Chapter 48 Modern city is not a dream

The experience of Longgang has a certain legendary color. In Zhejiang Province, more farmers' towns have sprung up around areas where professional markets are located.There, due to the gathering and dispersing of business flows, the appearance of a town gradually formed, and under the effective planning of the local government, it embarked on the road of urbanization. The history of Taizhou Luqiao seems to be more universal. Luqiao, located on the southeast coast, is known as the business name of "a collection of department stores, connecting several states". Since the early 1980s, there has been a wave of small commodity processing and sales here, and gradually formed 40,000 peasant merchants. team.During this period, all kinds of small commodity markets popped up in Luqiao. By 1990, there were 71 specialized markets concentrated in this small town with an area of ​​only 3.2 square kilometers. Streets without markets, no alleys without peddlers, no households without commerce” is the phenomenon of roads and bridges.

It is on this basis that a small urbanization plan was implemented. In just five or six years, the urban area of ​​Luqiao tripled, the permanent and floating population reached 250,000, and various urban construction facilities were gradually improved.In the total investment of the whole society in the construction of roads and bridges, the funds raised by the private sector accounted for more than 80%. With the improvement of the degree of urbanization, the professional market of Luqiao is further developed. By 1995, Luqiao's China Daily Necessities Mall had a turnover of 9.7 billion yuan, making it the third largest professional market in the country after Yiwu and Shaoxing.As a result, farmers in Zhejiang have grabbed the top three places in the market rankings.

During the "Two Sessions" in 1996, the "Ninth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Outline of 2010 Long-term Goals" formulated by the State Council was officially released.People have heard such a passage in the "Report on the "Ninth Five-Year" Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the 2010 Long-term Goal Outline" made by Premier Li Peng on behalf of the State Council: In order to create a good investment environment and improve economic benefits, the development of townships Enterprises should be relatively concentrated and combined with the construction of small towns.

In January 1997, the first nationwide pilot work conference on comprehensive reform of small towns was held in Longgang, Zhejiang. The choice of the meeting place itself is very attractive.Among the 57 pilot small towns across the country, Zhejiang accounts for six of them, the most among all provinces in the country, and Longgang is known throughout the country as "China's No. 1 Farmer City".At the meeting, the achievements in the construction of small towns in Zhejiang attracted the attention of various provinces and cities. Statistics show that in 1978, there were only 167 official towns in Zhejiang Province, but by the beginning of 1997, the number had grown to 965, an increase of more than four times.Small towns have a population of 14 million, accounting for about one-third of the province's total population, but attracting rural labor has accounted for more than two-thirds of the province's township enterprise labor force.The output value of township enterprises in these small towns accounts for four-fifths of the province's total industrial output value, and the fiscal revenue provided to the province accounts for one-third of the province's fiscal revenue.

These boring figures are highlighting a vivid fact: Zhejiang's small towns have become more and more prominent in the province's national economy, and the process of industrialization and urbanization in the entire countryside is accelerating. A "Farmer's Daily" reporter once participated in the "Longgang Dialogue" ten years ago.Ten years later, he interviewed at the meeting, and then went to Longgang.When he saw more drastic and exciting changes than before, he was not only filled with emotion, but in a news article, he wrote: "When the rigid management model and layers of institutions make the city bloated and struggling, when one urban disease after another and urban construction problems one after another make the mayors helpless, we feel even more that Longgang and the liveliness and dexterity of its brethren.

“Perhaps the principle of self-care and whoever pays for housing, which has been shrouded in mist for decades, is the ultimate point of the way out for China’s urban reforms? "And this simple truth has already become an axiom that needs no argument in the eyes of Zhejiang farmers."