- 2018-10-19
Xiong'an New District, Hebei Province, China
It is planned to establish Hebei Xiong'an New District, which is comparable to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Pudong New District.
Various analytical sounds unfolded with the introduction of this explosive news. Many negative examples have been quickly put forward. For example, China has more than a dozen new districts so far, and the political ecology of northern China is fundamentally not conducive to the full growth of the free market. Another example is Caofeidian, where large state-owned enterprises and large-scale state-owned enterprises have also invested in the development of the free market ten years ago. It has long become an uninhabited "ghost city". According to China's political ecology, it is still difficult to say whether this place can be built from a national level in five years... It is always easy to question a new thing, but on the whole, the market There is more excitement than doubt.
Why establish Xiongan New District?
In the spring more than 30 years ago, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone emerged, and in another spring more than 30 years later, the Xiongan New District was born.
What is "Xiongan New District"? Let's take a look at the planning scope of the Xiong'an New District, involving the three counties of Xiongxian, Rongcheng, and Anxin in Hebei Province and some surrounding areas, located in the hinterland of Beijing, Tianjin, and Baoding.
According to the planned construction roadmap, the Xiongan New District will be developed first with a specific area as the starting area. The starting area is about 100 square kilometers, the medium-term development area is about 200 square kilometers, and the long-term control area is about 2,000 square kilometers. The reporter found that the area of the long-term control zone is slightly larger than that of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.
Why establish Xiongan New District? The analysis believes that the establishment of the Xiongan New District is of great practical significance and far-reaching history for intensively dissolving Beijing’s non-capital functions, exploring new models for optimizing development in densely populated areas, adjusting and optimizing the layout and spatial structure of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cities, and fostering new engines for innovation-driven development significance.
The Xiongan New District will become a concentrated bearing site for Beijing’s non-capital functions. This is an important layout for promoting the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and will greatly expand the new space for the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. From the map, the Xiongan New Area has formed a trident with Beijing and Tianjin, and the Xiongan New Area will also find a new growth pole for Hebei, and at the same time will become an important support point for the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.
At present, the above-mentioned strategic measures introduced by the central government are not only to seek a new growth engine for China’s social and economic development, but also to ease the population (20 million), transportation, civic life, environmental protection, etc. of Beijing, one of China’s largest super-large cities. Pressure. Indeed, in addition to the political center, as the capital, Beijing carries the important tasks of the center such as finance, high technology, education, medical care, and culture. From the perspective of the city's capacity, it is of the magnitude of a giant. China's super-large cities like Beijing include Chongqing (28 million), Shanghai (23 million), Chengdu (14 million) and other places.
Managing megacities is a challenge in itself. Beijing accommodates 20 million residents on an area of 16,000 square kilometers. Just managing environmental sanitation is an incredible livelihood affair. Compared with the San Francisco Bay Area, which is composed of urban agglomerations in the United States, an area of 18,000 square kilometers has 8 million inhabitants-the largest city of San Francisco has 900,000 inhabitants, and satellite cities such as San Rafel, 30 kilometers to the north. , The population is only 70,000. But such a small city also has a mayor and a management team. It can be imagined that their municipal management pressure will be relatively small.
For businesses, the advantage of super large cities is that they have a large market, and the concentration of many industries will also help to form a synergistic effect; if they are stationed in the capital city of Beijing, they have the natural advantage of being close to the government decision-making center. But there are also many negative factors: In addition to high operating costs (such as site rent), the high cost of living in megacities means that companies must pay higher wages to attract employees. And big city diseases such as traffic congestion and air pollution have made companies worry about retaining talents.
The establishment of the Xiong’an New District has proposed a new solution to deal with big city diseases. By separating some of the institutions, industries, and resources that are currently highly concentrated in megacities (such as Beijing), it can not only reduce the pressure on urban management, but also cultivate new ideas. Point of regional economic growth. The success of Xiongan New Area can serve as a benchmarking effect, leading similar actions and promoting a more balanced and competitive regional economy across China.
This is a necessary and good move, but how can we move the pieces well and achieve the desired effect? Perhaps we can refer to the relevant international development experience.
How does the U.S. achieve balanced development of the regional economy?
Although the political systems of the United States and China are different, as the two largest economies in the world, the two countries have similar territories. From the perspective of economic geography, the regional laws of commercial distribution should be similar. In the process of economic development, has commercial agglomeration not formed a degree of concentration in a megacities like Beijing? First look at the following data:
The 10 most populous cities in the United States and their main pillar industries (Source: Ballotpedia, city-data.com)
The capital of the United States, Washington, DC, has a population of 650,000, ranking only 23rd. Its top three pillar industries are the federal government (the largest employer), professional services, and information/communication technology.
Judging from the geographical distribution of US industry centers, basically no large city can monopolize the leader in multiple industries. Except for "professional services" (such as consulting, insurance, etc.) and the relative divergence of high-tech industry centers, each major city has its leading industry in the country (for example, Los Angeles is a creative entertainment industry). In general, the industry centers in the United States are relatively balanced in terms of geographic distribution.
Will a geographically dispersed industry center like the United States miss out on opportunities and the aggregation effect of resources?
In China, one of the reasons why many companies get together in megacities like Beijing is that it is easier for companies to find cooperation opportunities when they are concentrated in a film, and they can better use external resources to promote their growth.
This logic has some truth, but the simple aggregation and superposition of various industries, such as finance + culture + manufacturing + medical treatment +… does not necessarily bring linearly increasing benefits. In fact, the synergies between industries are often more obvious in adjacent related industries, such as biopharmaceuticals and medical (Los Angeles), energy and chemicals (Houston), professional services (software) and high-tech manufacturing (San Jose)—— And this type of agglomeration of nearby industries is not uncommon in the current distribution of industry centers in the United States. So this concern is unnecessary.
On the other hand, for a super-large city like Beijing, the gathering of multiple industry centers has brought about a certain aggregation effect-but the subsequent big city diseases and the challenge of attracting and retaining talents make this This kind of large-scale aggregation seems a bit outweigh the gains.
Perhaps, in urban economic development, as in the United States, it is an "economically applicable" configuration to concentrate industries in a number of related industries.
What about business communication?
Of course, for enterprises, the business will eventually expand beyond related industries: for example, selling software services to educational institutions. It is generally believed that face-to-face business communication is more conducive to communication and promote sales. So, will a geographically dispersed industry center like the United States suffer as a result? Maybe, but you can travel.
According to the 2015 data of the GBTA Foundation, China and the United States are basically tied for the world's two largest business travel markets-their total annual expenditure is about 300 billion US dollars.
Xiong'an New District highlights China's urbanization ambitions
The Chinese government's plan to establish the Xiong'an New District has made the relevant areas in Hebei Province a focal point, and has also given the outside world a glimpse of China's rapid urban development process.
Although the total cost of business travel between the two countries is similar, the population of China (1.37 billion, 2016) is four times that of the United States (320 million, 2016); if it is assumed that business professionals in the two countries account for roughly the proportion of the total population The same, then one possible explanation is that business trips in the United States are more frequent and active than those in China (even taking into account the currency and other factors, the average cost of a single business trip in China may be lower than that in the United States).
Indeed, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) data, in 2016, the US domestic air passenger traffic was about 710 million passengers, making it the world's largest domestic air passenger market, while China ranked second with 400 million passengers.
Although this statistical data does not distinguish between business and leisure aviation travel-it is basically certain that the domestic business travel market in the United States is active. This makes up for the geographical barriers caused by the dispersion of industry centers, allowing different industries Business communication between the two parties can still be carried out effectively and fully.
How about running the "department" to make money?
Why stationed in the capital Beijing? Perhaps many Chinese companies (including foreign companies based in China) may think of one reason-to run "department" to make money easy-refers to the enterprises' efforts to obtain policies, resources, and support from the central government departments.
In the United States, many industry centers are not located in the capital, Washington, do they suffer from government relations and support? not necessarily. First of all, you can still travel on business (see the analysis in the previous paragraph). Second, in Washington's huge professional service industry, many employees work for professional government lobbying firms (lobbying firms, which account for 10% of local hires). Their job is to speak out for the interests of the enterprise or industry, unblock government relations, and strive for favorable regulations and policies.
Since there are full-time personnel with rich experience and prosperous contacts who are permanently stationed in Washington to run the "department" to make money, it seems that it is not so urgent and necessary to station the company in the capital just for this consideration.
Can the quality of life of business people not be discounted?
No matter how crowded the traffic is and the housing prices are high, we are determined not to flee from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou-one of the important reasons is the quality of life, such as education, medical care, and culture that are most important to white-collar workers. The quality of these services is even better than that of the capital.
So, the US industry center is geographically dispersed, leaving the beautiful capital Washington, do business elites feel that there is a significant gap in the quality of life? In 2016, the 10 best hospitals ranked by US News, except for the No. 4, John Hopkings Hospital in Baltimore near Washington, the other 9 are scattered all over the United States. In terms of the distribution of medical resources, Washington, the capital, does not stand alone, and high-level medical services can still be enjoyed in other parts of the United States.
Look at the cultural services that cultivate sentiment-such as the symphony performances on Gao Da. In 2016, ThoughtCo ranked the world's 20 best symphony orchestras: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from the United States ranked 5th, Cleveland 7th, and Los Angeles 8th. Boston, New York, and San Francisco ranked 11th to 13th, and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra ranked 18th. From this perspective, high-level cultural performances in the United States still have a certain degree of freedom of geographical choice-there will be no worries that they will become a lippa after leaving Washington.
In addition to the medical treatment and literature and art, in other dimensions of quality of life such as retail, education, and food, the geographical distribution of the United States is relatively balanced, which objectively provides strong back-up support for the geographical dispersion of the industry center.
There was a resounding cry in Xiong’an New District—someone saw soaring housing prices—but in fact, the deeper meaning behind it might be that it foreshadows the geographical distribution of industry centers in China, starting from a high degree of concentration to a diversified dispersion. Gradual change process. In the future, people may not be surprised that China's e-commerce center is in Hangzhou, the aviation logistics center is in Zhengzhou, and the biomedical center is in Chengdu... The decentralized development of industry centers becomes possible. Such a regionally dispersed industry center distribution may have the following positive significance for China's economic and social development:
The first is to reduce society’s dependence on mega-cities and allow mega-cities to enter the track of sustainable development. The second is to reduce the difference in regional development and promote the harmonious development of Chinese society. The third is to give play to the unique geographical advantages, and allow the development of the industry to coordinate with regional characteristics and complement each other-for example, Xinjiang can become an international trade center for Central Asia and West Asia. The fourth is to reduce the management risks of super-large cities and cultivate more livable urban agglomerations.
With reference to the past development experience of the United States, decentralized industry centers need to be supplemented by efficient business communication channels-such as the Internet, in which China has developed rapidly; and convenient business travel services-in this regard, China's future development is also More optimistic, in addition to the high-speed rail network extending in all directions, China is expected to surpass the United States in 2024 and become the world's largest aviation market. Both factors are good news. Looking to the future, with the development of cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality VR, distance may not be an obstacle in business communication.
Another revelation is that we need to pay attention to supporting the development of quality of life industries. Only when employees in various regional economic centers can enjoy high-level education, medical care, entertainment and other services that are currently only available in the capital or super large cities, will they live and work in peace and contentment, the so-called industry center. Decentralized development can only last for a long time.
Xiong'an New District, currently it may be just a triangle on the map of China, but history may remember that Chinese business has since entered a splendid era of regional economy flourishing and hundreds of thousands of people competing for success.