Path for Building Characteristic Towns in Industrial Towns: A Case Study of Chengkou Town in Wudi County

Yuqi FAN

College of City Construction, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

Abstract At present, China’s new urbanization construction is making rapid progress, and the construction of characteristic towns has become a hot spot. The promotion of characteristic towns in various places has brought many opportunities for new urbanization. In addition, it has greatly promoted the transformation and development of the characteristic resources. However, many new problems have been exposed during the transformation process. Taking construction of characteristic town Chengkou Town in Wudi County as an example, this paper discussed the development paths for building characteristic towns in light industrial towns, in the hope of finding a new direction and solution.

Key words Industrial town, Characteristic town, Chengkou Town, Transformation and development

1 Introduction

Wudi County (37°4′-38°16′ N, 117°31′-118°04′ E) is located in the northern part of Shandong Province. The Bohai Bay is adjacent to its northeast and connected to Zhanhua County in the southeast. Its south is Yangxin County, the west is connected with Qingyun County, and the north is adjacent to Haixing County and Huanghua City across Zhangwei New River, and the total area of the county is 1 601 km2. By the end of 2015, Wudi County had a total population of 443 201, in which the urban population reached 225 137; the number of males was 228 548 and the number of females was 214 653. The birth rate was 10.9‰, the mortality rate was 5.19‰, and the natural population growth rate was 5.7‰. Chengkou Town is under the jurisdiction of Wudi County, has a total area of 337.3 km2and total population of 42 000. The industrial structure of Chengkou Town: the primary industry: 14.3%, the secondary industry: 68.7%, the tertiary industry: 17.0%, of which the industry represented by salt chemical and petrochemical industry is the main industry, and is the typical representative of industrial towns. From 2017, theImplementationSchemefortheConstructionofCharacteristicTownsinShandongProvincewas implemented. The Chengkou Town deeply understood the spirit of this file and actively responded and made efforts to declare the construction of characteristic town. Unfortunately, it failed in the first batch and second batch selection in 2017. Now, except Wudi County which has no characteristic town, other county-level administrative regions in Binzhou City have built characteristic towns. Therefore, it is urgent for Chengkou Town to transform from an industrial town to a characteristic town and come out in the third batch selection.

2 Difficulties of Chengkou Town in construction of characteristic town

2.1 Extremely insufficient infrastructure construction in Chengkou TownIn Wudi County, the construction of the regional road network has not yet formed a certain scale, and it cannot effectively extend to all areas and meet the demands of characteristic towns. Without convenient transportation, industrial transfer cannot be realized, let alone the industrial agglomeration. According to the current statistical data, the regional trunk roads and internal highway carrying capacity can basically meet the preliminary requirements, but the small town roads only have 47 km to reach the road network, the third-grade roads are seriously insufficient, and the fourth-grade and dirt roads account for a large proportion, and the transportation capabilities need to improve quickly.

In combination with the overall situation of the region, the largest obstacle to the development of northern Binzhou is the backward traffic conditions. The northern part of Binzhou has always been the northern gateway of Shandong Province. Running northward along Binzhou, the expressways and railways in Huanghua, Tianjin, Tangshan, Qinhuangdao and Liaoning have formed a large network, and the whole network has formed a system and scale. By contrast, the traffic situation in northern Binzhou seriously lags behind. Wudi-Huanghua line could not meet the transportation requirements. All of these greatly prevent economic exchanges between economic central cities such as Binzhou and Tianjin. Besides, Chengkou Town is still relatively backward in terms of infrastructure construction, and the treatment rate of sewage and domestic garbage has not risen to a certain scale. This is a common problem. The sewage treatment rate of most counties in Wudi County does not meet the requirements. Only the new town, Wudi ancient City and Beikedi Island have reached the qualified line. However, because Chengkou Town is very dependent on and close to the Lubei High and New Industrial Development Zone, the sewage treatment problem is very prominent. In addition, the sewage pipelines in Wudi County have always had the disadvantage of low embedding rate. What’s worse, Chengkou Town is relatively backward in education and medical care, and the related infrastructure construction has not yet been started. The old education facilities and the serious shortage of sick beds in hospitals are all manifestations in this respect. In terms of education, various teaching facilities are dilapidated, and even teaching aids are in urgent need of renewal. In terms of medical care, the number of people engaged in medical care is seriously inadequate, especially the shortage of professional medical personnel, leading to low medical rescue capacity. Wudi County Hospital has relatively complete facilities and can provide medical services for people in the towns, and there are no new problems due to the reduction of sick beds in the town, but this is only a temporary solution, in the standard with provincial-level towns, there is still a large gap.

2.2 Lack of scientific planning for leading industries of Chengkou TownAt present, Chengkou Town focuses on comprehensive characteristic industries, and is intended to realize deep development from many aspects. It has undertaken many projects, and the investment amount is up to 20-30 million, including shrimp culture, Haicheng Ecological Science and Technology Park, Yujia Tourism, Huaxia Salt Cultural Industry Park,etc. However, due to insufficient conditions such as supporting facilities, this program is mere paper talk, lacking practical support, and will not bring into play comprehensive advantage. For example, compared with the characteristic Feng Family’s Fishermen Cultural Town, there are various disadvantages, such as both the geographical location and investment lack behind, but the distance between the two is very close, which causes the situation of being suppressed. Generally, the works are too decentralized. Every one seems very weak, so it is impossible to realize comprehensive development. Besides, Chengkou Town takes its development core in the Lubei High and New Technological Development Zone, which is in essence belonging to the industrial park mode. The development zone is still dominated by petrochemicals and salt chemicals, and still remains in a leading position in similar projects in Binzhou. However, through comparing the two batches of characteristic towns in Shandong Province, it is not difficult to find that although there are a small number of heavy industrial towns with machinery and automobile manufacturing as the characteristic towns, the characteristic towns that are mainly dominated by light industry still occupy a majority, for example, Shuangyang architectural ceramic town in Zichuan District of Zibo City. Although some regions are mainly heavy industry, such as Dutang Auto Town in Dingtao District of Heze City is a car service park engaged to building a complex integrating motor sports, leisure and entertainment.

The main reason for this problem is that the leading industry in Chengkou Town is not scientifically and reasonably determined, and such problem is also the frequent occurrence of small town construction. For the original mature industries, the building of characteristic towns in industrial towns is very rare. Taking Zhejiang Province as an example, in the survey of 46 characteristic towns, only three small towns have adopted the original mature industry and expanded to become "characteristics towns", 19 towns take manufacturing as "characteristic" and have carried out technological innovations in the once leading industries, while 17 of these towns developed on the basis of the originally leading industries, improved the facilities necessary for the service industry, such as living support facilities for Tianziling Jingmai Small Town. However, Chengkou Town just copied the original industry, and made no innovation. In addition, even many industries are weak, Chengkou Town still develop in an all-round way, which consequently leading to serious shortage of funds. What’s more, the original industry has not reached the standard of "characteristic" and the deviation of industrial choices just appeared like this.

3 Paths for building characteristic towns in industrial towns

3.1 Strengthening the guidance in the planning of building characteristic towns in industrial townsIt is recommended to strengthen the guidance of planning first, and focus on the management of urban integration as the standard, and carry out the top-level design, also make clear the overall requirements, functional orientation, development ideas, specific objectives and major measures that can be implemented in the construction of characteristic towns[1]. Industrial characteristic small towns should take the development of local industries as the basis, make scientific and rational planning, highlight the characteristics of industrial development, make rational regional layout and industrial structure adjustment. Each small town should concentrate on developing an industry, attach importance to restructuring of characteristic industries, including three levels of project reorganization and restructuring of production, living, and ecological projects, and strengthening interaction with the four metropolitan economic circles, highlighting cultural connotations, creating experience functions, and making the characteristic towns become more scientific in planning and have practical value, and adopting a quantitative and feasible construction plan to make clear the scale of investment and the main body of investment[2].

3.2 Promoting the innovative breakthrough in the construction of characteristic towns in industrial townsThe construction and operation of industrial characteristic towns should incorporate new concepts and mechanisms to achieve innovative breakthrough in key fields[3]. It is recommended to attach importance to innovation in leadership systems, working mechanisms, and incentives, strengthen innovation in resource elements that focus on land, talent, and financing, and achieve breakthrough in infrastructure fields with road traffic as the core, concentrate on education, health care, and social security, make breakthroughs in the field of public services, as well as breakthroughs in the construction of characteristic towns[4]. It is recommended to explore the fund and talent guarantee mechanism to promote the sustainable economic development of the characteristic small towns. It is recommended to make innovation of the town’s late stage investment promotion mechanism and the town residents’ recruitment mechanism[5], and guide the industrial characteristic towns to become a new carrier of converging resources and popularity, enhance the characteristic industry, and plan a new platform for gathering innovative elements and set up a new scenic spot for displaying images.

3.3 Accelerating the implementation of project of building characteristic towns in industrial townsThe key to build characteristic towns lies in the implementation of small town construction project. It is necessary to make clear taking the development of unique town construction projects as the center, attract investment, and use industrial ecological concept to operate projects in the construction of characteristic towns. Construction projects should be accurately selected, well based, have growth potential, and development prospects in many aspects[6]. For the construction of characteristic towns, the selection of the project is a prerequisite, accurate selection will be more likely to survive, have good adaptability, have the potential for development, and ultimately realize the comprehensive benefits of sustainable development, drive the industrial development of surrounding regions, realizing setting up an example in comprehensive radiation to the town’s economy, and upgrading the town’s industry[7]. Projects under construction should continue to strengthen efforts to promote, attract investors to make investment, and operate all the projects of characteristic towns with industry chain thinking[8]. It is recommended to extend its catering, tourism, and cultural industries to enhance its comprehensive capabilities in agglomeration, support, and integration through the multiple linkages of the industry.

4 Conclusions

The positioning of the industrial-type characteristic town is a comprehensive, multi-aspect product that meets most of the demands of urban participants. In the past, people were largely independent in life, study, work and innovation, and did not have connections, lacking effective carriers that can integrate these elements and allow them to produce chemical reactions and bring into play better functions. The emergence of industrial characteristic towns has adapted to the precipitation of industrial traditions. These industrial towns, which have industrial atmospheres everywhere, have strongly condensed and concentrated these atmospheres, which have undergone fusion, and produced incredible energy and accelerating the construction speed of the characteristic towns and making the industrial towns have a new industrial life. For an industrial town, developing industrial characteristic town is positive and irreplaceable.