Central Urban Work Conference: China's Shifting Urban Strategy
No "Shantytown Renovation 2.0" in Sight as Beijing Prioritizes "Connotative Development" Over Expansion
On July 15, Chinese President Xi chaired the Central Urban Work Conference. It’s the first of this kind of conference in a decade. Before the meeting, the market was anticipating a 2015-style shantytown renovation program. However, this expectation appears unfounded. First, this meeting primarily focused on mid-to-long-term urban governance approaches, including planning and administration. While word choices might signal certain intentions regarding short-term housing market stimulus, these were not the meeting's central focus.
Second, the official readout shows no indication of a "shantytown renovation 2.0." Examining just one key phrase: "steadily advance the renovation of urban villages and dilapidated housing."
This "steadily advance" (稳步推进) hasn't progressed beyond the relatively conservative tone established at last year's economic work conference, which used "powerfully and orderly advance" (有力有序推进). If anything, the current phrasing seems even more cautious, suggesting there won't be a so-called "shantytown renovation 2.0."
In contrast, the 2015 urban work conference explicitly stated, "accelerate the renovation of urban shantytowns and dangerous housing, accelerate the renovation of old residential areas," (加快城镇棚户区和危房改造，加快老旧小区改造) employing the more aggressive term "accelerate." Notably, in 2015, actual renovation work had already commenced even before that year's conference took place.
This conference also signals a shift in China's urban development strategy. The 2015 meeting articulated a framework of "establishing total limits, capping capacity, revitalizing existing resources, optimizing new growth, and enhancing quality."(框定总量、限定容量、盘活存量、做优增量、提高质量) In this year's meeting, this approach has evolved to emphasize "connotative development as the primary focus"(以坚持城市内涵式发展为主线). This subtle but significant linguistic shift indicates that at the policy level, there is a desire to restrict further expansion of large cities, while simultaneously demanding increased urban population carrying capacity.
China's strategic direction appears to be "controlled scale + balanced development between small/medium towns and major cities + creation of urban clusters." The recent meeting further defined this as: "developing networked, cluster-based modern urban agglomerations and metropolitan regions"(发展组团化、网络化的现代化城市群和都市圈) while highlighting the importance of "county-level cities as critical vehicles for urbanization." (以县城为重要载体的城镇化)Tellingly, official Chinese documentation consistently refers to "new-type urbanization"(新型城镇化) rather than simply "urbanization"(城市化)
Regarding China's decision not to pursue aggressive "mega-city urbanization," as perused by many economists such as Lu Ming陆铭 (highly recommend his book Great Nation Needs Bigger City大国大城), I believe this partly reflects the central gov’s need to ensure balanced regional development, requiring policies that prioritize equity. As an economy with vast internal disparities, China has to consider fairness across regions to maintain national stability. The political influence concentrated in cities through population density and industrial agglomeration makes this particularly important. Consequently, Beijing seeks urbanization outcomes that represent diverse regions, cultural backgrounds, and social classes throughout the country.
Below is the full script of the official readout:
https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202507/content_7032083.htm
The Central Urban Work Conference was held in Beijing from July 14 to 15. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, President of the People's Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the conference and delivered an important speech. Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, and Li Xi, members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the conference.
In his important speech, Xi summarized China's urban development achievements since the beginning of the new era, analyzed the current situation facing urban work, and clarified the general requirements, important principles, and key tasks for urban development. Li Qiang delivered a concluding speech, making specific arrangements for implementing General Secretary Xi Jinping's important directives and further improving urban work.
The conference pointed out that since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee has profoundly grasped the laws of urban development in China under new circumstances, adhered to the Party's comprehensive leadership over urban work, upheld the principle that cities are built by the people and for the people, and approached urban planning as an organic living system. This has led to historic achievements in urban development, with significant improvements in China's new-type urbanization level, urban development capacity, planning, construction and governance standards, business and living environment, historical and cultural preservation, and ecological environment quality.
The conference emphasized that the general requirements for urban work in the current and coming period are: to follow Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implement the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress and the Second and Third Plenary Sessions of the 20th CPC Central Committee, fully implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourse on urban work, uphold and strengthen the Party's comprehensive leadership, earnestly practice the people's city concept, maintain the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, and adhere to location-specific approaches and classified guidance. The goal is to build innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized, and smart modernized people's cities, with high-quality urban development as the main theme, connotative urban development as the main focus, and urban renewal as an important tool. This involves optimizing urban structure, transforming development drivers, enhancing quality, promoting green transformation, continuing cultural heritage, and improving governance efficiency, while firmly maintaining urban safety baselines to forge a new path of Chinese-style urban modernization.
The conference noted that China's urbanization is transitioning from a period of rapid growth to stable development, with urban development shifting from large-scale expansion to a phase focused primarily on improving the quality and efficiency of existing resources. Urban work must profoundly understand and proactively adapt to these changes by: transforming urban development concepts to be more people-centered; shifting urban development methods to emphasize intensive efficiency; changing urban development drivers to focus on distinctive development; redirecting the focus of urban work to emphasize governance investment; and evolving urban work methods to stress coordinated planning.
The conference outlined seven key tasks for urban work:
Optimizing the modern urban system. With a focus on enhancing cities' comprehensive capacity to support population and socioeconomic development, this involves developing clustered, networked modern urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas, promoting urbanization with county-level cities as important carriers, continuing to advance the integration of agricultural transfer population into urban citizenship, promoting coordinated development among cities of various sizes and small towns, and fostering urban-rural integration.
Building innovative cities with vitality. This requires carefully cultivating innovation ecosystems to achieve breakthroughs in developing new quality productive forces, enhancing urban dynamism through reform and opening up, conducting high-quality urban renewal, and fully leveraging cities' hub roles in domestic and international dual circulation.
Building convenient, livable cities. This involves integrated planning of population, industry, urban areas, and transportation to optimize urban spatial structure; accelerating the construction of a new real estate development model; steadily advancing the renovation of urban villages and dilapidated housing; vigorously developing lifestyle service industries; improving public services; and firmly securing basic livelihood needs.
Building beautiful, green, and low-carbon cities. This entails consolidating ecological environmental governance achievements, adopting more effective measures to address urban air quality, drinking water source protection, and new pollutant control, promoting synergies between pollution reduction, carbon reduction, and greening efforts, and enhancing urban biodiversity.
Building safe and reliable, resilient cities. This includes advancing the construction of urban infrastructure lifeline safety projects, accelerating the renovation and upgrading of old pipelines, strictly limiting super-tall buildings, comprehensively improving housing safety levels, strengthening natural disaster prevention in cities, coordinating urban flood control systems and waterlogging management, and enhancing overall social security prevention and control to effectively safeguard public safety.
Building civilized cities that promote virtue. This involves improving systems for protecting and inheriting historical culture, enhancing urban landscape management, preserving cities' unique historical context, human geography, and natural landscapes, strengthening urban cultural soft power, and improving citizens' civility.
Building efficient and convenient smart cities. This requires Party-led, law-based city governance, innovating urban governance concepts, models, and methods, effectively utilizing mechanisms such as citizen service hotlines, and efficiently resolving urgent public concerns.
The conference emphasized that building modernized people's cities requires strengthening the Party's comprehensive leadership over urban work. This involves further improving leadership systems and working mechanisms, enhancing the coordination of urban policies, and strengthening implementation across all areas. It is necessary to establish and practice a correct view of performance, establish a scientific urban development evaluation system, strengthen the quality and capability of urban work teams, and motivate Party members and cadres to work entrepreneurially and fulfill their responsibilities. The conference stressed the importance of seeking truth from facts and being pragmatic, while resolutely opposing formalism and bureaucracy.
The conference noted that General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech scientifically addressed major theoretical and practical questions regarding for whom cities are developed, who they rely on, what kind of cities should be built, and how to build them. This provides fundamental guidance for urban work in the new era and on the new journey, requiring careful study and uncompromising implementation. It is necessary to profoundly grasp the historical position of China's urban development and conduct urban work with a broader vision; deeply understand the goal of building modernized people's cities and consciously practice people-centered development; thoroughly comprehend the strategic orientation of connotative urban development and more specifically enhance urban development quality; fully recognize the inherent requirements for strengthening urban development momentum and vitality through reform and innovation; and deeply understand the systematic complexity of urban work while enhancing capabilities to implement various tasks and deployments.
Members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretaries of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, relevant leadership of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, State Councilors, President of the Supreme People's Court, Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and relevant leadership of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference attended the conference.
The conference was also attended by the main party and government officials responsible for urban work from provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps; main party officials from cities separately listed in the state plan, provincial capitals, and relevant prefecture-level cities; main officials from relevant departments of central and state organs, relevant people's organizations, certain centrally managed financial institutions, enterprises and universities, and relevant departments of the Central Military Commission.
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