How can China learn from Europe's "emotional" urbanization?

Premier Li Keqiang said in his speech at the China-EU Urbanization Forum that the urbanization of China and Europe should "go hand in hand". This sentence is very good and very emotional. Because after all, Europe has a history of urbanization for hundreds of years, China has only 30 years. The so-called partnership is to learn European experience better on the basis of complementarity. What exactly does the so-called European experience learn?

The first is people-oriented urban planning. The Qingdao groundwater pipeline was built by the Germans a hundred years ago and is still in good use so far, and all European cities have a long-term vision in the operation and management of underground facilities and are very efficient, so do we have to learn? The treatment of underground facilities, drainage, sewage and garbage in many of our cities, including the treatment of water supply pipelines, has not been well solved. We pay more attention to the surface, do enough modern factors, want to try to achieve leapfrog development, but ignore the most basic needs of people in the city, the most basic public needs. And there are public health needs, which are ignored by most cities. Therefore, the first meaning of traveling together is that we still have a big gap in the people-oriented service of the whole city.

The second is the image of the city. We also know that the biggest difference between you and Chinese cities when you go to Europe is that its antiquity and civilization are deeply imprinted in a city. When we see European cities, we can see the existence of hundreds or even thousands of years of history, not a building, or a certain building, nor a certain corner or a certain site, but a city as a whole. You can see the continuation of this ancient and glowing civilization for thousands of years. So we have a big gap in China in this regard, we can find the Forbidden City seven hundred years of history, Suzhou gardens probably also have a history of several hundred years, but as a city as a whole to the present, we can find it? Speaking of which, this is a question to think about.

We remember that the general secretary said at the urbanization work conference that "see the mountains, see the water, and remember homesickness" is the same meaning. He also hopes that we can retain the ancient urban style and be in the corner of the city or even the whole city. Find your own history. I think the speech of the Prime Minister and the General Secretary probably means the same thing, that is to say, in the process of traveling together, we should learn from their protection of the civilization and history of the city, not only as a city, but also as a symbol of a large amount of historical information in this city, and form a landscape, so that you will always feel a memory of history.

When we study the architecture of European cities, what will we think of from the perspective of the image of the city, the continuation of urban civilization and the protection of history? Why can't we do this in China? Of course, there are factors of our population, our institutional factors, but there are also human factors. In order to achieve speed, to pursue economic benefits, and to sell land collectively, a large number of our governments have demolished all the ancient buildings and buildings with reserved value, which is very common in many cities. Although it has been a long time, it has completely disappeared when you go back to that city to find your history and memory. So we have to go to ancient villages and ancient towns to find our history, but we can hardly see it in our big cities, medium cities and small cities. This is what we need to seriously reflect on in the past 30 years of urbanization. Do we have to learn this aspect in the process of comparing and learning with Europe?

Third, how do you see a city? We know that there are also traffic jams in Europe. Brussels and Paris where I went were all jammed, but they were not as serious as ours. So what do people think of the problem of traffic jams in cities? I think we have a problem to pay attention to. Whether we go to Belgium, Paris, or even to European cities such as Rome, their road network is very rich, and the capillaries of the city are unblocked. The so-called rich road network means intersections and urban roads run through to connect the whole city.

And our problem is that our city looks very big, but many of the road networks are closed. We can have a fast track of the city, but there are large compounds within the fast track, such as real estate compounds and various institutions. The compound completely divides the city, so the car can only go on the main line. The hutongs in the inner city of Beijing are better, and the new city is almost completely divided. This is why our traffic jam is very important. Not only Beijing, but other cities across the country are facing the same problem. We only set up one courtyard. In the past, we built a courtyard in the form of agriculture to ensure the safety of the courtyard. However, we forget that all the elements of the city should be open to the society. This can not only solve the problem of microcirculation, but also solve the problem of the development of service industry. When you are a courtyard, others can't get in. In the open road network, all the houses along the street can be turned into new service supply places. This is the characteristic of Europe from the Middle Ages.

Fourth, the protection of the ecological environment. The first is the efficiency of resource allocation, and the second is how to look at the supply of such resources in cities. It is very difficult for us to see a particularly large square or a particularly large park in Europe. China now has square culture in squares, square dances, parks and green spaces are far away from the city, far away on foot, and some lawns cannot be reached. In many cities in Europe, except for Hyde Park in the United Kingdom and Central Park in New York in the United States, most of the other parks are small street parks. The gardens are not large or wide. The purpose is to increase the compactness of the city. Do everything. But we must drive, and a large amount of traffic is blocked, and urban development will be affected, so life is inconvenient. Later, we changed to a complex model. The complex model has a certain effect, but it is not only a complex. The shaping of various street gardens and ecological environment should not all be done by the government.

So I want to how to improve the efficiency of urban resource allocation, how to achieve a compact city, reduce the waste of land resources, and how to make the city achieve the very important goal of carbon saving and energy saving. There is still a lot of work to be done. Not only in the investment and financing of urban infrastructure, not only in the efficiency of urban resource allocation, but also in the concept of urban planning and management, not only in the ecological civilization of the city, but more importantly, an urbanized civilization from management To society, to whether everyone can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, let everyone know what is good, what is bad, and what we must go through, what needs to be complemented sequentially in the process of partnership is my understanding of China's urbanization.

Why is our city more and more inconvenient? For example, we see that the urban traffic road is very wide, the traffic is fast, but the connection between the two sides of the traffic function is divided. Let's look at an old city with shops on both sides of the road, but now there are no shops, why? The rapid development of transportation has divided the city, because of the planning of the city, the supply of various infrastructure is objectively dividing all the functions of the city. Because of this, we feel that its resource allocation efficiency has not been well utilized, the extensive use of land, the so-called sustainable development of the city, and the convenience of people-oriented have been greatly reduced.

In this way, of course, energy consumption is large, which is not ecological and economical. Therefore, internationally speaking, the way people can travel on foot is the best way to use ecology. But which city can solve most of our problems by walking as much as possible? Unless we go to a small city. Therefore, we need to reflect on the misunderstandings in the development of big cities and megacities. (author: Li Tie, director of the Urban and small Town Reform and Development Center of the Development and Reform Commission)