China's Three Major Urban Diseases

 

1. Some cities have disordered spatial development and excessive population concentration, emphasizing economic development over environmental protection, and urban construction over management services. Traffic congestion is severe, public safety incidents occur frequently, urban sewage and garbage treatment capacity is insufficient, and environmental pollution of air, water, and soil is intensifying.

 

2. Natural and historical cultural heritage protection is inadequate, and urban and rural construction lacks distinctive features. Some urban landscape structures are incompatible with the natural geographical characteristics of their regions. Some cities blindly pursue grandiose and foreign styles, copy others, and build international metropolises regardless of reality. "Constructive" destruction continues to spread, and the natural and cultural individuality of cities is being destroyed. Some rural areas engage in large-scale demolition and construction, copying urban residential community models to build new rural areas, and simply replacing traditional dwellings and pastoral scenery with urban elements and styles, leading to the loss of local characteristics and folk culture.

 

3. The existing urban-rural divided household registration management, land management, social security systems, as well as fiscal, taxation, financial, and administrative management systems, solidify the already formed pattern of imbalanced urban-rural interests, restrict the citizenization of agricultural transfer population, and hinder the integration of urban and rural development.

 

Seven Basic Principles of Urbanization

 

People-oriented, fair sharing; synchronization of the four modernizations, overall urban-rural planning; optimized layout, intensive and efficient; ecological civilization, green and low-carbon; cultural inheritance, highlighting characteristics; market-led, government-guided; overall planning, classified guidance.

 

Five Major Development Goals of Urbanization

 

1. Steady improvement of urbanization level and quality

 

2. More optimized urbanization pattern

 

3. Scientific and rational urban development model

 

4. Harmonious and pleasant urban life

 

5. Continuous improvement of urbanization systems and mechanisms

 

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have issued the "National New Urbanization Plan (2014-2020)". The Plan consists of 8 sections and 31 chapters, covering key reform areas such as urban-rural dual system reform, household registration policy, urban planning, and housing security. Below are the highlights excerpted for our readers.

 

Household Registration Policy:

 

Mega-cities may adopt a "points system" for residency, diluting "household registration welfare"

 

Not only should restrictions on household registration in small towns be lifted, but conditions for household registration in large and medium-sized cities should also be relaxed.

 

With legal and stable employment and legal and stable residence (including rental) as prerequisites, fully lift restrictions on household registration in designated towns and small cities, orderly lift restrictions in cities with an urban population of 500,000 to 1 million, reasonably lift restrictions in large cities with an urban population of 1 to 3 million, reasonably determine household registration conditions for large cities with an urban population of 3 to 5 million, and strictly control the population scale of mega-cities with an urban population of over 5 million. Large and medium-sized cities may set requirements for years of participation in urban social insurance, but the maximum number of years shall not exceed 5. Mega-cities may adopt a points system and other methods to set up tiered residency channels to regulate the scale and pace of residency.

 

Actively promote the transformation of urban basic public services from mainly provided to local registered residents to providing to all permanent residents. Expand the coverage of insurance participation and contributions, and appropriately lower social insurance rates in due course. Improve the basic old-age insurance system for employees, achieve national pooling of basic pensions, and prudently explore allowing collective economic organizations to use rural collective construction land to build public rental housing.

 

Public Transportation:

 

Prioritize the development of BRT and trams, "500-meter access to public transport" in cities with a population of over 1 million

 

Prioritize the development of urban public transportation. Actively develop large-capacity surface public transportation systems such as bus rapid transit and modern trams, and scientifically and orderly advance urban rail transit construction. Basically achieve full coverage of public transport stops within 500 meters in central urban areas of cities with a population of over 1 million. By 2020, the conventional railway network will cover cities with a population of over 200,000, and the high-speed railway network will basically cover cities with a population of over 500,000; ordinary national highways will basically cover county towns, and national expressways will basically cover cities with a population of over 200,000; the civil aviation network will continue to expand, with aviation services covering about 90% of the national population.

 

Urban Services:

 

Promote separate rainwater and sewage systems, new roads must build "common utility tunnels" to prevent repeated excavation

 

Improve the community elderly care service system, and create convenient living service circles including logistics distribution, convenience stores, affordable vegetable stores, and family service centers. Coordinate the construction of underground pipelines for electricity, communications, water supply and drainage, heating, and gas, and promote urban utility tunnels. New urban main roads, new urban districts, and various parks should adopt the urban underground pipeline utility tunnel model (commonly known as "common utility tunnels"). Promote separate rainwater and sewage renovation and harmless sludge disposal. Improve the harmless treatment capacity of urban domestic waste. New large and medium-sized commercial facilities must be equipped with cargo loading and unloading areas and parking lots, and new office areas and residential communities must be equipped with underground parking lots. Optimize school layout and construction scale, and rationally allocate resources for primary and secondary schools and kindergartens.

 

Urban Planning:

 

Implement "departure audit" to prevent changing plans with each new leadership

 

Integrate the concepts of people-oriented, respect for nature, historical inheritance, and green low-carbon into the entire urban planning process. Improve working procedures such as preliminary research, plan formulation, coordination, expert demonstration, public participation, review and approval, implementation management, and evaluation and revision, explore the establishment of a city chief planner system, and improve the scientific and democratic level of planning. Promote the openness of urban planning government affairs and increase the intensity of public disclosure and publicity.

 

Maintain the authority, seriousness, and continuity of urban planning, adhere to one plan and one blueprint and implement it persistently, and prevent changing plans with each new leadership. Incorporate the implementation of urban planning into the assessment and departure audit of local party and government leading cadres. Implement a lifelong accountability system for building quality.

 

Talent Agglomeration:

 

Credits from higher vocational education can be transferred to regular universities

 

Accelerate the construction of a modern vocational education system, systematically build a technical and skilled talent training channel from secondary vocational, higher vocational, and undergraduate-level vocational education to professional degree graduate education, and promote the connection between secondary and higher vocational education and the communication between vocational and general education. Guide some local undergraduate higher education institutions to transform into applied technology-type universities. Pilot credit transfer among regular higher education institutions, higher vocational colleges, and adult higher education institutions to provide choices for students' diversified development. Reasonably guide the employment flow of college graduates, and encourage them to start businesses and find employment in small and medium-sized cities.

 

Spatial Layout:

 

Cities must not arbitrarily set up "new districts" to prevent disorderly expansion of boundaries

 

Transform and upgrade the functions of central urban areas, promote the疏散 of some functions of mega-city central areas to satellite towns, strictly regulate the construction of new cities and new districts, strictly enforce the conditions for establishing new cities and new districts, and prevent the disorderly expansion of urban boundaries. Strictly control the scale of construction land, control excessive construction standards, and prevent the hollowing out of new cities and new districts. Per capita urban construction land shall be strictly controlled within 100 square meters.

 

Breaking the Dual Structure:

 

Gradually narrow the urban-rural gap and promote coordinated advancement of urbanization and new rural construction

 

Accelerate the elimination of institutional and mechanism obstacles of the urban-rural dual structure, promote equal exchange of urban and rural factors and balanced allocation of public resources, accelerate the establishment of a unified urban-rural human resources market, and implement the system of equal employment and equal pay for equal work for urban and rural workers. Establish a unified urban-rural construction land market. Comprehensively build a social security system covering urban and rural residents, and promote the connection of urban and rural social security systems. Take the lead in achieving urban-rural integration in some economically developed areas.

 

Population Management:

 

Temporary residence permits to be converted to residence permits, with citizen ID numbers as the sole identifier nationwide by 2020

 

Establish a residence permit system. Comprehensively implement the residence permit system for floating population, use residence permits as a carrier, establish and improve a basic public service provision mechanism linked to conditions such as years of residence, and use it as an important basis for applying for registration of permanent residence in the place of residence. The cumulative years of holding temporary residence permits for urban floating population shall be counted into the residence permit. Improve the population information management system. By 2020, implement a system nationwide with citizen ID numbers as the sole identifier to record, query, and evaluate population-related information in accordance with the law, providing support for population services and management.

 

Land Expropriation Management:

 

Raise industrial land prices, increase personal income of farmers whose land is expropriated

 

Implement the strictest farmland protection system and intensive and economical land use system, appropriately control industrial land, prioritize and increase residential land, rationally arrange ecological land, and raise industrial land prices. Prohibit land transfer and development of contaminated sites that have not been assessed and harmlessly treated.

 

Guarantee farmers' usufructuary rights to homesteads, reform and improve the rural homestead system, prudently and steadily advance the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights on a pilot basis, strictly enforce homestead use standards, and strictly prohibit multiple homesteads per household. Under the premise of complying with planning and use control, allow rural collective commercial construction land to be sold, leased, or invested as shares, and implement equal market entry and equal rights and prices with state-owned land. Establish a rural property rights transfer and trading market.

 

Narrow the scope of land expropriation, standardize expropriation procedures, and improve a reasonable, standardized, and diversified compensation mechanism for farmers whose land is expropriated. Establish a land value-added income distribution mechanism that takes into account the state, collective, and individual, and reasonably increase personal income.

 

Housing System:

 

Cities must compile "housing development plans", national housing information networking

 

Establish a housing system combining market allocation and government guarantee. Accelerate the construction of a housing supply system with the government as the main provider of basic guarantees and the market as the main provider to meet multi-level demands. Improve the rental subsidy system and promote the parallel operation of low-rent housing and public rental housing. Adjust and improve policies on housing, land, fiscal and taxation, and finance to jointly build a long-term mechanism for real estate market regulation. Each city must compile a urban housing development plan, determine the total amount, structure, and layout of housing construction. Ensure stable supply of housing land, improve the housing land supply mechanism, ensure full supply of land for affordable housing, prioritize land for policy-oriented commercial housing, reasonably increase land for ordinary commercial housing, and strictly control land for large-sized high-end commercial housing. Implement differentiated housing tax and credit policies, support reasonable self-occupation demand, and suppress speculative investment demand. Establish a unified registration system for real estate based on land, achieve national housing information networking, and promote departmental information sharing.

 

Environmental Protection:

 

Implement tiered pricing for water, electricity, and gas, and pursue criminal liability for those damaging the environment

 

Incorporate resource consumption, environmental damage, and ecological benefits into the urbanization development evaluation system, and delineate ecological protection red lines. Establish and improve tiered pricing systems for residential electricity, water, and gas. Promote trading systems for energy savings, carbon emissions, pollution discharge rights, and water rights, and promote third-party treatment of environmental pollution. Implement the strictest environmental supervision system. Strictly implement a compensation system for those responsible for ecological and environmental damage, and pursue criminal liability in accordance with the law.