【Editor's Note】In November 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward the important concept of "People's City" during his inspection in Shanghai, which is a major development and innovation of the concept of urban development. In the view of Xu Jinjiang, director of the Institute of Literature of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the proposal that "the people's city is built by the people, and the people's city is for the people" is consistent with the trend of global urban development logic from formalism to humanism. The following is his speech at the Shanghai Socialist College.
This year marks the second anniversary of General Secretary Xi Jinping's first proposal in Shanghai of the important concept of "people's city built by the people, people's city for the people". The important concept of "People's City" was put forward as An original contribution of China to the theory of urban development. In today's speech, I mainly focus on the topic of "Global Urban Development Logic and People's City Construction", and share some personal thoughts with you.
Two different ideas about urban development
Regarding urban development, there have always been two different concepts of development. One is the development concept of formalism, emphasizing planning determinism, functionalism, and mechanical growth; the other is the development concept of humanism, emphasizing urban diversity, historical feature protection, sustainable development, and opposing mechanical urban planning that destroys urban vitality. In a nutshell, the physicalistic concept of urban development emphasizes the aerial perspective and emphasizes the planning and controllability of the city; the humanistic development concept emphasizes the ground perspective, emphasizes orderly complexity and cultural heterogeneity, and emphasizes pyrotechnic gas, urban gas, grounding gas, and gathering popularity. Formism still has some lasting value, but in today's emphasis on innovation, it is clear that humanism is more representative of future trends.
The past urban development ideas have their rationality, and to a certain extent, they have also promoted the improvement of people's lives. However, after forty years of large-scale urbanization movement, in the case that China's urbanization rate has exceeded 63%, whether to continue to spread the pie of incremental development, or to take the road of connotation intensification, urban development stands at a new crossroads. In my opinion, today's urbanization in China should gradually change from an incremental period centered on urban construction to a stock period centered on urban renewal, and gradually transformed from the expansion of urban extension to the improvement of urban connotation.
How to balance the protection of historical features and improve people's livelihood
When it comes to urban development today, there is one word that has to be mentioned, that is, "urban renewal". The term "urban renewal" was first coined at a seminar in the Netherlands in August 1958. From the earliest slum removal development to the welfare of the community renewal, to the market-oriented redevelopment of the old city, and then further development to the comprehensive rejuvenation of the community, its connotation is constantly evolving and deepening. In the era of globalization, "urban renewal" has become one of the means to build a global city and complete industrial upgrading. However, generally speaking, urban renewal in megacities mainly refers to the construction activities that continuously improve the form and function of urban spatial development from the aspects of completing the urban spatial structure, restoring urban ecological functions, strengthening urban infrastructure, enhancing urban historical connotation, improving the living conditions of citizens, and deepening the construction of community neighborhoods according to regional social and economic development and territorial spatial planning.
In urban renewal, the most important thing is how to balance the relationship between historical protection and improvement of people's livelihood. There may be several directions to watch in the future:
First, China's urban construction will move from scale-driven to quality-driven development stage, urban renewal will be guided by sustainable development, actively explore the possibility of multi-win results, pay more attention to the protection of historical features and the construction of social infrastructure, and pay attention to education, culture, public space and community culture.
The second is to gradually transform from a "physical city" to a "humanistic city". Urban renewal will not only pay attention to the shaping of urban landscape and the perception of tourists, but also pay attention to the creation of 15-minute living circles and the real sense of residents; not only to create 5A-level scenic spots, but also to create 5-star living areas; not only to pay attention to the high-paid class, but also to care about the low-wage class; not only to consider the improvement of living conditions in physical space, but also to pay attention to social relations and local attachment, and to pay attention to the construction of community culture, both top-level design and bottom-level thinking, so that people of different classes have a sense of safety and happiness and a sense of belonging. It is necessary to integrate history and culture into modern life, let local culture highlight the regional appearance, and establish a unique cultural brand for the city. It is foreseeable that the rich and diverse, vibrant and innovative fireworks cities and urban cities will be more popular in the future.
Third, with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issuing the "Notice on Preventing Large-scale Demolition and Construction in the Implementation of Urban Renewal Actions", incremental expansion and development of urban renewal in various places will not be sustainable, and sustainable stock organic micro-renewal will be normalized. The "revitalization" conservation model that preserves the real lives of the inhabitants will be more valuable, and planning architects will have more time to weave, stitch and repair.
Fourth, participatory and "acupuncture" urban renewal will become a trend. Old City precinct renewal projects will shift from a PPP model in which the government works closely with developers to a PUBLIC-Private-Community and other third sector. Public refers to the government, and Private refers to the real organization and implementation agency, mainly the developer. The Community mainly refers to the organizations representing the community such as neighborhood committees, industry committees, and resident representatives, and the other third sector refers to the groups that cover design institutes, independent designers, resident interest groups, surrounding businesses, hospitals, schools, etc. that are closely related to the transformation of the project, including researchers, students, and civil groups who are concerned about the development of this area.
Fifth, through institutional innovation and fiscal, financial, tax, land use security and other policies, the government encourages and raises more moderate and gradual funds to invest in sustainable transformation of the old city, so as to avoid cultural ruptures and community disintegration caused by "shock" renewal; guide real estate developers to transition from "development mode" to "business model" and produce economic benefits through long-term sustainable operation.
The significance of the protection of historical buildings lies in "revitalization"
Over the years, some historical districts have been successfully transformed into "net red" neighborhoods with the help of new ideas, bringing new vitality to these neighborhoods. For example, some time ago, there was a dense punch card crowd in front of the Wukang Building, which was reported by more media. Some people joke that wukang road and anfu road, which were originally elegant and quiet, have become bustling "Wu'an ancient towns". "If you don't punch in the Wukang Building, you can't count as coming to Shanghai", which shows the charm of this building designed by Hudak. In fact, in order to improve the landscape of this area, the government has made many efforts, including funding the renovation of the façade of the building, the entry of overhead lines into the ground, the improvement of the surrounding environment, and the development of cultural and creative products.
The significance of the preservation of historical buildings lies in the "revitalization". The historical buildings of the Liberation Daily Newspaper and the Former Residence of Rong's Family are good examples of opening in use, but many public space buildings that should be open are still "raised in the deep unknown" or "half-covered by the pipa", and some areas are keen to turn historical buildings into exhibition halls and memorials. Personally, I am not in favor of building more and more personal memorials, some of which are even simulated memorials that are not built on the original site. "Demolition of the truth" and then simulation, this is not only of little value, but also increases the economic burden of maintenance, it is better to hang a two-dimensional code sign that can be read, so that civilized citizens can live in it.
I once asked a painter who had moved away after living in the old city box for more than half a lifetime, hoping that the old city box would become what it would look like in the future, and he thought for half a day and said: "I am not an expert, I can't say it clearly, but I hope that there are some things I can see when I go back in the future, and I don't know it at all." ”
The Old Town Box is the birthplace of Shanghai City, which is not only a heritage in the process of traditional Chinese urban development, but also the only existing "local life" historical style area in Shanghai, carrying cultural styles such as Jiangnan culture, and together with the cultural relics of the Bund since modern times, it constitutes a sample of Shanghai culture. The old city box is also the area that best represents and embodies the collision, integration and new cultural styles of the two different cultures of Shanghai, east and west, and is the pioneer of China's urban development in modern times. The old city still retains a large number of streets and alleys that reflect the traditional urban retail business, population distribution pattern, cultural development context, and native natural environment, old place names, boundary monuments, slang, opera, rivers, bridge sites, etc. These elements embody the characteristics of Jiangnan culture and modern Shanghai immigrant culture, and contain rich spirit and logic such as free business, advocating nature, and pluralistic social networks.
The team of the Institute of Literature once did a pre-study of urban renewal in the old city area. The old city is facing the dilemma of dilapidated historical buildings, unreasonable spatial layout, aging economic formats, and loss of cultural elements. However, the current renewal is still driven by land, and has not broken through the spatial scope of the old city box, placing it in the goal of urban renewal and building a global city and cultural highland in Shanghai, which lacks imagination and a big pattern. To this end, we propose to integrate the old city box with the original central business districts such as the Bund and Lujiazui and the future North Bund area, and explore how to drive the innovation of Shanghai's central activity area with ecology, consumption, Shanghai school and Jiangnan culture, so that it can become a display center for intangible cultural heritage, a distribution place for traditional opera, a place for the presentation of Jiangnan style, and a place for Pujiang River tourism with waterfront linkage. In view of the current lack of a world cultural heritage in the indicators of Shanghai as an international cultural metropolis, it can be shaped into a unique city in the world, with both international taste and oriental charm and Jiangnan characteristics, embedded in the central urban area, and the Bund building complex representing history, jointly applying for heritage, becoming the "cultural heart" of Shanghai's central activity area, becoming the closest to history, the closest to modernity, and the closest to the future, showing the world the most representative of Chinese characteristics and amazing urban development model.
Just to take the specific plan of "one water to save the old city", it is to restore the river channel filled in by Fangbang Middle Road and divert the living water of the Huangpu River to the Yuyuan Lake Pavilion. Use bamboo forests, metasequoia and holly and other green walls, park belts, etc. to restore the trajectory of the old city wall, become the "ecological green lung" of the city center, use the river hama water system connecting the Huangpu River to connect the traffic in the city, select a part of the riverbang and bridges recorded in the literature to restore the place name and bridge restoration, as far as possible to restore the intertwined water network, temples, gardens, and cities coexist in the Jiangnan cultural landscape. At present, the two cross avenues of Henan South Road and Fuxing East Road have cut the old city compartment into four quadrants, which is difficult to restore, and the feasible way is to revitalize the first quadrant (Yuyuan City God Temple, Folk Commercial District), develop the second quadrant (Luxiang Garden and Dajing Pavilion, modern fashion area), revitalize the third quadrant (Wenmiao Temple and Longmen Estate, cultural life area), and transform the fourth quadrant (QiaoJia Road and Shuyin Lou, traditional style area). I wrote a poem to express this idea, that is: "Ring green traces of the old pheasant wall, a river to save the old city, Jiangnan style into the texture, four elephants to divide the rules of thyme." "We must realize that urban renewal is not just the repair and reconstruction of buildings, but the rearrangement and deployment of elements such as industry, population and culture, and the integration, transformation and parallel progress of soft and hard power."
How to view the "humanistic turn" of Chinese cities
The inheritance of urban context is increasingly interacting closely with practical areas such as urban renewal. From the perspective of urban theory, the proposition of humanistic cities is increasingly coming to the forefront.
The Resolution of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China put forward the historical experience of "ten adherences", of which an important one is "upholding the supremacy of the people". Putting forward "people's cities are built by the people, and people's cities are for the people", in fact, it is a transformation from the perspective of physicalism, planningism, aerial perspective, and enterprise city to humanism, organic growth, ground perspective, and people's city, which is also consistent with the trend of global urban development logic from physicalism to humanism.
The "humanistic turn" of Chinese cities, or in layman's terms, the "fireworks turn", is an inevitable experience for urban development to a certain stage, especially in megacities like Shanghai, to achieve modernization, and it is also a return to the urban essence contained in the slogan of "cities, better lives" put forward by the World Expo. The important concept of "people's city" put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping has a good role in correcting a series of shortcomings caused by the "large-scale demolition and construction" of urban development in the past four decades, and has profound theoretical guiding significance for the more in-depth urban organic renewal and micro-renewal in the next stage.
Regarding urban development, Shanghai has put forward a series of new ideas and concepts in recent years, such as "buildings can be read, neighborhoods can be strolled, and cities have temperatures", such as "comprehensively enhance urban soft power" and "everyone is soft power". In my opinion, "architecture can be read" is an image means, enhancing "urban soft power" is a strategy for realization, and building a "people's city" is a fundamental value pursuit. How to do urban spatial planning? How does the governance of cities become good governance? How can justice in cities be achieved? What kind of cities do we really need? What should a city look like? Who should the city belong to? These issues all ultimately boil down to "people first". In the process of urban renewal, while comprehensively enhancing the soft power of cities, we must not forget the lofty mission of building a "people's city". With this fundamental observance, we will find that with the improvement of the civilized quality and aesthetic level of the affluent citizens, urban renewal will develop from the stage of large-scale urban construction when everyone hopes to improve the appearance and living conditions of the city, to the stage of paying more attention to the living environment and living convenience, and emphasizing cultural creativity and community construction.
Of course, today's emphasis on the important concept of "people's cities" does not mean that we did not take the "people as the center" in the past, nor does it mean that we did not do it wrong in the past. In the early stage of urban development, emphasizing the speed and scale of development has its rationality, but often ignores the other side of things, such as human feelings, spiritual and psychological cultural elements. Now that we have entered the stage of high-quality development, we need to think about problems with the new development concept of "innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing", which requires a return to the other side of dialectics. The important concept of "people's city" has made the measurement of happiness, sense of gain and security the foundation of urban development theory with Chinese characteristics. As a pioneer and forerunner, Shanghai should undoubtedly become a model in urban renewal and urban development models, providing experience and direction for other cities.
Urban construction must not forget the original intention of "people first"
Sorting out the development concepts of global cities can help us form new ideas and perspectives. The outbreak of the new crown epidemic has prompted people to start to yearn to live in the suburbs to breathe fresh air, Mumford's life city and Howard's pastoral city have been remembered, and their ecological ideas have not become obsolete; the outbreak of the new crown epidemic has also made us re-aware of the importance of grass-roots mutual assistance in neighborhood communities, and many lives in the isolation area are completed by mutual assistance by neighborhood committees and social organizations. Typhoon floods remind us of the importance of building "resilient cities", not only the "surging" landscape on the ground, but also the "safe" infrastructure below the ground; it also reminds us that while building a "smart city", we need to build a truly effective "sponge city". While western urban development has matured and is relatively solidified, China's urban development is still in full swing and in full swing. Whether it is the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, or the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin Cities Economic Circle, including countless small and medium-sized cities on the road of urbanization, may be constantly trial and error, but it is also possible that new experiences and development models are being formed. In this regard, the practical basis for the development of urban theory has shifted to emerging countries represented by China, and the future urban theory will certainly take China's urban practice as a huge empirical foundation.
China's urban development path has not yet been finalized, but some characteristics have been revealed, such as urban development led by national strategies, five-year planning and urban overall planning, soft power improvement requirements beyond GDP assessment, metropolitan area development and regional integration, creative parks and development zones to drive inner city development and urban expansion, todd (public transportation-oriented development) urban development model brought about by the rapid development of high-speed rail and subway, new scenarios of mobile Internet technology and large-scale in-depth use of digital resources. High-speed railways, scan code payment, shared bicycles, and online shopping are known as China's "new four major inventions", and the changes in urban life concepts and methods brought about by them cannot be underestimated. Of course, the most important thing is the value of the "people's city" to follow.
Taking Shanghai as an example, the development of a socialist modern international metropolis with Chinese characteristics is inseparable from long-term sustainable planning. The basic choice of Shanghai as a megacity is to fully absorb the reasonable components of various urban development concepts and realize the model of attaching equal importance to the renewal and development of the central urban area and the incremental independent development of the new city. On the one hand, the city center is rediscovered, and the urban area is transformed from a CBD (central business district) into a CAZ (central activity area) through organic renewal, showing diversity and vitality; on the other hand, it actively promotes the construction of new cities, develops five complete new cities through TOD, drives the metropolitan area through small metropolitan areas, and finally realizes the integration of the Yangtze River Delta. The cultural construction that accompanies urban construction will also present a two-way superimposed movement, to meet the needs of people in the suburbs more than the suburbs and more yearn for the urban area, more need to be alone at the same time more need to communicate, more need for the ecological environment and more need for the diversity and diversification of life vitality.
Urban construction must not forget the original intention of "people first". The "people's city" needs initiative from the grassroots level, emphasizing co-construction, co-governance and sharing. The pioneering spirit at the grassroots level is inseparable from the whole process of people's democracy. Practice has proved that the whole process of people's democracy is a full-chain, all-round, and full-coverage democracy, and is the most extensive, true, and effective socialist democracy. The difference between urban management and urban governance is that the latter is a process of conscious participation of the people, while the superiority of governance lies in the ability to control "orderly complexity". The foundation of soft power lies in people, and the key lies in the improvement of the level of governance and the quality of citizens. Only by closely linking the comprehensive improvement of urban soft power with the comprehensive construction of people's cities can we not lose our way and have a correct way of "landing" different from the Western concept of soft power. Hard power makes cities strong, and soft power makes cities great. So, who has the final say on the powerful and the great? Undoubtedly the people. The ideal city of the future should be the organic unity of production, life, ecology and life care, and its final purpose should be to realize the highest ideal of human society, that is, the "free and comprehensive development of man" proposed by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto.
【Thinker Biography】
Xu Jinjiang is the director of the Institute of Literature of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the president of the Institute of Urban Cultural Innovation, and a researcher. Chief expert of cultural innovation and urban soft power research and innovation team of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. His main research interests are urban culture and mass communication. (Photo of the author provided by me)
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(The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.) E-mail: [email protected])
Column Editor-in-Chief: Wang Zhen Text Editor: Wang Zhen Title Image Source: Zhang Chi Photo Editor: Xiang Jianying
Source: Author: Xu Jinjiang
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