What is a characteristic town?

Recently, there has been a lot of good news in Xi'an. Not only have many projects been signed at the Silk Road Expo, but Xi'an has also been promoted to let more people know about Xi'an. A few days ago, Wanda Group and Xi'an Chanba Ecological Zone Management Committee officially signed a contract for the Wanda Cultural Tourism City project. Xi'an Chanba Wanda Cultural Tourism City is located in Chanba Ecological Zone, with a total investment of 66 billion yuan. On the afternoon of June 8, the opening of the military-industrial characteristic town also kicked off.

On the afternoon of June 8, China Ordnance Industry Group Northern Development Investment Co., Ltd. and China New Housing Group Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement. , cooperate to build a small town with military industry characteristics.

The vast land of Jiangxi is dotted with nearly 2,000 small towns.

In October last year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development announced the first list of small towns with Chinese characteristics, including Wengang Town in Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province, Shangqing Town in Guixi City, Wentang Town in Yichun City, and Jiangxi Town in Wuyuan County. Bay Town was selected.

Two months later, Jiangxi issued the "Work Plan for the Construction of Characteristic Towns". During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, Jiangxi will build 60 characteristic towns across the province.

Now, the second batch of national characteristic towns list is about to be announced. In the wave of characteristic town construction, what path is Jiangxi taking? For Jiangxi, which has rich historical and cultural heritage but underdeveloped economy, what will be the effectiveness and prospects of characteristic towns?

“Agricultural Township” turns into “Characteristic Town”

Characteristic towns generally refer to organized towns relying on industrial development, or non-administrative divisions of innovation and entrepreneurship platforms— — Such as the “Fund Town” in Hangzhou. At the end of 2014, Zhejiang proposed the concept of "characteristic towns" and quickly built them into a new carrier of industrial transformation and upgrading, attracting national attention.

Following Zhejiang, various regions have introduced policies and plans to promote characteristic towns. Not only the government is focusing on building them, but private capital from Alibaba to Huawei, Vanke to Wanda is also rushing to get involved in the construction of characteristic towns.

According to Zhang Qingyuan, a senior engineer at the Village and Town Construction Office of the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Jiangxi has actually been working in this area for a long time, but it has not proposed the concept of "characteristic towns". In 2010 and 2013, Jiangxi launched the construction of 28 demonstration towns and top 100 central towns respectively to promote the development of characteristic industries, such as Bajing Town, Lidu Town, Wentang Town, Yonghe Town, Jianghe Town, Jiangwan Town, etc. After receiving government support, these small towns have developed quite well. This also laid a good foundation for the construction of characteristic towns in Jiangxi.

The villagers of Xixia Town, Xinjian District, Nanchang City are deeply touched by this.

In the past, Xixia was a small town in a "backwater". Most of the houses were tile-roofed houses. The Xixia Avenue in the town was also a "bad road" that people complained about endlessly. The road was full of potholes. There is serious water accumulation on rainy days.

In 2012, Nanchang City proposed to build characteristic towns for leisure and sightseeing in the city, and Xixia Town was listed among them due to its characteristics of ecological leisure agriculture. Subsequently, Xixia Town fully implemented the construction of a characteristic town, renovated roads, "brightened" the Xixia Reservoir and other landscapes, and planned to build a modern agricultural park of about 20 square kilometers.

The former "agricultural town" has been transformed into a "characteristic town". A villager told reporters about his joy: "We now live in a building, the road has been repaired, and there is a round-trip service." The buses in Nanchang have changed a lot, and they have the feel of city dwellers.”

Using characteristic industries as the engine of development

If culture is the foundation of a characteristic town, then industry. It is an important support and development engine for characteristic towns. The biggest feature of my country's current industrial layout is its imbalance, with resources excessively concentrated in big cities and megacities. If this phenomenon is allowed to develop, the weakening of small and medium-sized cities and the degradation of the functions of small towns will inevitably occur. Therefore, whether from the perspective of balancing industrial layout or saving the countryside, characteristic towns are a strategic link between the past and the future.

There are only four towns in Jiangxi Province that have been selected as Chinese characteristic towns, and three of them focus on the development of the tourism industry.

Wentang Town, located at the foot of Mingyue Mountain in Yichun, was a town with an urban population of less than 5,000 a few years ago and relied mainly on agricultural income; but today, Wentang Town has a floating population of more than 20,000 people every day. It has become a modern garden town integrating tourism, recuperation, entertainment and vacation, and is making every effort to build a model of Jiangxi's characteristic towns.

Different from the above three characteristic towns, the cultural supplies industry is the traditional industry, characteristic industry and pillar industry of Wengang Town. Zhou Suyan, who is mainly responsible for the affairs of characteristic towns in Wengang Town, told reporters that being selected into the first batch of "characteristic towns" in the country is both motivation and pressure. Wengang Town will continue to focus on the goal positioning of "a famous cultural town, a major commercial town, a strong industrial town, and a new tourism town" and embark on a characteristic path of "focusing on industry with the city, rejuvenating the city with industry, and integrating industry and city with people".