Gao Haiyan is the president of Shenzhen Metropolitan Urban Research Institute. In 2002, he was attracted by the upward force revealed by the Diwang Building, the sense of occupation and struggle expressed by the work uniforms worn by Shenzhen people, and the youth hormones on the street, and resolutely decided to come to Shenzhen. In Gao Haiyan's view, this is not the result of a weighing of opportunities and interests, but a passionate exodus, a journey into an uncertain future, and a choice based on imagination for future life.
In the 18 years of Shenzhen, Gao Haiyan was called an "expert in urban and industrial operation" by the outside world, and he preferred to call himself a "city interpreter". From the special zone to the pilot demonstration area, how does Gao Haiyan explain this forty-year-old city?
The city of Shenzhen is an important driving force for my work
Nandu: You are an expert in urban and industrial operation, can you tell us a little bit about what your specific job is?
Gao Haiyan: My field of concern is the industry and society with the city as the space, which is not like the traditional academic work, such as humanities, economy, society, finance... That is content with the recognition, inference and verification of verticals, it is more like strategic research on providing solutions for industries and businesses. The urban system is complex, with industrial problems, cultural problems, life problems, social problems, strategic problems, policy problems... These problems are difficult to solve in a single academic field. For example, housing prices, it has policy factors, financial factors, social relations factors, resource allocation factors, there are also different city status and urban regional values, different purchasing power structures and different purchasing power values and value propositions, as well as different lifestyles, and even emotions... it will affect the change in housing prices, it is not exactly a separate economic issue, or a separate sociological issue. This is something that traditional academic methods cannot solve. There is a huge complexity and relevance of the city, and it needs to reuse a set of cross-border systems, coupled with the ability to participate in the practice of reality, in order to propose and form problem-solving thinking, tools and capabilities.
Nandu: Exactly what you said, there is a huge complexity in the city, the boundaries of the city are too big, the difficulty is very large, so why do you choose and like to do such a thing?
Gao Haiyan: It is precisely because of the complexity and synthesis of the city that the sense of academic door-to-door class is not strong, and there is some sense of "grayscale". At the same time, the ability to solve problems is highly demanding. Theoretical descriptions and arguments, as well as a single discipline, are difficult to form solutions to problems. It is more practical and professional, and has obvious nodes and dynamics. These are all things I like. In addition, I am a person who prefers edge innovation and likes grayscale things. In fact, whether in industry, business, or society, many innovations almost first come from the margins. In a clear home field, in a place with strong interest subjectivity, the activity of innovation is not high. I hope to find some non-home or more open, capacity areas, and the city capacity is large enough to give me more possibilities in thinking and choosing (it can also be seen as a kind of avoidance and avoidance of traditional categories, and the space can be staggered or hidden). In addition, as a platform, the city has a large value density and a more real sense of intervention. For example, based on a region, an industry, or an enterprise to form a set of solutions, or based on a lifestyle and living system of proposals, it is easy to become a thing that can be achieved immediately, in reality to be verified by high efficiency, value realization is strong.
Nandu: Shenzhen is not only a container for your life, but also a subject of work, what do you think is the significance of Shenzhen as a city sample for you?
Gao Haiyan: It was Shenzhen that made me interested in working in the city. First of all, because she found the difference in Shenzhen, it is her uniqueness. Whether it is genes, paths, or social relations, lifestyles, urban culture, or economic structure and industrial system, innovation power and so on. The differences between cities are the same as the differences that exist between people. There are differences in complexity as well as differences in key aspects. This discovery has driven my curiosity to explore the growth genes, development momentum and key differences of different cities, to study the development essence, value structure, growth, driving force, mechanism and allocation of resources of different cities, etc., to see if there is a methodology to shape the uniqueness of a city, and can maintain it and continue it... These are my job choices and motivation.
Shenzhen's cultural advantage is first of all the general awareness of Shenzhen people
Nandu: You once said that you want to be a "city interpreter", what kind of position is this?
Gao Haiyan: I think a lot of things need to be explained, and through explanation, we can find the value ontology and find a clearer path. Interpretation is also a kind of value generalization, and good explanations can produce consensus. The city is so complex, the social structure is so complex, there are poor cognition, poor information, poor IQ, poor value, poor motivation, poor purpose... Multivariate, three-dimensional interpretations can produce greater visibility. In a sense, the value of the city of Shenzhen lies in the creation of people who arrive and love her, as well as in people's understanding and interpretation.
In another way, some consciousnesses may form connections in the process of interpretation and eventually become urban commonalities. For example, "time is money, efficiency is life", may initially be the proposition of a certain enterprise, but after meeting the strong consciousness and universal demands of urban people, after dissemination and promotion, through the flow of consciousness that everyone influences each other, it becomes urban values, and finally affects generation after generation. This explanation is also a creation for cities.
The real urban culture is actually the subjective consciousness of the urban population, and the sum of this consciousness is the core of the urban culture. In a certain sense, Shenzhen's cultural characteristics and cultural advantages are first of all the general awareness of Shenzhen people. Therefore, in a certain sense, the universal formation of core consciousness may be the fundamental driving force for the development of a city.
Nandu: What do you think needs to be explained most in Shenzhen?
Gao Haiyan: There is a saying that "Shenzhen has created a miracle of industrialization and urbanization in the world", Shenzhen is a "pole" city in the strategy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, or a "pilot demonstration area" in the national strategic layout. Past, present, future... Shenzhen has too many labels, too many facades and sides, too many interest points and related points, too many rhythms and nodes, in fact, these need to be explained, Shenzhen's road has its clearly visible path, and it needs to constantly explore the way.
For example, when many people say that Shenzhen is an innovative city and Shenzhen's innovation driver is very strong, they will talk about huawei and Tencent and other companies. However, many people ignore that Shenzhen is essentially a small business society from the perspective of the main structure of the market. It is the industrial ecology composed of small enterprises and the value chain formed by large enterprises that makes Shenzhen's innovation resources extremely socialized, which leads to a high degree of marketization of Shenzhen's innovation and a high frequency of connection and reorganization. Whether it is technology, or product, or market, or model innovation activity is high. Therefore, I will often talk about industrial ecology, industrial synergy, industrial value chain, and innovation ecological chain, and through these perspectives, I will look at Shenzhen's innovation and entrepreneurship activity and the sustainable ability of urban innovation and growth. These problems need to be excavated, explained, and promoted to form more people's cognitions, and then these cognitions can affect and bring more people into action.
For example, I often talk about the definition of "urban direction", which areas are centers, which areas have growth, etc., which are not solidified, and may be dynamic. Cities have their own direction of movement, and the value and relationship of plates are variables caused by temporal and spatial relationships. Because China's urbanization is dynamic, China's urban modernization is also developing, affected by location, strategy, ability, resources and time, and culture. Shenzhen is no exception. These problems also require people like us who are professional or social division of labor to explain, to do value analysis and judgment, to help more people form cognition, understanding and judgment of the city.
The ultimate in urban competitiveness is in the value of life and the value of the crowd.
Nandu: You have curated shenzhen lifestyle activities, and if you look back now, what do you think has been the biggest change in the development of life in Shenzhen in the past 40 years?
Gao Haiyan: The ultimate value of urban competitiveness lies in the value of life and the value of the crowd she has formed. The biggest change in the development of life in Shenzhen in the past 40 years is actually that the "livability" has become stronger. Today's urban life is becoming more and more modern, more and more complete, more and more systematic, more and more capable, more and more diverse. Shenzhen has experienced a process from general industrialization to advanced manufacturing to modern industrialization. Throughout the history of urban development, for a long time, Shenzhen is an opportunistic city, people arrived here to pan for gold, but also to change their lives, at that time the mobility of the city was very strong, a group of people to go a group of people and a group of people to come to a group of people. Shenzhen used to be like a dock, not a home.
If we use the timeline to measure Shenzhen, we find that after 2000, the urban population, social relations, family relations, and life order began to slowly settle down. More and more people want to make money and look for opportunities in Shenzhen's home field, but also begin to turn this place into the home of life. Urban economy, urban culture, urban psychological capital, and urban life are all growing in sync and causing each other. So if you must say what is the biggest change in the development of life in Shenzhen in the past 40 years? It is that the modern urban living system has been effectively constructed, and the livability has become stronger. Shenzhen has become more and more a city of "familiar people" from a stranger's city; Shenzhen is no longer a "hometown", but a new "hometown" for more people.
Nandu: If you were to summarize the most important way of life in Shenzhen today, what would you think?
Gao Haiyan: I think it is more typical of intelligent lifestyles. Whether it is society, life or work, or home, everything is full of intelligence. Along the way, Shenzhen has gone from leading in informatization to leading in the Internet to leading in intelligence, and in turn, advanced productivity services and functions in life make the intelligent intensity and global coverage of our lives should be the head in the country. The other is Shenzhen's international lifestyle. Shenzhen people's international connection ability is getting stronger and stronger, the internationalization experience is more and more, the internationalization process of the city is getting faster and faster, and our life radius or life propositions have the shadow of globalization. The third is the fashionable lifestyle. I remember around 2000, everyone is still saying that Shenzhen is very rich but very rustic, the population structure at that time is still a population structure based on industrial configuration, people's aesthetic awareness has not been generally improved, with the establishment of culture in 2003, 2008 became the global design capital, to the cultural and creative industry became one of the four pillar industries, to the general rise of creativity, we saw the city from industry to life of the huge changes. From urban forms and urban spaces, to office spaces, family spaces, and various consumption places, as well as lifestyles and personal clothing, as well as the production of products and utensils, there is a general improvement in creativity and fashion. In addition, Shenzhen also has a very prominent way of life, that is, entrepreneurship. There are 3.3 million commercial entities in Shenzhen, and the number of enterprises is about 2 million. From the perspective of indicators, Shenzhen is the city with the highest density of entrepreneurship in the world. In a sense, entrepreneurship is also a way of life for Shenzhen people. Not to start a business is on the way to start a business; not to start a business is to prepare for entrepreneurship; not to prepare for entrepreneurship is to make a dream of entrepreneurship. This is Shenzhen!
Nandu: From a professional perspective, what do you think is the most attractive thing about Shenzhen in the past 40 years? From a personal perspective, what do you think shenzhen has touched you the most?
Gao Haiyan: I think it is Shenzhen's growth and ability to go through the cycle. Shenzhen from the processing trade, through the general manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, and then to the general drive of innovation, to today's intelligent economic era, every step is stepping on the point, each step can be from the traditional cycle to the next cycle through and iteration, this kind of cross-cycle ability of the city, this sustainable growth ability of the city in China is actually not much. It can be said that looking vertically forward, in each cycle, Shenzhen is at home.
From the dimension of personal feelings, I think the most moving thing in Shenzhen is still Shenzhen people, especially the new generation. If the first generation and the second generation are creating the source and basic characteristics of Shenzhen culture, adventurous, free, dreaming, creative, innovative, subjectively dynamic, breakthrough, sabotage... And so on with various ingredients. Nowadays, a new generation of people who rely on "Shenzhen culture" is rising everywhere and forming continuously, their free and creative instincts, international awareness, insight and ability, modern concepts and lifestyles, their vision, thinking, occupation, career, and the openness of life... They are forming a stronger lineup of Shenzhen people, allowing us to see a more imaginative Shenzhen and making Shenzhen's future more worth looking forward to.
Written by: Nandu reporter Huang Lu
Photo: Nandu reporter Gu Wei
Camera: Gu Wei Huang Mingtao