The Continuous Shrinkage of Northeast Cities and the Trend of Weak Counties

Shrinkage cities are a hot topic in recent years, and a considerable part of them are resource-exhausted cities, but some of them are small cities in developed provinces.

Resource-exhausted cities refer to those cities whose mineral resources development has entered the late, late or final stage, and whose cumulative recoverable reserves have reached more than 70% of the recoverable reserves. The transformation of resource-exhausted cities is a prominent problem that has been or is being experienced in the economic and social development of all countries in the world.

In 2008, 2009 and 2012, the State Council identified 69 resource-exhausted cities (counties and districts) in three batches. Among them, 37 coal cities, 14 non-ferrous metal cities, 6 ferrous metallurgical cities, 3 petroleum cities and 9 other cities.

First Financial and Economic Journalist selected 23 resource-exhausted cities (Wansheng District and Nanchuan District of Chongqing were not included) at the municipal level to explore the development trend of resource-exhausted cities since the new century through the changes of permanent population at three time points in 2000, 2010 and 2015.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned year data are selected because China conducts a population census every 10 years and a 1% sample survey between the two censuses, that is, "a small census in five years and a large census in ten years". However, due to multiple reasons, there are differences in the publication of resident population data in the above 23 cities, so the data collected in this time is not perfect. In general, 10 of the 23 resource-exhausted prefecture-level cities showed a contraction in the permanent population. Among them, 9 cities in Northeast China, including Qitai River, Fuxin, Panjin, Fushun, Liaoyuan, Baishan, Yichun, Hegang and Shuangyashan, have contracted significantly.

Take Fushun as an example. In the early 1980s, the city was one of 18 large cities with a population of over one million in urban areas. At that time, Shenzhen in the South had just started as a small fishing village, and cities such as Xiamen and Ningbo were also very small. However, nearly 40 years later, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Ningbo and other cities in the South have risen, while Fushun, Panjin and other northeastern cities are developing very slowly and moving hard.

Ding Changfa, associate professor of economics, Xiamen University, analyzed the first financial and economic journalist. In the planned economy era, traditional heavy industrial cities such as Fushun have acquired a large number of resource elements and developed well. However, in the era of reform and opening up, a large number of factor resources, such as funds and talents, have turned to more active areas of market economy. On the other hand, the shrinkage of population in many cities in Northeast China is also related to the low fertility rate in Northeast China in recent years. The data show that in 2018, the natural growth rate of Liaoning's population was - 1.00, a decrease of 437,000 people. In addition to the outflow population, the permanent population of Liaoning decreased by 96,000 people. During the same period, the birth rates of Heilongjiang and Jilin were 5.98 and 6.62 respectively, ranking the penultimate and the penultimate third among the provinces. Peng Peng, deputy chairman of Guangdong Institute of Physical Education Reform, analyzed that there were more people in the original state-owned enterprises and systems in Northeast China, urbanization was earlier, family planning was implemented more strictly, and people were more receptive to the concept of family planning. After the 1990s, with the increase of laid-off workers, the fertility rate was also affected under economic pressure. At the same time, due to the downturn of energy economy and the slowdown of economic growth, the population of many resource-exhausted cities in Northeast China has shifted to the developed areas along the southeast coast on the one hand, and to the central cities such as provincial capitals and planned cities on the other, and the population of prefecture-level cities has further contracted.

Take Fuxin as an example. According to the results of the sample survey of Fuxin's population in 2015 released by Fuxin Statistical Bureau, the permanent population of Fuxin at 0:00 on November 1, 2015 was 1.778 million. Compared with 1.189 million at the time of the sixth census in 2010, the total number of permanent residents in Fuxin decreased by 41,000 in five years, by 2.25%, with an average annual decrease of 46. According to the introduction of Fuxin Statistical Bureau, the main reason for the decline of permanent population is that "our city belongs to a resource-exhausted city, with a single production structure and underdeveloped economy, and belongs to an outflow city. At present, there are still nearly 74,000 people in our city flowing to other provinces, and the total population is declining year by year. The data also show that the proportion of the elderly population aged 60 and over in Fuxin reached 18.4% in 2015, and has entered the elderly society as early as 2010. Moreover, the growth rate of the elderly population in Fuxin in the past decade is much faster than that of the total population. However, not all resource-exhausted cities are experiencing a sustained population contraction, and the total population of many resource-exhausted cities is still growing, except in the Northeast. The data show that in the 23 cities mentioned above, the total resident population of the 14 prefecture-level cities except Jiaozuo is still growing. The population growth of these cities has multiple factors. On the one hand, although these cities are also resource-exhausted cities, under the system of Municipal Administration of counties, these cities have many county-level areas under their jurisdiction, and these districts.