The renovation of old neighborhoods is an important part of urban renewal. Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ni Hong said during this year's National People's Congress that the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development will work hard to implement a number of renewal projects that benefit people's livelihood, promote development and prevent risks. Among them, in the development projects, a number of old neighborhoods will be transformed, boutique streets and urban living rooms will be created, and vibrant neighborhoods will be built to provide young people with more innovation and entrepreneurship space and create more consumption scenarios for citizens.

  The renovation of old neighborhoods has brought old neighborhoods to life. Many renovated old neighborhoods have become new fulcrums for promoting consumption, nurturing innovation, and leveraging economic development.

  Continue urban fireworks

  The renovation of old blocks is an improvement and optimization of existing blocks, and large-scale demolition and construction should be avoided. In the view of Fan Sibin, director of the Urban Renewal Research Branch of the China Urban Planning and Design Institute, the renovation of old blocks is not only a space renewal and quality improvement, but also a creation of a vibrant place in the city, and it is necessary to protect the atmosphere of urban fireworks. "Fireworks are competitiveness." To protect the urban fireworks atmosphere, we need to use "population" and "demand" to run through the entire process of renewal, which will help generate comprehensive social, economic and cultural benefits.

  The characteristic block of Yulin East Road, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province is located in the old city of Chengdu. It has faced problems such as traffic congestion, aging infrastructure, poor living environment, large-scale loss of young people, gradual decline in business, and weakening of block vitality. By renovating the shop industry along Yulin East Road, the local area promotes the integration of historical and cultural relics, fireworks market life, and fashion trendy neighborhoods, creating a new scene of happy life in the park community, and regaining popularity in the old commercial street. Today, the flow of people on Yulin East Road has increased from about 10,000 people per day before the renovation to 30,000 to 50,000 people per day. 153 shops along the route have been fully updated, and brand cultural activities such as "Yulin Road Folk Music Season" and "Yulin Books" have attracted many young people.

  Torch 8th Street, Weihai City, Shandong Province was originally an ordinary urban branch road. 38 buildings along the street were built in the 1990s. The surrounding environment was chaotic, privately built on the street, old facades, insufficient supporting facilities, and lack of commercial formats, which seriously affected the regional landscape. In 2022, Weihai City will rely on the unique natural landscape conditions such as surrounding mountains, seas, islands, reefs, and forests, and on the basis of maintaining its original characteristics and charm, it will improve the quality of the block overall through ecological environment transformation, landscape facilities improvement, leisure space creation, service facilities improvement, pipeline network supporting facilities, and smart tourism construction. The renovated Torch Eighth Street has a new look, upgraded business formats, and continued increase in traffic, driving the surrounding scenic spots to become popular on the Internet and promoting the tourism industry to achieve "booming" growth.

  The renovation of many old blocks also reflects the protection, excavation and application of urban history and culture. Some reproduce urban life scenes through wall painting art, some make full use of cultural resources such as old walls, old streets, and old alleys, and some embed cultural symbols and folk art performances into trendy commercial and spatial scenes to achieve the complementary contrast of historical culture and modern life, and transform historical memory into contemporary scenes where all kinds of people have empathy, experience, and willingness to consume.

  Drive consumption growth

  Urban renewal not only affects the improvement of the city's appearance and quality, but also an important means to expand domestic demand. Fan Sibin believes that the renovation of old blocks has effectively driven the growth of employment, increased social investment, increased consumption flow, and increased revenue and tax revenue, confirming the economic law of "micro-update generation and strong driving force". From tapping potential to creating value, cultivating new consumption, new business forms and new momentum, old neighborhoods have become an important engine to leverage local economic development.

  The renovation of old commercial streets can play a prominent role in driving consumption. Zhou Lan, vice chairman of the China Urban Planning Society, believes that urban renewal can promote consumption transformation and quality improvement. Through urban renewal, optimize business formats such as business, leisure, and entertainment, respond to emerging needs such as fitness and elderly care, create charming spaces, and drive consumption transformation and quality improvement.

  The comprehensive renewal and improvement project of Shiquan Street District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province has become a popular tourist destination and internet celebrity check-in place in Suzhou in response to the problems of narrow walking space, lack of public space, lack of water street characteristics, inefficient and idle assets, and insufficient vitality of ancient city streets in recent years. Through diversified business formats, stimulate comprehensive consumption vitality. The traffic of people in the street, operating hours and merchant income have increased significantly. The traffic of people in the weekend increased by more than three times compared with before the renovation. The nighttime business hours of the street were extended by an average of 2 hours, the store's customer flow and turnover increased by 30%, and some stores increased by more than 50%. Under the guidance of the government, social resources have been widely invested, which has stimulated the self-renovation and upgrading of about 10% of the shops along the street.

  The transformation of old industrial zones stimulates the innovation vitality of enterprises and drives economic growth by forming new industrial clusters.

  The original site of the Blue Series Urban Renewal Project in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province is Wuxi Light Industry Smelting Plant, Knitting Factory, Hardware Factory and other industrial relics born in different eras of the last century, as well as some abandoned supply and marketing cooperatives, silkworm seed farms and other old single buildings and houses. Since 2019, Wuxi City has built different functional sectors such as comprehensive industrial parks, digital cultural industry cluster areas, and life, leisure and cultural commercial streets here, and has successively derived blue series of landmark projects to achieve enterprise incubation and business model value-added. In the blue series of urban renewal projects, a variety of business formats are formed to stimulate the economic vitality of the area. The old factory buildings have achieved a gorgeous turn. The Blue·1956 Science and Technology Cultural Entrepreneurship Park has introduced more than 60 cultural and technology enterprises, the Blue·1982 Digital Cultural Design Park has introduced 25 design and semiconductor enterprises, and the Blue Bay 1917 Cultural and Tourism Block has introduced more than 20 merchants. At present, the park's annual operating income exceeds 30 million yuan, and the overall occupancy rate exceeds 90%.

  Build a long-term mechanism

  How to promote the renovation of old blocks? Who operates it? Where does the funds come from? Only by answering these questions well can the renovation of old blocks last for a long time and have strong vitality.

  To innovate the sustainable implementation model of old block renovation, we need to adhere to government guidance, market operation and public participation. The video conference on the deployment of urban renewal work proposed that it is necessary to implement the responsibility of project funds balance, coordinate the use of various financial resources in accordance with the principles of marketization and rule of law, and build a fund sharing mechanism between the government, the market and the residents.

  Zhou Lan believes that the operation of urban renewal should introduce patient capital to promote the transformation of business entities from "developers who valued rapid turnover in the past" to "update operators that focus on the mining of long-term needs of residents", and to coexist and grow together with their communities and the people for a long time.

  The Taiping Road Block Renovation and Upgrading Project in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province makes full use of the unique resources containing Yunyan culture such as old walls, old streets, and old alleys to create an exclusive tourism experience, with the river as a belt, connecting the surrounding historical and cultural relics and commercial districts, and overall shaping the cultural space of Guiyang's characteristic urban. During the transformation process, financing problems were solved through "government funds + bank financing + enterprise self-funding". Starting from 2021, the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government will adhere to market-oriented operations and innovate and establish "four modernizations" and ecological and environmental protection funds with a scale of 80 billion yuan. Among them, the provincial new urbanization investment fund will focus on the field of urban renewal. The renovation and upgrading of Taiping Road blocks was financed and built by district-owned state-owned enterprises with a total investment of 498 million yuan. The "collection, renting and attracting" method was adopted to integrate high-quality resources and improve the ability to compete for financing. By applying for a provincial new urbanization investment fund of 100 million yuan, a loan of 290 million yuan from Guizhou Bank, and a self-raised 108 million yuan from the enterprise, the project construction funds were guaranteed through multiple channels.

  During the renovation process of the comprehensive renewal and improvement project of the Shiquan Street area of ​​Suzhou City, it adheres to the "government manages the basics and market improves" to form an update model guided by the government and widely participated by diversified social entities. Establish a four-party coordinated work organization mechanism, and jointly establish a comprehensive rectification and improvement work team by government departments at the municipal and district levels, municipal state-owned enterprises, and expert teams to link merchants and residents, leverage social resources to invest in street development, guide social forces to participate in the update process, maintain update results, and give full play to the synergistic effects of government leadership, social participation, and independent renewal.

  "Urban renewal not only requires 'space transformation', but also 'mechanism reconstruction', and through policy and mechanism innovation, we can achieve balance of interests between multiple parties, joint fundraising, and win-win cooperation. At the same time, the establishment of institutions such as the Development Alliance, Merchant Alliance, and Business Form Federation in the renovation of old blocks also provides good guarantees for long-term governance." Fan Sibin said. (Reporter Kang Shu)

[Editor in charge: Jiao Peng]