China Business News' New First-tier Cities Research Institute ranks 338 cities at or above the prefecture level in China. This latest 2017 city business charm ranking follows the previous year's business resource concentration, urban hubs, urban people's activity, and lifestyle.

Diversity and future plasticity are five major indicators, but some adjustments have been made in the analysis algorithm: the expert committee of the New First-tier Cities Research Institute is invited to assign weights to the five major indicators, and they are included in the scoring system using the expert scoring method; and below the second-level indicators

The data were analyzed using principal component analysis method with objective weighting.

When I first arrived in Chengdu, what struck me deeply was the slogan at the train station: Chengdu, a city you don’t want to leave once you’ve arrived!

The positioning of this city is quite precise and special, and you will really feel reluctant to leave it after staying there for a long time.

Why is Chengdu so attractive?

Of course, policy and economic support are indispensable. There are many places with state support, but few can quickly seize opportunities and form their own unique attractions.

Chengdu has not only succeeded in attracting many talents to come and work, but also has many wealthy people from western provinces coming to live and retire. The reasons behind this are worth exploring.

From the transportation point of view, the road to Sichuan is difficult and difficult to reach the sky. Now it is far less convenient to enter Sichuan than in many areas. It cannot be compared with coastal cities. The logistics and transportation are not as good as Chongqing on the edge of the Yangtze River.

Geographically, it is located next to Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, and Qinghai, but its development is better than that of many central and eastern cities that are adjacent to developed provinces.

But Chengdu has a huge advantage, and it has firmly grasped this advantage.

This advantage is also something that major cities are striving for now, but the way to do it is different from Chengdu.

There are roughly two ways in which big cities develop.

One is to build new cities quickly and spread them everywhere. Build new cities far away from the old city to expand the scale of the city. Build a beautiful and tall new city, improve the city's grade and image, attract factories and the population, and use the initial advantages and discounts to attract factories and enterprises.

Settlement and promote industrial development.

Most of this rapid city building is extensive, with flowers scattered at various points, areas far apart, and large open spaces in the middle left for building factories.

The advantage is that it can quickly expand the scale of the city. If it is developed well, it can be connected from point to point to form a large area, which is what most cities use.

This approach also has disadvantages. If the city itself is not attractive enough, it may not be able to form a cluster effect (it is difficult for most cities to succeed in this way now. If it was very effective in the past, future articles will explain the reasons).

The industrial areas are scattered and it is difficult to form an industrial scale. Looking at the later stage, the industrial areas are mixed between urban areas, and the same roads are used for cargo logistics transportation and urban buses and private cars.

There are great differences in functional positioning, and the contradictions will become more prominent as the city develops in the future.

What's the biggest drawback?

Weaken the advantage everyone is striving for - population size.

Scattered new cities artificially disperse the population, and the industrial zones between new cities block population flow and exchanges to a certain extent.

This is the model in most cities.

I have seen the development of a small town in a city. People in the same town were divided into three different places for resettlement. In the middle were factory buildings and wasteland. The bus ran every 40 minutes, from 7 to 7 o'clock.

When we spread out the city map again, we can see that there are industrial areas of different sizes in different districts. Between industrial areas are residential areas, and between residential areas and residential areas there are industrial wastelands.

The population is scattered, many urban areas are not popular with businesses, and most shops have very few customers!

Industrial areas and residential areas are mixed, and logistics transportation vehicles and private buses use roads at a high rate at the same time, causing traffic jams in most areas.

Commuting from one district to another is long and painful even if the same district is far apart!

Think about it, this situation is not good for people's mobility. If you have a fixed residence in a district, changing jobs will become very troublesome.

This situation often prompts people to buy private cars to save time, further exacerbating congestion.

It is not easy to retain the population or influx of people. Coastal economic cities are more attractive!

Many cities want to retain their population but are also facing the problem of population loss!

Chengdu is also facing such a problem. Its development is more like the second type. It first develops the existing regional economy to form competitiveness and attraction, attracts the population, and then naturally expands outward as the population grows.

Perhaps Chengdu's success is mainly due to two focus points.

First: Population density. Population density is actually as important as population quantity. To a certain extent, the so-called population size refers to population density.

Henan has always had a large population, but its development has been slow.

In recent years, as the population has concentrated in Zhengzhou, the economy has developed rapidly.

The population of Chengdu is already 16 million, and many cities with a population of around 6 million now have their main urban areas expanded almost as much as the main urban areas of Chengdu!

With such a small population spread over such a large city area, it is easy to understand that business popularity is insufficient and there are only few customers.

Now Chengdu has proposed that the population of the main urban area should not exceed 14.5 million by 2030. It is possible that many cities will still struggle to exceed 10 million by 2030.

Only when people gather together can economies of scale be formed and opportunities for wealth emerge.

Take food delivery, which has emerged in recent years, as an example. With the Internet and apps, if the population is scattered and not concentrated, it will be difficult for it to take off.

Another example is the small stalls set up on the overpass. There are very few people coming and going, and they will naturally disperse after being set up for a few days.