The 2024 Government Work Report proposes vigorously promoting the construction of a modern industrial system, accelerating the development of new quality productive forces, outlining a series of deployments in this regard.
To align with the developmental needs of new quality productive forces, it is a necessity for the spatial planning and management sector to make further adjustments, such as creating well-matched spatial carriers and innovating modes of spatial governance.
What specific actions should be taken from the perspective of urban and rural planning?
Reconfiguring various spatial elements
Space, a container where socioeconomic activities take place, is influenced by the interaction between productivity and production relations. As urbanization progresses in our country, more people are migrating to cities and the advent of an aging society has significantly changed their demands for space.
We used to explore human demands regardless of individuality. However, at the new developmental stage, we need to pay attention to the needs of diverse types of people, groups, and enterprises. The significance of spatial planning lies in coordinating resource protection and space utilization to meet the spatial needs of productivity development as much as possible.
With the emergence of new technologies, products, scenarios, and services, the industrial and spatial structures in cities are continuously evolving. The strictly divided spaces can no longer match the progress of social development. Spatial production - a term emphasizing the development and utilization of spatial resources by humans and the impact of space on social, economic, and cultural aspects - is crucial for adapting to changes in production factor demands and production relation adjustments driven by new quality productive forces.
The ultimate purpose of planning and management is to empower social development. Spatial planning, in response to the need to develop new quality productive forces, is more about innovating the combination modes of spatial elements, improving spatial efficiency, gathering innovative populations, stimulating innovation vitality, cultivating innovative industries, and enhancing the applications of innovations. Meanwhile, the planning and management of space must keep pace with the times, updating design standards and norms to adapt to new technologies and revising urban and rural development-related policies and mechanisms accordingly.
For example, while in the past we designated protective areas to curb the damages to nature caused by human activities, today we can use new technologies to minimize the impact of human activities on the environment, allowing certain human activities while ensuring ecological sustainability. This creates more pleasant combinations of spatial elements, forms new application scenarios, and promotes economic development.
In rural areas, advances in agricultural production have altered the spatial connection between rural homesteads and farmlands. Diversified income sources for farmers, combined with the emergence of new economic scenarios such as rural tourism and farm stays, have strengthened the bond between villages and natural landscapes. Additionally, the widespread adoption of distributed energy and sewage treatment facilities also supports rural development. As the urbanization process deepens, the location and morphology of villages will continue to evolve.
Therefore, the development of new quality productive forces requires new combinations of various spatial elements that support new development concepts and economic scenarios, rather than a completely new spatial form.
By leveraging spatial production to optimize the layout of productivity elements and coordinate the development of productivity and production relations, we can create new scenarios and innovate services to stimulate economic vitality in urban and rural areas, thus fulfilling the people’s wish for a better life and bolstering high-quality social development.
Reconstructing underlying logic, not just space itself
Given the situation described, spatial planning must adhere to the objective laws between space and the development of new quality productive forces. It is crucial to reconstruct the underlying logic of planning oriented towards the development of new quality productive forces while recognizing the significance of space in promoting socio-economic development. Supported by new technologies, we should shift from a land-based, two-dimensional mindset to a systemic and interconnected three-dimensional spatial planning mindset, integrating spatial production and space utilization, fully unleashing new modes of three-dimensional spatial element combinations.
Specifically, beyond drafting a planning blueprint, calculating the quantity of construction, and estimating the investment scale, we should also develop the capability to estimate employment potential, tax revenue, carbon emission reductions, and the health conditions of residents. This is the goal of urbanization centered around people. Without new economic scenarios created or new economic vitality injected, the value of spatial planning would be greatly diminished.
Furthermore, spatial governance needs to meet the new demands emerging from the development of new quality productive forces, aligning production relations. Spatial governance-related policies should serve the goal of advancing socio-economic development more effectively through spatial production.
Anticipated shifts in spatial governance could evolve from focusing on "acres" to "cubic meters". Consequently, urban spatial planning would extend beyond traditional land use considerations to include the three-dimensional space, as well as its applications and behaviors.
Source: Official website of the UPSC
