Henan Daily App Reporter Hu Jucheng Henan Daily All-media Reporter Liu Hongbing
The Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City, a concept that cannot be found in Baidu Baike, has recently thrived quietly in the hearts of many Xinyang people like camellias bloomed in the Dabie Mountain.
The China (Xinyang) Seminar for Habitat Technology and Better Life was held in Xinyang on December 17. Experts and scholars gathered together to formulate a blueprint and find out good solutions.
Draw on the Wisdom of the Masses, and Make a Better Future (Photo by Yang Jingjing)
Although the clear definition is still under discussion by experts, the goal of “Xinyang Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City” is pretty clear: Xinyang will actively implement new development concepts, comprehensively use innovative technologies, and fully utilize the integration of technology and life, human settlements and nature, urban and rural areas, modernity and tradition, so as to build Xinyang into a beautiful and resilient home where architecture and landscape could complement each other perfectly, people and nature could live in harmony, industry and life could interact with each other positively, and human settlement could integrate with intellisense.
Cai Songtao, Xinyang Municipal Party Committee Secretary and Mayor, said that Xinyang kept “two better” in mind and took the people’s aspiration towards better lives as its goal. With real situations being taken into consideration, careful research was carried out to clarify the way to green rising and determine the transformation development path for the city, “developing human settlement technology industry vigorously, accelerating the construction of urban and rural future communities and jointly building the Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City”, so as to comprehensively create the vision of “Find Quality Life in Xinyang”.
The Major Aspiration is to Live a Quality Life (Photo by: Liu Hongbing)
“Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City” is a brand-new goal for Xinyang who has been making great efforts to become prosperous, which is also a great dream for over 9 million people living in old revolutionary base areas and the full embodiment of Dabie Mountain Spirit in the new era, “keeping the faith, having the overall situation in mind, forging ahead in unity and being brave to take the lead”.
Secretary General’s Expectation
From September 16th to 17th, 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Henan and Xinyang was his first stop, which impressed a lot of people living in the old revolutionary base areas. He inspected on things in Xinyang carefully and talked with local people, seeing the changes happened over the past years and learning from people about their new lives. With the development of the old revolutionary areas at his mind and considering the development direction in the future, he put forward the goal of “the old revolutionary base area should be built better, so that the people in the area could live a better life”.
Keep General Secretary’s Expectation in Mind (Photo by Yang Jingjing)
General Secretary’s expectation, “Two Better”, injected a strong impetus into the development of Xinyang and provided the fundamental path to follow. Since then, “Opinions of the State Council on Supporting the Revitalization and Development of Old Revolutionary Areas in the New Era”, “Several Opinions of the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government on Supporting and Accelerating Revitalization and Development of Old Revolutionary Areas in Dabie Mountain, Henan” and “Implementation Opinions of the People’s Government of Henan Province on Supporting the Revitalization and Development of Old Revolutionary Areas in the New Era” were successively issued, which became the solid support for the acceleration of old revolutionary areas’ revitalization and development.
With the key national strategies launched previously, the Dabie Mountain Revolutionary Old Area Revitalization and Development Plan and the Huaihe Ecological Economic Belt Development Plan, Xinyang ushered in the best period of strategic opportunity in the history of its development.
“Focusing on the implementation of the ‘two better’ major requirements, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Xinyang will focus on key areas of the human settlement technology industry, actively respond to the industrial transfer of the Greater Bay Area, build an industrial collaborative innovation zone, and create an international garden city, park city and healthy city, so as to make Xinyang a ‘two better’ demonstration city and a dreamland of better life”, said Cai Songtao loudly.
It Has Advantages to Develop.
On December 16, experts and scholars came to Henan Modern Zhumei Home Furnishings Co., Ltd. in Xinyang International Home Furnishing Town right before the seminar. An intelligent and automatic machine tools in the modern workshop subverted people’s inherent perception of furniture manufacturing.
As a subsidiary of Country Garden Holdings Company Limited, Modern Zhumei Group, known as “aesthetician in whole house decoration” and pursuing “technology + innovation” and “whole house customization + smart home”, invested about 2.5 billion yuan to build its base in Xinyang, which is one out of four national intelligent manufacturing bases it has built across the country.
Smart Home, Being Flourished in Xinyang (Photo by Liu Hongbing)
A large number of industrial leading companies and scientific research institutions, including Modern Zhumei, Mingyang Smart Energy, Sunny Optical, and Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences have found their places in Xinyang. In addition to major strategic opportunities, Xinyang’s unique location, transportation, human resources and development advantages are also the main reasons for those companies being here.
Xinyang, located in the southern region of Henan, links the north and south and is close to Anhui and Hubei. Railways, expressways, and national highways are interwoven within the range of Xinyang, with the expressway network of “three vertical ways and two horizontal ways” formed initially. It only takes 4 hours to reach Henan, Hubei, Anhui and Shaanxi Provinces from Xinyang, and 8-hour drive could bring anyone to 144 prefecture-level cities in the country, ranking third in the country in terms of travel speed and convenience. Shipping is available through Huaihe River. Minggang Airport is open to more than 20 large and medium-sized cities across the country. The construction of HuangChuan Airport has been approved, which is a great opportunity for Xinyang old revolutionary area’s revitalization.
Xinyang has a total population of 9.1 million and a permanent population of 6.23 million, ranking first among the three provinces and six cities in the Dabie Mountain area. In addition to its sufficient human resources, it also enjoys a great demographic dividend.
After several years of making efforts to catch up with industrial frontier, Xinyang has initially formed a batch of 100 billion-level industrial clusters such as food processing, textile and clothing, new building materials, electronic information, and equipment manufacturing. Modern service industries such as tourism across the city, e-commerce logistics, and financial services have flourished. The city’s high-tech enterprises have grown to 151, showing significant advantages.
Lai Ming, deputy secretary general of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the Central Committee of Jiu San Society, attended the seminar and pointed out that the development of human settlement science must be guided by high-quality and sustainable development. With new development concepts leading the way, it is important to accelerate the development of green industries. He advocated green lifestyles and the promotion of green transformation of urban-rural construction. It is necessary to promote the coordinated development of urban and rural construction and the living environment to form a positive interaction between the human settlement technology industry and a quality life in urban and rural areas. With the industry and housing complementing each other, a development landscape is formed, integrating industry with urban development and combining livable environment with ideal workplace.
People Are Satisfied with Their Lives
Coming to Henan Shengde Health Care Center, He Xiaozhang, a 97-year-old veteran who participated in the Battle of Shangganling to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, is enjoying his old age here with his wife Fan Xiuying. Their sons and daughter who are far away could check their living status through the Internet at any time, chat with them via video, and enjoy family relationships even if they are thousands of miles away.
There are not only retirement rooms and nutrition dining rooms, which are comparable to star-rated hotels, but also music and dance studios, sunshine halls, chess and card rooms, calligraphy and painting rooms that are favored by the elderly, as well as a children’s playground for kids. Since it is under the operation from the same responsible entity as Xinyang People’s Hospital, considerate medical services could be provided. Since the trial operation in November last year, more than 120 elderly people have been recuperating here.
A Healthy and Quality Life (Photo by Liu Hongbing)
Liu Xuan, Secretary of the Party Committee of Xinyang Yangshan New District, said frankly that the new district was adhering to people’s livelihood, established a number of high-quality parks and gardens, renovated and upgraded a number of arterial roads, and built a number of public service facilities including hospitals, schools, and urban study rooms. However, there is still a big gap from the quality life that people are yearning for.
Lai Ming pointed out that Xinyang proposed a development path of urban and rural transformation, which was to vigorously develop the human settlement technology industry, accelerate the construction of future urban and rural communities, and jointly construct the Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City. The promising path, hitting the target and being feasible, is exactly the right way to follow for urban and rural development. The way of “Find Quality Life in Xinyang” will surely become wider and better.
At present, Yangshan New District aims at building the core area of Xinyang Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City as soon as possible, insists on technological innovation, promote the development of human settlement technology industry, facilitates the transformation and upgrading of traditional homes in Xinyang International Home Furnishing Industrial Town to green smart homes, and strives to build a national-level home furnishing industry so as to create a national innovation highland of human settlement technology. Yangshan New District also accelerates the overall planning and construction of Beihu Eco-Industrial Park, and strives to create a green engine and a smart innovation park with a demonstration and driving effect. Taking the demonstration area of “Find Quality Life in Xinyang” as the target, centered on people’s aspiration towards quality life, and adhering to humanism, ecology and digitization, Yangshan New District strives to build ten realistic scenarios such as future neighborhoods, education, health, entrepreneurship, construction, low carbon, transportation, property management, governance, and culture. Establishment of the pilot areas is the first step, and then efforts will be made to build a future community model in the province and even the whole country.
How to Realize the Target
It is reported that Xinyang will promote the construction of China’s first “Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City” with the strength of the whole city. It will focus on the key areas of the human settlement technology industry, build nine industrial clusters of human technology, and comprehensively build an industrial support platform. Xinyang also plans to build 50 urban future communities and 100 rural future communities so as to create an integrated perception platform. By creating an international garden city, a park city and a healthy city, Xinyang could create a joint-constructed and shared platform, so that the “human settlement technology industry” could be the most solid guarantee for the quality life of the people living in the old revolutionary areas.
The Good Practices in the Old Revolutionary Areas will Shed Light on the Way Towards Future (Photo by Yang Jingjing)
In order to realize this, the Xinyang Municipal Government decided to hire a group of top talents in urban construction, development and reform as consultants. Li Xiang, Xu Hanguo and Liang Jun, three well-known experts in the industry, were hired as the first batch of chief government consultants, with Li Xiang being the chief consultant of the Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City construction, Xu Hanguo being the chief consultant of green financial reform, and Liang Jun being the chief consultant of cultural creativity.
Li Xiang outlined a “roadmap” for Xinyang Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City: applying the UNEP SUC Guidelines for Sustainable Cities and Communities, based on three levels of centralized development of human settlement technology industry, building of urban and rural future communities, joint-construction of multi-city and public participation, Xinyang Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City could build a future human settlement demonstration area and human settlement technology industrial cluster with characteristics of the Central Plains and reaching the international standards.
On the blueprint drawn by Xinyang, there are clear plans for the future human settlement demonstration area and the human settlement technology industrial cluster: Yangshan New District will be the core start-up area of Xinyang’s future human settlement sci-tech city; Shangtianti will build a human settlement industrial cluster of green building and emergency industry; Nanwan and Jigongshan will build Xinyang human settlement digital industry, life health and cultural creativity area; Xinyang High-tech Zone, Pingqiao, Laihe, Luoshan will build a cluster of smart human settlement electronic information and equipment manufacturing; Huangchuan, Guangshan and Huangkai District will create a cluster of green food, equipment manufacturing, and modern logistics; Gushi will create a cluster of fashionable home textiles and electronic information; Xixian and Huaibin will create a cluster of fashionable home textiles; Xinxian will create a human settlement life and health cluster; Shangcheng will build a cluster of human settlement equipment manufacturing.
Quality Life in Urban and Rural Areas (Photo by Liu Hongbing)
In order to comprehensively promote the investment attraction for the construction of Xinyang Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City, and vigorously promote the industrial application and international cooperation of human settlement technology, Xinyang will hold the first “International Forum on Human Settlement Technology and Urban-Rural Development” in April next year, which will be the first international forum with the theme of human settlement technology in China.
The forum will invite relevant ministries and commissions, domestic and foreign scientific organizations, top scientists, academicians, representatives of human settlement technology companies, universities and scientific research institutions, etc. Centered on various topics in the field of human settlements science and technology, such as “resilient city”, “future community”, “smart home”, “industrialization of buildings”, “artificial intelligence”, “resources and environment”, “remote sensing and earth big data” and so on, in-depth discussions will be carried out, so as to build the first international exchange platform of human settlement technology in China. This high-profile, high-level and international annual event of human settlement technology industry held in China will help the construction of China’s first Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City be built in Xinyang, one of the old revolutionary areas.
Find Quality Life in Xinyang, Future Human Settlement Sci-Tech City!
Editor: Liu Hongbing
