Five foreign experts talk about the evolution of "world-class urban agglomerations"
To become a world-class urban agglomeration, there are at least four conditions. China needs to increase its attraction to overseas talents
The construction of world-class urban agglomerations has become an important part of the national strategy.
Taking the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration as an example, as early as June 2015, the "Outline of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Plan" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council proposed to optimize and enhance the functions of the capital, play a central role, and build a world-class urban agglomeration.
In September 2017, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued a reply to the "Beijing Urban Master Plan (2016-2035)", which once again clarified that Beijing's radiating and leading role should be brought into play to create a world-class urban agglomeration with the capital as the core.
Anchoring the long-term goal of 2035, the construction of the world-class urban agglomeration in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei has also been included in the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposal of the three places, and words such as "world-class" and "high-quality development" have become the realization of the three places. Keywords that match the target.
Then, what is the significance of building a world-class urban agglomeration to my country's economic development, what are the characteristics of the development of other world-class urban agglomerations overseas, and what experiences and lessons can we learn from them?
In this regard, the Beijing Think Tank interviewed five foreign experts to discuss the development of urban agglomerations in developed countries and the development prospects of world-class urban agglomerations in China.
1 Three major cities for the development of world-class urban agglomerations in China
Research and discussion related to urban agglomeration has a history of more than 100 years.
After World War II, with the recovery of the world economy and the wave of urbanization, scholars and policy makers have paid more and more attention to the evolution of related urban spaces such as metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations.
For example, in the 1950s, the French geographer Jean Gottman described and analyzed the densely distributed urban areas on the northeastern coast of the United States with the "mega city belt" (Megalpolis).
At the beginning of this century, in 2006, Peter Hall put forward the concept of mega-city region in the book "Polycentric Metropolis: Experiences from European Mega-City Regions", that is, taking a global city as the center, composed of There are as many as 30-40 cities and the surrounding small towns form a huge network-like urban complex with a complex structure.
Research on urban agglomeration in my country began in the 1980s.
After the reform and opening up, my country's social economy has entered a period of rapid growth. The rapid development of social productive forces, population agglomeration, industrial concentration, and the wave of urbanization have accelerated the speed of urbanization in my country, and the conditions for the development of urban agglomerations in my country have gradually matured.
Yao Shimou, an expert on urban planning and urban agglomeration in my country, defined the concept of urban agglomeration as a certain number of cities of different natures, types and scales within a specific geographical scope, relying on certain natural environment conditions, with one or two cities. As the core of the regional economy, mega or mega cities, with the help of modern means of transportation and the accessibility of comprehensive transportation networks, as well as highly developed information networks, generate and develop internal connections between urban individuals and together form a relatively complete city. "Assembly".
Regarding the world-class urban agglomeration, there is no clear concept in the academic circle. Generally speaking, everyone thinks it is a description of the super-large economic volume of the urban agglomeration. world-class scale.
According to the assessment of Xie Liangbing, director of the Criteria Ranking Cities Research Institute, a world-class urban agglomeration should have an economic aggregate of at least US$2 trillion.
In 2006, the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" proposed for the first time that my country's urban development "should take urban agglomerations as the main form of urbanization"; ten years later, the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" clearly proposed "building the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta world-class urban agglomeration”; in 2019, the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Planning Outline” was promulgated, proposing to “build a dynamic and internationally competitive first-class bay area and world-class urban agglomeration, and create a model of high-quality development”.
So far, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have become the three major cities for the development of world-class urban agglomerations in China.
In 2020, the GDP of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will reach 8.6 trillion yuan with a population of 110 million; the GDP of the Yangtze River Delta region will be 2.447 billion yuan and the total resident population will reach 235 million; the GDP of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will reach 167 million US dollars, approximately 10.64 trillion yuan, and the total population has exceeded 86 million.
These three major urban agglomerations gathered 31% of the country's population that year, and produced 43% of the country's GDP.
Due to the different factors such as the development dynamics, population distribution, regional integration level, and natural and geographical conditions of each urban agglomeration, the planning and layout of the relevant departments for the construction of these areas are also different.
Based on the relevant policy literature and the series of studies on "Special Issue: Regional Strategy and Spatial Governance of the 14th Five-Year Plan" published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the focus of the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration is to enhance the core functions of Beijing's capital, and vigorously promote the development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Through dislocation competition and differentiated development, it will guide population and employment to optimize agglomeration; the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration will focus on improving the scale structure and functional layout of the urban agglomeration, and strive to solve the problem of "large, comprehensive and scattered" cities, and the industrial isomorphism will be prominent. To promote the reconstruction of the functional division system of urban agglomerations; the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is committed to becoming a comprehensive bay area integrating modern finance, technological innovation and advanced manufacturing.
In general, building a world-class urban agglomeration is conducive to leading the evolution of the main form of urbanization in China to a more advanced and healthier state; it is conducive to breaking the invisible barriers, breaking the administrative division, and realizing complementary advantages and integrated development, which is a national and regional development. Coordinated development system and mechanism innovation provides experience; it is conducive to leading the new normal of economic development and making greater contributions to national transformation and development and all-round opening to the outside world.
Furthermore, it is of great practical significance and significance for coordinating the promotion of the "five-in-one" overall layout, the coordinated promotion of the "four comprehensive" strategic layout, the realization of the "new two-step" strategic goal, and the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. profound historical significance.
How to better build China's "world-class urban agglomeration", the development paths and models of other world-class urban agglomerations currently recognized by the world, are undoubtedly worthy of our exploration and reference, explore the reasons and driving factors for their development, and analyze their development process. Risks and challenges encountered in order to better rationally plan the layout and create a high-quality world-class urban agglomeration according to its own situation.
According to "Oriental Outlook Weekly" and other media reports, the five world-class urban agglomerations currently recognized in the world are the Atlantic coast urban agglomeration in the eastern United States, the Great Lakes urban agglomeration in North America, the northwestern European urban agglomeration, the central and southern UK urban agglomeration, and the Pacific coast urban agglomeration in Japan. .
2 A variety of positive factors jointly form the driving force for the development of world-class urban agglomerations
When a city group develops from a regional economy to a world-class scale, the driving factors must be very complex, and it is difficult to give a universal answer.
However, there is a consensus among academic circles on the necessary conditions for becoming a world-class urban agglomeration: capital accumulation, transportation infrastructure, human resources (especially educated people), information dissemination networks, etc.
Jean-Claude Hill, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, believes that although it is difficult to pinpoint a single driving force, the development path of all successful mega-urban areas begins with the region gradually becoming more dominance of the national economy.
Among the necessary conditions for the development of urban agglomerations, the most fundamental is to have a strong social capital, as well as a network of knowledge information and material (trade) circulation organized by social capital.
In addition, the most developed mega-urban regions in the world today all have one feature in common: full support for private enterprise and free market principles on the basis of government-defined boundaries for capital development.
Jean-Claude Hill emphasized, "This model can stimulate the initiative in the economic, social and technological fields, promote the development and transformation of the industry from the bottom up, and finally achieve a substantial increase in productivity."
The rise of large urban agglomerations is driven by "externalities" such as the advantageous geographical location and the industrial base of the region. In various ways, the opportunity for economic growth is consciously "locked" in the region.
In the past, these methods were mainly based on improving and upgrading infrastructure. After 1990, with the advent of the New Economy (New Economy) characterized by the dissemination of knowledge and information, a large part of these areas also developed land, commercial patents, etc. In addition, the continuous influx of overseas immigrants also played an important role in promoting.
Andres Rodriguez-Posse, a professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science, summed up the reason for the development of world-class urban agglomerations as a powerful ability to attract talents, stimulate innovation and competitiveness.
Global urban areas are seen as lands of opportunity because they provide large and dynamic labor markets and facilitate the generation, flow, and exchange of information among economic actors.
"These factors together create a positive, self-reinforcing upward spiral (dynamics)" that fosters continued regional development, he said.
In the process of forming this "rising spiral", there are two types of subjects that play a very important role.
The first category is enterprises. Large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises have their own contributions to the development of the regional economy. It is generally believed that the larger the enterprise, the more financial benefits it can bring to the local area, the promotion of regional employment, and a significant increase in regional GDP. The role of promoting innovation is also more significant.
However, in the rise and development of urban agglomerations in many developed regions, the role played by small and medium-sized enterprises cannot be underestimated, or even more important.
Marco Bonger, associate professor of urban geography at the Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, said that in European urban economies such as Germany, SMEs are more important to social wealth and economic development than large multinational companies .
Because they create more jobs and have a stronger network of local roots than big companies.
The second type of subject is colleges and universities.
The significance of colleges and universities for the development of urban agglomerations is mainly reflected in three aspects: firstly, colleges and universities have made significant contributions to the GDP of their regions; secondly, colleges and universities have cultivated a large number of talents for building regional economy; thirdly, academia can help urban areas To provide suggestions and solutions to many problems faced, colleges and universities can participate in the work of innovative industrial parks, and can also discuss housing, transportation, environment, health and other issues in a targeted manner, and give back to the region where they are located.
In addition, Jean-Claude Hill added that the talent pool cultivated by universities is often the backbone of the entrepreneurial class and innovative research and development in urban agglomerations.
The development process of these developed urban agglomerations is also closely related to the history of the country.
The development of urban agglomerations in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in Western Europe is related to early industrialization, colonial trade, capital status, as well as the development and renewal of infrastructure in the post-industrial era, international immigration, and urban expansion.
Taking the United Kingdom as an example, according to Mark Tudor-Jones, professor of urban and regional studies at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL School of Built Environment, the formation of British urban agglomerations (city clusters in the south-central United Kingdom) is overlapping over time. and the outcome of multiple decisions.
Because this area has been at the centre of British political decision-making, historical factors, economic priorities and infrastructural privileges for centuries.
This means that infrastructure such as railways, highways, airports, ports and other infrastructures in this region have been continuously invested and updated. In the long run, the economic development of the central and southern regions of the UK has significantly surpassed that of cities in the northern regions of the UK.
As far as the development of urban agglomerations in Northwest European countries is concerned, the overall level and scale of urban agglomeration development in this region is relatively uniform, forming what is generally considered to be the "northwest European urban agglomeration".
However, Marco Bonger said that, strictly speaking, the urban agglomerations of different countries in Northwest Europe cannot be regarded as belonging to the same world-class urban agglomeration, because there is no higher-level comprehensive planning between them.
Although the EU has tried to advance a unified spatial planning policy over the past few decades, it has so far been unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, Marco Bonger also emphasized that the overall pattern of complementary advantages and high-level cooperation in some urban agglomerations in northwestern European countries such as Germany and France is an important advantage of these urban agglomerations. The regional synergistic relationship between various subjects within the urban agglomeration "can become a good example of the development of urban agglomerations in China".
3 The current world-class urban agglomeration faces three major challenges
The rise of world-class urban agglomerations often means the rapid development of regional productivity, the diversification of regional economic structure, the substantial increase in regional GDP, and the fact that its regional economy can occupy a favorable position in the national and even world economy, which also means that this region will gather rich The innovation of various elements of art, culture, technology, nature, etc., allows the people of this country to enjoy more benefits brought about by development.
However, even developed economies still face many challenges in the construction and development of their urban agglomerations.
This challenge is mainly manifested in three aspects: excessive development of urban agglomerations, shrinkage of urban agglomerations and uncontrollable factors.
As far as overdevelopment is concerned, take the London metropolitan area as an example in the urban agglomeration of south-central England. With the expansion of London's economic influence, especially its advantages in finance and taxation, it has brought a series of social problems. .
As the center of a city cluster, London relies on a geographic area that extends far beyond its administrative boundaries.
Living costs such as housing costs and various urban services have risen sharply.
The commute distance from other towns to London today may be over 100km.
Water for London households is also delivered from other areas.
This long-distance commuting will have a domino effect: it will not only put a lot of pressure on the urban transportation network, but also push up real estate prices in these areas, and eventually the pressure will be transmitted to its surrounding areas, as well as other second- and third-tier cities in the urban agglomeration. range of congestion.
In response to these problems, the UK government has developed policies to try to increase investment in other cities and limit investment in London.
"But the reality is that it's much harder to do than to say," added Professor Mark Tudor-Jones. "(This trend) is very difficult to change in the short term."
This phenomenon is not uncommon in the development of world-class urban agglomerations, and Andrés Rodriguez-Posse believes that when there is a certain degree of overdevelopment, a kind of "archipelagic economy" is created, that is, the head The region has gradually become disconnected from the country's regional economy and is more closely linked to other global metropolitan areas than to its own national economy.
And when the "internationality" of a developed region conflicts with its "locality", it may even lead to tensions within countries.
Jean-Claude Hill and Andrés Rodriguez-Posse both said that Brexit is the result of this negative effect accumulating to a certain extent.
However, this phenomenon of "diseconomies of scale" caused by overdevelopment is not completely unsolved.
According to Professor Jean-Claude Hill's research on urban agglomerations in the United States, although the larger the city, the more serious its negative impact on traffic congestion and other aspects is usually more serious, but because the population density of large urban agglomerations is often high and very high agglomeration, which in turn lowers the region's average GHG emission levels and per capita land consumption.
That is to say, through scientific planning and rational layout, relevant departments can try to minimize the negative externalities in the development process and maximize the agglomeration economic benefits of urban agglomerations.
In addition to the possible negative effects of excessive development, some urban agglomerations in northwestern European countries such as Germany and France have experienced development shrinkage, which may also hinder the economic development of the entire region.
According to Marco Bonger's research on the shrinking of European urban agglomerations, due to structural economic problems, many cities with industries such as steel, machinery, automobiles, textiles or mining as their pillar industries have gradually lost population inflows, coupled with the aging of the European region. As the trend intensifies, it is likely that more shrinking cities and regions will appear in Europe in the future.
In addition, due to the impact of uncontrollable factors such as the global pandemic of the new crown epidemic and the armed conflict in Ukraine, large urban agglomerations around the world may have to make themselves more "self-sufficient" and continue to invest in their huge markets to maintain their operations.
In this case, air, water, housing supply, energy cost and supply chain may be the top concerns for the government in the construction of urban agglomeration.
Gordon Mulligan said that in recent years, the focus of regional economic research has generally shifted to the direction of regional economic vulnerability, resilience and increasing the supply of various types of housing.
4 The development of world-class urban agglomerations in China can reach the level of developed countries
As mentioned above, there is no unified standard for the concept of a world-class urban agglomeration. It generally refers to a city agglomeration whose population, area, economic aggregate and other indicators have reached a world-class scale.
Accordingly, Andres Rodriguez-Posse argues that the current world-class urban agglomerations are not limited to developed economies, and that urban agglomerations in many emerging countries can also be called world-class.
For example, in terms of population size, according to the statistics of the city population website (citypopulation.de), the most populous world-class urban agglomeration in the world is the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration with Guangzhou as the core, with a total population of more than 65 million.
Judging from the functions it undertakes, the Pearl River Delta region is not only a world workshop, but also an important innovation center in China.
"It is already a world-class urban agglomeration in itself," stressed Andres Rodriguez-Pose.
According to Andres Rodriguez-Poser's observations on several major urban agglomerations in China, compared with the world-class urban agglomerations in developed regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, the gap between China's world-class urban agglomerations is mainly It is reflected in the attraction to overseas talents.
For example, in the London metropolitan area, which is the core of the urban agglomeration in the central and southern parts of the United Kingdom, nearly half of the labor force comes from all over the world; while in the urban agglomeration in China, the proportion of overseas talents in the population is not high.
For China, "this means a loss of talent." In addition, force majeure factors such as the current global pandemic may also cause some resistance to China's world-class urban agglomerations in attracting talent across the region.
As far as the development status of China's large urban agglomerations is concerned, according to the standard of GDP of two trillion US dollars proposed by some scholars, only the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in my country has reached this world-class urban agglomeration standard.
The data for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is also relatively close, with its GDP reaching US$1.67 trillion, while the GDP of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration needs to nearly double to reach this standard.
However, Gordon Mulligan believes that China has obvious institutional advantages in the process of formulating and implementing policies related to the development of world-class urban agglomerations. "As long as the correct decisions are made, this model has been proven to be effective."
This top-down decision-making advantage also enables China to better communicate and coordinate the development priorities and interests of different actors within the region.
As far as the prospects of building world-class urban agglomerations in China are concerned, whether these urban agglomerations can reach the same level as those in the United States, Europe and Japan in the future, Prof. Marco Bonjie is optimistic, "It may take some time, but I think it will happen eventually."
Beijing News reporter Kong Xue