Why should urban-rural integration be farmer-centered?

Wangcheng District of Changsha City insists on planning, building and managing the entire area as one big park, one big garden and one big exhibition garden, and takes urban-rural integration as the golden key to solving urban and rural problems simultaneously. This is where the value of Wangcheng District's exploration lies, and it is also where the direction and hope of China's new urbanization lie. Although Wangcheng has unique advantages for achieving "urban-rural integration" that other counties can hardly match and cannot replicate, the lesson it gives us is this: the direction of new urbanization should be urban-rural integration, and the foundation of urban-rural integration is being farmer-centered.

How can being farmer-centered be reflected? In my view, "urban-rural integration" should be examined and advanced from the perspective of farmers.

First, we should be farmer-centered and provide the basic public services that farmers need, so that farmers can "live in peace." After a period of radical urbanization, people finally understand that the ultimate goal of urbanization is not the one-sided pursuit of the large scale of cities, thereby expanding old cities and building new districts without restraint; urbanization is also far from being as simple as opening the city gates and accepting newcomers. For farmers, their city dream is very simple: their children can get a good education, medical services are more secure, the standard of living is of higher quality, and they hope to enjoy the same civilization and benefits as urban residents. The revival of the ancient town of Wangcheng first solved the survival problem of the ancient town's residents, giving them beautiful and orderly streets at their doorstep, squares spacious enough, reassuring community hospitals, schools not far from home, and relatively convenient transportation. Thus, in their hometown, where they have roots, memories and acquaintances, Wangcheng farmers enjoy public services basically equal to those in the city. They feel that they are already citizens, and that their lives are even more comfortable than those of citizens in big cities.

Second, we should be farmer-centered and guide and support industries that can help farmers prosper, so that farmers can "enjoy their work." The key to the successful revival of the ancient town cluster in Wangcheng is the support of industries, such as tourism in Jinggang, modern agriculture in Qiaokou, the ceramics industry in Tongguan, and modern leisure agriculture in Xinkang. At first, industries may rely on government support and cultivation. With the deepening of urban-rural integration, exchanges of people, goods and information between towns, villages and cities were gradually established, and a new networked relationship among city, town and village, in which they complement each other, rely on each other and have complementary functions, was established. The spring breeze of the market naturally blew into the small towns, a large amount of capital for entrepreneurship and wealth creation flowed back, and the atmosphere for entrepreneurship and wealth creation became increasingly strong. Driven by folk capital, large or small, farmers became bosses at their own doorsteps, household income channels increased, and the total amount increased. Thus, in the market streets of the ancient town of Jinggang and in the fish restaurants of Qiaokou, what people see are new farmers who each find their proper place and live and work in peace and contentment. In fact, they have quietly become new citizens.

Third, we should be farmer-centered, stabilize agriculture and rural areas, and let migrant workers who go to the cities to work "feel at ease." General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Even when urbanization reaches more than 70% in the future, there will still be four to five hundred million people in rural areas. Rural areas must never become desolate rural areas, rural areas left behind, or remembered hometowns of the past." From this perspective, we must stabilize rural areas. On the other hand, we must let farmers who fail in the cities have the option of returning home with dignity. Professor He Xuefeng of the China Rural Governance Research Center at Huazhong University of Science and Technology believes: "It is precisely because farmers return to the society of acquaintances in their hometowns to produce and live after failing to do business as migrant workers in the cities that Chinese cities have not generated large-scale slums, thus making rural areas the stabilizer and reservoir of China's modernization." Therefore, for the approximately 260 million migrant workers hovering on the edge of cities, on the one hand, we must strive to break down the barriers of the urban-rural dual system, so that some migrant workers can find satisfactory jobs, reliable security and stable expectations in the cities, bid farewell to rural areas and become true citizens. On the other hand, we must not, for the sake of urbanization, eliminate the small-peasant economy and cut off the retreat of farmers who go to the cities to work. We should change the former exploitative urban-rural dual structure into a protective urban-rural dual structure, regulate agricultural land transfer, restrict the freedom of capital going to the countryside, and restrict the transfer of rural homesteads and collective land, so that migrant workers who go to the cities to work have no worries and, even if they fail in the cities, can still return home with dignity.

Finally, we should be farmer-centered and guard against "urban-rural integration" turning into "urban-rural uniformity." In advancing urban-rural integration, many local leaders have a serious bureaucratic mentality. They are accustomed to acting arbitrarily on how to provide public services, how to develop urban industries and how to discover local culture, forgetting to be "farmer-centered." From the perspective of farmers, first, we must guard against building rural areas into cities. In terms of construction cost, rural areas cannot afford to build homogenized cities. More importantly, rural areas are rural areas, and there is no need to build them into cities. To retain nostalgia, what should be retained is the nostalgia of farmers, not the nostalgia of planners and builders. The original ecology and natural appearance of rural areas should be preserved. Second, we must guard against forcing farmers to become citizens. "Synchronization of the four modernizations" requires the synchronized development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. It does not mean eliminating the small-peasant economy and having farmers' whole families move to the cities. When the state is not capable of providing full-coverage, high-level social security for farmers who go to the cities, if farmers go to the cities, life will be harder. Urban-rural integration should give farmers the right to choose freely. They can choose to go to the cities, or choose to stay in rural areas and become new farmers. No coercive requirement should be imposed.