Transcending the Logic of Capital: The Innovation and Development of the People-Centered Path of New-Type Urbanization

Introduction

引 言

The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC pointed out that Chinese-path modernization is socialist modernization led by the Communist Party of China. It contains elements common to the modernizations of all countries, but it is more characterized by Chinese features based on China’s own conditions. As the necessary path for a country with a large population to achieve modernization, Chinese-path urbanization, that is, people-centered new-type urbanization, must fully recognize the common features of urbanization in all countries, while also integrating the Chinese characteristics formed by the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. Only in this way can it transcend the logic of capital inherent in capitalist urbanization, inherit and develop the logic of the people, and forge a path of modernization different from that of the West. Otherwise, the Chinese-path urbanization path is highly likely to repeat the mistakes of urban crises in Western capitalist countries, making it difficult to achieve people-centered new-type urbanization development, and ultimately difficult to realize the goals of Chinese-path modernization. To this end, the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese-Path Modernization” [n1] adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee made work arrangements for further improving the systems and mechanisms of new-type urbanization, and clearly put forward the core concept that “cities are built by the people and for the people.” Subsequently, the “Five-Year Action Plan for Deeply Implementing the People-Centered New-Type Urbanization Strategy” [n2] issued by the State Council on July 31, 2024, proposed that “people-centeredness” is the fundamental guideline of the new-type urbanization strategy, requiring that the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population be taken as the primary task, promoting the comprehensive development of individuals, advancing social fairness and justice, and allowing all residents to share in the fruits of modernization. On July 15, 2025, Xi Jinping further emphasized at the Central Urban Work Conference that “China’s urbanization is transitioning from a period of rapid growth to a period of stable development, and urban development is shifting from a stage of large-scale incremental expansion to a stage focused on improving the quality and efficiency of the existing stock. Urban work must deeply grasp and proactively adapt to these changes in circumstances, transform the concept of urban development, and pay greater attention to people-centeredness.” In short, deeply advancing people-centered new-type urbanization is a major strategic decision made by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core in the New Era. It is the latest theoretical achievement of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times and a major innovation in the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

党的二十大报告指出，中国式现代化是中国共产党领导的社会主义现代化，既有各国现代化的共同特征，更有基于自己国情的中国特色。作为实现人口大国现代化的必由之路，中国式城市化，亦即以人为本的新型城镇化,既要充分认识世界各国城市化的共性特征，也要结合中国特色社会主义制度所形成的中国特色，唯有如此，才能超越资本主义城市化的资本逻辑,继承和发展人民逻辑,走出一条不同于西方的现代化路径。否则，中国式城市化道路极有可能会重蹈西方资本主义国家城市危机的覆辙，难以实现以人为本的新型城镇化发展,也难以最终达成中国式现代化目标。为此，党的二十届三中全会通过的《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革 推进中国式现代化的决定》就进一步完善新型城镇化的体制机制做出了工作部署，并明确提出“人民城市人民建、人民城市为人民”的核心理念。随后，国务院于2024年7月31日印发的《深入实施以人为本的新型城镇化战略五年行动计划》又提出，“以人为本”是新型城镇化战略的根本遵循，要求把农业转移人口市民化作为首要任务，推动人的全面发展，促进社会公平正义，让全体居民共享现代化成果。2025年7月15日，习近平在中央城市工作会议上进一步强调，“我国城镇化正从快速增长期转向稳定发展期，城市发展正从大规模增量扩张阶段转向存量提质增效为主的阶段。城市工作要深刻把握、主动适应形势变化，转变城市发展理念，更加注重以人为本”。总之，深入推进以人为本的新型城镇化是新时代以习近平同志为核心的党中央作出的重大战略决策，是马克思主义中国化的最新理论成果和中国特色社会主义政治经济学的重大创新。

I. A Comparative Analysis of Capital Participation in Urban Spatial Production Driving Urbanization Development under Different Institutional Frameworks

一、不同制度框架下资本参与城市空间生产推动城市化发展的比较分析

Looking at the general laws of world urbanization development, it is a natural historical process that no country can skip. It is not only manifested as the process of transformation and flow of production factors such as capital, land, and labor between urban and rural areas, but also as the process of these production factors participating in rural spatial production and urban spatial production. When capital factors combine with production factors such as labor and land to complete urban spatial production, the general characteristics of capital will lead to the convergence of urbanization development paths across countries. Of course, the particularities exhibited by capital under different institutional frameworks will also lead to differentiation in the urbanization development paths of different countries.

纵观世界城市化发展的一般规律，它是任何国家都不可逾越的自然历史过程，其不仅表现为资本、土地和劳动力等生产要素在城乡之间转换和流动的过程，同时也表现为这些生产要素参与到乡村空间生产和城市空间生产的过程。当资本要素与劳动力、土地等生产要素结合进而完成城市空间生产时，便会由于资本的一般特性，带来各国城市化发展路径的趋同化。当然也会由于不同制度框架下资本所表现出的特殊性，导致各国城市化发展路径上的差异化。

Considering that Marx regarded capital as “self-expanding value,” and this abstract determination is also called the “social formal determination” of capital, and only the “social formal determination” is the category that reflects the essence of capital. Therefore, the social formal determination of capital can be called “capital in general.” At the same time, starting from the class content and specific social relations hidden behind the formal determination, the social content determination of capital can be called “capital in particular.” Marx clearly pointed out: “As self-expanding value, capital not only contains class relations, but also contains a specific social nature based on the existence of labor as wage labor. It is a movement, a cyclical process passing through different stages, and this process itself contains three different forms of the cyclical process. Therefore, it can only be understood as movement, not as a static thing.” [n3] Thus, the profit-seeking nature, mobility, and limitlessness of capital belong to the category of “capital in general,” which is also the social formal determination of capital, and are properties common to capital in different social formations. On the other hand, Marx used the analytical method of dialectical materialism to profoundly reveal the essence of capital. He did not simply equate capital with money or general value capable of realizing value expansion, but examined it within specific historical dimensions and social relations. This belongs to the category of “capital in particular.” That is, the nature of capital determined and influenced by specific ownership relations, or the social content determination of capital, is “capital in particular.” Among these, in capitalist society, where private ownership of the means of production is absolutely dominant, the resulting exploitative, predatory, and greedy characteristics of capital constitute the “capital in particular” of capitalist society. Under the influence of socialist public ownership, the people-centered nature and positive externalities of capital, which moves with the goal of common prosperity for all the people, constitute the “capital in particular” of socialist society.

考虑到马克思将资本视作“自行增殖的价值”,而这种抽象规定又称作资本的“社会的形式规定性”,且只有“社会的形式规定性”才是反映资本本质的范畴。所以，可以将资本的社会的形式规定性称为“资本一般”,同时从隐藏在形式规定性背后的阶级内容和特定的社会关系出发，将资本的社会的内容规定性称为“资本特殊”。马克思明确指出：“资本作为自行增殖的价值，不仅包含着阶级关系，包含着建立在劳动作为雇佣劳动而存在的基础上的一定的社会性质。它是一种运动，是一个经过各个不同阶段的循环过程，这个过程本身又包含循环过程的三种不同的形式。因此，它只能理解为运动，而不能理解为静止物。”由此，资本的逐利性、运动性和无限性就是“资本一般”的范畴，也是资本的社会的形式规定，是不同社会形态资本所共有的性质。另一方面，马克思运用唯物辩证法的分析方法，对资本的本质进行了深刻的揭示。他并未将资本简单等同于能够实现价值增殖的货币或一般价值，而是将其置于特定的历史维度和社会关系中进行考察，而这便是属于“资本特殊”的范畴。即特定的所有制关系所决定和影响的资本性质，或是资本的社会的内容规定性即为“资本特殊”。其中资本主义社会由于生产资料私有制占绝对主导，所产生的资本的剥削特性、掠夺特性和贪婪特性就是资本主义社会的“资本特殊”;而在社会主义公有制影响下资本以全体人民共同富裕为目标而运动的人民性和正外部性等则是社会主义社会的“资本特殊”。

The general characteristics of capital’s profit-seeking and mobility determine that the development of urbanization must be synchronized with the development of industrialization, and that world urbanization will inevitably become an important engine driving regional economic growth. In the process of combining with production factors such as land and labor, capital will strive to shorten the circulation and turnover time of urban and rural production factors in participating in spatial production, thereby achieving growth in industrial profits and urban economic development. This is the internal driving force of world urbanization development. However, under the capitalist institutional framework, the exploitative and predatory characteristics of capital determine that Western capitalist countries will form an urbanization development model dominated by the logic of capital. Under the institutional framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the people-centered nature of capital and other characteristics will create a people-centered new-type urbanization development model.

资本逐利和运动的一般特性决定了城市化的发展必然与工业化发展相同步，且世界城市化必然成为推动地区经济增长的重要引擎。在与土地和劳动力等生产要素结合的过程中，资本会致力于缩短城乡生产要素在参与空间生产过程中的循环和周转时间，进而实现工业利润的增长和城市经济的发展，这是世界城市化发展的内驱动力。但资本主义制度框架下，资本的剥削性和掠夺性等特性则决定了西方资本主义国家会形成以资本逻辑为主导的城市化发展模式；而中国特色社会主义制度框架下，资本的人民性等特性则会造就以人为本的新型城镇化发展模式。

Specifically, in Western capitalist countries, capital is more embodied as a production relation of exploitation and being exploited. At this time, the process of urban spatial production will exhibit the characteristics of the logic of capital: accumulation for the sake of accumulation, production for the sake of production. Urban spatial production will take serving the self-expansion of capital as its sole goal. On the one hand, surplus capital completes spatial fixes through the vehicle of land urbanization; on the other hand, capitalists use the urbanization of people as a means to complete the process of spatial capitalization. From then on, urbanization is completely reduced to a means and tool for capitalists to pursue surplus value. Under the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, not only does state-owned capital dominate, weakening the adverse effects of capital’s profit-seeking and blindness, but also the Communist Party of China, which takes the people’s standpoint as its fundamental standpoint, leads state-owned capital in participating in urban spatial production, which will amplify the people-centered nature that urbanization construction should embody. At this time, the urbanization process will exhibit the characteristics of “people’s cities, built by the people, shared by the people,” and the process of urban spatial production will unfold to serve the ever-growing needs of all the people for a better life.

具体来看，在西方资本主义国家，资本更多地体现为一种剥削与被剥削的生产关系，此时城市空间生产过程就会表现出为了积累而积累、为了生产而生产的资本逻辑特征。城市空间生产会以服务于资本增殖为唯一目标。一方面，过剩资本以土地城市化为载体完成空间修复；另一方面，资本家又以人的城市化为手段来完成空间资本化过程。自此，城市化就完全沦为资本家追逐剩余价值的手段和工具。而在中国特色社会主义制度下，不仅国有资本占主导，削弱了资本的逐利性和盲目性所带来的不利影响，同时以人民立场为根本立场的中国共产党领导国有资本参与城市空间生产，还会放大城市化建设所应体现的人民性。此时城市化过程就会表现出“人民城市、人民建设、人民共享”的特征，城市空间生产过程也会以服务于全体人民日益增长的美好生活需要而展开。

Further combining this with spatial production under commodity economy conditions, “space can be sold; it possesses exchange value and use value.” Here, the use value of space refers to its utility, the function of space to satisfy people’s experience and daily life needs. Beyond this, the saving of time through space can also be regarded as a kind of spatial use value. As Lefebvre pointed out, “He is buying a habitable space. … What he is also buying is a specific distance — the distance from his dwelling to other places, to the commercial center, the workplace, places of leisure, culture, and decision-making. Here, time once again plays a role.” As for the exchange value of space, “Exchange value — as Marx, following the ‘classical economists,’ explained in relation to products — is expressed in money. In the past, people bought or leased land; today, people buy (and, less frequently, lease) volumes of space: rooms, floors, apartments, units, balconies, various facilities (swimming pools, tennis courts, parking garages, etc.). Every exchangeable place is incorporated into the chain of commercial transactions, involving supply, demand, and price.” Therefore, it refers to the abstract value embodied by space when it is exchanged as a commodity in the market, usually measured by rent, land price, or commercial profit, such as real estate prices, office rents, and property transaction prices. Considering that the dialectical contradiction of space constitutes the internal mechanism of the operation of social relations, and that “without understanding the contradiction between use and exchange (use value and exchange value), daily life cannot be understood,” then, in the context of the commodification of space, a critical examination of the binary opposition between the use value and exchange value of space can not only reveal the spatial logic of capital accumulation but also provide a key theoretical lens for deconstructing the heterogeneity of urban spatial production and the divergence of urbanization paths under different institutional frameworks.

进一步结合商品经济条件下的空间生产来看，“空间可以被出售，它具有了交换价值与使用价值”。其中空间使用价值即指空间的用途，是空间能够满足人们体验和日常生活需要的功能。除此之外，空间对于时间的节约也可视为一种空间使用价值。正如列斐伏尔所指出的，“他正在购买一个可居住的空间。……所购买的也是一种特定的距离——从购买者的居所到其他地方，到商业中心、工作地、休闲地、文化和决策地的距离。在这里，时间又一次发挥了作用”。而针对空间的交换价值而言，“交换价值——正如马克思仿照‘古典经济学家’对产品所作的说明——是用货币来表示的。在过去，人们购买或者租赁土地；而今天，人们购买的(以及较不经常地，租赁的)是空间的容积：房间、楼层、公寓、单元住宅、阳台、各种设施(游泳池、网球场、停车库，等等)。每一处可以交换的地方都纳入到商业交易的链条，涉及供给、需求和价格”。所以，它指代的是空间作为一种商品在市场中交换时所体现的抽象价值，通常以租金、地价或商业利润来衡量，如：地产价格、写字楼租金、房产交易价格等。考虑到空间的辩证矛盾构成了社会关系矛盾运作的内在机制,且“如果不理解使用和交换(使用价值和交换价值)之间的矛盾，就无法理解日常生活”。所以，在空间商品化的语境下，对空间使用价值与交换价值二元对立的批判性考察，不仅可以揭示资本积累的空间逻辑，更为解构不同制度框架下城市空间生产的异质性及城市化路径分化提供了关键的理论透镜。

Under the framework of the capitalist system, the development of capitalist urbanization is more often manifested as “exchange value swallowing up use value.” In this process, the producers of urban space (mainly capitalists) focus more on how to obtain the growth of the exchange value of space through the production of urban space, while the use value of space, which concerns the consumers of urban space (mainly workers), is relegated to a subordinate position or ignored. At this point, capitalist spatial production and the process of capitalist urbanization fall completely into the trap of the logic of capital of “accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake.” The production of urban space and the process of urbanization are no longer for the use of space (use value), but for the exchange of space (exchange value); accumulation is no longer for social needs, but for capital expansion. This mechanism of spatial production, divorced from actual use needs and the foundation of industrial development, often leads to structural imbalances in resource allocation and the idle waste of spatial resources, ultimately triggering a crisis of relative overproduction in spatial production, plunging urbanization into the predicament of “new towns” becoming “bedroom communities,” “empty towns,” or even “ghost towns.”

在资本主义制度框架下，资本主义城市化发展更多表现为“交换价值吞并了使用价值”。在此过程中，城市空间生产者(主要为资本家)会更多关注如何通过城市空间的生产，来获取空间交换价值的增长，而城市空间消费者(主要为劳动者)所关注的空间使用价值则被置于从属地位或被忽略。此时，资本主义空间生产与资本主义城市化过程也就彻底陷入了“为积累而积累，为生产而生产”的资本逻辑陷阱中。城市空间生产与城市化过程不再是为了空间的使用(使用价值),而是为了空间的交换(交换价值);积累也不再是为了社会需要，而是为了资本扩张。这种脱离现实使用需求和产业发展基础的空间生产机制，往往导致资源配置的结构性失衡以及空间资源的闲置浪费，最终引发空间生产的相对过剩危机，使城市化陷入“新城”变“卧城”“空城”乃至“鬼城”的困境。

For example, to address the crisis of falling profit rates caused by capital over-accumulation and to seek new growth points for the exchange value of space for surplus capital, the British government enacted the New Towns Act in 1946, planning to reconstruct the spatial pattern of Greater London by building ten satellite new towns. However, due to the lack of industrial support and supporting service facilities, many new towns degenerated into “bedroom communities.” Among them, Welwyn Garden City, even after more than half a century of development, had not reached its planned target population of 50,000 by the early 21st century, becoming a typical case of inefficient spatial utilization. Furthermore, Tokyo in Japan and Stockholm in Sweden experienced similar situations. In 1958, Japan enacted the Capital Region Urban Development Area Improvement Act, aiming to plan several new towns within a 100-kilometer radius of Tokyo. Among them, Tama New Town, although attracting population inflow, had weak industrial functions and relatively insufficient supporting infrastructure, ultimately becoming a typical “bedroom community.” And Kista, planned and built by Stockholm in the 1970s, also developed into an inefficient “bedroom community” due to the lack of job support. Moreover, the phenomenon of “new towns” turning into “ghost towns” due to excessive real estate development is also common. Spain once planned to turn the Seseña development zone on the outskirts of Madrid into a large satellite town accommodating 30,000 people with 13,000 housing units through real estate development. However, only 5,100 housing units were ultimately built, and the vast majority remained unoccupied, making it a representative European “ghost town.” Similarly, in Australia, according to data analysis from the official statistics bureau in 2023, there were nearly 23,982 dwellings formally identified as vacant in Sydney, while the number of vacant houses in the suburbs of the Melbourne metropolitan area (such as Burwood) doubled within a few years, reaching about 10,000 units. Although these problems can be temporarily alleviated through methods such as “spatial fix” and “the three circuits of capital” (e.g., urban renewal, functional replacement), the root cause of the crisis is not eliminated. It will only recur periodically and become an indissoluble structural and institutional problem constraining the development of capitalist urbanization.

例如，为应对资本过度积累所引发的利润率下降危机，并为过剩资本寻求空间交换价值新的增长点，1946年英国政府颁布《新城法案》,计划通过建设10座卫星新城来重构大伦敦地区的空间格局。然而，由于缺乏产业支撑与服务设施的配套，不少新城沦为了“卧城”。而其中，韦林花园城即使经过半个多世纪的发展，至21世纪初人口仍未达到规划预定的5万人目标，成为了空间低效利用的典型。此外，日本东京和瑞典斯德哥尔摩亦有类似经历。1958年日本出台的《首都圈城市开发地区整治法》,旨在东京100公里半径内规划多座新市镇。其中，多摩新市镇虽然吸引了人口的迁入，但其产业功能薄弱，其他基础设施配备相对不足，最终也成为了典型的“卧城”。而斯德哥尔摩于20世纪70年代规划建设的希斯塔城，也由于缺乏就业岗位支撑，发展成了低效的“卧城”。再者，因房地产过度开发所导致的“新城”变“鬼城”的现象也屡见不鲜。西班牙曾计划通过房地产开发将马德里郊区的塞塞尼亚开发区打造成容纳3万人、拥有1.3万套住房的大型卫星镇。然而，最终仅建成5 100套住房，且绝大多数无人入住，成为欧洲“鬼城”的代表。同样，在澳大利亚，据2023年官方统计局的数据分析显示，悉尼存在近23 982套被正式认定为空置的住宅，墨尔本大都市区市郊(如Burwood等)的空置房屋数量则在几年内翻倍，达到约1万套。尽管这些问题可通过“空间修复”和“资本三次循环”等方式(如城市更新、功能置换)来暂时性缓解，但危机的根源并未消除。它只会周期性反复出现，并成为制约资本主义城市化发展不可消解的结构性和制度性问题。

Different from the logic of the exchange value of space emphasized in urban spatial production under the framework of the capitalist system, the socialist system with Chinese characteristics places greater emphasis on the use value of space, practicing the core concept of “the people build the city, the people govern the city, and the people share the city.” As proposed at the 2016 Central Economic Work Conference, the positioning that “houses are for living in, not for speculation” should be upheld. Subsequently, at the 14th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, General Secretary Xi Jinping further pointed out, “We must accurately grasp the residential attribute of housing.” The proposal of the concept of “housing for living, not for speculation” marks a historic shift in China’s housing policy from commodification to livelihood orientation. From the perspective of policy evolution (see Figure 1), the proposal of the “housing for living, not for speculation” concept was not an isolated event, nor was it achieved overnight, but rather a systematic sublimation of a series of regulatory policies since the 1998 housing commercialization reform, including the “Eight National Measures” (2005), the “New Eight National Measures” (2011), the “Six National Measures” or “Fifteen National Measures” (2006), the “New Five National Measures” (2013), and the “Three Red Lines” (2020). [4]4 The “Eight National Measures” (2005), “New Eight National Measures” (2011), “Six National Measures” / “Fifteen National Measures” (2006), “New Five National Measures” (2013), and “Three Red Lines” (2020) are successive rounds of central government macro-control policies aimed at cooling the overheated real estate market and curbing speculation. This policy shift effectively curbed the financialization and speculative tendencies of the housing market through institutional correction, fundamentally establishing the policy dominance of the “use value” of space. From the perspective of theoretical connotation, returning to the use value of space means emphasizing that the essence of housing is to provide residents with stable, safe, and accessible living space, that is, emphasizing that the satisfaction of living space is the prerequisite and foundation for carrying out other spatial production activities. The establishment of the concept of “housing for living, not for speculation” is not just an update of a policy slogan, but a profound reshaping of the values of urban space. Empirical evidence also shows that accurately grasping the residential attribute of housing and returning to the use value of space can greatly promote the sustainable development of the real estate market and urban space. Taking Guangdong Province as an example, driven by the “housing for living, not for speculation” policy, the structure of real estate development investment has been continuously optimized, and the proportion of residential investment has increased significantly. Residential development investment grew from 497.532 billion yuan in 2012 to 1,243.831 billion yuan in 2021, with its share rising from 54.7% to 71.2%. During the same period, the proportion of residential investment in development investment in Yunnan Province also increased from 64.7% in 2012 to 73.7% in 2021. Driven by the policy of simultaneous rental and purchase, pilot cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen have also effectively promoted the standardized development of the rental market by establishing government housing rental platforms.

不同于资本主义制度框架下城市空间生产强调空间的交换价值逻辑，中国特色社会主义制度更加注重空间的使用价值,践行“人民城市、人民建设、人民共享”的核心理念。正如2016年中央经济工作会议所提出的，要坚持“房子是用来住的，不是用来炒的”的定位。随后，习近平总书记在中央财经领导小组第十四次会议上进一步指出，“要准确把握住房的居住属性”。“房住不炒”理念的提出，标志着我国住房政策完成了从商品化向民生化的历史性转变。从政策演进维度看(详见图1),“房住不炒”理念的提出并非孤立事件，也并非一蹴而就，而是对1998年住房商品化改革以来，包括“国八条”(2005)、“新国八条”(2011)、“国六条”或“国十五条”(2006)、“新国五条”(2013)以及“三条红线”(2020)等系列调控政策的系统性升华。这一政策转向通过制度性纠偏有效遏制了住房市场的金融化、投机化倾向，从根本上确立了空间“使用价值”的政策主导地位。从理论内涵层面看，回归空间使用价值，即强调住房的本质是为居民提供稳定、安全、可及的生活空间，即强调生活空间的满足是开展其他空间生产活动的前提与基础。“房住不炒”理念的确立，不只是政策口号的更新，更是对城市空间价值观的深层重塑。经验证据也表明，准确把握住房的居住属性，回归空间的使用价值，能极大推动房地产市场和城市空间的可持续发展。以广东省为例，在“房住不炒”政策的推动下，房地产开发投资结构不断优化，住宅投资占比显著提高，其中住宅开发投资从2012年的4 975.32元增长到2021年的12 438.31亿元，占比从54.7%提高到71.2%。同期，云南省住宅投资占开发投资的比重也从2012年的64.7%提升至了2021年的73.7%。而在租购并举政策推动下，广州、深圳等试点城市通过建立政府住房租赁平台，也有效促进了租赁市场的规范化发展。

Figure 1 Timeline of major housing market policies since 1998

图1 1998年以来住房市场的主要政策时间梳理线

II. Critique and Reflection on the Western Urbanization Path Centered on the Logic of Capital

二、对西方以资本逻辑为中心的城市化道路的批判与反思

Looking at the history of world urbanization, the rise in the level of urbanization has accompanied the global advance of industrialization. The Western capitalist countries, as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, thus became the earliest typical practitioners of the path of urbanization development. This also conforms to the general characteristics of the analysis above concerning capital’s participation in the production of urban space to drive urbanization. Therefore, when analyzing the urbanization process, Marxist scholars often take the analysis of urbanization in capitalist countries as their starting point. Through a profound critique and analysis of the capitalist path of urbanization centered on the logic of capital, they reveal the limitations and maladies of the capitalist path of urbanization development.

纵观世界城市化发展历程，城市化水平的提升伴随着工业化在全球范围内的推进。而西方资本主义国家作为工业革命的起源地，也就成为了最早实践城市化发展道路的典型。这也符合上文中有关资本参与城市空间生产推动城市化发展的一般性特征分析结论。所以，在分析城市化进程时，马克思主义学者们往往以分析资本主义国家的城市化为起点，通过对资本主义国家以资本逻辑为中心的城市化道路的深刻剖析和批判，揭示了资本主义城市化发展道路的局限性和弊病。

David Harvey points out: “Within the capitalist framework, I insist on interpreting the urban development process through the twin themes of accumulation and class struggle. … The important insight of Marxists lies in seeing the profit generated by capital’s domination of labor, and also seeing that if the bourgeoisie is to survive and reproduce itself, it must continuously expand the basis of profit.” He argues that capitalist urbanization involves not only the circulation, circuit, and turnover of capital (including the transformation of money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital), but also the spatial organizational forms of production and the transformation and adjustment of relations of production within space, and so on. Therefore, capital accumulation, or the logic of capital, is on the one hand the internal driving force for the development of urbanization in capitalist countries; on the other hand, it is also an important condition for the continued existence of capitalist relations of production. In other words, under the framework of the capitalist system, the urbanization process centered on the logic of capital is built upon the principle of accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake. In order to increase the speed of capital turnover and extract more surplus value, capitalist urban space can be expanded, renewed, or reconfigured without regulation. This is also a concrete manifestation of urbanization centered on the logic of capital. Of course, capital accumulation in the urbanization process not only achieves expansion in scale and extension in space, but also generates the risk of further expansion of exploitative and exploited relations of production. However, the fundamental contradictions inherent in the capitalist system cannot be completely eradicated through urbanization development centered on the logic of capital. “The more capitalism desperately seeks a spatial fix for its internal contradictions, the more intense the tension becomes in overcoming spatial contradictions through the production of space. The greater the overaccumulation, the faster the ensuing territorial expansion, and the more rapid the pace of geographical landscape transformation.” Although the crisis of relative overproduction caused by capital overaccumulation can be temporarily resolved through the urbanization process, in essence this merely imposes excessive debt burdens from the municipal districts onto rural areas. “In the long run, this only exacerbates the problem of overaccumulation and spreads it to broader domains. Due to the gap between trade imbalances and balance-of-payments disparities, when the crash comes, it triggers a chain of events.”

大卫·哈维指出：“在资本主义框架中，我坚持从积累和阶级斗争两个孪生主体来解读城市发展进程。……马克思主义者的重要洞察力在于，看到了资本支配劳动所产生的利润，还看到了资产阶级若要存活并且繁衍自身的话，必须不断扩大利润的基础。”他认为资本主义的城市化不光涉及资本流通、循环与周转(包括货币资本、生产资本以及商品资本的转化),还涉及生产的空间组织形式以及空间中生产关系的转换和调整等等。因此，资本积累或资本逻辑一方面是资本主义国家城市化得以发展的内在动因；另一方面也是资本主义生产关系得以存续的重要条件。换言之，资本主义制度框架下，以资本逻辑为中心的城市化过程是建立在为积累而积累、为生产而生产的原则之上。为了提高资本周转速度，获取更多的剩余价值，资本主义城市空间可以不受规制地被扩大、被更新或被重置，这也是以资本逻辑为中心的城市化的具体表现。当然，城市化过程中的资本积累不仅实现了规模上的扩张、空间上的扩展，还产生了剥削与被剥削生产关系进一步扩大化的风险。但资本主义制度所固有的基本矛盾根本无法通过以资本逻辑为中心的城市化发展来彻底根除。“资本主义越是为其内在矛盾拼命地寻求空间修复，通过空间生产来克服空间矛盾的张力就越紧张。过度积累越大，随之而来的地域性扩张就越快，地理景观转换的步伐也就越迅速”。资本过度积累所导致的生产相对过剩的危机，虽然短时间内可以通过城市化过程来化解，但实质上这只是将市辖区过度的债务负担强加给农村地区。“从长远来看，这些只不过是加剧了过度积累的问题，并且使之向更广阔的领域蔓延。由于贸易不平衡和支出平衡之间存在着差距，崩溃来临的时候，就会引发一连串事情”。

(I) The Logic of Capital in Urbanization Leads to “Urbanization of Land” Outpacing “Urbanization of People”

(一)城市化资本逻辑会导致“土地城市化”快于“人的城市化”

As the analysis above shows, combined with the differing roles that various factors of production play in the production of urban space, world urbanization can also be characterized as the process of “urbanization of land” and “urbanization of people.” This is a general rule of urbanization development. The former is primarily premised on the conversion of land factors between urban and rural areas, manifested in the transformation of rural land into urban land, and from the supply side, increasing the production of urban space through the expansion of urban land and spatial sprawl. The latter is primarily premised on the flow of labor factors between urban and rural areas, manifested in the transfer of surplus rural labor to cities, and from the demand side, increasing the consumption of urban space through the expansion of urban population size and market scale.

正如上文分析所示，结合不同生产要素在城市空间生产中发挥的作用差异，世界城市化又可表征为“土地城市化”和“人的城市化”过程， 这是城市化发展的一般通则。前者主要以城乡之间的土地要素转换为前提，体现为农村用地转化为城市用地，并从供给端通过城市土地的扩张和空间的蔓延来增加城市空间的生产；而后者则以城乡之间的劳动力要素流动为前提，体现为农村剩余劳动力人口向城市转移，并从需求端通过城市人口规模和市场规模的扩大来增加城市空间的消费。

Under the framework of the capitalist system, the urbanization process driven by the logic of capital is, in essence, the completion of urban spatial expansion and sprawl in the process of surplus urban capital seeking a “spatial fix.” Therefore, the “spatial fix” of surplus capital in the process of urban space production will focus more on alleviating the pressure of capital valorization caused by the decline in average profit rates in municipal districts through the method of “urbanization of land.” Meanwhile, “urbanization of people” is merely regarded as a means of participating in the capitalization of space, and against the backdrop of the continuous substitution of labor by machinery and equipment, this role also seems to be changing. Consequently, the logic of capital in urbanization easily falls into the mindset of focusing on “urbanization of land” rather than “urbanization of people.” Urban space becomes a victim in the process of capital alienation, and the urbanization of people becomes a means serving the urbanization of land, rather than an end.

在资本主义制度框架下，资本逻辑驱动下的城市化过程，其实质是在城市过剩资本寻求“空间修复”的过程中完成城市空间的扩张与蔓延。所以，城市空间生产过程中过剩资本的“空间修复”会更多注重通过“土地城市化”方式来缓解由于市辖区平均利润下降所带来的资本增殖压力，而“人的城市化”则仅被视为参与空间资本化的手段，且在机器设备不断替代劳动力的大背景下，这种作用似乎也在发生变化。于是，城市化资本逻辑就容易陷入关注“土地城市化”而非“人的城市化”的思维定式之中。城市空间成为资本异化过程中的牺牲品，人的城市化也成为服务于土地城市化的手段而非目标。

Specifically, the urbanization process driven by the logic of capital, due to the alienating nature of capital, can turn urban space into an alienated object that controls people’s production and life, detaching it from its attribute as a human-made object that satisfies human needs, and also concealing the important characteristic that the process of labor production in urban space gives way to the process of capital valorization. As Marx stated: “Because of the alienating nature of capital, its opposition to labor is transferred to outside the actual process of exploitation, that is, to interest-bearing capital… Exploited labor and exploiting labor, both as labor, become identical.” In order to obtain more surplus value, the inherent scarcity of land and the enormous potential for growth in its exchange value make “urbanization of land” the main form of urbanization promoted by the logic of capital. At this point, the exchange value of space comes to dominate over its use value. Housing, as one of the most important spatial units, has its use value (the attribute of meeting residential needs) neglected, while its investment attribute is amplified. This logic of urban space production dominated by “spatial exchange value” causes housing prices to rise continuously, ultimately triggering a real estate bubble crisis. Taking the Japanese real estate bubble crisis from the 1950s to the 1980s as an example, data shows that between 1955 and 1989, the average urban land price in Japan rose approximately 54 times, while in the six major cities including Tokyo, it skyrocketed 128 times. However, during the same period, wholesale prices, consumer prices, and wage levels only rose by 2 times, 5 times, and 21 times, respectively. The continuous rise in land prices spawned large-scale land speculation and also caused serious social and economic problems. Following the collapse of Japan’s real estate bubble in 1991, it created the most severe real estate crash in human economic history, plunging the Japanese economy into a 30-year-long slump. On the other hand, the demand for labor is neglected or weakened, and even the living space of labor can be converted into commercial space, with labor itself facing the possibility of being squeezed out and expelled. For example, in the process of urban gentrification, low-income residents in old urban districts are displaced, replaced by high-income capitalists re-entering the old city centers. “Urbanization of people” ultimately gives way to “urbanization of land” and becomes a subsidiary product of “urbanization of land.”

具体来看，资本逻辑驱动下的城市化过程会由于资本的异化性质，使得城市空间成为控制人生产和生活的异化物，脱离了其满足人的需求的人造物属性，也掩盖了城市空间中劳动生产过程让位于资本增殖过程的重要特征。正如马克思所言：“因为资本的异化性质，它同劳动的对立，被转移到现实剥削过程之外，即转移到生息资本上……剥削的劳动和被剥削的劳动，二者作为劳动成了同一的东西”。为了获得更多的剩余价值，土地所固有的稀缺属性及其交换价值增长的巨大潜力，就使得“土地城市化”成为资本逻辑驱动下城市化推进的主要形态。此时，空间交换价值也就凌驾于空间使用价值之上，住房作为最主要的空间单元之一，其使用价值(满足居住需求的属性特征)被忽视，而投资属性则被放大。这种“空间交换价值”所主导的城市空间生产逻辑，使得住房价格持续攀升，并最终引发了房地产泡沫危机。以20世纪50～80年代日本的房地产泡沫危机为例，数据显示，1955—1989年间，日本全国城市平均地价上涨了约54倍，其中东京等六大城市则是飙升到了128倍，但同时期的批发物价、消费物价以及工资水平仅分别上涨2倍、5倍和21倍。土地价格的持续上涨催生出了大规模的土地投机行为，也造成了严重的社会和经济问题。伴随着1991年日本房产泡沫的破裂,造就了人类经济史上最惨烈的房地产崩盘，日本经济自此陷入了长达30年的低迷。另一方面，劳动力的需求则被忽视或弱化，甚至劳动力的生存空间还会被转化为商业空间，劳动力自身也存在被排挤和驱逐的可能。如在城市绅士化过程中，城市老城区的低收入居民被驱逐,取而代之的则是高收入资本家重新入主城市老城区。“人的城市化”最终让位于“土地城市化”,且成为了“土地城市化”的附属产物。

(II) The Logic of Capital in Urbanization Leads to the Risk of Imbalance Between Urban and Rural Space

(二)城市化资本逻辑会导致城乡空间失衡风险

The urbanization process driven by capital not only brings about the exchange of urban and rural factors of production and facilitates the formation of a unified urban-rural market, but also carries the risk of unequal exchange between urban and rural areas. This is also the inevitable result of the spatial exchange value overriding the spatial use value in the process of capitalist urbanization, where capitalist spatial production is for accumulation’s sake and for production’s sake. Surplus capital, in its search for new growth points for surplus value, will turn to new geographical spaces to seek a “spatial fix,” which will undoubtedly further exacerbate the phenomenon of unequal exchange. In the international trade system, unequal exchange is one of the main reasons why developed countries occupy a dominant “center” position while developing countries are in a dependent “periphery” position. A. Emmanuel, in analyzing the issue of imperialist trade, expounded that “there exists unequal exchange and value transfer between developed and developing countries, emphasizing that the existing international division of labor forms the economic dependence of developing countries on developed countries,” and that “unequal exchange is due to the ‘institutional’ differences in the rate of surplus value between regions, established through the equalization of profit as the differential ratio of equilibrium prices.” However, besides the difference in the rate of surplus value being a major factor affecting unequal exchange, the organic composition of capital also plays an important role. As A. Emmanuel stated, another form, which he called unequal exchange in the strict sense, “is characterized by inequality in both wages and organic composition.” Although A. Emmanuel proposed the theory of unequal exchange under the assumption of the existence of international prices of production, and Marx’s theory of the formation of prices of production presupposes the full and free mobility of capital factors, the application of the theory of unequal exchange in the international trade system remains quite controversial. But if we consider unequal exchange within a city, due to the full and free mobility of capital factors, the process of forming average profit, i.e., the formation of prices of production, is relatively smooth, and unequal exchange occurs more commonly.

由资本所驱动的城市化进程，它不仅带来了城乡生产要素的交换，促成了城乡统一大市场的形成，同时也带来了城乡不平等交换的风险。这也是资本主义城市化过程中空间交换价值凌驾于空间使用价值之上，资本主义空间生产为了积累而积累、为了生产而生产所带来的必然结果。过剩资本为了寻求新的剩余价值增长点，会转向新的地理空间寻求“空间修复”,这无疑会进一步加剧不平等交换现象。在国际贸易体系中，不平等交换是导致发达国家处于“中心”主导地位，而发展中国家处于“外围”依附地位的主要原因之一。A.伊曼纽尔在分析帝国主义贸易问题时阐述了“发达国家和发展中国家存在着不平等交换和价值转移，强调现有国际分工形成发展中国家对发达国家的经济依附”,而“不平等交换是由于各地区剩余价值率‘制度性’的差别，通过利润平均化而建立的各均衡价格的差额比率”。但除了剩余价值率差异是影响不平等交换的主要因素以外，资本有机构成也在其中发挥着重要作用。正如A.伊曼纽尔所言，另一种形式,他称它为严格意义上的不平等交换，“其特点在于工资和有机构成都不相等”。虽然A.伊曼纽尔是在国际生产价格存在的假定条件下提出了不平等交换的学说，而马克思有关生产价格的形成理论又要以资本要素的充分自由流动为前提，所以，不平等交换学说在国际贸易体系的应用中还颇具争议。但如果是考量城市内部的不平等交换，由于资本要素的充分自由流动，使得平均利润的形成过程，即生产价格的形成过程相对顺畅，不平等交换的发生就更为普遍。

Regarding the broad unequal exchange caused by changes in the organic composition of capital: because capital can flow freely within the same city, driven by the internal impetus of capital accumulation, municipal districts gradually become highlands of capital concentration, and their organic composition of capital ratio continuously rises compared to rural areas. “Marx pointed out that, due to the tendency for the rate of profit to equalize, the surplus value taken by capitalists in each region is not the surplus value produced by the workers of those two regions respectively, because the total surplus value produced by the workers of these two regions will be distributed by the capitalists of these two regions not in proportion to the total number of workers provided by each region, but in proportion to the total amount of capital invested in each region.” Based on this, influenced by the different ratios of the organic composition of capital between urban and rural areas, compared to rural areas, municipal districts are more dominant in the distribution of surplus value and receive relatively more surplus value, thus highlighting the problem of the urban-rural development gap caused by unequal exchange.

就资本有机构成变化所引起的广义不平等交换来看。由于资本可以在同城范围内自由流动，在资本积累的内驱动力下，市辖区会逐渐成为资本集中的高地，其资本有机构成比例相比于农村地区则不断升高。“马克思指出，由于利润率有趋于均等的倾向，每一地区的资本家所拿走的剩余价值，并不是这两个地区各自的工人生产的，因为这两个地区的工人所生产的全部剩余价值，将由这两地区的资本家不按照每一地区所提供的工人总数的比例进行分配，而是按照投放在每一地区的资本总额的比例进行分配”。基于此，受城乡不同资本有机构成比例的影响，相较于农村地区而言，市辖区在剩余价值的分配中更占主导，所分配的剩余价值也相对更多，不平等交换所导致的城乡发展差距问题得以凸显。

Regarding the unequal exchange caused by wage differences (differences in the rate of surplus value): with the increasing improvement of urban-rural transportation networks, the flow of factors between urban and rural areas becomes more frequent. At this point, commodity trade is no longer confined to within municipal districts or within rural areas; integrated urban-rural development jointly constitutes a larger market. At this time, the standard of socially necessary labor time that determines the value of commodities will also change accordingly: it should no longer be based on the socially necessary labor time within the municipal district as the standard for measuring commodity value, but should shift to the socially necessary labor time determined by the urban-rural community. This is similar to the situation Marx discussed regarding the world market and international value in the international trade system: “In the world market, which is composed of different countries, the situation is different. The average intensity of labor varies from country to country; it is higher in some and lower in others. The national averages thus form a scale whose unit of measurement is the average unit of world labor. Consequently, the more intense national labor produces more value in the same amount of time, and thus manifests as more money.” It is this difference that produces national wage differences, and the deviation of national value from international value simultaneously produces international trade. Although the value deviation in international trade may be affected by differences in monetary value, “but even leaving aside such relative differences in the value of money in different countries, it is often found that … the price of labor, compared with surplus value and with the value of the product, is higher in the latter country than in the former.” Therefore, within a certain region, because there will be individual product values determined respectively by the municipal district or rural area, and the social product value determined by the urban-rural community, finally, through the equalization of profit, a social price of production within the scope of the community will be formed. As Marx pointed out, “The industrial capitalist always faces the world market, and compares his own cost price not only with the domestic market price, but also with the world market price, and must constantly do so.” Trade between urban and rural areas will also realize value transfer through the deviation of individual value from social value, and social value from the social price of production. Municipal districts with a lower rate of surplus value obtain a larger share of surplus value distribution, while rural areas with a higher rate of surplus value occupy a smaller portion of surplus value.

就工资差异(剩余价值率的差异)所引起的不平等交换来看。随着城乡交通网络的日益完善，城乡之间的要素流动变得更为频繁，此时，商品贸易也不再局限于市辖区内部或农村地区内部，城乡一体化发展共同构成了一个更大范围的市场。此时，决定商品价值量的社会必要劳动时间标准也会相应发生变化：不应再以市辖区范围内的社会必要劳动时间为衡量商品价值量的标准，而应将标准转向由城乡共同体所确定的社会必要劳动时间。这与马克思在谈论国际贸易体系中存在的世界市场与国际价值情形相类似,“在以各个国家作为组成部分的世界市场上，情形就不同了。国家不同，劳动的中等强度也就不同；有的国家高些，有的国家低些。于是各国的平均数形成一个阶梯，它的计量单位是世界劳动的平均单位。因此，强度较大的国民劳动比强度较小的国民劳动，会在同一时间内生产出更多的价值，从而表现为更多的货币”。正是这种差别产生了国民工资的差异，而国别价值与国际价值的偏离同时也产生了国际贸易。虽然国际贸易之间的价值偏离可能会受到货币价值差异的影响，“但是即使撇开不同国家货币价值的这种相对的差异，也常常可以发现……同剩余价值和同产品价值相比较的劳动价格，在后一种国家却比在前一种国家高”。所以，在一定区域内由于会存在市辖区或农村地区各自所决定的个别产品价值以及由城乡共同体所决定的社会产品价值，最后通过利润平均化还会形成一个共同体范围内的社会生产价格。正如马克思指出，“产业资本家总是面对着世界市场，并且把他自己的成本价格不仅同国内的市场价格相比较，而且同全世界的市场价格相比较，同时必须经常这样做”。城乡之间的贸易往来便也会通过个别价值与社会价值，以及社会价值与社会生产价格的偏离来实现价值转移。剩余价值率较低的市辖区获得更多剩余价值的分配，而剩余价值率较高的农村地区则占有较少一部分剩余价值。

III. The People-Centered New-Type Urbanization Is the Sublation and Transcendence of the Capital-Logic-Dominated Urbanization Path

三、以人为本新型城镇化是对以资本逻辑为主导城市化道路的扬弃和超越

As the above analysis shows, urbanization is essentially a process of rural and urban spatial production using production factors such as land, labor, and capital in the process of urban-rural factor transformation and flow. Therefore, considering the dual attributes of capital as both a relation of production and a factor of production, once capital is combined with production factors such as land and labor, the specific characteristics of capital will lead to different urbanization development models. Under the framework of the capitalist system, the logic of capital drives the transformation and flow of urban-rural factors in a manner conducive to capital circulation, meaning that the allocation of land resources and the flow of labor factors in the process of urban spatial production both serve or are subordinated to capital circulation. However, under the framework of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, state-owned capital is dominant, which significantly weakens the profit-seeking and blind characteristics of capital. At the same time, the Communist Party of China takes the “people’s standpoint” as its fundamental position [7]7 The “people’s standpoint” (人民立场) is a core political principle of the CPC, asserting that the Party’s policies and actions must always serve the interests of the people as the ultimate criterion., and the state-owned enterprises or state-owned capital under its leadership participating in urbanization construction will further amplify the “people-oriented” characteristics of urbanization construction. At this point, “land urbanization” and “people’s urbanization” will exhibit the characteristics of “people’s city, built by the people, shared by the people.” Among them, “land urbanization” in the practice of “people-centered” new-type urbanization will be more reflected as a means rather than an end; “people’s urbanization” will further develop into “people’s citizenization” in the practice of people-centered new-type urbanization. That is, it not only focuses on the transfer of surplus rural labor but also pays more attention to the citizenization of the transferred population. As the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC pointed out, “It is necessary to improve the institutional mechanisms for promoting new-type urbanization and accelerate the citizenization of the agricultural transfer population.” [8]8 The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC was held in July 2024, focusing on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese-path modernization. In addition, “housing is for living, not for speculation” is also a core principle of the practice of “people-centered” new-type urbanization, emphasizing the residential attribute of housing rather than the speculative attribute, which can help the use-value logic of urban spatial production return to the mainstream.

正如上文分析所示，城市化本质上是在城乡要素转换和流动过程中，利用土地、劳动力和资本等生产要素进行乡村空间生产和城市空间生产的过程。所以，考虑到资本所具备的生产关系与生产要素的双重属性。资本一旦与土地、劳动力等生产要素相结合就会因资本的特殊性差异而引致不同的城市化发展模式。在资本主义制度框架下，资本逻辑会驱使城乡要素的转换和流动以有利于资本循环的方式进行，即城市空间生产过程中土地资源的配置方式和劳动力要素的流动方式都会服务于或让位于资本循环。但中国特色社会主义制度框架下，国有资本占主导，这显著削弱了资本的逐利性和盲目性等特性，同时中国共产党又是以“人民立场”为根本立场,由他领导下的国有企业或国有资本参与城市化建设，还会放大城市化建设的“人民性”特征。此时，“土地城市化”和“人的城市化”就会表现出“人民城市、人民建设、人民共享”的特征，其中“土地城市化”在“以人为本”新型城镇实践中就会更多体现为手段而非目标；“人的城市化”在以人为本新型城镇化实践中则会进一步发展为“人的市民化”。即它不仅关注农村过剩劳动力人口的转移问题，还更多关注转移人口的市民化问题。正如党的二十届三中全会指出的，“要健全推进新型城镇化体制机制，加快农业转移人口市民化”。此外，“房住不炒”也是“以人为本”新型城镇化实践的核心准则，强调住房的居住属性而非投机属性，能助推城市空间生产的使用价值逻辑回归主位。

In sum, within the institutional framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics, no matter how urban space is produced, the people exist as the subject; that is, the mode of labor mobility guides and determines the mode of capital mobility and the allocation of land resources. Moreover, when both the producers and consumers of urban space are workers rather than capitalists, their demands tend to converge under the basic economic system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, namely, the pursuit of the simultaneous growth of the use-value and exchange-value of space. Therefore, the urbanization path of socialism with Chinese characteristics unfolds around the "people-centeredness" (人民性) of spatial production, focuses on the use-value of spatial production, highlights the attribute of "appropriated space" (取用性空间), and follows the basic principle of using spatial justice to safeguard the rights of citizens, that is, the rural-to-urban migrant population.

总言之，在中国特色社会主义制度框架下，不论城市空间生产如何进行，其中人民是作为主体而存在的，即劳动力的流动方式会引导和决定资本的流动方式和土地资源的配置方式。且当作为城市空间生产者与城市空间消费者都是劳动者而非资本家时，他们的诉求就会在中国特色社会主义基本经济制度框架下趋于一致，即追求空间使用价值和空间交换价值的同步增长。所以，中国特色社会主义城市化道路会围绕空间生产的“人民性”而展开，聚焦于空间生产的使用价值，突出“取用性空间”属性，遵循以空间正义来保障市民即农村转移人口权利的基本准则。

(I) The "people-centered" new-type urbanization highlights the coordinated advancement of "land urbanization" and "people urbanization"

(一)“以人为本”的新型城镇化突出“土地城市化”与“人的城市化”协同共进

The contradiction between "land urbanization" and "people urbanization," or more specifically, whether the production of urban space can complete the reproduction of urban space through the consumption of urban space, is the general driving force behind the development of world urbanization. Therefore, this same contradiction also exists in China's people-centered new-type urbanization. When "land urbanization" outpaces "people urbanization," a crisis of overproduction of urban space arises, causing a certain waste of spatial resources. One of the key tasks of people-centered new-type urbanization is to focus on the transfer of the rural surplus labor population to cities, emphasizing intensive and connotative development of urbanization. This can effectively alleviate the problems brought about by the rapid development of "land urbanization." On the other hand, when "people urbanization" outpaces "land urbanization," it causes a relative insufficiency in the production of urban space, leading to "big city diseases" such as traffic congestion, high housing prices, environmental degradation, and resource shortages. The key tasks of "people-centered" new-type urbanization also focus on the optimal allocation of urban and rural land factors, increasing the supply of urban space use-value (including the supply of public services such as education and medical care, and the supply of spatial consumer goods such as entertainment, culture, and housing), as well as the optimal allocation of urban spatial resources, the metabolism of public resources, and other urban renewal actions. This provides material guarantees for the rapid development of "people urbanization." In sum, people-centered new-type urbanization, within the institutional framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics, can balance the inherent contradiction between "land urbanization" and "people urbanization" and promote high-quality development of urbanization.

“土地城市化”和“人的城市化”之间的矛盾，或者更具体为城市空间生产能否通过城市空间消费完成城市空间的再生产过程,这一内在矛盾是推动世界城市化发展的一般性动因。所以，在中国以人为本的新型城镇化进程中同样也存在这一矛盾。当“土地城市化”快于“人的城市化”时，会产生城市空间生产过剩危机，造成一定的空间资源浪费。而以人为本的新型城镇化的重点任务之一：就是聚焦于农村剩余劳动力人口向城市转移，强调城镇化的集约式发展和内涵式发展。这能很好缓解“土地城市化”快速发展所带来的问题。另一方面，当“人的城市化”快于“土地城市化”时，则会造成城市空间生产的相对不足，导致城市交通拥挤、房价高企、环境恶化、资源紧张等大城市病问题。而“以人为本”的新型城镇化的重点任务还聚焦于城乡土地要素的优化配置、增加城市空间使用价值的供给(包括教育和医疗等公共服务的供给，娱乐、文化和住房等空间消费品的供给)以及城市空间资源的优化配置、公共资源的新陈代谢等城市更新行动等。这为“人的城市化”快速发展提供了物质保障。总言之，以人为本的新型城镇化在中国特色社会主义制度框架下能平衡好“土地城市化”与“人的城市化”的内在矛盾，推动城镇化高质量发展。

Specifically, in the process of "land urbanization," although the general profit-seeking nature of capital still plays an important role in the production of urban space, problems such as the disorderly expansion of urban space, redundant construction, and structural imbalance in resource allocation are regulated due to the effective supervision of the capable government. At the same time, under the incentive of an effective market mechanism, "land urbanization" follows the basic requirement of improving spatial production efficiency from the supply side, and, guided by territorial spatial planning, promotes a reasonable increase in spatial exchange-value, thereby providing solid material support for new-type urbanization. In the process of "people urbanization," the people-centered nature of capital strengthens the urbanization needs of the migrant peasant population. That is, people urbanization follows the basic principle of enabling peasants to "be willing to enter the city, stay in the city, and integrate into the city," and guides the growth of urban space use-value from the demand side according to the demands of promoting the citizenization of the rural migrant population, thereby meeting the needs of the urban population for a better life. Thus, "people urbanization" further develops into "people's citizenization" (人的市民化).

具体来看，在“土地城市化”的过程中，尽管资本逐利的一般特性依然会在城市空间生产中发挥重要作用，但由于受到有为政府的有效监管，城市空间的无序扩张、重复建设以及资源配置结构性失衡等问题就会被规制。同时，在有效市场机制的激励下，“土地城市化”会从供给端遵循提升空间生产效率的基本要求，并结合国土空间规划的指引，推动空间交换价值的合理增长，从而为新型城镇化提供坚实的物质支撑。而在“人的城市化”过程中， 资本的人民性等特性会强化农民转移人口的市民化需求。即人的城市化会遵循让农民“愿进城、留得下、融得进”的基本原则，并从需求端按照推进农村转移人口市民化的诉求来引导城市空间使用价值的增长，从而满足城市人口的美好生活需求。所以“人的城市化”会进一步发展为“人的市民化”。

Furthermore, due to the socialist nature, in the process of "land urbanization" and "people urbanization," the contradiction between spatial production and spatial consumption is no longer an irreconcilable contradiction within the institutional framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Because socialist urban space belongs to the people, both spatial production and spatial consumption are created and realized by the people. The urban spatial products created by the urbanization process meet both the individual needs of residents and the needs of all members of society. In addition, state-owned enterprises, as promoters of urbanization construction, adjust the direction of state-owned capital's demands under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, that is, highlighting the people-centered nature. This further consolidates the consistent demands of "land urbanization" and "people urbanization." The crisis of relative overproduction of urban space caused by the contradiction between the two is no longer systemic and can be resolved within the institutional framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

再者，由于社会主义性质，在“土地城市化”与“人的城市化”进程中，空间生产与空间消费之间的矛盾也就不再是中国特色社会主义制度框架下不可调和的矛盾问题。因为社会主义城市空间属于人民，空间生产与空间消费都是由人民创造和实现的。城市化过程所创造的城市空间产品既符合居民个人需求，同时也符合全体社会成员的需求。再加上作为城市化建设推动者的国有企业，其在中国共产党的领导下会调整国有资本的诉求方向，也就是凸显人民性。这会进一步巩固“土地城市化”与“人的城市化”的一致性诉求。由两者矛盾导致的城市空间生产相对过剩危机也就不再是制度性的，其能在中国特色社会主义制度框架下得以解决。

Finally, within the framework of the socialist market economy system, people-centered new-type urbanization must still be based on the exchange of spatial commodities. This requires that in the process of realizing the growth of spatial use-value and promoting "people urbanization," new-type urbanization construction also needs to pay attention to the growth of spatial exchange-value and continue to advance the process of "land urbanization." Because the "people-centeredness" of new-type urbanization is endogenously realized through a specific capital circulation model, and relies on the guidance of the "capable government" and the incentives of the "effective market." The logic of capital is subject to institutionalized constraints, and the general profit-seeking nature of capital is channeled to serve the construction of "people-centered" new-type urbanization. Even if, at a specific stage of development, spatial use-value and exchange-value deviate to a certain extent, and "land urbanization" and "people urbanization" become unsynchronized, these problems can be self-corrected in the policy practice of socialist market-oriented reform.

最后，在社会主义市场经济体制框架下，以人为本的新型城镇化依然要建立在空间商品交换的基础之上，这就要求新型城镇化建设在实现空间使用价值增长和推进“人的城市化”进程中，还需要注重空间交换价值的增长，并继续推进“土地城市化”进程。因为，新型城镇化的“人民性”内生性地会通过特定的资本循环模式得以实现，且依靠“有为政府”的引导和“有效市场”的激励。资本逻辑会被赋予制度化的约束，资本逐利的一般特性也会被引向服务于“以人为本”的新型城镇化建设。即便在特定的发展阶段，空间使用价值与交换价值会存在一定程度的背离，“土地城市化”与“人的城市化”也会出现不同步的现象，但这些问题都会在社会主义市场化改革的政策实践中实现自我修正。

(II) People-centered new-type urbanization responds to the core demand of appropriated space for spatial justice

(二)以人为本的新型城镇化回应取用性空间对空间正义的核心诉求

In his critical reflection on the logic of spatial production, Lefebvre proposed an idea of replacing the bourgeois logic of exchange with a logic of "appropriation" (取用). In his view, true use is not possessive but non-exclusive "appropriation," and this mode of use also endows urban space with temporal diversity, rhythmic difference, and practical richness. Corresponding to the logic of "appropriation" or the logic of use-value is "appropriated space" (取用性空间), which is what Lefebvre called "the true space of jouissance (L'espace de la jouissance)." Considering that within the institutional framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics, rights belong to the people, and urban spatial production also emphasizes "people-centeredness" and focuses on returning to the logic of use-value, the urban space of socialism with Chinese characteristics will place greater emphasis on "appropriated space" rather than "dominated space" (支配性空间). If dominated space is dominated by rights-holders such as capital, serves the goal of capital accumulation, and exhibits characteristics such as standardization, functional division, and instrumental rationality, then "the more functionalized space becomes, that is, the more thoroughly it is dominated by those 'institutions,' and thus becomes functionally singular under their manipulation, the less sensitive space becomes to appropriation." In "dominated space," the logic of "appropriation" or the logic of use-value is replaced by the logic of exchange. "Appropriated space," on the other hand, is appropriated rather than possessed or dominated by everyday life practitioners and social groups. It emphasizes use-value, spatial diversity and differentiation, and the right of urban space users to intervene in, express themselves about, and reconstruct space in reality—the "right to the city." From this starting point, this appropriated space calls for spatial justice, and under the logic of spatial justice, advocates that urban space should serve as a field for social members to negotiate use, participate jointly, and practice freely. In contrast, capitalist urban space is increasingly disciplined by instrumental rationality and the logic of profit maximization, and urban space is constantly eroding social equality and spatial diversity, leading to a serious lack of spatial justice in cities. This urbanization development path dominated by the "logic of capital" clearly deviates from the original intention of urban construction to meet the people's aspiration for a better life. Therefore, within the logical framework of people-centered new-type urbanization, it is urgent to take spatial justice as the core concept and promote the systematic transformation of cities from dominated space to appropriated space.

在对空间的生产逻辑进行批判性反思时，列斐伏尔提出了一种以“取用”逻辑替代资产阶级交换逻辑的思路。在他看来，真正的使用不是占有性的，而是非排他性的“取用”,且这种使用方式还赋予了城市空间以时间的多样性、节奏的差异性及实践的丰富性。而与“取用”逻辑或使用价值逻辑相对应的便是“取用性空间”,这也是列斐伏尔所说的“真正的极乐空间(L'espace de la jouissance)”。考虑到在中国特色社会主义制度框架下，权利属于人民，城市空间生产也强调“人民性”,并注重回归使用价值逻辑。所以，中国特色社会主义的城市空间会更加侧重“取用性空间”,而非“支配性空间”。如果说支配性空间是由资本等权利主体所主导，且服务于资本积累目标，并表现出标准化、功能划分与工具理性等特征。那么“空间越是被功能化，也即它越彻底地受那些‘机构’的支配，从而在机构的操纵下变得功能单一化，空间对取用就越不敏感”,在“支配性空间”中，“取用”逻辑或使用价值逻辑便会被交换逻辑所取代。而“取用性空间”则由日常生活实践者和社会群体所取用而非占有或支配，它强调使用价值、强调空间多样性与差异化，强调城市空间用户对空间的现实介入权、表达权与重构权等“进入城市的权利”。由此出发，这种取用性空间便呼吁空间正义，并在空间正义的逻辑下主张城市空间应作为社会成员协商使用、共同参与和自由实践的场域。反观资本主义城市空间正日益被工具理性与利润最大化逻辑所规训，城市空间被不断侵蚀社会平等性和空间多样性，导致了城市空间正义性严重缺失。这种“资本逻辑”主导的城市化发展路径显然背离了满足人民对美好生活向往的城市建设初衷。因此，在以人民为中心的新型城镇化逻辑框架下，亟须以空间正义为核心理念，推动城市从支配性空间向取用性空间的系统性转变。

First, emphasis on balanced spatial development. Balanced spatial development requires that economic, cultural and ecological construction in urban and rural areas within a given space advance in tandem, and that relative disparities be kept within a certain range. However, the process of urban spatial expansion driven by capital accumulation does not occur simultaneously in time nor unfold evenly across geography; this readily leads to problems of developmental disparity between urban and rural areas, with municipal districts expanding blindly while county towns or rural regions lack staying power. This clearly violates the people-centered (以人为本) logic of urbanization, turning the development of urbanization toward serving capitalists rather than serving the entire people. The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC emphasizes that Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all the people. Consequently, people-centered new-type urbanization also requires that an enabling government curb the ills of capital accumulation in the urbanization process; when undertaking urban development planning, the government must give greater consideration to the development of county towns and rural areas, alleviate the imbalance contradictions of urbanization development, accelerate the pace of urban-rural coordinated development, and enable urban and rural residents to share the fruits of urbanization development.

一是注重空间发展平衡。空间发展平衡要求空间内部城乡的经济、文化以及生态建设齐头并进，相对差距也控制在一定范围之内。但资本积累所推动的城市空间扩张过程在时间上不是同时发生，在地理上也不是均匀展开的，这容易导致城乡之间的发展差距问题，市辖区盲目扩张，县城或农村地区则后劲不足。这显然违背了城市化“以人为本”的逻辑内涵，使得城市化的发展转向了为资本家服务，而非为全体人民服务。党的二十大报告强调，中国式现代化是全体人民共同富裕的现代化。那么“以人为本”的新型城镇化也就要求有为政府遏制城市化进程中资本积累的弊端，政府在进行城市发展规划时要更多考虑县城和农村地区的发展，缓解城市化发展的不平衡矛盾，提升城乡协同发展步伐，让城乡居民共享城市化发展成果。

Although China’s urbanization process has also experienced the problem of urban-rural dual segmentation and urban-rural economic development disparity caused by unequal exchange, the reasons for the formation of unequal exchange between urban and rural areas under the capitalist institutional framework mentioned above are quite different, and the resulting spatial imbalance is not institutional in nature. China’s urban-rural dual segmentation arose more from the planned-economy period, when, in order to accelerate industrialization, the state on the one hand used administrative means—such as compulsory unified state procurement and marketing of grain and the scissors gap between industrial and agricultural product prices—to convert agricultural surplus into industrial accumulation; on the other hand, it restricted rural-to-urban migration by establishing an urban-rural household registration system (户籍制度) [13]13 The household registration (hukou) system, established in the 1950s, classified citizens as either agricultural or non-agricultural and tied access to social services (education, healthcare, housing) to one’s registered place of residence, effectively restricting rural-to-urban migration. in order to sustain the rapid development of urban capital-intensive industry. This created a differentiated governance system for urban and rural areas and a segmented market system between them. Subsequently, with the continuous improvement of the socialist market economy system and the household registration system, along with the deepening advancement of agricultural and rural modernization and the implementation of urban-rural integration development strategies such as “using industry to support agriculture and using cities to lead townships,” the long-standing urban-rural dual structure and economic development disparity will gradually be fundamentally resolved. Finally, in the process of continuously improving the socialist market economy system, a certain degree of unequal exchange between urban and rural areas is unavoidable due to differences in the organic composition of capital. However, unlike the situation in capitalist countries, where private capital dominates and a small number of capitalists seize the profits from unequal exchange, in socialist China, where public ownership is dominant, this portion of revenue is more often used for rural construction and improvement of people’s livelihoods, ultimately returning to the people. This constitutes the essential difference in unequal exchange between the two social systems.

虽然中国城市化进程中也存在过由于不平等交换所导致的城乡二元分割及城乡经济发展差距问题，但与上文提及的资本主义制度框架下城乡不平等交换的形成原因存在较大差别，由此导致的空间失衡问题也不是制度性的。中国的城乡二元分割更多的是由于计划经济时期，为了加快工业化建设，国家一方面运用行政手段，如通过强制性粮食统购统销和工农产品剪刀差，将农业剩余转化为工业积累；另一方面则通过设置城乡户籍制度来限制农村人口向城市迁移，以维持城市资本密集型工业的快速发展。这造成了城乡有别的治理体系以及城乡分割的市场体系。此后，随着社会主义市场经济体制与户籍制度的不断完善，以及农业农村现代化进程的深入推进和“以工补农、以城带乡”等城乡融合发展战略的落实，长期存在的城乡二元结构和经济发展差距问题将逐步得到根本性解决。最后，在社会主义市场经济体制不断完善的过程中，城乡之间由于资本有机构成的差异，难免也会出现一定程度的不平等交换。然而，不同于资本主义国家由于私有资本占主导，并由少数资本家攫取不平等交换利润的情形，在以公有制为主体的社会主义中国，这部分收益更多地被用于乡村建设和民生改善，最终回馈于人民。这构成了两种社会制度下不平等交换的本质差别。

Second, emphasis on fair distribution of benefits within space. In the process of urban spatial production, economic agents at different class strata are involved; these economic agents face clear inequality in the distribution of benefits from urban space, which not only leads to serious problems of wealth disparity but also produces a spatial segmentation of class strata. As can be seen from the theory of class-monopoly rent, wealthy groups reside in the well-conditioned urban center, enjoying the best public goods, while impoverished groups can only live in economically deprived areas such as county towns or in “slums” within the city center, lacking opportunities to use high-quality spatial resources to enhance their own developmental advantages. More seriously, under the capitalist institutional framework, urban residents’ right to occupy space often has a strong hereditary character, which not only leads to intergenerational transmission of the right to use space within class strata but also further solidifies the social class structure and exacerbates the persistence of spatial inequality. This inequality embodies the typical characteristics of what Lefebvre criticized as “dominated space”—space is used as a tool for the operation of power and capital to reinforce the existing class structure, and it does not possess the attributes of “appropriated space” that serves all members of society. In contrast, under the framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics, new-type urbanization places greater emphasis on advancing the realization of spatial justice through the synergistic effect of an “enabling government” and an “effective market.” Specifically, the state effectively alleviates inequality in developmental opportunities among class strata within urban space by increasing investment in public infrastructure construction, expanding the supply of educational resources, and improving fiscal transfer payment mechanisms. This practice aims to ensure that all urban residents equally obtain the basic right to use urban space—such as the right of urban users to intervene in, express themselves about, and reconstruct space—thereby continuously advancing spatial fairness and constructing an “appropriated space” suitable for people-centered new-type urbanization.

二是强调空间内部利益分配公平。在城市空间生产过程中，会涉及不同阶层的经济主体，这些经济主体在城市空间的利益分配上存在明显的不平等，不仅导致了严重的贫富差距问题，也产生了阶层的空间分割现象。由阶级-垄断地租理论可知，富人群体住在条件优越的城市中心，享受最好的公共产品，而贫困群体则只能居住在县城等经济匮乏的区域或市中心的“贫民区”,缺乏利用空间优质资源提升自身发展优势的机会。更为严峻的是，在资本主义制度框架下，城市居民对空间的占有权往往具有较强的继承性，不仅导致空间使用权在阶层内部的代际传承，也进一步固化了社会阶层结构，加剧了空间不平等的持续性。这种不平等体现了列斐伏尔所批判的“支配性空间”的典型特征——空间被作为权力和资本运作的工具，用于强化既有阶层结构，它不具备服务于全体社会成员的“取用性空间”属性。相较之下，在中国特色社会主义制度框架下的新型城镇化，更加注重通过“有为政府”与“有效市场”的协同作用，推进空间正义的实现。具体而言，国家通过加大公共基础设施建设投入、扩大教育资源供给、健全财政转移支付机制等方式，有效缓解了城市空间内部阶层间在发展机会上的不平等。这一实践旨在保障全体市民平等地获得城市空间基本使用权，如城市使用者对空间的现实介入权、表达权与重构权，从而不断推进空间公平，构建适用于以人为本新型城镇化的“取用性空间”。

IV. Transcending the Logic of Capital to Promote People-Centered New-Type Urbanization Development

四、超越资本逻辑推动以人为本的新型城镇化发展

Transcending the logic of capital to promote people-centered new-type urbanization construction requires not only attention to avoiding problems that may arise in the process of urban spatial production, such as “land urbanization” outpacing “people urbanization” and urban-rural spatial imbalance, but also emphasis on the coordinated advancement of “land urbanization” and “people urbanization,” responding to the core demands of appropriated space for spatial justice. Achieving these goals also requires deepening the understanding of capital, evolving from “utilizing capital” to “steering capital” (驾驭资本)—that is, improving the ability to steer capital through mechanisms such as institutional and mechanism innovation, optimization of capital operation rules, and multi-subject collaborative cooperation, thereby coping with the general characteristics of capital’s profit-seeking and blindness, and assisting the realization of people-centered new-type urbanization development and the goals of Chinese-path modernization.

超越资本逻辑推动以人为本的新型城镇化建设，不仅需要注意规避在城市空间生产过程中可能出现的“土地城市化”快于“人的城市化”以及城乡空间失衡等问题。还需要强调“土地城市化”与“人的城市化”协同共进，回应取用性空间对于空间正义的核心诉求。实现这些还需要加深对资本的认识，由 “利用资本”进一步发展为“驾驭资本”,即通过体制机制创新、资本运行规则的优化以及多元主体协同合作等手段来提高驾驭资本的能力，进而应对资本逐利和盲目的一般特性，助力以人为本的新型城镇化发展和中国式现代化目标的实现。

(i) Strengthening top-level design to leverage financial capital and social capital into county towns and villages

(一)强化顶层设计，撬动金融资本和社会资本入县下乡

The 2024 Central Economic Work Conference proposed that “we must coordinate the advancement of new-type urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization to promote urban-rural integrated development,” and “we must promote the construction of new-type urbanization with county towns as important carriers, forming a new pattern of urban-rural integrated development.” [14]14 The 2024 Central Economic Work Conference was held in Beijing in December 2024. The quoted phrases are standard formulations from the official communiqué. Moreover, common prosperity for all the people is also an inherent meaning of people-centered new-type urbanization development. Therefore, people-centered new-type urbanization must inevitably take the path of urban-rural integrated development; it must organically combine rural development with urban development, and must not oppose urban development and rural development within an either-or mindset. The key to coordinating urban and rural development lies in the equal exchange, two-way flow, and efficient allocation of various factors (especially capital) between urban and rural areas in the urbanization process. However, considering that capital has the general characteristic of profit-seeking, the circulation mode of capital must necessarily be established on the basis of profitability, and this is even more so when guiding capital flow under the conditions of the socialist market economy. In the current stage, as the profit from spatial production in municipal districts continuously declines, how to guide surplus capital, especially financial capital, into county towns and townships becomes increasingly important. On the one hand, through scientific planning and policy guidance (such as issuing bonds, equity financing, and government guidance funds), financial capital and social capital can be leveraged to penetrate county towns and villages. This can not only effectively alleviate the environmental carrying pressure on municipal districts and reduce the efficiency loss caused by excessive competition in municipal districts, but also promote the prosperity and development of the rural economy. On the other hand, comprehensive land consolidation across the entire region can be used as a starting point to promote rural land system reform (such as the reform allowing rural collective construction land to enter the market), guiding financial capital and social capital into county towns and villages to serve urban-rural integrated development.

2024年中央经济工作会议提出，“要统筹推进新型城镇化和乡村全面振兴，促进城乡融合发展”,“要推动以县城为重要载体的新型城镇化建设，形成城乡融合发展新格局。”此外，全体人民共同富裕也是以人为本新型城镇化发展题中之义。因此，以人为本的新型城镇化必然要走城乡融合发展的道路，要将乡村的发展和城市的发展有机结合起来，不能在非此即彼的思维定式中将城市的发展和乡村的发展对立起来。而统筹城乡发展，关键就在于城镇化过程中各类要素(尤其是资本)在城乡之间平等交换、双向流动、高效配置。但考虑到资本具有逐利的一般特性，所以，资本的循环模式必然是要建立在有利可图的基础之上，在社会主义市场经济条件下来引导资本流动则更是如此。当下阶段，市辖区空间生产利润不断降低，如何引导过剩资本尤其是金融资本进入县乡就显得愈发重要。一方面可以通过科学规划和政策引导等方式(如通过发行债券、股权融资和政府引导基金等方式),撬动金融资本和社会资本向县城和乡村渗透。这不仅能有效缓解市辖区的环境承载压力，降低市辖区由于过度竞争所导致的效率损失，还能推动乡村经济的繁荣发展。另一方面，还能以全域土地综合整治为抓手，推动农村土地制度改革(如农村建设用地入市改革),引导金融资本和社会资本入县下乡，服务城乡融合发展。

(ii) Guiding social capital to serve public needs and optimizing the supply of urban public services

(二)引导社会资本服务公共需求，优化城市公共服务供给

As the above analysis shows, people-centered new-type urbanization emphasizes the process of “citizenization of people,” and the key link in “citizenization of people” lies in whether sufficient urban public service supply can be provided to meet the needs of the continuously growing transfer of the surplus rural population. Under normal circumstances, the general profit-seeking character of capital tends to cause relatively insufficient capital supply in the field of public services due to features such as weak profitability. Although under the framework of socialism with Chinese characteristics, public services such as healthcare and education are core areas of the national economy and people’s livelihood, and can be led by state-owned capital, relying solely on state-owned capital to provide public services appears inadequate in the face of continuously growing public service demand. On this basis, it is necessary to promote the formation of a modern pattern of public service investment guided by public capital, with social capital as the main body and diversified investment coexisting, so as to enhance the service capacity of urban education, healthcare, and elderly care. For example, make good use of ultra-long-term special government bonds and local government special-purpose bonds, give play to the driving role of government investment, and guide various types of capital to increase investment in public service projects. In addition, it is necessary to improve the multi-tiered medical security system, such as further relaxing and opening up the household registration restrictions on participation in basic medical insurance at the place of habitual residence and place of employment. Finally, it is necessary to deepen the reform of the education system and mechanisms, such as encouraging multiple forms of kindergarten operation, and effectively advancing the resolution of the problems of difficulty and high cost in entering kindergarten. In short, by continuously deepening the reform of systems and mechanisms to increase the supply of urban public services, meeting the multi-level needs of the agricultural transfer population, bridging the gap between the urbanization rate of the registered household population and the urbanization rate of the permanent resident population, and achieving the optimal allocation of public resources, the goal of people-centered new-type urbanization can be facilitated.

正如上文分析所示，以人为本的新型城镇化强调“人的市民化”过程，而“人的市民化”关键环节则在于是否能够提供足够的城市公共服务供给，以满足不断增长的农村过剩人口转移的需求。而通常情况下，资本逐利的一般特性会使得公共服务领域由于获利属性不强等特征导致该领域资本供给相对不足。虽然在中国特色社会主义制度框架下，医疗和教育等公共服务均是国计民生的核心领域，其可由国有资本主导来完成，但相较于不断增长的公共服务需求而言，单纯以国有资本为支撑来提供公共服务则会显得力不从心。基于此，就需要推动形成以公有资本为引导、社会资本为主体、多元化投资并存的现代公共服务投资格局，提升城市教育、医疗和养老等领域的服务能力。如用好超长期特别国债和地方政府专项债，发挥政府投资带动作用，引导各类资本加大公共服务领域项目的投入。此外，还需要健全多层次医疗保障制度体系，如进一步放开放宽在常住地、就业地参加基本医保的户籍限制。最后还需要深化教育体制机制改革，如鼓励多种形式办园，有效推进解决入园难、入园贵问题。总言之，通过不断深化体制机制改革加大城市公共服务供给力度，满足农业转移人口多层次需求，弥合户籍人口城镇化率与常住人口城镇化率的鸿沟，实现公共资源的优化配置，可助力以人为本的新型城镇化目标的达成。

(3) Regulating the rules of capital operation, promoting both urban renewal and protection

(三)规范资本运作规则，推动城市更新与保护并重

Urban renewal is an inevitable process in the history of urbanization development. Urbanization development involves not only the transfer of the surplus rural labor population but also the issue of urban renewal. When urbanization develops to a certain stage, it is necessary to optimize the allocation of urban spatial resources through metabolic methods such as maintenance, renovation, demolition, and improvement of public resources, in order to meet the people’s growing needs for a better life. On January 3, 2025, the State Council executive meeting emphasized that “urban renewal concerns the improvement of the city’s appearance and the quality of living,” and that “it is necessary to strengthen the guarantee of factors such as land and funds, revitalize and utilize existing low-efficiency land, coordinate the use of fiscal and financial resources, improve the market-based financing model, and attract social capital to participate in urban renewal.” This is not only an inherent requirement for high-quality urban development but also a necessary path for advancing people-centered new-type urbanization. On this basis, it is necessary to reasonably regulate the rules of capital operation in the process of urbanization. On the one hand, by establishing a “traffic light” mechanism [n15], guide the orderly flow of capital to achieve coordinated development of urban renewal and cultural preservation; on the other hand, strengthen rule-of-law supervision, strictly restrict the excessive exploitation of historical and cultural resources by capital, and ensure that urban renewal proceeds on the premise of protecting the city’s humanistic heritage; furthermore, improve the financial support system and optimize the financing environment for urban renewal projects. For example, increase financial support for urban renewal projects that meet planning requirements and have sustainable development prospects, and guide financial institutions to provide credit services for projects with mature conditions.

城市更新是城镇化发展历史的一个必然过程。城镇化发展不仅涉及农村过剩劳动力人口的转移过程，同时也涉及城市更新问题。当城镇化发展到一定阶段以后，需要通过维护、整建、拆除以及完善公共资源等新陈代谢方式，对城市空间资源进行优化配置，以此来满足人民日益增长的美好生活需求。2025年1月3日，国务院常务会议就强调，“城市更新关系城市面貌和居住品质的提升”,“要加强用地、资金等要素保障，盘活利用存量低效用地，统筹用好财政、金融资源，完善市场化融资模式，吸引社会资本参与城市更新。”这不仅是城市高质量发展的内在要求，也是推进以人为本新型城镇化建设的必经之路。基于此，在城市化进程中，就需要合理规范资本运作规则。一方面，通过设立“红绿灯”机制，引导资本有序流动，以实现城市更新与文化保护的协调发展；另一方面，要强化法治监管，严格限制资本对历史文化资源的过度开发，确保城市更新在保护城市人文底蕴的前提下推进；再者，要完善金融支持体系，优化城市更新项目的融资环境。如加大对符合规划要求、具备可持续发展前景的城市更新项目的融资支持力度，引导金融机构为条件成熟的项目提供信贷服务等。

V. The Urbanization Dilemma of Developing Countries and the Implications of China’s New-Type Urbanization Path

五、发展中国家的城市化困境与中国新型城镇化道路启示

Urbanization is an important engine driving regional economic growth and an inevitable path for a country to achieve modernization. However, in the process of rapid population migration to cities (urbanization of people) and continuous expansion of urban space (urbanization of land) in developing countries, the urbanization of people has not been transformed into the citizenization of people, and the urbanization of land also lacks the support of industrial development. The urbanization process ultimately falls into a structural dilemma where growth and disorder coexist. Taking Latin America as an example, since urbanization began to accelerate at the end of the 19th century, the proportion of the urban population in the Latin American region rose from 25% in 1900 to 41.6% in 1950, and further to 65.6% by the 1980s, approaching the level of developed European countries. Despite the high level of urbanization, the proportion of the industrial employed population during the same period was only 20%–30%. This typical model of “over-urbanization” clearly could not provide sufficient employment support for the urban transfer population; instead, it exacerbated the spread of slums in cities and brought about the continuous deterioration of the rural economy. For example, in 1987, there were approximately 2.5 million people living in slums across Brazil, while in Brazil’s megacities such as Rio de Janeiro, the slum population exceeded 1.5 million. At the same time, land annexation occurred frequently in rural areas. After going bankrupt and losing their land, a large number of peasants had to enter cities in search of new survival opportunities, and rural areas fell completely into the development predicament of “hollowing out.” This vampire-like model of “over-urbanization” led to “urban-rural fragmentation” and “spatial imbalance,” and these typical features have become a true portrayal of the urbanization process in developing countries such as those in Latin America. Different from the imbalance of the urban spatial system in Latin America, urbanization in Southeast Asia presents a dual dilemma of “urban-rural ambiguity” and “spatial marginalization.” Its urbanization development mostly relies on export-oriented industry to drive it, that is, relying on the development of labor-intensive manufacturing in cities. Under the national constraints of a large population and limited land, the population can only concentrate in a few large cities. However, due to lagging urban planning and rigid land use systems, a large number of “gray areas” have formed around cities. These areas have neither been formally incorporated into the urban administrative management system nor can they continue to be retained as agricultural land. As a result, they are institutionally “neither city nor village,” public services cannot effectively cover them, and a vacuum in urban social governance has been created. This structural exclusion solidifies a large number of low-level migrant workers at the institutional margins, making it difficult for the “urbanization of people” to achieve a substantive leap toward the “citizenization of people.”

城市化是推动地区经济增长的重要引擎，也是国家实现现代化的必然路径。但发展中国家在人口快速向城市迁移(人的城市化)、城市空间不断扩张(土地城市化)的过程中，人的城市化并未转变为人的市民化，土地城市化也缺少产业发展支撑，城市化进程最终陷入增长与失序并存的结构性困境中。以拉丁美洲为例，自19世纪末城市化开始加速以来，拉美地区城市人口比例由1900年的25%上升至1950年的41.6%,至20世纪80年代更是达到65.6%,接近欧洲发达国家水平。尽管城市化水平高，但同期工业就业人口比例仅为20%～30%。这种典型的“过度城市化”发展模式显然无法给城市转移人口提供足够的就业支撑，反而会加剧贫民窟在城市的蔓延，同时带来农村经济的持续恶化。例如，1987年，巴西全国约有 250万人居住在贫民窟，而巴西的里约热内卢等特大城市贫民窟人口则超过150万人。与此同时，农村地区土地兼并现象频发，大量农民在破产并丧失土地后，不得不进入城市寻找新的生存机会,农村地区彻底陷入“空心化”的发展窘境。这种吸血式的“过度城市化”发展模式导致了“城乡割裂”与“空间失衡”,这些典型特征也成了拉美等发展中国家城市化进程中的真实写照。与拉美的城市空间体系的失衡有所不同，东南亚地区的城市化则呈现“城乡模糊”与“空间夹缝化”的双重困境。它们的城市化发展多依托出口导向型工业来推动，即依赖于城市的劳动密集型制造业的发展。在人多地少的国情限制下，人口只能向少数大城市集中。然而，由于城市规划滞后、土地使用制度僵化，城市周边形成了大量“灰色区域”,这些区域既未被正式纳入城市行政管理体系，也无法继续作为农业用地保留，结果在制度上“既非城、亦非村”,公共服务无法有效覆盖，造成了城市社会治理的真空。这种结构性排斥将大量底层农民工固化于制度边缘，导致“人的城市化”难以真正实现向“人的市民化”的实质性跃迁。

In contrast, during its rapid urbanization process, China has creatively constructed a multi-center, multi-tiered urban spatial system with urban agglomerations as the main body and county towns as the important carriers, and has put forward a new-type urbanization development model that is people-centered, integrates urban and rural areas, and promotes the interaction between industrialization and urbanization [n], providing a solution for urbanization in developing countries that combines Chinese characteristics with universal values. (1) China’s new-type urbanization emphasizes the construction of an urban agglomeration system and the strengthening of county functions, so as to form a multi-center, coordinated urban spatial system. Unlike the “single-center expansion” or “over-urbanization” development models of developing countries, since entering the New Era, China has clearly put forward the new-type urbanization development strategy of “taking urban agglomerations as the main form and county towns as the important carriers,” promoting the formation of a multi-center, networked regional development pattern. For example, in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, Shanghai is no longer the sole growth pole; instead, through high-speed rail networks and an industrial gradient layout, it forms a close division of labor and cooperation with small and medium-sized cities such as Suzhou, Wuxi, and Nantong, jointly bearing the transfer of population and industry. This urbanization development model can provide new ideas for developing countries to alleviate the “big city disease” problems caused by “over-urbanization.” (2) China’s new-type urbanization focuses on incorporating the steering of capital and the safeguarding of people’s livelihood into an institutionalized, standardized, and normalized track, so as to prevent urbanization from evolving into a process of spatial exclusion dominated by the logic of capital’s pursuit of profit. For example, in terms of land urbanization, through the establishment of a comprehensive territorial spatial planning system, land speculation and disorderly spatial sprawl have been effectively avoided. In terms of people’s urbanization, through continuously improving the equalization of basic public services, strengthening the construction of affordable housing, and other institutional designs, and by guiding social capital to serve public needs and optimizing the supply of urban public services, the transformation of the incoming population from “citizens in status” to “citizens with rights” has been facilitated. This provides a new model for developing countries to coordinate the relationship between land urbanization and people’s urbanization, and to solve the problems of insufficient infrastructure and public service supply that arise in this process. (3) China’s new-type urbanization follows a mechanism of urban-rural coordination to achieve the dual goals of urban development and rural prosperity, thereby avoiding rural decline and “urban-rural fragmentation” caused by “parasitic urbanization.” For example, by guiding industries and capital to sink into the hinterlands of metropolitan areas, the capacity of small and medium-sized cities and county towns to absorb the rural migrant population has been effectively enhanced; by equalizing the layout of public services such as education, medical care, and elderly care in urban and rural areas, not only has the bottleneck of the rural migrant population “entering the city without settling down, entering the city without services” been broken, but it has also facilitated the return of the urban population to rural areas to support industrial development there. This new model of integrated urban-rural development not only alleviates urban pressure but also enhances the resilience and inclusiveness of the entire country’s urban spatial governance system, providing new ideas for developing countries to solve the dilemma of “urban-rural fragmentation” and eliminate the vacuum in urban spatial governance. (4) China’s new-type urbanization emphasizes mutual support and deep synergy with new-type industrialization, so as to avoid the hollowing out of urban industries and the problem of over-urbanization that may arise when land urbanization outpaces people’s urbanization. By establishing an interactive model that matches the gradient layout of industries with nearby employment for the population, it promotes the coordinated progress of industrialization and urbanization, forming an urban development pattern with sustainable industrial development and guaranteed employment for the population. For example, it guides energy-rich regions to cultivate emerging industrial clusters such as new energy and big data, and guides regions with abundant labor and convenient locations to optimize and upgrade traditional industrial clusters with large employment capacity, such as food processing and light industry textiles. While promoting the development of emerging industries and the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, it enhances the region’s capacity to support employment and absorb the migrant population. This development model of coordinated promotion of new-type urbanization and new-type industrialization can provide new ideas for developing countries to solve the problem of urban industrial hollowing out and alleviate the problem of over-urbanization.

相比之下，中国在快速城市化进程中，创造性地构建了以城市群为主体、以县城为重要载体的多中心、多层次城市空间体系，提出了以人为本、城乡融合、“两化”互动的新型城镇化发展模式，为发展中国家的城市化建设提供了兼具中国特色和普世价值的解决方案。(1)中国新型城镇化强调城市群体系构建与县域功能强化，以形成多中心协调发展的城市空间体系。与发展中国家“单中心扩张”或“过度城市化”发展模式不同，进入新时代以来，中国明确提出“以城市群为主体形态，以县城为重要载体”的新型城镇化发展战略，推动形成了多中心、网络化的区域发展格局。例如，在长三角城市群中，上海不再是唯一增长极，而是通过高铁网络和产业梯度布局，与苏州、无锡、南通等中小城市形成密切分工协作，共同承载人口和产业转移。这种城镇化发展模式，可为发展中国家缓解由于“过度城市化”所带来的大城市病问题提供新思路。(2)中国新型城镇化注重将驾驭资本与保障民生纳入制度化、规范化、常态化轨道，以防止城市化演变为资本逐利逻辑主导下的空间排斥过程。如在土地城市化方面，通过建立完善的国土空间规划体系，有效避免了土地投机与空间无序蔓延。而在人的城市化方面，通过不断完善基本公共服务均等化、加强保障性住房建设等制度设计,通过引导社会资本服务公共需求，优化城市公共服务供给,帮助进城人口实现了从“身份市民”到“权益市民”的转变。这为发展中国家协调土地城市化与人的城市化关系，解决在此过程中出现的基础设施和公共服务供给不足问题提供了新模式。(3)中国新型城镇化遵循通过城乡统筹机制，来实现城市发展与乡村繁荣的双重目标，进而避免由于“吸血式城市化”所带来的乡村衰败与“城乡割裂”。如通过引导产业和资本向都市圈腹地下沉，有效提升了中小城市和县城吸纳农村转移人口的能力；如通过教育、医疗、养老等公共服务在城乡地区的均等化布局，既打通了农村转移人口“进城不落户、进城无服务”的堵点，也为城市人口回流农村，支持农村地区产业发展提供了便利。这种城乡融合发展新模式不仅缓解了城市压力，还提升了整个国家城市空间治理体系的韧性与包容性，为发展中国家解决“城乡割裂”困境，消除城市空间治理真空提供了新思路。(4)中国新型城镇化强调与新型工业化互为支撑、深度协同，以避免土地城市化快于人的城市化所可能产生的城市产业空心化以及过度城市化问题。通过建立产业梯度布局与人口就近就业相匹配的互动模式，推动工业化与城市化协调并进，形成产业发展可持续、人口就业有保障的城市发展格局。如引导能源富集地区培育新能源和大数据等新兴产业集群，引导劳动力丰富和区位便利地区优化升级食品加工、轻工纺织等就业容量大的传统产业集群，在推动新兴产业发展和传统产业转型升级的同时增强地区的就业支撑能力和对转移人口的吸纳能力。这种新型城镇化与新型工业化协调推进的发展模式可为发展中国家解决城市产业空心化以及缓解过度城市化问题提供新思路。

Author’s bio: Yao Changcheng, Associate Professor, School of Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.

作者简介：姚常成，西南财经大学经济学院副教授。