With a real-time population of 150 million, the most populous province has withstood the economic cycle

In fact, there is no profound mystery or law in the matter of the war for people, and treating the floating population as "their own people" is half the success.

Written by丨Xiong Zhi

When I returned to Shenzhen from Jiangxi at the beginning of the year, I was more than 300 kilometers away, and it took more than 10 hours to get there in traffic jams. Every year, this is almost a regular experience.

Whether it is through Hunan or Jiangxi, several expressways such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Macao and Xuguang that run through the north and south are basically the most serious traffic jams in the country every year. On the highway, you can see a large number of Guangdong A (Guangzhou), Guangdong B (Shenzhen), and Guangdong S (Dongguan) license plates. When they returned to work after the holiday, they were blocked on the road into Guangdong, and when they returned home before the holiday, they were also so congested that they had to run for a day before they could get out of Guangdong.

The migration from south to north during the Spring Festival is a direct microcosm of Guangdong's economy, population and vitality. The developed Pearl River Delta has attracted a large number of outsiders, and behind the traffic jam during the Spring Festival is a huge floating population digging here.

According to the recent Guangdong Provincial High-quality Development Conference, Guangdong has a permanent population of 127 million, and the population in Guangdong reaches 150 million every day. Guangdong has been the largest province in Chinese for 17 consecutive years.

01

In 2022, the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen will have a collective negative growth in permanent population for the first time in history.

Beijing and Shanghai are in a stage of de-functioning, population decline is expected, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which have always been big growth cities, have seen negative growth for the first time, triggering various interpretations.

One view is that first-tier cities have lost their attractiveness, and they are starting to lose their population.

Due to the two prefecture-level cities of Foshan and Dongguan, the permanent population in 2022 will also show a rare negative growth, which has triggered many voices of decline, believing that the economy of the Pearl River Delta region is failing, and the industrial transformation and upgrading has failed, ushering in a turning point of population flight.

However, facts have proved that the negative growth of the permanent population of these large cities is likely to be phased.

The permanent resident population data for 2023 has not yet been released. However, through some other indicators, we can observe the increase or decrease in popularity in the Pearl River Delta.

Taking Shenzhen as an example, Shenzhen officials recently revealed that by the end of 2023, the registered population of Shenzhen's communities has reached 21.6377 million, a year-on-year increase of 9.79%.

Of course, the statistical caliber of the registered population in the community may not be accurate, but it can also reflect the population situation of Shenzhen. Counting the omissions and unregistered, the number of people in Guangdong will only increase.

▲Shenzhen Dongmen Pedestrian Street Commercial District (Photo/Picture Worm Creative)

In fact, Shenzhen, including Guangzhou, has previously released data on the actual population under management of more than 22 million people. The explosive growth of the registered population in the community echoes the historical passenger flow intensity of rail transit in Shenzhen.

According to media reports, in 2023, Shenzhen Metro will transport a total of 2.711 billion passengers, with an average daily passenger volume of 7.4272 million, a total of 7 record highs, and reached a record high of 10.1734 million passengers on Chinese New Year's Eve on December 31, becoming the fourth city in China to break through the 10 million urban rail passenger flow level.

Therefore, a basic judgment can be drawn that the population lost in 2022 is flowing back to Shenzhen.

And the situation in Shenzhen is a microcosm of Guangdong, with a real-time population of up to 150 million, which is an excellent proof - you must know that the number of registered residents in Guangdong is only in the early 100 million, which means that there are at least more than 50 million foreigners in Guangdong.

If we look at it extensively, the population attraction of Guangdong, the largest province in terms of economy, will be more intuitive.

Since the reform and opening up, Guangdong's permanent population has soared from more than 50 million to 127 million. Not to mention Guangzhou and Shenzhen, even the two super prefecture-level cities of Foshan and Dongguan, the permanent population growth of the sixth to seventh census in ten years has exceeded 2 million.

02

In the past two years, friends have left Shenzhen one after another, and even I, who have settled down, often have the idea of fleeing. It can't be done, the first-tier cities are really too volatile.

But even if more people leave, Guangdong, especially Guangzhou and Shenzhen, is still a place where young people come in and work hard. In 2022, Guangdong's permanent population will grow negatively for the first time, but its registered population will still maintain a rapid growth, increasing by one million a year, and after deducting the natural increase, more than 600,000 people from outside the province will enter Guangdong this year.

In 2007, Guangdong's population surpassed Henan's, and it has been sitting on the throne of the most populous province to this day.

The most direct factor in Guangdong's ability to attract a large number of immigrants is, of course, that there are many employment opportunities here, which is convenient for making money. However, the ability to convert a large number of migrants into a registered population is inseparable from an open attitude towards the foreign population.

Among the first-tier cities, the threshold for settlement in Guangzhou and Shenzhen is relatively low. Especially in Shenzhen, under the talent introduction policy, undergraduates can still get subsidies for settling down, which is a treatment that many second-tier cities can't offer.

Sufficient employment opportunities and relatively low settlement thresholds have created a strong population attraction in Guangdong. Young people who come from outside to work hard can make money here, work hard for a few years while they are young, accumulate capital and go home to start a business, or they can choose to take root here.

Diagram / Diagram Worm Creativity

When talking about the attractiveness of big cities, everyone will think of one point, that is, big cities are relatively fairer, equal opportunities, and not so many people are sophisticated, power and money open the way.

In fact, equality of opportunity is only one aspect, and the equalization of public services is also an important factor. Household registration is less restrictive, it is not the core basis for resource allocation, resources are open to everyone.

Typical like Dongguan, the permanent population exceeds 10 million, but the registered population is less than 3 million. In a sense, this is even a city dominated by foreign populations, and its resources certainly cannot be monopolized by locals.

It is worth mentioning that Guangdong is one of the provinces with the largest internal wealth gap. There is a huge development gap between the Pearl River Delta and the eastern, western and northern parts of Guangdong, and there are still a large number of areas that are so poor.

Under the "old and difficult" problem of extremely unbalanced regional development, why can Guangdong still sit firmly on the throne of the largest economic province? An important factor lies in the fact that the developed Pearl River Delta region is highly open and does not have a monopoly on development resources.

Behind the inequality of the economic gap is actually a kind of equality of opportunity – it doesn't matter if you are poor in eastern Guangdong, western Guangdong, and northern Guangdong, people there, like the floating population in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, can pan for gold in the wealthy Pearl River Delta and enjoy the same public services as the locals.

03

Previously, Shenzhen's "unified rent" turmoil had attracted widespread attention. Tens of millions of migrant workers are worried that after the "unified rent" transformation, urban villages will lose their cost-effectiveness, and rising rents will force those living in urban villages to move out.

In fact, the situation of urban villages is also an important window to observe the attractiveness of Guangdong's population.

A research team has painted portraits of urban villages in eight cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Dongguan, and the statistical results show that the population of urban villages in Guangzhou and Shenzhen exceeds 10 million, ranking among the top two cities in the above eight cities.

The "Shenzhen Urban Village Building Dictionary 2022" also shows that by the end of 2022, there were a total of 2,042 urban village units in Shenzhen with natural villages as units, with a total of about 319,000 urban village buildings, accounting for more than 40% of the city's total construction and about 60% of the city's actual population.

For any large city, urban villages are almost always the core area for accommodating foreign population.

Like my community, there are urban villages across the street downstairs, some "peasant houses" are close to 20 floors, and there are convenient living facilities in the village, about 15 yuan of pig's knuckle rice, 20 yuan haircuts, everything. In the bustling first-tier cities, this price is quite affordable.

Although it has not yet reached the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, almost all the shops in the urban village opposite are open. This kind of dynamism and popularity is exactly the open and inclusive side of big cities. Allowing the existence of urban villages, which many people consider "dirty and messy", allows the migrant population to settle down.

It is precisely because of this that Shenzhen's "unified renting" can arouse a huge backlash from public opinion, and Dongguan's "walled village fees" will arouse fierce opposition.

Diagram / Diagram Worm Creativity

In my opinion, the real decency of a big city, the beautiful skyline is certainly one thing, but it is more hidden in the details of the urban village.

Because of the opening up and settlement of large cities, at this stage, after all, it is still for some highly educated population, and the retention of urban villages will allow those floating populations who have not received higher education to have a place to live, which is also a kind of universal benefit of urban resources and opportunities.

In the final analysis, it's not traffic that grabs people, it's sincerity. In fact, not only Guangdong, but also from the Yangtze River Delta to the Greater Bay Area, which of those regions and cities with continuous population inflow is not known for its openness, inclusiveness and friendliness?

In fact, there is no profound mystery or law in the matter of the war for people, and treating the floating population as "their own people" is half the success.