Liu Wugen: Boosting the Connotative Development of Cities Through Cultural Construction
Cities are powerful engines of modernization and occupy a position of pivotal importance in the overall work of the Party and the state. Promoting high-quality development in cities and building modern "people's cities" is both an inherent meaning of Chinese-path modernization and an inevitable requirement for comprehensively advancing the great cause of building a strong country and achieving national rejuvenation through Chinese-path modernization.
The Central Urban Work Conference [1] held in 2025 made a clear judgment: "Our country's urbanization is shifting from a period of rapid growth to a period of stable development; urban development is shifting from a stage of large-scale incremental expansion to a stage dominated by improving quality and efficiency of existing stock." The "Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China" [2] made deployments centered on "promoting the connotative development [3] of cities," proposing to "promote the transformation of urban development models and build modern people's cities that are innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized, and smart." Culture is the soul of a city and the endogenous driving force of urban development; cultural construction plays an important role in promoting the connotative development of cities.
Continuing the historical cultural lineage of the city. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "A city is the carrier of a nation's culture and emotional memory; historical culture is the key to a city's charm." Historical culture is the concentrated expression of a city's profound connotations, unique qualities, and distinctive characteristics; moreover, it is the important foundation for using cultural construction to boost the connotative development of cities. Many cities in our country, especially some old urban districts with long histories, originally possessed their own unique characteristics and colorful diversity, housing many invaluable historical memories. To boost the connotative development of cities through cultural construction, we must strengthen our confidence in historical culture and continue the city's historical cultural lineage. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "In urban construction, we must allow residents to see the mountains, see the water, and remember their 'homesickness' (xiangchou) [4]." To "remember one's homesickness," one must protect and promote fine traditional Chinese culture, extend the city's historical lineage, and preserve the genetic code of Chinese culture. This requires us not only to protect the cultural relics, historical sites, historical blocks, and industrial heritage left by our predecessors but also to protect historical and cultural famous cities, towns, and villages. We must protect both ancient and modern architecture, individual buildings and building complexes, as well as intangible cultural heritage such as residences with strong rural flavors and folk customs with rich local characteristics.
Of course, continuing the historical cultural lineage of a city is not a simple restoration of the past or imitation of the ancient, nor is it "clinging to the past" (nigu) [5]; rather, it is about acting with a spirit of high responsibility toward history and the people. We must properly handle the dialectical relationship between the protection, renovation, and development of urban historical culture and its inheritance and utilization, truly achieving the promotion of connotative development on the basis of protecting, inheriting, and utilizing urban historical culture. To this end, we should further improve a system for the protection and inheritance of urban and rural historical culture that is scientifically categorized, powerfully protective, and effectively managed. We must improve long-term mechanisms for the census, investigation, and evaluation of urban historical and cultural heritage, and refine the management system for the protection, inheritance, and utilization of urban and rural historical culture, as well as implementation mechanisms for protection with residents as the main body. Digital technology should be applied to carry out the "living protection" (huotai baohu), utilization, and inheritance of cultural relic resources, historical buildings, industrial heritage, and intangible cultural heritage, allowing urban and rural historical and cultural heritage to integrate with and complement modern urban life.
Shaping the distinctive character and appearance of the city. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The distinctive character and appearance of a city is the organic unity of its external image and its spiritual inner quality; it is the urban cultural characteristic formed through the long-term accumulation of the natural geographical environment, socio-economic factors, and the production and lifestyles of residents." The distinctive character and appearance of a city embody its "inner spirit" (jingqishen) [6], highlight its characteristics, and determine its taste; it is the key to boosting connotative development through cultural construction. From the perspective of content and characteristics, the distinctive character and appearance of a city have two aspects: external physical manifestation and internal spiritual manifestation. To boost the connotative development of cities through cultural construction and accelerate the shaping of a city's distinctive character, we need a comprehensive policy approach addressing both manifestations.
Regarding the external physical manifestation, urban architecture is the intuitive display of a city’s distinctive character. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Chinese architecture has had a major influence in the world since ancient times, and together with European architecture and Islamic architecture, it is known as one of the world's three major architectural systems. Compared to the other two systems, Chinese architecture has a longer history, a more complete system, and focuses more on nature and life." This requires us to fully implement the construction principle of being "applicable, economic, green, and aesthetically pleasing," and to encourage, support, and guide urban architectural design to uphold the fundamentals and break new ground. We must promote urban architecture so that it better highlights Chinese aesthetics and style while better integrating modern elements and contemporary fashion. We must effectively strengthen the management of urban architectural design, adopting unique architectural styles and materials in combination with the city's functional positioning and cultural characteristics to create architectural works with high recognizability, forming urban architecture with distinctive features and unique temperaments. We should further strengthen the regulatory and guiding role of urban planning, improve the management system for urban appearance, and promote the realization of composite functions, moderate density, staggered heights, and the "interweaving of blue and green" (lanlü jiaozhi) [7].
Regarding the internal spiritual manifestation, the city spirit is the soul of the city’s distinctive character. On the basis of accurately grasping the scientific connotation and basic characteristics of the city spirit, we must focus on urban historical inheritance and cultural construction. We must actively explore effective ways to shape the city spirit, vigorously promote the formation of ideological concepts, civilized customs, and behavioral norms that adapt to the requirements of the era, and strive to create a city spirit that highlights cultural heritage and unique temperament, providing the spiritual impetus for promoting the connotative development of cities.
Enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the city. The city is both the residence of the citizens and their spiritual home. The ideological and cultural state of the citizens—including their moral concepts, values, ways of thinking, scientific literacy, cultural accomplishments, and emotional beliefs—is the barometer of the level of their spiritual and cultural life and the monitor of the effectiveness of urban cultural construction. Enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the city is an inherent requirement for boosting connotative urban development through cultural construction. This requires continuously enriching urban spiritual and cultural life, effectively improving the quality and efficiency of urban public cultural services, and comprehensively enhancing the city's cultural soft power.
We must persist in the people-centered development philosophy, adhere to the principle that "the people's city is for the people," and take the satisfaction of the citizens' ever-growing, multi-level needs for spiritual and cultural life as the starting point and objective of urban cultural construction. This ensures that urban cultural construction continuously adapts to new situations in urban work, new requirements for urban development, and new expectations for citizen life. Starting from the actual needs of the citizens' growing spiritual and cultural lives, we must continuously improve the network of urban cultural facilities, make full use of digital and intelligent technology to break through traditional spatial boundaries, and innovate and expand new types of urban public cultural spaces. We must optimize the supply of urban cultural products, innovate urban cultural formats such as animation, film and television, digital art, and creative design, and promote the integrated development of urban culture with tourism, technology, and sports, so that citizens enjoy a more substantial, rich, and high-quality spiritual and cultural life. Taking multiple measures simultaneously, we must closely combine the cultivation and practice of the socialist core values with the promotion of the city spirit. By working on the implementation of these values in a detailed, specific, and subtle manner, we will continuously improve the scientific literacy, cultural accomplishments, and level of civilization of the citizens, promoting the prosperous development of urban culture and building "civilized cities" (wenming chengshi) [8] that honor virtue and strive for goodness.