Li Chao: Enhancing Urban Security and Resilience Through the Construction of New-type Urban Infrastructure
Cities are vital carriers of modernization; ensuring they are safe and livable is a fervent aspiration of the people. As economic and social development progresses, the risks and challenges facing safe urban development have become more complex and volatile, making the construction of resilient cities an inevitable choice. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed to "deepen actions to enhance urban security and resilience." In November 2024, the "Opinions on Advancing New-Type Urban Infrastructure Construction to Create Resilient Cities," issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, proposed that "by 2030, significant achievements will be made in the construction of new-type urban infrastructure, driving the completion of a group of high-level resilient cities and continuously enhancing urban security and resilience."
As a product of the integrated innovation of new-generation information technology and urban construction and governance, new-type urban infrastructure plays an important role in improving urban management levels and operational efficiency while strengthening urban security and resilience. It promotes cities to operate more safely, orderly, intelligently, and efficiently, while simultaneously providing strong support for catalyzing new quality productive forces, achieving high-quality development, and enhancing urban competitiveness. Advancing the construction of new-type urban infrastructure covers multiple fields and involves many aspects. Various regions and departments must implement Party leadership across all dimensions and processes of advancing new-type urban infrastructure and building resilient cities. They must strengthen government guidance, improve institutional mechanisms, focus on scientific and technological innovation, mobilize social participation, plan systematically, and promote development in a coordinated manner to consolidate the foundation of resilient city construction.
Strengthen government guidance and promote policy implementation. The construction of new-type urban infrastructure concerns the overall long-term development of the city. It is highly systemic, broad in scope, and technologically digitalized, requiring government guidance, coordinated advancement, and cooperation between regions and departments. Strengthen top-level design [1]. Establish and improve unified institutional rules; optimize layout, structure, function, and development models; and standardize coordination and construction applications across regions, departments, and industries to implement full-chain coordination in urban planning, construction, and governance. Deepen application integration. Establish mechanisms for the integrated utilization of new-type infrastructure; promote the efficient and secure connection of information infrastructure across different industries and fields; and facilitate the intensive joint construction, optimized layout, and open sharing of various infrastructures. This will effectively increase construction efficiency and application performance, maximize savings in social investment, and prevent redundant construction and disorderly competition. Improve the standard system. Accelerate the construction of a standard system and evaluation system for new-type infrastructure, and define specifications for construction and application to effectively guide investment and regulate behavior, ensuring that the digital upgrading of urban renewal has "standards" to follow. Simultaneously, this will lay the foundation for participating in the formulation of international standards and striving for a voice [2] in the field. Promote coordinated development. By deepening application integration and expanding application scenarios, promote information infrastructure with a wide application range, strong empowering capacity, and good driving effects to better play an integrated role and promote overall coordinated development. Strengthen security guarantees. Establish and improve risk prevention and control mechanisms, strengthen full-domain and full-process risk management, ensure the security of important data resources, effectively prevent and control the risk of personal information leakage, and earnestly protect personal privacy to provide a guarantee for resilient city construction.
Improve institutional mechanisms and optimize the development environment. To advance the construction of resilient cities, one must innovate and improve relevant institutional mechanisms. Innovate and improve the data management system. Break down data silos and technical barriers; coordinate the planning and construction of urban information model platforms; centrally deploy digital systems; and promote the sharing and utilization of data resources across regions, departments, and levels. This will resolve the issues of redundant investment and fragmented construction of information platforms, improving the level of dynamic management and shared utilization of big data. Innovate and improve the investment and financing system. Broaden investment and financing channels, and establish a diversified system with government investment as the guide and corporate investment as the mainstay. Simultaneously, strengthen leading government investment to attract diverse social investment, promoting the formation of market-oriented, sustainable investment and operation mechanisms. Innovate management and operation mechanisms. Innovate management methods, models, and concepts; explore the establishment of operational mechanisms and business models for new-type urban infrastructure; and integrate the concept of life-cycle management [3] into all stages of urban planning, construction, and governance. Shift from unidirectional management to bidirectional interaction, from offline to online-offline integration, and from pure government supervision to a greater emphasis on social collaborative governance, comprehensively improving the security risk prevention and control capabilities of new-type urban infrastructure.
Advance technological innovation and boost development vitality. New-type urban infrastructure construction is characterized by a high density of digital technology and a high dependency on spatial innovation and digital empowerment. In advancing this construction, one must highlight technological innovation and digital empowerment while increasing the cultivation of innovative talent. Focus on the deepening of technical applications and accelerate the research on the deep integration of new-generation information technology with urban infrastructure construction. Organize and carry out research on basic theories, key technologies, and equipment for new-type urban infrastructure, and accelerate breakthroughs in a batch of key technologies such as city-level mass data processing and storage, multi-source sensor information fusion and perception, 3D graphic engines for Building Information Modeling (BIM), and the application of construction robots. The key to technological innovation lies in talent; new-type urban infrastructure construction must rely on being data-driven and talent-driven. Higher education institutions, scientific research institutes, and backbone enterprises are important anchors for innovation. The role of higher education institutions in cultivating innovative talent should be fully utilized to accelerate the strategic layout of digital-intelligent talent cultivation. Establish and improve a multi-level talent cultivation system, focusing on training composite innovative talents with multi-disciplinary knowledge in new-generation information technology, engineering construction, urban management, and urban security. Improve mechanisms for talent mobility, utilization, and incentives to accelerate the cultivation and aggregation of talent, providing strong support for technological innovation.
Strengthen social participation and aggregate forces from all parties. Building resilient cities requires giving full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and better playing the role of the government. It requires improving market-oriented mechanisms and encouraging social forces to actively participate in the construction of new-type urban infrastructure. Enterprises are one of the vital forces in this construction; they should be guided to participate deeply in the digital transformation of new-type urban infrastructure. Exert the leading and exemplary role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Utilize the advantages of SOEs in innovation, industrial, and supply chains to guide them to actively participate in investment, construction, and operation. Fully support private enterprises in participating in construction. Actively create a more open and fair market access environment for private enterprises, guiding them to directly integrate into investment activities within the innovation, industrial, and supply chains, and to participate in the investment, cooperation, and operation of relevant application scenarios and innovation spaces. Respect the laws of urban development and emphasize the role of experts and scholars to provide effective intellectual support and decision-making references for digital transformation. Conform to the expectations of the masses, improve supporting policies, and guide citizens to participate in construction activities, ensuring that the broad masses of citizens become both participants and beneficiaries. In short, let different subjects excel in their respective strengths to form a powerful synergy for advancing new-type urban infrastructure and building resilient cities.
(Author: Li Chao, Specially Appointed Researcher at the Shandong Provincial Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Director of the Yellow River Culture and Heritage Conservation Institute at Shandong Architecture University)
Source: People's Daily (February 7, 2025, Page 09) Web Editor: Huihui