Healthy urbanization must hold the bottom line and avoid mistakes
To achieve healthy urbanization, we must grasp the key bottom lines, and these bottom lines are determined by decision-making errors with two types of characteristics. That is, rigid errors and vicious circles.
Urbanization is an incomparably complex mega-system. It involves society, economy, and ecology; it involves the present and the long term; it involves this generation and the next. Everyone can offer distinctive views on urbanization. In fact, based on experience long accumulated in academia, for issues that are enormous, complex, and long-term, two research methods are often adopted. First, turn complexity into simplicity. Find the most critical issues and seek answers through bottom-line thinking. Second, conduct multidimensional analysis. Prevent omission of the most important issues and countermeasures.
The so-called "planning" means seeing in advance the problems that may be faced, and then proposing effective policy measures to respond. In this way, we can naturally conclude: to achieve healthy urbanization, we must grasp the key bottom lines, and these bottom lines are determined by decision-making errors with two types of characteristics. That is, rigid errors and vicious circles.
As long as these two types of "bottom-line errors" are not made, healthy urbanization development can basically be guaranteed. Using these two types of characteristics to measure the bottom lines of long-term urbanization development, there are five categories in summary.
The first category of bottom line: we must adhere to the coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and small towns.
Small and medium-sized cities have functions that large cities cannot replace. This is because the existence of economic vitality and the types of transactions are divided according to the different functions of large, medium, and small cities. Large cities focus on international trade; medium-sized cities are the engines of regional growth; small cities mainly serve the surrounding areas and are the general base for serving the surrounding "three rural issues" [agriculture, rural areas, and farmers], which large and medium-sized cities cannot replace.
Because small towns are human settlement gathering points suitable for full interaction between people and nature, and a considerable portion of future fiscal investment in urbanization should be directed to small towns, small towns must first achieve the following four aspects: First, they must have relatively sound urban planning management institutions; second, they must have necessary infrastructure, such as water supply, sewage, and garbage treatment facilities; third, they must have a localized green building construction and management system; fourth, according to the scale of the town's permanent resident population, they must coordinate the allocation of public service facilities such as schools, kindergartens, hospitals, culture, and sports. These four points are the most basic requirements for the human settlement environment of small towns.
The second category of bottom line: complementary and coordinated development of cities and rural areas.
The "three rural issues" are inseparable from healthy urbanization. Some economists always simply believe that moving the rural population into cities completes urbanization, that production efficiency will automatically improve, that social division of labor will automatically advance, and that the level of science and technology will automatically develop. This is actually problematic. The correct path of agricultural modernization is often the baseboard of healthy urbanization and ecological security.
This baseboard will also display another effect. As the urbanization rate exceeds 50%, the traditional rural local culture, one village one product, agricultural landscapes, and pastoral scenery will become scarce resources, which will spark a boom in rural tourism, thereby driving rural areas to transcend the industrialization stage and embark on a green, sustainable modern agricultural development path. This has already been proven by some successful experiences in Western Europe, East Asia, and other places.
The third category of bottom line: compact urban spatial density.
There are mainly three models of urban spatial density: First, the compact model: Europe and Japan vigorously develop public transportation, forming a concentrated and compact urbanization model. Second, the sprawl model: U.S. urbanization and motorization occurred simultaneously, forming urbanization on wheels, causing land waste, multiplying the construction costs of infrastructure and public facilities, and leading to urban bankruptcy. China is the third model. China's national conditions are many people and little land, scarce resources, a high degree of overlap between arable land and urban development land, and simultaneous urbanization development and motorization, so we must adhere to an intensive and economical compact urban spatial layout model, and must resolutely adhere to the principle that the arable land red line cannot be destroyed. The compact city is the foundation of ecological civilization.
The fourth category of bottom line: prevent the emergence of empty cities.
There are two kinds of empty cities in the world: one is an empty city that declined due to industrial transfer, that is, one that was once glorious but now has people gone and buildings empty, such as resource-exhausted cities. The other is a man-made empty city. China's new type of empty city has never existed in the history of world city-building and is a phenomenon unique to China of severe resource waste. For example, Ordos City has a total urban population of 460,000, but the housing already built can accommodate 1.2 million people. Urban history tells people that as long as new city construction does not produce the phenomenon of empty cities, effective assets will be formed, they can continue to be used as collateral for debt operations, and local finances will be stable. China must introduce hard measures to regulate the behavior of blindly building new cities and new districts, and fundamentally eliminate the emergence of empty cities.
The fifth category of bottom line: protect cultural heritage and natural heritage.
First, natural and cultural heritage is non-renewable, belongs to continuously appreciating green resources and is part of the soft power of national culture, and should be protected on an emergency basis. Second, landscape cities and towns, garden cities and towns, and famous historical and cultural cities and towns not only demonstrate the traditional wisdom of harmonious coexistence between people and nature, but also embody national cultural self-confidence. Third, the wealth of a city is hidden in its spatial structure. Space composed of nature and artistically rich architecture is the baseboard of "making life better." Fourth, strengthen the formulation and management of urban planning, implement the "three zones and four lines," and improve systems such as national planning inspectors and urban planning committees, so that cultural and natural heritage can be protected in the process of urbanization.