Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: Deeply Grasping the Strategic Orientation of Intensive Urban Development
In July of this year, the Central Urban Work Conference was convened for the first time in ten years. This meeting holds significant monumental importance in the history of our country’s urban development and has demarcated its new historical orientation. The important speech delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping at this conference provides the fundamental guidance for performing urban work well on the new journey of the New Era, and points the way toward an innovative path of Chinese-path modernization for cities. The conference clarified the general requirements for urban work at present and for the period ahead, which include "taking the promotion of high-quality development as the theme and adhering to intensive development [1] as the main thread." It further demanded that we "profoundly grasp the strategic orientation of intensive development and enhance the quality of urban development with greater targeting." The recently issued "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Promoting High-Quality Urban Development" (hereafter the "Opinions") constitutes a thorough implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on urban work and the spirit of the Central Urban Work Conference. It further clarifies the general requirements, primary objectives, and key tasks for accelerating the transformation of urban development models and promoting high-quality urban development. We must comprehensively implement the General Secretary’s important expositions and the spirit of the conference, fulfill the specific requirements and deployments proposed in the "Opinions," and profoundly grasp the strategic orientation, epochal significance, rich connotations, and practical requirements of intensive development. We must vigorously promote the optimization of urban structures, the transition of growth drivers, the enhancement of quality, green transformation, the continuity of cultural lineages, and the increased effectiveness of governance, thereby continuously opening new horizons for the construction of modernized "people’s cities."
Profoundly grasping the strategic orientation of intensive development possesses significant epochal significance and a wealth of connotative meaning.
Intensive development is an important concept advocated by General Secretary Xi Jinping. At the 2015 Central Urban Work Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed: "We must adhere to intensive development, establish the concepts of 'smart growth' and 'compact cities,' scientifically demarcate urban development boundaries, and promote the shift of urban development from extensive expansion toward intensive enhancement." At that time, China’s urbanization was still in a phase of rapid development; this important exposition reflected the General Secretary’s profound reflection on and forward-looking layout for urban development. During subsequent local inspection tours, he emphasized intensive development on many occasions. For example, during his 2019 inspection of Shanghai, he required the "rational arrangement of production, living, and ecological spaces to follow a path of high-quality development that is intensive, integrated, and green." In 2024, during his inspection in Tianjin, he pointed out the need to "persist in the path of intensive development, innovate urban governance, strengthen the construction of resilient and safe cities, actively implement urban renewal actions, enhance development potential, and optimize development space, thereby promoting the continuous improvement of urban formats, functions, and quality."
"Intension" (neihan) [2] stands in contrast to "extension" (waiyan). It usually refers to the essential characteristics of a thing—its qualitative determinacy. "Extension" generally refers to the total set of objects reflecting a certain essential attribute—its quantitative determinacy. Correspondingly, intensive development uses the internal factors of a thing as the motive power and resources to drive progress, emphasizing qualitative development. Extensive development mainly refers to quantitative growth, expansion of scale, and spatial outward reach, manifesting primarily as physical expansion. Promoting intensive development mainly involves deepening internal reforms to optimize structure and stimulate vitality, thereby strengthening capabilities and increasing competitiveness in the process where quantitative change triggers qualitative change.
Cities are the centers of economic, political, cultural, and social activities. To profoundly grasp the strategic orientation of intensive development, we must—within scientifically demarcated scales and development boundaries—promote the coordination of the economy, environment, and society in an intensive and efficient manner by optimizing spatial layouts, improving human settlement environments, and refining governance systems, thereby achieving development that is of higher quality, more efficient, and more sustainable. A city is a complex system formed by a vast number of elements and their interactions; the meaning of intensive development is exceptionally rich. At the economic level, it emphasizes innovation-driven growth, focusing on technological progress, institutional optimization, and management upgrades to improve total factor productivity under existing resource constraints. At the spatial level, it emphasizes the optimization of "stock" [3], focusing on intensive land use and the enhancement of spatial efficiency, seeking to resolve problems like the imbalance between workplace and residence or idle resources through urban renewal and transit-oriented development (TOD). At the environmental level, it focuses on green development, achieving the harmonious coexistence of man and nature through ecological protection, pollution control, and low-carbon transition. At the governance level, it emphasizes "fine-grained governance" (jingxi zhili), focusing more on the supply of high-quality public services such as education, healthcare, elderly care, and childcare, continuously enhancing residents' sense of gain, happiness, and security. At the cultural level, it emphasizes the protection and inheritance of historical culture, building civilized cities by shaping "urban name cards" and creating distinctive cultural landscapes.
Since the beginning of the New Era, our country's cities have entered a new period of development. The CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has profoundly grasped the laws of urban development under new circumstances, adhered to the Party’s leadership over urban work, and pushed China’s urban development to achieve historical successes. This Central Urban Work Conference made a major judgment regarding the historical orientation of China's urban development, summarized as the "Two Shifts" [4]. Standing at this new historical juncture and actively adapting to changes in the situation, we must firmly grasp the strategic orientation of intensive development and improve the quality of urban development with greater targeting.
From the perspective of urban development laws, an urbanization rate of 30% to 70% is generally considered the interval of rapid development. Upon entering the middle and late stages of rapid urbanization, several prominent characteristics emerge. For instance, the speed of urbanization shifts from high-speed to medium-high-speed growth; urban development shifts to a stage where scale expansion and quality improvement are of equal importance; and the level of urban public services and management capacity may fail to meet the needs of rapid growth, potentially leading to a concentrated outbreak of various "urban diseases" [5]. Broadly speaking, problems caused by irrational urban development models will manifest, as the marginal utility of urban development gradually diminishes while resource, environmental, and social costs continue to increase. Most developed countries responded to these issues by promoting urban renewal and managing "stock" adjustments. Through continuous development, China has completed in several decades an urbanization process that took Western developed countries over a century. Urbanization has already entered its mid-to-late rapid development stage; by the end of 2024, the urbanization rate of the permanent resident population reached 67%, with 940 million people working and living in towns and cities. Meanwhile, the extensive expansion model formed during the process of high-speed urbanization has brought many problems. For example, excessive urban development intensity, imbalances between people and land, and "big city diseases" such as air pollution and traffic congestion have become prominent, affecting the sustainability of urban development. To effectively resolve these issues, there is an urgent need to correct erroneous tendencies such as the blind expansion of "spreading the pancake" [6]. Instead, based on recognizing, respecting, and following the laws of urban development, we must profoundly grasp the strategic orientation of intensive development. We must coordinate the three key links of planning, construction, and management, and promote the steady and long-term progress of high-quality urban development through measures such as improving the efficiency of existing space, optimizing resource utilization, reasonably demarcating urban development boundaries, and revitalizing idle or inefficient land.
From the perspective of development conditions, cities are the spatial carriers of economic activity; shifts in the stage of economic development inevitably constrain and guide urban development goals, forms, and drivers. Currently, China’s 19 urban agglomerations carry approximately 75% of the national population and contribute about 85% of the Gross Domestic Product, holding a vital position in the national economy. In the process of the synchronized development of new-type industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, urbanization serves as the carrier and platform. it provides the space for industrialization and informatization while driving the accelerated development of agricultural modernization, playing an irreplaceable role in integration. Having entered a new stage of development, the factor conditions, combination methods, and allocation efficiency of China's economic development have changed; the old combination of production functions is no longer sustainable. To this end, we regard adhering to high-quality development as the "unyielding principle" [7] of the New Era, striving to transform development models, optimize economic structures, and switch growth drivers, thereby promoting qualitative change through reforms in efficiency and power. China's economic development has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development, placing new and higher demands on urban development. Policy systems formed during past periods of incremental expansion—ranging from local debt management to fiscal and financial measures—no longer suit the needs of the evolving situation. Additionally, China's population development currently exhibits trends of falling birth rates, an aging society, and regional differentiation in population growth and decline. Growth in the urban population will gradually transition to a "plateau period," making it urgent to foster and strengthen new drivers of urban development through reform and opening up. Guided by the New Development Philosophy, and by profoundly grasping the strategic orientation of intensive development—capping total amounts, limiting capacity, revitalizing stock, optimizing increments, and improving quality—we can continuously enhance the quality of the urban environment, the people's quality of life, and urban competitiveness. This is also conducive to releasing the potential of internal demand, increasing labor productivity, and promoting social fairness, justice, and common prosperity for all, thereby helping to achieve an effective improvement in the quality of the economy and reasonable growth in its quantity.
From the perspective of the purpose of urban development, the core of a city is people; urban development must adhere to a people-centered approach. The essence of urbanization in Western capitalist countries is the urbanization of capital rather than the urbanization of people. Under the capitalist system, urban space becomes a special commodity integrated into the system of surplus value production; the purpose of urbanization remains the pursuit of profit maximization. China’s urbanization process is not driven by capital. Since the beginning of the New Era, our Party has made "serving the people heart and soul," providing "fine-grained" urban governance, and delivering excellent public services the core of urban work. We take the satisfaction and convenience of the people's lives as the critical standard for judging the success of urban work. Through continuous development, the living standards of Chinese residents have significantly improved. Having "become rich" [8], they now increasingly pursue a high-quality life and have higher expectations for livable urban environments. To better satisfy the people's aspiration for a better life, we must persist in the principle that "a people’s city is built by the people and for the people," and profoundly grasp the strategic orientation of intensive development. We must properly handle the internal connections between production space, living space, and ecological space. By focusing on the most immediate and practical interests of the people and continuously refining urban functions, we can improve the quality of urban development while ensuring that production space is intensive and efficient, living space is pleasant and appropriate, and ecological space is lush and beautiful, allowing the people to live more conveniently and happily.
Profoundly grasping the strategic orientation of intensive development requires accurately holding to the important principles of the "Five Shifts and Five More-Sos."
The Central Urban Work Conference proposed the "Five Shifts and Five More-Sos" [9] as important principles surrounding intensive urban development, clarifying the dialectics of performing urban work well. These principles must be upheld to grasp the strategic orientation of intensive development.
Overall, the "Five Shifts and Five More-Sos" constitutes a guiding and forward-looking governance framework. It is based on a profound summary of the experiences and lessons of global urban development, an understanding of future trends, and a grounded assessment of China’s basic national conditions as being in the primary stage of socialism. It is rooted in the new situations facing urban work on the new journey of the New Era and distilled from a comprehensive analysis of the current stage of development of the productive forces and China’s historical and cultural characteristics. These principles involve shifts in the concepts, methods, drivers, focus, and methodology of urban work. This represents a systemic transformation that is consistent with, yet advances with the times relative to, the "One Respect and Five Coordinations" [10] proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the 2015 Central Urban Work Conference. It clarifies the values and methodology of urban development, deepens the regular understanding of urban development with Chinese characteristics, and achieves a major breakthrough in the theory and practice of urban work. It enriches and develops Marxist urban theory and provides a scientific guide for intensive urban development in the New Era. Individually, each "shift" and "more-so" carries profound layers of meaning.
Shifting the philosophy of urban development and placing greater emphasis on being people-centered is an inherent requirement for building modernized People's Cities. Philosophy is the precursor to action; the philosophy of urban development determines its effectiveness. The essence of modernization is the modernization of people, and a modernized People's City should place a higher premium on being people-centered. For a period in the past, urban work in some locales exhibited a tendency of "valuing things over people." For instance, some cities were built larger and more beautiful, yet residents found it difficult to access schooling, medical care, and elderly care, making the lives of the masses inconvenient. It must be recognized that as an organic living organism, the person is the protagonist and the core of the city. The crux lies in twelve characters: "clothing, food, shelter, transportation, birth, aging, illness, death, peace, residence, labor, and leisure" [11]. Both the starting point and the ultimate goal of urban work should be the people. Deeply grasping the strategic orientation of urban connotative development requires shifting development philosophies away from "seeing things but not people" and toward a greater emphasis on being people-centered. This means that urban public investment must shift from physical forms toward focusing on service and welfare forms, with a greater emphasis on "investing in people." We must consistently revolve around the people's aspirations for a better life, integrating the philosophy of making life more comfortable for the masses into the entire process of urban planning, construction, development, and governance. This should be reflected in every detail, optimizing public services, improving the human settlement environment, and guaranteeing the wellbeing of people's livelihoods, striving to build cities into beautiful homes where people coexist harmoniously with one another and with nature.
Shifting the mode of urban development and placing greater emphasis on intensive and efficient growth is the key to improving the quality and level of urban development. The mode of development determines its quality. During the stage of high-speed economic growth, the scale of China's cities expanded and their land area increased, but this also produced problems such as the destruction of urban cultural context and character, as well as insufficient guarantees for urban safety and resilience. It must be recognized that cities are the places where various factor resources and socio-economic activities are most concentrated. Urban development cannot only consider expanding scale and economic benefits; it must balance the production needs, living needs, ecological needs, and safety needs of urban development. For example, if a city’s industry is excessively concentrated and its functions overly expanded, the population will become excessively clustered. Once the scale of population and economy exceeds the local water resource carrying capacity, groundwater must be over-extracted, leading to an imbalance between ecological and construction space, which inevitably reduces environmental capacity. Deeply grasping the strategic orientation of urban connotative development requires driving the shift in urban development modes from incremental expansion toward improving the quality and efficiency of existing stock, emphasizing intensive and efficient growth to obtain greater socio-economic benefits with fewer resource inputs. We must forge a development path characterized by resource conservation, low-carbon environmental protection, and quality priority by optimizing urban functional structures and spatial layouts, improving the level of intensive and economical use of resources and space, and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading.
Shifting the driving force of urban development and placing greater emphasis on characteristic development is an inevitable move to enhance the core competitiveness of cities. The driving force of urban development reflects a city's capacity for sustainable development. Conditions vary immensely across China; resource endowments, geographic environments, and development levels differ from city to city. However, in recent years, urban construction in some locales has lacked character and displayed monotonous styles, resulting in phenomena such as "a thousand cities featuring the same face" [12] and industrial homogenization. If everyone concentrates on a few specific "tracks" [13], locales will not only find it difficult to exercise their strengths but will also bring about resource waste. It must be recognized that every city has its own characteristic character and style, formed through the long-term accumulation of its natural geographic environment, socio-economic factors, and the production and lifestyles of its residents. Only by accurately identifying one's positioning within the overall national development framework—acting by "blowing the fire according to the wind and splitting the wood according to the grain" [14] and forming staggered development where "I have what others lack, I excel where others have, and I am unique where others excel"—can the driving force and vitality of urban development be strengthened. Deeply grasping the strategic orientation of urban connotative development requires driving the shift in urban development power from past reliance on traditional factor-driven models toward reliance on characteristic advantages, with a greater emphasis on characteristic development. By basing themselves on their own resource endowments and comparative advantages, actively integrating into the construction of the new development pattern, fully exerting the pivotal role of cities in dual circulation, and adopting measures suited to local conditions and specific cities, locales can enhance the core competitiveness of their cities and create a situation where "each person appreciates their own beauty, and all beauties are shared" [15].
Shifting the focus of urban work and placing greater emphasis on investment in governance is an important foundation for promoting high-standard urban renewal, high-level operation, and high-efficiency governance. For a period in the past, some urban development emphasized economic goals while lacking long-term planning, governance, and operation, exhibiting a tendency of "valuing construction while neglecting governance." For example, some cities focused on large squares, wide roads, and clusters of high-rise buildings, resulting in "half-finished" projects; some towns underwent large-scale demolition and construction, leading to the gradual disappearance of urban cultural characteristics, which was detrimental to improving the human settlement environment. It must be recognized that the city is an organic unity of production space, living space, and ecological space. By adhering to respecting nature, inheriting history, and maintaining green and low-carbon principles, and by strengthening refined governance, the sustainability and liveability of urban development can be improved. Deeply grasping the strategic orientation of urban connotative development requires shifting the focus of urban work from a greater emphasis on early-stage construction toward a greater emphasis on investment in governance. Only by placing greater emphasis on building governance capacity and relying on technological innovation, institutional innovation, and refined governance to enhance the efficiency and resilience of urban operations can we truly realize the modernization of urban governance and achieve the fundamental transformation of urban development from physical spatial expansion toward the optimization of social functions. This is also a test of the "performance outlook" [16] of urban builders and governors.
Shifting the methods of urban work and placing greater emphasis on overall coordination is a powerful guarantee for improving the urban work framework and better forming a collective synergy. Various factors such as the urban economy, population, industry, space, ecology, and culture are highly coupled, forming an organic unified whole. This dictates that urban work must establish systems thinking, conducting in-depth research and meticulous deployment regarding major issues concerning urban development, and systematically promoting work in all aspects. In the past, some urban management was characterized by "nine dragons ruling the water" [17], causing various types of chaos such as "drawing a prison on the ground" [18], local protectionism, and market fragmentation. To effectively respond to this situation, we must shift urban work methods, break the "one-mu-three-fen of land" [19] mindset, and transition from past work that highlighted single departments or fields toward collaborative cooperation across multiple departments and fields. Deeply grasping the strategic orientation of urban connotative development requires shifting urban work methods, placing more emphasis on overall coordination, and being adept at mobilizing the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of all parties to gather synergy for promoting high-quality development. We must strengthen the "systems concept," utilizing methods such as "integrating multiple plans into one," cross-departmental joint meetings, and "one-network access" to ensure that the "visible hand" of the government, the "invisible hand" of the market, and the "industrious hand" of the citizens all exert force in the same direction, breaking down fragmented departmental divisions and administrative barriers to realize the comprehensive and coordinated development of urban space, economy, society, and ecology.
Firmly Grasping Key Tasks to Unswervingly Promote High-Quality Urban Development
The Central Urban Work Conference deployed the key urban work tasks of "One Optimization and Six Constructions." The "Opinions" make specific deployments for promoting high-quality urban development in terms of optimizing the modernized urban system and cultivating and expanding new driving forces for urban development. These strategic deployments represent a systematic plan based on the overall situation of the Party and state's cause, founded on a deep grasp of the strategic orientation of urban connotative development. They aim both at solving prominent current problems and systematically planning for long-term development. They are responsive strategies for deeply grasping and actively adapting to changes in the urban development situation, clearly sketching out a "construction blueprint" for promoting high-quality development. We must integrate these requirements and deployments and implement them without fail.
Optimize a multicentric, networked, and modernized urban system. A modernized urban system should promote the coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and small towns, ensuring that different types of cities have carrying capacity and that different groups of people can find suitable spaces for work and life. To this end, focusing on improving the comprehensive carrying capacity of cities for population and socio-economic development, we must accelerate the cultivation and expansion of urban clusters and metropolitan areas, promote the interconnection of rail transit, suburban rapid lines, and highway networks, and construct an urban network with clear nodes, distinct levels, and mutual support. We will advance urbanization with county seats as important carriers in a classified manner, focusing on characteristic resources and industrial chain development, guiding supporting industries, public services, and living facilities to extend to the county level, promoting the dual improvement of urbanization quality and population absorption capacity in county seats, and realizing the coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and small towns.
Develop new quality productive forces according to local conditions and accelerate the construction of innovative cities. Innovation is the "key variable" and "greatest incremental factor" for winning the future. As centers of economic development, cities are the main battlefields for technological innovation and industrial development. We must seize the opportunity of the in-depth development of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, basing ourselves on our own resource endowments and industrial foundations to build a modernized industrial system. We will improve the full-chain industrial innovation system and promote the deep coupling of the innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain, and talent chain. We will improve innovation policies, strengthen factor guarantees, and build high-level innovation platforms and open incubation networks. We will create a fair, transparent, high-quality, and efficient business environment, fully stimulate the vitality of various innovation entities, continuously enhance the endogenous driving force and radiation capacity of urban innovative development, and fully exert the pivotal role of cities in dual circulation.
Deeply practice the People's City philosophy and promote the construction of liveable cities. The city is the people's city. We must balance and optimize public service resources in education, healthcare, elderly care, culture, and transportation, effectively improving the coverage and accessibility of basic public services. We will persist in the integrated planning of population, industry, towns, and transportation, optimizing urban spatial structures to promote the balance between jobs and housing and the integration of industry and city. We will orderly advance urban renewal actions, focusing on key areas such as old residential communities and shantytowns, comprehensively promoting infrastructure improvement, public space renovation, and the protection of historical character. We will adhere to the positioning that "houses are for living in, not for speculation," accelerate the construction of a new model for real estate development, promote the transition from "having a place to live" to "living in quality housing," and make cities truly beautiful homes where the broad masses of citizens live and work in peace and happiness.
Adhere to the harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature and promote the construction of beautiful cities. We must firmly establish and practice the philosophy that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," adhering to precise, scientific, and law-based pollution control, and consolidating the achievements of ecological environmental governance. We will strictly implement the red lines for territorial spatial planning and control and strictly guard urban development boundaries. We will accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of traditional industries such as steel, chemicals, and building materials, deepen energy conservation and emission reduction in key areas such as electric power and construction, and improve the support systems for green finance, carbon markets, and technological innovation. Guided by the "dual carbon" goals, we will accelerate the construction of a clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy system, driving cities into a new sustainable development model characterized by resource conservation, environmental friendliness, and circular recycling. We will guide citizens to adopt lifestyles such as green travel, waste sorting, and low-carbon consumption, forming a social consensus on green development.
Coordinate development and safety and promote the construction of resilient cities. Safety and reliability are prominent characteristics of resilient cities. We must comprehensively promote the renovation and upgrading of old urban infrastructure and the construction of new infrastructure. Through means such as smart pipe networks, green buildings, and intelligent transportation, we will make urban operations safer, more orderly, smarter, and more efficient. We will improve the whole-lifecycle management mechanism for buildings covering planning, design, construction, use, maintenance, and demolition, and strictly implement systems for house safety assessment and hidden danger investigation. We will improve the urban natural disaster prevention system, strengthening monitoring, early warning, and emergency response capabilities for risks such as geological disasters, floods, typhoons, and earthquakes. We will concentrate forces to carry out specialized rectification of risks and hidden dangers in key areas such as gas, fire protection, underground spaces, and hazardous chemicals, improving the urban public safety system and the social security prevention and control system, so that the broad masses of people can live in the city with greater peace of mind, reassurance, and comfort.
Harness Socialist Core Values and promote the construction of civilized cities. We will improve the system for protecting and inheriting historical culture, refine the urban character management system, and systematically protect important spatial carriers such as historical districts, cultural sites, and traditional character areas that embody urban historical inheritance and regional characteristics. We encourage the integration of cultural elements such as calligraphy, traditional opera, craftsmanship, and etiquette into urban spaces, community life, and artistic expression. We will enrich the public cultural service supply system, optimize the allocation of cultural resources, and promote the opening of cultural facilities such as libraries, art galleries, and intangible cultural heritage exhibition venues to citizens. We will systematically promote the moral construction of citizens and public civilized guidance, enhancing civic literacy and the level of social civilization. Through the coordinated promotion of cultural protection, service supply, and spiritual cultivation, we will comprehensively build a modernized civilized city image with profound cultural heritage, distinct Chinese characteristics, and the character of the times.
Leverage digital technologies to empower urban governance and promote the construction of smart cities. Relying on new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, we must coordinately advance the construction of "City Brains" [20] and promote the digital and intelligent transformation of urban operation and governance methods to enhance the precision and synergy of urban governance. We must accelerate the realization of the digitization, proceduralization, and integration of government services to improve the convenience and accessibility of urban public service provision. We should encourage the construction of intelligent mobility networks, achieve efficient coordination between traffic monitoring, command dispatch, and emergency response, and accelerate the formation of a developmental framework for modernized smart cities.
(Drafted by: The Research Group of the National Academy of Economic Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) Source: People's Daily, September 2, 2025, Page 9 Online Editor: Tongxin