Research Exploration on the Continued Advancement of China's New Urbanization

International experience shows that urbanization is a natural historical process. If we go along with the trend and improve guidance, urbanization will become a sustained driving force for economic development; if it is handled poorly, it may bring many contradictions and problems, lead to "urban disease," and affect the modernization process. Under new historical conditions, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out that we must "adhere to the path of new urbanization with Chinese characteristics and advance people-centered urbanization." At the same time, localities have successively carried out explorations in building new urbanization. Against this background, research on new urbanization has become a hot topic in contemporary Chinese academic research, and a large number of research results have continued to emerge. The author believes that only by correctly understanding the spirit of the central authorities and deeply summarizing local experience can academic results truly play the role of guiding practice and promoting work.

In recent years, the Party and the government have attached great importance to urbanization, requiring that urbanization be actively and steadily advanced and that its quality be improved. The 2012 Central Economic Work Conference pointed out: "Urbanization is a historical task in China's modernization and is also where the greatest potential for expanding domestic demand lies. We must focus on improving the quality of urbanization, make the best use of the situation, pursue advantages and avoid disadvantages, and actively guide the healthy development of urbanization." The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee pointed out that we must "improve the institutional mechanisms for the healthy development of urbanization." The 2014 Government Work Report proposed that "urbanization is the inevitable path of modernization and an important support for breaking the urban-rural dual structure. We must improve the institutional mechanisms for integrated urban-rural development, adhere to the new urbanization path of putting people first, synchronizing the four modernizations, optimizing layout, ecological civilization, and preserving culture, follow the laws of development, actively and steadily advance it, and focus on improving quality." In research, we should regard the central authorities' spirit concerning the advancement of new urbanization as an organic system and study it as a whole. While accurately understanding its background, we should form a comprehensive understanding and must avoid overgeneralizing from partial information.

We must pay attention to the "people" in the process of urbanization. When problems arise in urbanization, they are often caused by the "human" factors behind them. At present, the biggest problem in China's urbanization is that land urbanization is faster than people-centered urbanization, and the citizenization of the agricultural transferred population is seriously lagging behind. Urbanization is not merely people moving into cities; it also concerns people's various interests. In reality, "people" are not a monolithic bloc. People of different occupations and different social strata have different opinions, and the interests of the masses are still divided into fundamental interests and immediate interests, long-term interests and short-term interests, and overall interests and partial interests. The central authorities have proposed to "advance people-centered urbanization," which requires us in research to always pay attention to "people" and comprehensively weigh the interests of "people."

We must study in depth the driving forces of urbanization and make the best use of the situation. Some people believe that the government is the proposer and implementer of urbanization, especially in the process of synchronously advancing new industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization. Relatively speaking, in new industrialization, informatization, and agricultural modernization, enterprises play a greater leading role, while in the process of urbanization the government plays a greater role. In fact, the government's role is indeed crucial, and its role in land planning, urbanization planning, and urban planning is especially indispensable. As a result, some people believe that the driving force of urbanization comes from the government. This view is one-sided. Summarizing historical experience, urbanization is a natural historical process. Geographical location, natural conditions, natural resources, and historical traditions are all important factors in the emergence of cities, and the exercise of human agency must be based on the above factors. In reality, the mistake we make most often is carrying out urbanization construction divorced from the natural historical process and beyond natural and humanistic conditions. Simply ignoring the government's role in promoting urbanization construction may lead to a situation of advancing urbanization unrealistically and without seeking truth from facts. Therefore, in urbanization construction, while the government should not be absent, it should also avoid overstepping its role. It should leave to enterprises, social organizations, and individual citizens what should be done by society, and in this process provide support, regulation, and guidance.

We must strengthen exploration of the content of new urbanization in light of actual conditions. Whether a region's urbanization construction is successful depends not only on the state of its urban construction, but more importantly on the quality of life of the people living in that town, and employment conditions are an important indicator for judging quality of life. Therefore, we must vigorously develop new industrialization and informatization. At present, in order to solve employment problems, many places blindly attract investment, and some economically backward areas even introduce highly polluting enterprises. This puts the cart before the horse and cannot achieve scientific development. The exploration of new urbanization is precisely about combining actual conditions, identifying a region's development advantages, exploring the scientific path for locally advancing urbanization, and helping social development. In addition to vigorously developing the secondary industry, we must vigorously develop the tertiary industry. Only when the secondary and tertiary industries have developed can new urbanization have content. At the same time, we must also achieve agricultural modernization so that agricultural modernization can continuously drive new urbanization. In addition, issues such as innovation in land management systems under new urbanization, innovation in community management, financial innovation, and integrated industry-city development in the process of new urbanization are also key points that require bold exploration and courageous practice.

We must study new urbanization as a systematic project. In the process of building new urbanization, failure to handle any aspect of relations well will affect the overall situation. To adhere to the "new urbanization path of putting people first, synchronizing the four modernizations, optimizing layout, ecological civilization, and preserving culture," we must achieve overall coordination, adapt measures to local conditions, and advance in an orderly manner. We must view the problems encountered in the development process systematically and realize the development blueprint step by step. The urbanization processes of many foreign countries have gone through long years, and we must vigorously strengthen comparative research between China and other countries and draw useful experience from it. We must optimize the layout of urbanization, eliminate egalitarianism, and ensure that parts subordinate themselves to the overall situation. Of course, the premise of requiring subordination to the overall situation is to give reasonable compensation in housing, transportation, culture, education, health, and other areas to those who suffer losses in the process of urbanization. We must develop characteristic and advantageous industries, optimize the urban industrial structure, and provide strong industrial and economic support for the citizenization of the agricultural transferred population; establish a complete institutional system, reform the household registration, land, and fiscal and taxation management systems, and provide an institutional foundation for the orderly advancement of the citizenization of the agricultural transferred population; and we must pay attention to innovation in social management, strengthen and innovate urban social governance, enhance community autonomy and service functions, and stimulate the vitality of social organizations.