Chapter 32 The advantages of small towns and the achievements of the vast world

In a magazine not long ago, I saw a discussion about my country's urbanization development strategy.This has been an old topic since the 1980s: the mainstream side advocates the benefits of small towns, saying that they can avoid the problems of modern metropolises, such as environmental pollution, traffic jams, poor living conditions, etc., and believes that Western industrial society China's urbanization was a wrong detour, and now they have paid the price for their historical mistakes. They regretted it and started the process of "post-urbanization", that is, returning to small towns and villages.Their big cities are declining and their small towns are thriving, and in their big cities their inner cities are declining and their elite communities are increasingly moving to the suburbs and satellite towns.Some people excitedly said: my country has explored a more superior road, that is, through the development of small towns and "beyond Western urban civilization", it has opened up a shortcut for human beings to the "post-urban era". Envy us and call on us to learn their lessons and carry forward "small townism" as always.Some commentators link the "development path of small towns" with the miracles of township enterprises, and demonstrate the benefits of small towns with the plight of state-owned enterprises in big cities and the prosperity of township enterprises.

The non-mainstream side argues that the rise of large cities in the industrial age is a historical necessity rather than a mistake. Modernization is accompanied by urbanization, and urbanization should be the simultaneous development of various cities, large, medium and small. This is a universal law, and there is no such thing as Special roads dedicated to the development of small towns or cities.In reality, small towns occupy a lot of land and waste resources, which is exactly what our country is afraid of due to the scarcity of land, while economic decentralization leads to the weakening of industrial organic linkages, difficulties in the development of the tertiary industry, and affects structural upgrading.In addition, in terms of natural ecology and human ecology, the severity of the "small town disease" in many areas of our country is no less serious than the so-called "urban disease" in the West.Therefore, our country should not stick to "small townism", but should give large and medium-sized cities more room for development.

I am not qualified to comment on the debate between the two factions. The relationship between modernization and the change of settlement types is a very professional research field, and I am afraid it is difficult to say what is conclusive.But when it comes to the reality we are facing, I don't think "small towns or big cities are better" may not be the key to the problem.I noticed that those who advocated the superiority of small towns did not call for a movement in big cities to evacuate residents to small towns, as in the past, and those who opposed "small townism" did not Advocates prohibiting and restricting farmers from entering small towns to live and work.Obviously, the advantages and disadvantages of the type of settlement are just a pretense in this discussion. The real problem lies in the different attitudes of the two sides towards the migration and employment rights of farmers: the actual meaning of "small townism" is: only farmers are allowed to enter small towns and Stop them from entering the big city.The opposing side argued that farmers should not only be allowed to enter small towns, but also large cities.In other words, the problem of settlement size has become a false problem to a certain extent, while the migration and employment rights of “farmers” (in the economic sense, that is, the right to market access) are the real problems—the word “farmers” in quotation marks is the real problem. Because: here the word obviously does not refer to a profession, but refers to a status level.

In fact, if we really discuss the scale of settlements, it is hard to say what meaning is being said about small towns nowadays.The "peasant city" of Longgang, Zhejiang Province has a population of more than 100,000, more than some prefecture-level urban areas, but generally "small townists" do not think that the restrictions on entering the latter should be wider than the former.The Pearl River Delta is often regarded as a model for the development of "small towns". However, Dongguan has a population of more than 1.5 million plus 4 million migrant workers in an area of ​​more than 2,000 square kilometers. The population density exceeds Los Angeles (3,790 square kilometers with a population of more than 3 million. ), which is not much lower than London (1,580 square kilometers with a population of more than 6 million). Is there any reason to say that it is still a "small town" and that it is less "urban disease" than Beijing and Shanghai?As for the advantages of township enterprises over state-owned enterprises, it lies in their mechanism rather than in "small towns". Have you seen how many "third-tier enterprises" in my country are distributed in "mountains, scattered, and caves"? Isn't their efficiency worse than state-owned enterprises in big cities? ?

The reason why I am expressing this is that I recently received a letter from a student, lamenting the lack of talents in the countryside, and thinking that it was better during the Cultural Revolution: so many "educated youths" were "doing great things in the vast world"!Indeed, when it comes to discussing whether educated youth or urbanites can "make a difference" in the countryside, there may be a debate: some people think that they can do a lot, while others think that this kind of practice is a waste of talents.The author went to the countryside voluntarily back then, and I have not regretted it until now.But I know that most people don't want to go to the countryside.Back then, I believed that "the vast world can do a lot", and I still don't think this sentence is wrong.But the question is: Even if this statement is true, can it be a reason to force involuntary people to go to the countryside?The ending of the Movement to the Countryside has already given the answer: the failure of this movement was not because of whether the "broad world" could make a difference, but because of its compulsory nature.It is precisely this that makes it unpopular and has caused many tragedies. The high-profile "Youth Without Regrets" cannot cover up the history of youth resentment.It is said that this campaign was launched to narrow the "three major differences", especially the differences between urban and rural areas and between workers and peasants.However, it was the coerciveness of this movement that made the countryside synonymous with the place of exile in the eyes of urbanites.Under the coercion, people will use all means to escape from there. Once the coercion is relaxed, there will be tens of millions of "victorious (?) escapes".It was during this movement that the differences between urban and rural areas and between workers and peasants in our country developed to an unprecedented level in modern history, which can be called the modern caste system. Leaving aside other rights, as far as economic differences are concerned, at that time each of the cities and villages had their own rights. There is a set of egalitarianism, but the "level" differentiation of urban and rural incomes made the Gini coefficient of the national income distribution reach 0.331 in 1978 (the year the movement ended), which not only surpassed all "revisionist" countries, but also surpassed many capitals. socialist country.

The eloquent hard work of many educated youths at that time did create some examples of "great achievements", and people should not and will not forget them.But this cannot change the tragic nature and failure of the entire movement caused by coercion.Today we can still say that the vast world has a lot to do, and we should still create conditions to attract talents to go to the countryside to start businesses, encourage culture to support agriculture, and help the poor through technology, just as encouraging so-called "peasant entrepreneurs" and "migrant workers" to participate in urban development and encouraging "country people to teach cities". It is the same as how the local people behave as 'citizens'".But there will be no such mandatory "educated youth movement". ——Actually, people today also understand that the real reason for launching the movement was that several years of turmoil caused economic destruction in cities and failed to provide employment, and the Red Guards who "rebelled according to the order" were at the end of their lives and needed to be dismissed as soon as possible to avoid transfer. To rebel against the purpose.As for "the vast world can do a lot", it is the same as "anti-revision and prevention of revision" and so on. It is just propaganda, not the real (at least not the main) reason.

"The vast world has great potential" cannot be a reason to force people to go to the countryside, just as "the advantages of small towns" cannot be a reason to prevent farmers from entering big cities.Whether the vast world can do something is a matter of human resource allocation, whether small towns have advantages is a matter of settlement size, and freedom of migration and job selection is a matter of civil rights.Rural areas need talents, small towns are of appropriate size, and the state should help them increase their attractiveness as much as possible.But that can't be done by clogging citizens' other options.Of course, the realization of civil rights is a historical process, and no one can dream that people's rights to migrate and choose jobs can be implemented at the level of developed countries all at once.It should be admitted that "small townism" was a major step forward in this regard. From the era of the educated youth movement, when farmers were completely tied to the land, to allowing farmers to "leave the land without leaving their hometowns", to allowing them to "leave their hometowns" and enter small towns , the progress here is obvious to all.But today, the reality has come before the theory again. Today, as the problem of urban migrant workers is becoming increasingly prominent, the practical meaning of "small townism" has changed from focusing on "allowing" farmers to enter small towns to focusing on "preventing" farmers from entering Large and medium cities.We should also reflect on this.