What is "urban gentrification"?

In pursuit of novelty, expansion, and foreignness, people’s lives are not easy; urbanization cannot be “aristocratic.” Cities are cities for everyone. The essence of urbanization is exactly the theme of the Shanghai World Expo - making life better. Urban construction and management should be people-oriented, and public services should be provided to different classes, so that the general public, not just a few high-end people, can enjoy the good life brought by urbanization. In the process of urbanization, people see that the face of the city is changing with each passing day. changes, but at the same time, there is also a trend of "gentrification" in some places. Some cities are keen on superficial prosperity and luxury development models and ignore the service function for the people. The buildings are getting taller and the facilities are becoming more and more foreign. However, ordinary people feel that their lives are inconvenient and their living space is small. This tendency of “aristocracy” must arouse high vigilance. The architecture is foreign and the characteristics are gone. Nowadays, every city is creating its own "city business card", and every "business card" seems familiar. When reporters interviewed in some places, the local methods of displaying "city business cards" were almost the same - a car took visitors to a newly developed suburban new city. The new city was often neat and beautiful, with luxurious office buildings, convention and exhibition centers, theme squares, and stadiums. , libraries, planning libraries, lighting and beautification projects, even golf courses, resorts, etc., there are many of them. "In the process of urbanization, there is nothing wrong with building new cities and improving the appearance of the city. However, if urbanization is simply understood as building houses and squares and one-sided pursuit of gorgeous appearance, it will bring many disadvantages." Policy of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Xu Zongwei, deputy director of the Department of Regulations, said. The image of the city is excessively seeking novelty, grandeur, and foreignness, and in some places large-scale demolition and construction are carried out. Amidst the roar of bulldozers, many buildings that had not reached the end of their service life fell to the ground and were replaced by more spectacular skyscrapers and squares. Such large-scale demolition and construction not only causes huge waste, but also often causes brutal demolition and infringes on the interests of the masses. Large public buildings often require large investments, low land resource utilization, and high building energy consumption, becoming a black hole for capital, land, and energy consumption. Some cities are eager to build flashy new cities regardless of their own economic capacity, exacerbating the high debt situation of local governments and intensifying their dependence on land finance, forming a vicious cycle. The one-sided pursuit of a bright city image will also lead to a simplification of the city's appearance. "Look down to see the pavement, look straight up to see the fountain, look up to see the sculptures, steps and flagpoles, symmetrical about the central axis, and the end point is the government." This jingle is a common people's humorous description of the uniform style of city squares. In many cities, there is usually a large square opposite the offices of government agencies. The square is surrounded by museums, exhibition centers, libraries and other buildings. Behind the rise of these homogeneous buildings, a large number of old buildings with Chinese style have been demolished, destroying the original historical features of the city. The higher the class, the harder it is to live. Cities make life better. Nowadays, cities have become more beautiful, but in some places, many ordinary people feel that life is not as beautiful as they imagined. Elder Xue Songlin takes his 6-year-old grandson to kindergarten every day. Along the way, many places that were once used for walking and cycling are now filled with cars, forcing pedestrians onto the road. During the 20-minute journey, the old man held his grandson's hand almost all the time. Once there was the sound of a car behind them, they hid on the side of the road and waited for the car to pass by before leaving. "The roads are becoming wider and wider, but they are all for cars. It takes a long way to cross the road, and it is not as convenient for pedestrians to walk as before." said Xue Songlin, an old man. The old man feels that over the years, the city where he lives has seen more and more luxurious places for wealthy people to spend money. A haircut costs fifty or sixty yuan, and a bath costs more than one hundred yuan. In the past, there were barber shops and bathhouses right outside his doorstep. There are fewer and fewer children. My grandson goes to a "bilingual education kindergarten" and the monthly tuition is four to five thousand yuan. "It's too difficult to get into better ordinary kindergartens. I have no choice but to spend money to go to this kind of aristocratic kindergarten." The old man told reporters that the family has begun to worry about sending their children to elementary school. If they want to go to a better school, it will cost a lot. Quite a few. In many cities, public service industries such as education, medical care, culture and sports have become high-end and aristocratic. On the one hand, many people's basic public service needs have not been reasonably met for a long time. , for example, ordinary patients need to wait in line for a long time to see a doctor; after the development of new areas in some cities, supporting primary and secondary schools and hospitals have not been built for a long time, resulting in "difficulty in going to school" and "difficulty in seeing a doctor"; ordinary residents lack sufficient Sports activity facilities, etc. On the other hand, there are many high-end wards in public hospitals, high-end classes with high fees in schools, and even playing badminton in public gymnasiums has become a high-consumption behavior. Xu Guangjian, deputy dean of the School of Public Finance Management at Renmin University of China, believes that in some public service industries, there are two different "aristocratic" tendencies. One type is a basically reasonable "gentrification" tendency, which is the provision of higher-grade services by educational or private medical units established by social forces. This type of service mainly targets high-income families or groups and is largely of a personal nature. Another type is the unreasonable "gentrification" tendency, which is the high-end services provided by government-organized education or hospitals. This kind of "aristocracy" uses public financial funds, public land resources and public human resources, which is discriminatory and should be restricted.

Xu Zongwei said that urban public services should be provided according to the needs of the majority of people, and most public services should be open, fair and equal. Different public service contents should be determined according to the needs of different types of people, rather than simply "one size fits all". The city is getting bigger, but the "space" is getting smaller. At 5:30 in the afternoon, it is getting dark in Beijing. Liu Wenxiong finished handing out the real estate advertisement he brought out today, squeezed into a bus, and amidst the flow of people and traffic during the evening rush hour, he started from Ciyun Temple Bridge, along the East Fourth Ring Road, through the bustling Wangjing, and back to A bungalow near Dashanzi. This is the home of him and his parents, a bungalow of more than 50 square meters, with a monthly rent of 1,100 yuan. 22-year-old Liu Wenxiong grew up in Beijing. More than 10 years ago, he came here from rural Henan with his parents who went to work in Beijing. He completed primary school and middle school in Beijing, and then attended a technical secondary school in a school in Langfang. I haven't found a stable job since I graduated the year before last, so I recently started posting real estate advertisements at crossroads. Every flyer has his name and phone number on it. If someone buys a house with the advertisement, Liu Wenxiong may get a lot of commission. But if no customer calls for consultation with his advertisement for five consecutive days, his job will be difficult to protect. Liu Wenxiong is a Beijinger, and he is very familiar with everything in Beijing. He is not a Beijinger. His registered permanent residence is in his hometown in the countryside. He has no social security in Beijing, cannot enjoy the treatment of urban residents, and does not even have a stable residence. "I should be considered half a Beijinger. I have lived here for more than ten years and I have seen Beijing getting better and better, but it seems to have little to do with me." Liu Wenxiong said. Liu Wenxiong’s words express the feelings of many ordinary people. Cities are becoming more and more beautiful, but the living and development space for many people is getting narrower and narrower. Some cities have proposed developing high-end industries and restricting the development of low-end industries such as small restaurants and small shops. People are worried that such development will make the lives of ordinary people more inconvenient and make their living space narrower. Such a big city can accommodate countless high-rise buildings, but it is difficult to accommodate some vegetable stalls. In some cities, there is a lack of adequate care and protection for the "semi-citizens" who have been transformed from farmers. With the trend of urbanization, 10 to 12 million farmers move from rural areas to cities every year. They live in the city and are counted among the urban population, but they and their families do not enjoy the city's public welfare. "The complete meaning of urbanization should be to convert the agricultural population into non-agricultural population, allowing farmers who have gone to cities to work in cities to settle in cities and enjoy everything that urban residents enjoy." The "China Development Report 2010" released by the China Development Research Foundation pointed out, Farmers who migrate to cities should not belong to farmers in terms of status and workers in terms of occupation, nor should they belong to cities in terms of geography and farmers in terms of occupation, nor should they be large-scale, long-term, and mobile employment from generation to generation. The city is everyone's city. The emergence of "aristocratic" tendency in urbanization is first of all due to interest factors and the deep-rooted worship of GDP behind it. Luo Yameng, president of the China Cities International Association, believes that real estate and industrial development are behind the large-scale construction of new cities and the development of rural land for transfer in urbanization. By rapidly developing land, local governments can obtain considerable land returns. Secondly, it has nothing to do with the current performance appraisal system. If local governments want to show their urbanization achievements, in addition to urbanization in statistical data, the most intuitive way to show it is through new cities. And there will be comparisons between cities. In the process of rapid urbanization, urban decision-makers need to think about what urbanization is and what path it should take. The path of "gentrification" will definitely not work. "The city is everyone's city." Luo Yameng believes that as the city develops, there will be class divisions, but the majority are ordinary people. The goal of urbanization should be people-oriented, providing public services to different classes, so that the general public, not just a few high-end people, can enjoy the good life brought by urbanization. Li Jingwen, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that the road to urbanization must be people-oriented, and a democratic and scientific decision-making platform must be built to allow the general public to participate extensively in the planning and practice of urban development, so that the city can be built by the people themselves. Today, the hearing system and the public opinion solicitation system for urban development planning, which are widely used in various places, have begun to reflect this idea of ??"building a city for the people." Xu Zongwei emphasized that we must realize that in the stage of rapid urbanization, cities are not only cities for urban people, but also cities for rural people. Special attention should be paid to the realization of “farmer citizenization” in the process of urbanization. The "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" recommendations propose that the eligible agricultural transfer population should be gradually converted into urban residents as an important task to promote urbanization. Experts suggest that various localities should prepare a package plan for the citizenization of farmers. They can achieve the citizenization of farmers and migrant workers by relaxing the conditions for settlement, and gradually integrate them into social security systems such as education, medical care, and housing.