Change is inseparable. If a city is to take into account the goal of ecological livability and livability, it is actually to attract people to live and live in the city. Because at this stage of China's urban development, especially in large cities, there is a general feature that the service industry has increasingly become the main driving force for economic development.
On January 28, 2022, the State Council officially approved the construction of a park city demonstration zone in Chengdu to practice the new development concept. As the core fulcrum of the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin Cities Economic Circle, Chengdu has shouldered a new mission of exploring megacities to practice the new development concept.
What issues should be paid attention to in the formation of a regional economic layout with complementary advantages and high-quality development in the Chengdu-Chongqing region? How to take into account the construction of ecological civilization and economic and social development in the construction of park city demonstration areas? How does the new economy promote the "curve overtaking" of midwest cities? These questions have become questions worth thinking about in Chengdu and even all Chinese cities at this moment.
During the national "two sessions" in 2022, Red Star News, together with Tencent News, Sina Weibo, Chengdu Release, and Chengdu Planning and Design Research Institute (Chengdu Tianfu Park City Research Institute), launched the second season of the "City Momentum" online high-end forum, focusing on the urban development practice of the "Two Mountains" theory.
On March 8, the third forum focused on "how to create an excellent environment for Yiye and stimulate the economic vitality of park cities".
Lu Ming, Distinguished Professor of Antai School of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Executive Dean of China Development Research Institute, expressed his views on the theme of "Park City that Balances Development and Livability" at the forum.
1. Park city is a new requirement that the new stage of development will inevitably bring
Ecological livability and urban vitality complement each other and promote each other
Red Star News
What does a park city look like in your concept or in your imagination? In your opinion, what value does the ecological environment and excellent livable environment of the city have in the development of the big city?
Lu Ming: The most critical thing in proposing the concept of park city is to emphasize that in the process of urban development, it is necessary to take into account the multiple goals of economic development, livability and ecological environmental protection. Especially when China's economic development has entered a new stage of economic development, the national per capita GDP has entered the level of high-income countries, especially the per capita GDP level of large cities is higher. After entering this stage, people's requirements for an ecologically livable environment will be further enhanced.
At the same time, ecological environmental protection itself can also generate a lot of economic value, such as tourism, residence and some corresponding leisure industries. A good ecological environment is itself a very important resource. Therefore, the proposal of park city is also a new requirement inevitably brought about by the new stage of development.
As for what is a park city, I think it cannot be simply understood from the physical form, specifically discussing cities of different sizes, cities with different conditions, and different places within the same city, and the form of park city realization is not the same. For example, in Chengdu, such a place with relatively good natural ecological conditions, there may be many natural forms of parks, and cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai do not have such conditions. In addition, the size of the city is also different. Generally speaking, large cities emphasize population density, so in some places it may be necessary to concentrate the population, but in other places, it may be necessary to build ecologically livable blank spaces to maintain the goal of livability. In some small cities, the population density is relatively low, and there is relatively more land left for ecological livability. There are also differences in different places within the city. The central urban area of the city should emphasize high density and high flow of people, but in the outer areas of the city, ecologically livable land should be left a little more.
So, I think the concept of park city needs to make some distinctions. Similar to places like Shanghai, the construction of pocket parks in cities is now proposed, which is similar to cities with better natural ecological conditions, such as Chengdu, which have adopted different physical forms of ecological development, forming some differences and references. Therefore, different cities have different stages and different cities, and its realization is different.
The construction of the park city demonstration area is not only "green". A very important aspect is to create an excellent environment for Yiye, stimulate the economic vitality of park cities, and achieve high-quality development. In your opinion, how can the construction of ecological civilization and economic and social development complement each other? In today's urban economic development, what is the key to creating a good and suitable environment?
Lu Ming: I think that everything changes are inseparable from its origins. If a city is to take into account the goal of ecological livability and livability, it is actually to attract people to live and live in the city. Because at this stage of China's urban development, especially in large cities, there is a general feature that the service industry has increasingly become the main driving force for economic development.
From the situation in China as a whole today, the proportion of the service industry in both GDP and employment indicators has exceeded that of manufacturing. And this trend will continue to develop further, that is to say, the proportion of the service industry will become higher and higher. If we compare large cities and small and medium-sized cities, the proportion of service industry in large cities will be much higher than that of small and medium-sized cities, and the proportion of service industries in large and mega cities within large cities will be a little higher than that of ordinary large cities. Because the service industry itself is embodied in energy conservation and environmental protection, the pollution emissions are relatively low, and it is conducive to the construction of an ecologically livable city.
Conversely, in the process of service industry development, an ecologically livable environment is conducive to promoting the development of service industry. For example, if a city is ecologically livable, it will be more able to attract some people to live in, resulting in a relatively large population size, so that the agglomeration of population scale is conducive to the production of service industries. Because the service industry has a characteristic, it needs to meet between people and people, and the products of the service industry are often not transported and stored, so the development of the service industry in places with high population density and large population size is relatively easy.
In addition, in the process of the development of some service industries, the ecological environment itself is a very important condition and input factor. For example, like tourism, the tourism industry in some large cities themselves is very developed, and Chengdu is also such a city. For example, some park environments are also very important for the development of leisure-type industries. Chengdu is a city that is considered to be very happy with the living environment and residents' satisfaction and happiness throughout the country. It is also related to Chengdu's relatively good ecological environment in a large city. Therefore, ecological livability and the vitality of a city, after reaching the stage of service industry, are actually parallel, and it can be said that they complement each other and promote each other.
2. The digital economy itself is an industrial chain
"Counting the East and Counting the West" requires different cities to give play to their comparative advantages and cooperate in coordination
You recently mentioned that "big data can provide a new research paradigm for understanding urban agglomerations and spatial structures within cities, and can also become a factor of production and driving force in the digital economy." Recently, the state launched the "East Counting West" project. In the construction of the park city demonstration area, how to make the new economy represented by the digital economy become a new driving force to promote the "curve overtaking" of the central and western cities?
Lu Ming: This question should be viewed in two aspects. On the one hand, the digital economy has brought some new momentum to the development of urban economy. Some new economic formations, such as the big data-driven service sector, are also booming in cities. It is not only the research, development and application of related industries of big data itself, but also empowers the development of many manufacturing and service industries, resulting in many new formats. For example, industries such as car drivers and takeaways, which have a relatively large impact on our lives now, are based on big data platforms. Many manufacturing industries are also using big data to improve their design, research and development, including some big data-driven new technologies such as the metacosm are still evolving and iterating. These are some new development opportunities.
From the perspective of urban development, if the development of an industry is to provide services and produce through online means, its dependence on geographical space is not as strong as that of traditional manufacturing. This aspect is indeed bringing new momentum to some places that are relatively inferior in geographical location.
But it also needs to emphasize another point, there are some big data generated by some industries, it is itself a knowledge and information intensive industry, so even in some of the central and western regions for development, there are a large number of big data-driven industries, in fact, is still concentrated in the big cities in the central and western regions, such as Chengdu has such an industry.
Some small and medium-sized cities, because of the lack of population size, are likely to enjoy more of the benefits of the digital economy and some spillover effects on the consumer side. From the perspective of industrial agglomeration, the role of large urban agglomeration development is stronger.
How do you see the opportunities that analogous to the number of east and west bring to some less developed regions? This issue is a very good example of different cities using their different conditions to divide labor and optimize the industrial structure. For example, in the big data-related industries now, some bases for storing big data may be placed in places such as Guizhou, and big data centers have been built, taking advantage of the advantages of better local climatic conditions, geological environment, cheap electricity prices, and cheap land prices. It's actually a lot like a big data warehouse. However, for the computing and application of data in these places, it is still highly dependent on human capital, and these industries will continue to remain in large cities, even in coastal areas thousands of kilometers away.
So we should see that the digital economy itself is an industrial chain, there are some large cities to gather talents, more development of big data computing and applications, there are some places it is more to play themselves, energy prices, land prices are relatively low, geological conditions are better and other advantages of some of the advantages of big data storage. Different cities give full play to their comparative advantages and cooperate with each other.
3, park city can not be simply understood as the construction of large areas of parks and forests
It is necessary to rely on urban governance to achieve the best coordination between livability and vitality
As you mentioned before, people's traditional impressions of livability, such as clean air and large areas of lawn, are one-sided, and stronger economic vitality is the proper meaning of livable cities. So how to make livable cities attract more high-quality talents, and how to make park cities glow more economic momentum in the process of building?
Lu Ming: This question is a question of people's understanding of livability. I think you might as well think of it this way, if we understand livability as a large range of green spaces, lawns, and greenery according to a narrower concept. Then this construction model must be contradictory to the high density of the population. However, modern economic development, whether it is a broader service industry, it needs to meet between people and people, or some high-tech industries with information and knowledge as the core competitiveness, it needs to communicate with people and people, and produce and disseminate knowledge and information. It has certain requirements for population density, otherwise the production efficiency will not be improved.
So how to reconcile the contradictions between the two? I think there are the following aspects: one aspect is to carry out functional zoning when building a city, for example, some places are close to the central urban area, the population density is relatively high, the population density in the relative suburbs can be lower, and some places can build some country parks.
The second is that in the process of urban construction, even if there are some places with relatively high population density, there can be some other ways to maintain ecological livability and increase greening, such as vertical greening, greening on the balcony, building exterior wall, or building sky garden construction, in fact, it can also maintain ecological livability. It can still achieve high-density development. It is not contradictory to ecological livability and the construction of park cities.
The third thing I think is the production and lifestyle of the city, after entering a new stage of development, the construction of ecological livability is actually a large part of the concept of emission reduction. In the production process, more environmentally friendly industries can be developed, and industries with high pollution can be controlled or strengthened. For example, there can be some new technologies in terms of carbon emissions, and in terms of energy structure, fossil energy can be gradually reduced, and clean energy can be added, including electric energy, wind energy, hydropower, etc., so that the energy structure can change.
In terms of life, the dependence on cars can be reduced. If the development of a city is relatively high-density, and the construction of public transportation network is relatively developed, people can reduce their dependence on cars and rely more on public transportation, and even in the process of creating a 15-minute living circle, they can improve the convenience of everyone's life and reduce carbon emissions in life. For example, domestic water can be improved through technology and management, recycling, and reduction of sewage discharge. Therefore, the livability of the city should be understood from multiple angles, and cannot be simply understood as the construction of large-scale parks and forests. An optimal coordination of vitality and livability can be achieved. It is precisely because of the improvement of urban governance that the agglomeration of the population and the satisfaction of the people's yearning for a better life can be formed to achieve several goals and win-win results.
4. It is expected that the economic zone and the administrative zone will be appropriately separated and explored
City-level exhibitions can be expanded into the Twin Cities Economic Circle
You have previously emphasized that market segmentation caused by administrative divisions can lead to misallocation of resources. Recently, the executive meeting of the Sichuan Provincial Government deliberated the "Reform Plan for the Moderate Separation of Economic Zones and Administrative Regions in the Twin Cities Economic Circle of the Chengdu-Chongqing Region", and supported and encouraged the Chengdu Metropolitan Area and the adjacent areas of Sichuan and Chongqing to try first with the "one district, one policy". In your opinion, will exploring the moderate separation of economic zones and administrative regions in the economic circle improve this situation? How to further solve this problem in economic circles and urban agglomerations?
Lu Ming: I have great expectations for some Cities in China to improve their cross-administrative governance to promote economic integration.
It should be said that for a long time, China has indeed had some such institutional problems. Because China's administrative divisions are basically the units that allocate resources, whether in the planning and construction of infrastructure, or the supply of public services, they are basically allocated to a prefecture-level city or municipality directly under the central government.
Objectively speaking, this will lead to the planning of each place in their own way, in terms of economic development and investment attraction are the same for everyone, resulting in a lot of market segmentation and economic integration is not enough, the domestic cycle is not smooth enough. For example, there are some broken roads in some places, and when a road is built to the city boundary, it is gone. In the time of investment attraction, the problem of industrial structure isomorphism occurs. At the intersection of cities and cities, there are some unsatisfactory problems such as inefficient resource allocation and insufficient integration.
From the perspective of the large-scale of the city, it will inevitably produce the development state of the metropolitan area. For example, taking Chengdu as an example, the future must be moving towards a metropolitan area, which is not only a place within the jurisdiction of Chengdu, but also gradually forms a continuous network development with some other small and medium-sized cities around it, relying on a state of integrated development of rail transit.
Between Chengdu and Chongqing, because of administrative jurisdiction, it is actually a provincial-level administrative boundary, which will have an administrative barrier effect on integration. It is very gratifying that local governments have now paid attention to this issue and are aware of the need to go beyond the boundaries of administrative jurisdiction to promote economic integration.
I think that in the future, there is a need to establish a higher-level administrative coordination mechanism that goes beyond administrative jurisdiction, which I call "quasi-government". If there is such a coordination mechanism, when making plans, do not do their own planning, but can do such planning as the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin Cities Economic Circle, and some mutual coordinated operations can be carried out in the industrial layout to form some unique divisions of labor. For example, there are some economic activities held, some exhibitions are not necessarily a city-level exhibition, but can become an exhibition of a twin-city economic circle, and even a two-city economic circle can be used to drive the formation of a certain exhibition, such as the exhibition in the west.
In the construction of infrastructure such as rail transit, the two cities can jointly invest in the construction of a city that can connect the two cities, such as highways or rail transit. In this way, the process of providing and integrating some public goods can be promoted with the help of an integrated mechanism. I believe that in the process of coordinated development of local governments, such things will certainly be able to overcome some of the existing problems, effectively promote the development of integrated urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas, and better form the development state of the fourth pole of China's economic growth in the Chengdu-Chongqing region.
Article source: Red Star News