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"Technology and industry will eventually return to big cities and central cities, which cannot be changed. The large aspect is agglomerate, the large space is specific to the central city, and the small aspect is decentralized, polycentric, and networked structure. ”
On December 12, at the 2023 Winter Forum of the China Urban 100 Forum with the theme of "Chinese-style Modernization and Urban Development", Li Guoping, Dean and Professor of the Capital Development Institute of Peking University, shared his latest observations and thoughts on the development of central cities and urban agglomerations.
In his view, the mainland is a country with a large urban population and a very low degree of urban primacy, so the scale of large cities will continue to expand. It is necessary to fully realize that central cities and urban agglomerations are the main spatial carriers carrying population and economic functions, and it is recommended that the development of large cities, including megacities, should not be restricted or controlled at present. In order to avoid the emergence of big city diseases, it is necessary to strengthen polycentric networking and transportation-oriented development.
At the same time, the current pattern of national central cities is not particularly reasonable. From this perspective, Shenyang in Northeast China, Urumqi in Northwest China, and Qingdao in the urban agglomeration of the Shandong Peninsula should be considered as national central cities.
The following is a transcript of Li Guoping's live speech, with abridged content:
How to understand the central city and urban agglomeration, it actually has a very important regional scale, we say that the global central city, the national central city, the regional central city, etc., in a specific spatial scale it is the highest level of the city, if you push forward, it is the center of the central place theory, is the topmost city on the spatial scale of a specific region.
In this process, because the central city is the highest level of city in the urban system on the spatial scale, it has the advantage of scale, structure, and administrative potential energy, that is, it is often the center of the large administrative body.
Cities are central, and there are many benefits to this: the concentration of capital, technology, talent, and labor. Such a city will grow to a certain extent, even if it is not in the process of not being able to do it anywhere else. For example, in Japan, where the population is declining continuously, Tokyo is the last city to enter a state of decline, so that the functions of the city are clustered and the functions of the city are integrated.
Technology and industry will eventually return to big cities and central cities, which cannot be changed. The large aspect is agglomeration, (to) the large space specific central city (agglomeration), and the small aspect is decentralized, (divided into) polycentric, networked structure. In 1950, there were only two megacities with a population of 10 million, in 2018 there were 33, and by 2030 there are expected to be 43, and there may be more.
Don't restrict megacity development
My opinion on the size of the mainland's big cities and their future trends is just one family's opinion, and the mainland cities are not too big, which is a judgment. The proportion of large cities will continue to increase, and after the increase, there will be good aspects such as the economy, and there will also be many problems, such as big city disease. How we solve the problem of big city disease in the process of big city development is very crucial.
According to the statistics of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in 1980, the urbanization rate of the mainland was only 19.4 percent, and the proportion of the population of large cities in the urban population was 21.88 percent.
In the seventh census, there are 7 megacities and 14 megacities, with a total population of 210 million, accounting for 23.4% of the urban population of the mainland.
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It can be expected that in the next 20-30 years, our urbanization level will reach more than 80%. The urbanization rate of the old capitalist countries was not very high, and the urbanization rate of the newer developed countries was very high. Young man, if you put him in the country to live, he won't go. Under the original social system, when transportation is not very convenient, settlements will be formed, and gradually develop, and in various development systems, human beings will gather more towards the center. Therefore, the level of urbanization in the future is not only 80%, but it is entirely possible to say that 85% or higher.
Why do we say it's not large? Compared with the major countries in the world, the proportion of people living in large cities is much lower than that of the United States and Japan. Compared with the world's major cities, neither the scale nor the individual is large. Considering that the mainland is a country with a large urban population and a low degree of urban primacy, the size of large cities will continue to expand. We can't stop the development of big cities, and the problem of "big city disease" is most likely to occur, so it is necessary to establish a polycentric and networked spatial structure within large cities.
First, it is fully recognized that central cities and urban agglomerations are the main spatial carriers carrying population and economic functions, and it is recommended that the development of large cities, including megacities, should not be restricted or controlled at present.
Many of our urban problems can be eliminated through technical and economic means, not to say that cities will not grow. In the process, there is also an overall population reduction, and many cities are shrinking in size. Many of our policies, including land use indicators, must be linked to each other to avoid social problems arising from social pressures such as young people in big cities who cannot afford to buy houses.
Second, in the development of large cities, especially super-large and megacities, in order to avoid the emergence of big city diseases, it is necessary to strengthen the development of polycentric networks and transportation-oriented. Change the single-center structure to a multi-center structure and network structure, and promote the transportation-oriented urban development model. In order to avoid concentration, we need to achieve economies of scale, but decentralized economies of scale, not limited scale.
Who should be the first to become a "national middle school"?
In previous years, there was a lot of talk about national central cities, but in recent years, it has been said relatively little. In general, the approval or document of our national central cities includes Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Chongqing, and Chengdu.
We found that there is no one in the Northeast, and the policy of the Northeast in recent years has gradually become a commercial grain base and protected wetlands, and there are still 100 million people in the local area, and the problem in the Northeast is actually quite big. In this process, how to develop the city, everyone may blame the cold climate, in fact, Liaoning's climate is quite good, and the resources are also very good.
The pattern of national central cities is not particularly reasonable at present. In this process, which cities should be given priority to becoming national central cities? From the perspective of optimizing the urban system, the current nine national central cities cannot radiate to the northeast, and the northeast still needs a national central city.
Considering Xinjiang's position in the Belt and Road Initiative and opening up to the west, as well as the optimization of the urban system, Urumqi should also be considered as a national central city. There is also the Shandong Peninsula, which was originally called the east fast and the west slow, and the problem of the gap between the east and the west has gradually become a problem of the gap between the north and the south, and the gap between the economy of the north and the south is very large. In this process, the Shandong Peninsula, especially Qingdao, may also be considered as a central city, as well as Shenyang in the northeast and Urumqi in the northwest.
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Judging from the development of urban agglomerations in the mainland, it is still too large and too general, as if there are some cities in an area on the map, and it is a group with a pen. It has also been suggested that it is absolutely impossible to draw an urban agglomeration belt around the southern mountainous area in the border area, because of the terrain conditions, it does not walk horizontally, but only vertically, and the border cannot be opened. It seems to be hooked up on the map, but actual people can't walk over, and animals can't walk through, so there is no connection, so it can't be generalized as "all herds".
We can classify urban agglomerations according to the economic carrying capacity of the population. The Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta are relatively high, the higher ones are the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Chengdu-Chongqing Peninsula and the Shandong Peninsula, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River are medium, because they are too large and the internal connections are relatively (weak), and the Central Plains urban agglomeration, and the lower levels are more numerous, and most of them are of the lower level. Many areas, especially those with particularly low population densities, are not even a city, they are completely isolated cities, not clusters.
In addition, there are some outstanding problems such as low population and economic carrying capacity of urban agglomerations in mainland China, unbalanced internal development, insufficient promotion momentum, and low resource allocation capacity. Therefore. In terms of improving the population and economic carrying capacity of the mainland urban agglomeration, it is necessary to grasp the law, not to pull out the seedlings to help them grow, and to deal with the relationship between the central city, the metropolitan area, the urban agglomeration and the region within the urban agglomeration.
It is also necessary to look at the urban agglomerations on the mainland objectively, and emphasize that most of the urban agglomerations that have not reached the standard of high-level urban agglomerations are urban agglomerations under cultivation and construction, and urban agglomerations at different levels of cultivation and development should be classified according to the main problems and differentiated goals of various types of urban agglomerations.
National Business Daily