Small Cities Drive Big Consumption: The Three Or Four Tier Cities Will Be Bigger, Richer And More Daring.

Since the decision makers have promoted more balanced development and more than 3300 residents have surveyed, they have proved that small cities will be bigger, richer and more daring.

A year ago, the author analyzed the power of "dark horse" in the pformation of China's economic structure: the upgrading of consumption in small cities.

Looking back now, since the nineteen decision makers have promoted the more balanced development and the survey conducted by the author's research team, more than 3300 residents have verified that small cities will be bigger, richer and more daring.

The author expects residents of the three or four tier cities.

It will quadruple the level of 15 trillion yuan in 2017 to 45 trillion yuan in 2030 and become the main force of consumption in the next ten years.

The three or four line satellite cities in the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hongkong and Macau, the Great Bay area, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Chengdu Chongqing region and Beijing Tianjin Hebei region will continue to lead the three or four cities.

First, the three or four tier cities will become bigger.

A more flexible household registration policy and higher fertility will increase the population growth rate of the three or four tier cities over the second tier cities.

Data show that the growth rate of the three or four line urban population has remained strong in the past few years. Compared with this, the average annual growth rate of the second tier cities has slowed down. In 2017, the resident population in Beijing and Shanghai even experienced negative growth at the same time.

Secondly, the income of the three or four line urban residents has increased to a second tier city.

The nineteen proposed balanced development is expected to promote employment and wage growth in small and medium-sized cities from three aspects.

1. the development of urban agglomerations: at present, China's urban development strategy has gradually changed from the centralized development of large cities to the development of urban agglomerations, that is, the central cities connect the surrounding satellite towns through efficient large-scale public pport networks, forming a closely linked economic entity.

The development of urban agglomerations will not only help solve the problems of too densely populated central cities, traffic congestion, serious pollution, but also bring more employment opportunities to the relatively low cost satellite cities through the industrial re layout.

2. interconnection of infrastructure: high-speed rail, mobile network upgrading, and logistics improvement are accelerating the economic integration of large and small cities.

According to the government's plan, the total length of the high-speed rail will extend from the current 25 thousand km to 30 thousand km in 2020 and basically cover 1 million small cities.

This spillover effect on the local economy is huge: the author estimates that the popularity of high-speed rail will save 3 billion hours per year for Chinese railway travelers.

Railway development has also brought about improvements in logistics.

At present, the cost of Cross City Express has dropped to an average of only 9 yuan per parcel, similar to the price of the same city.

At the same time, the mobile Internet will gradually upgrade from 4G to 5G in the next two or three years. While promoting online shopping, it will also popularize various online service platforms, greatly reducing the size.

The gap between consumption experience.

People's mobility, logistics and information flow have been greatly improved, bringing more employment opportunities to small cities.

3. equalization of public services: General Secretary Xi Jinping mentioned in the nineteen major reports that the main contradiction of society has changed to the contradiction between the growing needs of people's life and the development of imbalances.

At the same time, accurate poverty alleviation is also an important battle in the next three years.

The author thinks that it is proper to raise the public resources and service level for the three or four tier cities and satellite towns.

Taking into account the above factors, the per capita annual income of the three or four line cities will rise from the current 32 thousand yuan to 73 thousand yuan in 2030, and the income gap with the first tier cities will also fall to 1/3 from the current half.

The third and three or four tier cities will be more daring to spend money.

The research team conducted more than 3300 residents' surveys in the second half of last year, confirming the judgement that the marginal consumption propensity of residents in small cities is high due to the relative flexibility of affordable housing prices, household accounts and related social security benefits.

In addition, the popularity of smart phones and e-commerce will help to overcome the disadvantages of traditional retail outlets in small cities and the low availability of products, and further release consumer demand.

1., the demand for alternative consumption and services is stronger. According to the survey, housing expenditure is the number one expenditure of second tier urban residents, but only three or four in the three or four tier cities, after daily necessities, education and optional consumption (such as tourism, dining out, durable goods, medical treatment).

In the question of "how will the future income increase", the residents of small cities are more inclined to travel and education.

In addition, up to 1/3 of respondents plan to buy new cars in the next two years, which is higher than that of the second tier cities (less than 1/4).

2. high Internet usage: the popularity of Internet in three or four line cities is basically the same as that in big cities. The Internet media is the most important shopping reference source for residents of large and small cities.

What is more interesting is that compared with the second tier cities, the three or four tier urban residents rely more on the Internet as entertainment medium.

Finally, in the three or four line cities, the satellite cities of the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hongkong and Macau, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Chengdu Chongqing and Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei will probably have more potential for development in the five cities.

Our survey also shows that half of the residents who wish to migrate to other small cities in the next three to five years choose the satellite towns of these five cities, far higher than the proportion of other regions, which may reflect the better employment prospects of these cities.

The international experience of Tokyo metropolitan area and California Bay area shows that the population growth rate of satellite city will be longer than that of central cities in the upgrading period of economic structure, thanks to closer infrastructure connectivity, relatively reasonable cost of living and policy support.

The author predicts that with the spread of the high-speed rail network and the government's continued balance of regional development, China's urban agglomerations will also have similar development trajectories.