Urbanization does not mean leaving one's hometown behind, and farmers who move to the city need not give up their land

Urbanization does not mean making farmers "leave their hometown behind"; rather, it means enabling farmers to enjoy the same public services and living conditions as urban residents. In recent years, Dezhou City has explored the "joint development of two zones" - new rural communities and rural industrial parks - achieving for rural community residents "leaving the land but not the village, finding employment without leaving home, entering factories without entering the city, and becoming urbanized in place," blazing a new path of "people-centered, nearby urbanization," effectively solving the land bottleneck problem encountered in the process of urban development, and to a certain extent achieving a win-win of improved farmers' living conditions and long-term rural economic development.

However, there are some common problems in current urbanization construction. For example, farmers have concerns about moving to the city, worrying that the contracted land, homestead land, family planning and other benefits attached to their agricultural household registration will be lost; the allocation of public resources is not in place, especially the total supply and spatial layout of education, medical care, elderly care and other services, which fall far short of the public's needs.

It is suggested that the state further accelerate the reform of the rural property rights system, effectively safeguard farmers' legitimate rights and interests, and encourage and support investment in rural public resources and infrastructure construction. In particular, in assessing local governments, standards should be set more scientifically and reasonably, to avoid the new urbanization construction falling into the mistaken path of "farmers leaving their hometowns behind, cities and towns seeking excessive scale, and the rural landscape remaining unchanged."