In recent years, some local governments have invested heavily in various luxury projects, such as stadiums, convention and exhibition centers, and government buildings, in order to enhance the image of the city.
The root cause of this is that local governments are overly reliant on land finance, and invest a large amount of the fiscal revenue obtained from the sale of land use rights into projects that can boost government performance in the short term but lack real value in the long run.
The investment in image engineering often lacks careful consideration and scientific demonstration, blindly pursuing a superficial urban image, but ignoring the actual needs of people's livelihood. For example, a large newly built theater in a city has a novel and magnificent design, but due to poor operation and program planning, the utilization rate is extremely low, and it has been reduced to a "luxury empty room".
Another city's so-called "future science and technology park" was supposed to attract high-tech companies to settle in, but no one cared about it. These projects, after spending a lot of public funds, have little practical effect and constitute a serious waste of public resources.
What's more, after the completion of these image projects, they still need to continue to invest high maintenance costs, which has become a heavy financial burden for the government. For example, the annual operating expenses of a water sports center in one city are as high as millions of yuan, but there are few tourists, and it is not able to bring real economic returns to the city. Similar cases are not uncommon, reflecting a highly irresponsible attitude towards public finances.
In addition to economic waste, the wanton construction of image projects has also exposed potential political corruption within some local governments. Due to the huge amount of project funds, they often collude with local officials and businessmen to form a chain of interests, and public funds are infiltrated and transferred to the private pockets of a small number of people, which seriously undermines social fairness and justice, exacerbates the gap between the rich and the poor, and harms the fundamental interests of the people.
It can be said that the rise of image engineering reflects some serious shortcomings of the current local government financial system, such as excessive reliance on land finance and the pursuit of short-term political performance, which undoubtedly deviates from the original intention of public funds, that is, to seek well-being for the people, promote economic development, and improve people's livelihood. Fundamentally, the image project squandered the hard-earned money collected by the people through their hard work, which is a huge disrespect and blasphemy for the people's efforts.
We call on local governments to comprehensively reflect on and criticize image projects, abandon one-sided practices that pursue political performance and urban image, and fully consider public will and social benefits when making project decisions. The public should also actively exercise its oversight powers, demand that the government be open and transparent, and prevent the recurrence of the misuse of public funds. Only in this way can public resources truly serve people's livelihood and urban development truly enter the road of benign and sustainable development.