Urbanization is the inevitable path to modernization, and regional coordination is a key pillar of high-quality development. Since the 14th Five-Year Plan period, our province has achieved significant milestones in new urbanization, with notable progress in integrating rural migrants into urban life, continuously optimizing the spatial layout of urbanization, significantly improving urban development quality, and achieving positive results in integrated urban-rural development. The leading role of the Shanxi Central Urban Agglomeration has been further enhanced, infrastructure accessibility has become more balanced, and the province's permanent urban population has increased from 21.83 million to 22.85 million, with the urbanization rate rising from 62.53% to 66.32%. Currently, our province's urbanization is transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to one of stable development, while urban development is shifting from large-scale expansion to a phase focused primarily on improving existing stock quality and efficiency.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee made strategic arrangements for "promoting coordinated regional development" and proposed "deepening people-centered new urbanization," opening up vast potential for urbanization development. The Provincial Committee's Proposal thoroughly implements the decisions and arrangements of the Central Committee, accurately grasps the historical position of urbanization development both nationally and provincially, actively adapts to changing conditions, and makes strategic arrangements across five key areas, further clarifying the objectives, tasks, and approaches for advancing new urbanization.
Cities are crucial carriers of modernization, and urban agglomerations possess powerful clustering effects. The Provincial Committee's Proposal focuses on optimizing the modern urban system and makes arrangements for strengthening the implementation of the major functional zone strategy and optimizing the urban network system and spatial layout for industrial transformation and development. It emphasizes improving the territorial spatial planning system and implementing differentiated, refined land use controls by zone and category. It proposes steadily and orderly promoting the integrated development of the Shanxi Central Urban Agglomeration, supporting Taiyuan in building itself into a national regional central city, and promoting the integrated development of the Taiyuan Metropolitan Area; supporting the urban clusters in Northern Shanxi, Southern Shanxi, and Southeastern Shanxi in enhancing internal cohesion and expanding external influence based on their respective locational advantages; supporting Datong in building itself into a national regional key city; supporting prefecture-level cities like Shuozhou, Changzhi, Jincheng, Linfen, and Yuncheng in continuously enhancing their capacity for factor aggregation, industrial carrying capacity, and population attraction to build regional central cities within the province; and supporting major policy measures such as the transformation and development of resource-based cities and the revitalization and development of old revolutionary base areas. It calls for improving the cross-administrative cooperative development mechanism between the Central Urban Agglomeration and other urban clusters within the province. We must continuously improve the layout and form of urbanization, promote the coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities as well as small towns, and strive to build a well-proportioned, orderly, and functionally sound spatial pattern for urbanization.
Urban renewal is a comprehensive, systematic strategic action to promote high-quality urban development and an important pivot for expanding domestic demand, stabilizing growth, and promoting transformation. The Provincial Committee's Proposal implements the requirements of key central documents, such as the "Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Urban Development" and the "Opinions on Continuously Promoting Urban Renewal Actions," and deploys key tasks for building modern, people-centered cities using urban renewal as a lever. Specific measures include tailoring policies to individual cities to enhance urban development momentum, improving residential conditions and living environments for residents, accelerating the green transformation of urban construction, strengthening the construction and upgrading of urban infrastructure, preserving urban cultural heritage, and enhancing refined and intelligent urban governance levels. Tasks deployed include promoting the revitalization of old neighborhoods and the renewal and transformation of old industrial areas, advancing the renovation of old urban residential communities and urban villages, accelerating the construction of complete communities, building convenient urban living circles, creating green, low-carbon, and beautiful cities, speeding up the construction of safety projects for critical urban infrastructure lifelines, promoting the protection, utilization, and inheritance of urban historical and cultural resources, and advancing comprehensive digital transformation across cities. We must adhere to connotative urban development, implement the "Five Transformations" requirement, deepen reforms in urban construction, operation, and governance systems, vigorously implement urban renewal, accelerate the transformation of urban development models, and build modern, people-centered cities that are innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized, and smart.
County towns are a vital component of China's urban system and a key support for integrated urban-rural development. The Provincial Committee's Proposal, focusing on advancing urbanization with county towns as important carriers in a classified manner, proposes implementing actions to enhance the urbanization level of counties and potential areas, emphasizing the radiating and driving role of county towns in county-level economic development; promoting the extension of urban infrastructure to rural areas and the coverage of public services and social programs in rural areas to facilitate functional linkage and complementarity between counties, towns, and villages; and scientifically and orderly promoting the integration of rural migrants into urban life, among other deployment requirements. We must balance the production, living, ecological, and security needs of county towns, address their shortcomings and weaknesses, enhance their development quality, and promote the nearby urbanization of rural migrants.
County-level economies are the basic units of the national economy and an important foundation for developing the economy, ensuring people's livelihoods, maintaining stability, and promoting long-term national peace and security. The Provincial Committee's Proposal, centered on promoting the integrated development of industrial prosperity, strong counties, and enriching the people, and accelerating the development of distinctive county-level economies, deploys tasks such as promoting the cluster development of county-level industries, exploring classified guidance and assessment for county economies, promoting functional linkage, industrial collaboration, and infrastructure connectivity between counties and regional cities, promoting the standardized and healthy development of characteristic towns, promoting the appropriate concentration and sustainable, healthy development of populations and public service resources in counties with continuously declining populations, and establishing a sound classification assessment and evaluation system for counties with small populations. We must establish and improve more effective new mechanisms for county-level economic and social development, revitalize county-level factor resources, enhance county-level development momentum, improve the institutional mechanisms for promoting new urbanization, and foster common prosperity and development in both urban and rural areas.
Infrastructure plays a strategic, foundational, and pioneering role in the overall development of the province. The Provincial Committee's Proposal, focusing on strengthening the overall planning of infrastructure and building and improving modern infrastructure, deploys tasks such as improving the modern comprehensive transportation system, intensifying efforts to build new energy infrastructure, moderately advancing the construction of new infrastructure, optimizing and upgrading industrial innovation infrastructure, and promoting the construction of dual-use urban public infrastructure for both normal and emergency situations. We must further optimize the layout and structure of infrastructure, promote integration and synergy, enhance safety, resilience, and operational sustainability, and build a modern infrastructure system that is interconnected, co-built, shared, and coordinated.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we must fully implement the decisions and arrangements of the Central Committee, implement the deployment requirements of the Provincial Committee's Proposal, leverage the synergistic effects of the coordinated regional development strategy, major regional strategies, the major functional zone strategy, and the new urbanization strategy, improve the urbanization pattern with urban agglomerations as the main form and coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and small towns, build a regional economic layout and territorial space system characterized by complementary advantages and high-quality development, and expand and improve the spatial pattern for high-quality development.
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