Hebei, northern Anhui, southwestern Shandong, southeastern Henan, southwestern Hunan, western Guangdong, and eastern Sichuan.
Most of these areas are economically underdeveloped, and the urbanization rate is generally lower than the national average. For example, the urbanization rate of the permanent population in Guangdong Province has reached 75%, but only about 60% in western Guangdong, which is lower than the national average. There's still a lot of room for improvement.
It is worth noting that there is another positive significance of clearly proposing to carry out urbanization "tackling" actions in these places, that is, to send a clearer signal to the society that underdeveloped areas must also increase residents' income and improve people's livelihood through urbanization and industrialization. As pointed out in the Plan, urbanization is the only way to modernize, an important way to solve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, a strong support for promoting regional coordinated development, and an important starting point for expanding domestic demand and promoting industrial upgrading. One data is very representative: the per capita disposable income of urban residents is 2.39 times that of rural residents.
It can be expected that urbanization in these places is expected to accelerate in the coming years.
The pace of the cultivation of modern metropolitan areas has accelerated
For areas with low urbanization rate and large population size, the implementation of urbanization level improvement actions, and for areas with high urbanization rate and continuous population agglomeration, the plan proposes to implement the cultivation of modern metropolitan areas. For example, we should accelerate the transformation of the development mode of super large and mega cities, rely on the radiation of the central city to drive the common development of surrounding cities and counties, and promote convenient and efficient commuting, industrial echelon support, and convenient life sharing.
In the past few years, the construction of the metropolitan area has been closely promoted. A landmark development is that a total of 14 national-level metropolitan area plans have been approved across the country. The plan proposes to implement the cultivation of a modern metropolitan area, indicating that on this basis, the development of the metropolitan area needs to be accelerated.
Among them, there are several specific actions that are very pointed. For example, steadily promote the construction of rail transit network in the metropolitan area, explore the extension of rail transit in the central city to surrounding towns, and encourage the use of direct stop methods such as large stations; Promote the development of "four-network integration" of trunk railways, intercity railways, urban (suburban) railways, and urban rail transit, and realize "zero-distance" transfer and integrated services.
This is actually a kind of re-emphasis and deepening of the construction of a "metropolitan area on the track". The reason why it has attracted special attention is that in the past few years, due to factors such as population development and changes, the threshold for urban rail transit construction has become higher and higher. In this context, it is proposed to "explore the extension of rail transit in the central city to the surrounding towns", which highlights the special status of the metropolitan area.
Combined with the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization" (hereinafter referred to as the "Decision") proposed to "promote the formation of a new system of intelligent and efficient governance of megacities and establish a system and mechanism for the development of metropolitan areas with cities", this may indicate that in the future urbanization development pattern, megacities and the metropolitan areas led by them will play a more important role, and the further concentration of population, industry and various development factors in the metropolitan area will be more obvious.
According to the "Guiding Opinions on Cultivating and Developing Modern Metropolitan Areas" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, a metropolitan area is an urbanization spatial form within an urban agglomeration centered on a super-large city or a large city with strong radiation-driven functions, with a one-hour commuting circle as the basic scope. This corresponds to a super-large-scale population and industrial agglomeration area and carrying area. Attaching importance to cultivating such a modern metropolitan area is a positive response to the law of population flow and urban development. Because urbanization itself has an agglomeration effect and scale effect, the gathering of various development factors and resources has irreplaceable value for social innovation, industrial development and the expansion of domestic consumption demand.
Of course, this agglomeration is not a unilateral emphasis on the expansion of megacities. The plan proposes to strengthen the industrial division of labor and cooperation and promote the co-construction and sharing of public services, the mega cities should focus on the core function positioning, orderly relieve the non-core functions such as general manufacturing, regional logistics bases, and professional markets, orderly relieve the excessive concentration of higher education and high-quality medical resources, and promote the mutual recognition of cross-city hospital examination results.
How to classify and implement policies for urbanization
China is a vast country, and the development of each region is also complex, and the promotion of new urbanization is destined to have no single model. The "Plan" specifically emphasizes the need to adhere to classified policies, coordinate the resource and environmental carrying capacity, functional positioning, urbanization development level and population size of each region, determine the key direction of urbanization construction according to local conditions, and actively and steadily promote it in a solid manner.
In this regard, two representative details are worth noting. First, it is clear that it is necessary to promote the cultivation and development of provincial sub-central cities in qualified provinces, and effectively share the non-core functions of provincial capitals.
In fact, in the past few years, more than 10 provinces across the country have been promoting the construction of provincial sub-central cities, involving more than 30 cities. The logic behind it is very simple, some provinces have large populations, large economic aggregates, and obvious differences in the level of development between regions, and it is far from enough to rely on a "center" of the provincial capital city to lead the development. In particular, some provinces have shown a situation of "one city dominates", and with the further development of the economy and society, related drawbacks are also emerging. Therefore, it is indeed necessary to cultivate provincial sub-central cities according to local conditions and enhance the driving role of the development of various regions.
Of course, the development of sub-central cities is not to be built on the basis of weakening traditional central cities, but to cultivate a number of influential sub-central cities in sub-regions according to the actual situation. In fact, this is consistent with the development logic of enhancing the radiation driving capacity of advantageous areas.
The second detail is to speed up the completion of the shortcomings of the county's infrastructure and public services, promote the urbanization of the rural transfer population nearby, and deepen the reform of giving megatowns the right to manage the economy and society commensurate with the population and economic scale.
In the rapid urbanization wave in the past, counties often lacked sufficient voice in infrastructure and public service guarantee due to their low level in the urban system, which led to direct constraints on the quality of urban construction, development space and autonomy, and people's livelihood.
However, in fact, the county seat, which is connected to the city at one end and the countryside at the other, is a key node in the integrated development of urban and rural areas, and plays a very important role in realizing the nearby urbanization of the agricultural transfer population. In recent years, more attention has been paid to the development of the county in policies at all levels. A clear signal is that the "withdrawal of counties and districts" has been put on hold. This time, the "plan" once again emphasizes the acceleration of the completion of the county's infrastructure and public service shortcomings, which is expected to usher in a new spring for some counties.
However, it still depends on the actual situation. In 2022, the Office of the Central Committee of the People's Republic of China and the Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting Urbanization Construction with County Towns as Important Carriers", which divides county towns into five categories, including counties around cities, counties with professional functions, and counties with population loss, and puts forward different development requirements accordingly. The plan also emphasizes that it is necessary to guide the transformation and development of counties (cities and districts) with a continuously decreasing population, and promote the appropriate concentration of population and public service resources.
In addition, the Plan also proposes to deepen the reform of granting economic and social management rights to megatowns commensurate with their population and economic scale (echoing the relevant requirements in the Decision). This is because some strong towns with industrial and population bases have their own development advantages. For example, in the list of "2024 China's Top 100 Towns" announced a few days ago, Yushan Town, Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, which ranked first, will have a GDP of more than 100 billion yuan in 2022, which even exceeds the economic volume of some prefecture-level cities in the central and western regions.
However, in reality, some mega towns, because of their relatively low administrative level, often do not match their economic and social management authority with their own economic strength, which inevitably lags back economic and social development. Therefore, the corresponding reforms must keep up. For example, in recent years, there have been precedents for individual megatowns to be upgraded to county-level cities, and there may be more explorations in this area in the future.
Generally speaking, whether it is to promote the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population, or to cultivate a modern metropolitan area, or to promote the construction of provincial sub-central cities, and better support the development of megatowns, behind it is a positive response to the law of development. As proposed in the "Plan", "follow the laws of nature, economy, especially urban development".
Source: The Paper