China’s dated urban-development model must change, Beijing says at rare meeting
Amid property and urbanisation woes, China needs to ‘proactively adapt to changing circumstances’ and transform its approach to city planning, leadership says at Central Urban Work Conference
At a surprising meeting of China’s political elite, it was declared that a sea change is needed in the nation’s urban development – shifting from a phase of large-scale, incremental expansion to one focused on optimising and enhancing existing resources.
This time around, Beijing has been pursuing a new growth framework for the beleaguered property sector. Leadership has also vowed that migrant workers will receive more urban citizenship benefits.
With 67 per cent of its 1.4 billion people now living in urban areas, China needs to “proactively adapt to changing circumstances” and transform its approach to city planning, officials said at the conference.
After decades of rapid urbanisation, China’s city growth has now entered “a phase of stable development” where more focus should be put on human well-being, efficiency and governance, according to an official readout of the meeting. It was attended by President Xi Jinping and the other six members of the Politburo Standing Committee – the central leadership’s highest decision-making body.
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Officials vowed to intensify efforts to create a “new model” for China’s property development, and renovations of urban villages and repairs to dilapidated housing are among the focal points.
Meanwhile, in contrast to an obsession with large-scale structures and skyscrapers that prevailed in urban planning over the past decades, officials called for “strictly limiting super-tall buildings”.
Additionally, leadership proposed that urbanisation should prioritise the development of integrated, networked modern city clusters and metropolitan areas, promote county-level urbanisation, and continue helping rural migrants obtain urban citizenship.
Ding Shuang, chief Greater China economist at Standard Chartered, speculated that the prolonged slump in the real estate market, with particularly weak trends in the past couple of months, may be one reason Beijing convened such an extraordinary meeting in the middle of the year.