Modern residential houses have been well designedand planned in Huaming Town, DongliDistrict of Tianjin. Farmers can live in thesehouses without paying even a penny. As a forerunnerfor the construction of new countryside,Huaming Town has been selected as the UrbanBest Practices Area of World Expo 2010 toshowcase its achievements to the World.

Huaming Town can be selected because it inventedthe idea of “exchanging rural residenceland with houses” in the process of buildingnew countryside in China. Under the program,the farmers of Huaming Town can exchangetheir housing land with an apartment in thetown following set criteria and move to thetown. The rural land for construction will beused for farmland while part of the lands savedfrom the program will be used for commercialdevelopment.

Located in the central area of Dongli Districtand adjacent to the Binhai New Area, HuamingTown is 13 kilometers away from the downtownof Tianjin. It has planned to build residentialareas and supporting facilities with an area ofnearly 1.425 million square meters to settle thefarmers from about 13,000 families, or 45,000people, in 12 villages involved. The pilot townhas been divided into four parts, includingsettlement area for the farmers, commercialresidential area and business center, industrialzone and agricultural zone.

The mode of “exchanging rural residence landwith houses” has been proved an innovativeway to urbanized villages. A big amount of ruralhousing lands that had scattered everywherewith low efficiency have been centralized forfarming again, which could allow more efficientuse of land. Statistics show that the settlementarea for the farmers in Huaming Townjust takes up an area of 3,476 mu, which savedlands of nearly 8,595 mu.

The family assets of the farmers in HuamingTown have been increased through the program.Previously the farmers’ homes, whichwere mainly built with bricks, were evaluated atRMB 20,000 to 50,000 yuan. Now their apartmentsin the town, with an area of more than80 square meters, could be valued at morethan RMB 400,000 yuan. The real estate assetsof the farmers increase about 10 times.

Meanwhile, the local government uses the value-added gains from the land to buy social insurancefor the farmers, who could enjoy socialinsurance allowance of RMB 400 to 500 yuan amonth when they meet the statutory age.

The pilot town is located opposite to the Airportlogistic processing area. Land has beenreserved in the town for the development ofsecond and tertiary industries, which couldprovide 280,000 jobs upon completion. Accordingto the local government, about 16,000farmers have received skill trainings, and theycan work or become self-employed by startingtheir own business.

The ecologic environment has been obviouslyimproved in the town. Besides the existingmarsh, the Township Government built parks,dig lakes and reserved thousands of willowsand fruit trees along the previous ridge offarmlands. It also constructed infrastructuressuch as the sewage treatment system, reuseof the wastewater and the system to separateraindrops from sewage, which aims to build anecologic circle with positive cycling.

Currently, the residents in Huaming Town canenjoy complete facilitates for education, health,culture and sports and convenient lives withexcellent supply of water, power, gas and centralizedheat. The farmers’ life standard hasbeen greatly improved who could also enjoy theachievements of the reform and opening up.

The Best Urban Practices Area has been a keyinnovative project of World Expo 2010 Shanghai,which will display the recognized, innovativeand valuable cases that have dedicated toimproving the urban life quality. The pilot townof Huaming has been selected from 106 projectsin 87 cities around the world.