Construct a "two horizontal three vertical" urbanization strategy

The core of urbanization is the "urbanization of people", which is generally reflected in a decline in the rural population and a growth in the urban population. The future lies in medium and small cities.

The National Plan of Main Functional Areas (abbreviated as NPoMFA, published by State Council, 2010) has made arrangements for an overall blueprint of urbanization, proposing a "two horizontal three vertical" strategic pattern of urbanization.

The strategy seeks to expand economic growth and activity from east to west, and from south to north by taking the Land Bridge (Eurasian Transcontinental Railroad) route and the route along Yangtze River as two horizontal axes, and the east coast, the Beijing-Harbin-Beijing-Guangzhou route, and the Baotou-Kunming route as the three vertical axes. A number of cities along the axes will be designated as centers for an urbanization strategy framework managing other constituent urbanized areas and cities.

Experts claim that uncontrolled development of cities would lead to an unmanageable urban sprawl, while the concept of urban agglomeration is to form a collection of medium and small cities that have regional strengths and complement their existing differences. In other words, these agglomerations can also be considered as "organic megacities".

Xu Fengxian, senior researcher of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says that the "two horizontal three vertical" urbanization strategy will promote the formation and development of urban agglomerations, which will accelerate the development of the medium and small cities affected.