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40.Huaming Town makes a breakthrough in the urbanization of villages, selected as the Urban Best Practices Area of World Expo 2010
http://www.tj-summerdavos.cn 2014-09-08 19:49

Modern residential houses have been well designed and planned in Huaming Town, Dongli District of Tianjin. Farmers can live in these houses without paying even a penny. As a forerunner for the construction of new countryside, Huaming Town has been selected as the Urban Best Practices Area of World Expo 2010 to showcase its achievements to the world.

Huaming Town was be selected because it invented the idea of “exchanging rural residence land with houses” in the process of building new countryside in China. Under the program, the farmers of Huaming Town can exchange their housing land with an apartment in the town in line with pre-set criteria and move to the town. The rural land for construction will be used for farmland while part of the lands saved from the program will be used for commercial development.

The mode of “exchanging rural residence land with houses” has been proved an innovative way to urbanized villages. A great amount of rural housing lands that had scattered everywhere with low efficiency have been centralized for farming again, which could allow more efficient use of land. Statistics show that the settlement area for the farmers in Huaming Town just takes up an area of 3,476 mu, which saved lands of nearly 8,595 mu.

The family assets of the farmers in Huaming Town have been increased through the program. Previously the farmers’ homes, which were mainly built with bricks, were evaluated at 20,000 to 50,000 yuan. Now their apartments in the town, with an area of more than 80 square meters, could be valued at more than 400,000 yuan. The real estate assets of the farmers increase by about 10 times.

Meanwhile, the local government uses the value-added gains from the land to buy social insurance for the farmers, who could enjoy social insurance allowance of 400 to 500 yuan a month when they meet the statutory age.

The pilot town is located opposite to the Airport logistic processing area. Land has been reserved in the town for the development of second and tertiary industries, which could provide 280,000 jobs upon completion. According to the local government, about 16,000 farmers have received skill trainings, and they can work or become self-employed by starting their own business.

The ecologic environment has been obviously improved in the town. Besides the existing marsh, the Township Government built parks, dug lakes and reserved thousands of willows and fruit trees along the previous ridge of farmlands. It also constructed infrastructures such as the sewage treatment system, reuse of the wastewater and the system to separate raindrops from sewage, which aim to build an ecologic circle with positive cycling.

Currently, the residents in Huaming Town can enjoy complete facilitates for education, health, culture and sports and lead convenient lives with excellent supply of water, power, gas and centralized heat. The farmers’ living standard has been greatly improved who could also enjoy the achievements of the reform and opening up.

By the end of July, 2009, 29 model towns, separated in three batches and approved by the Tianjin Municipal Government, are right on track for construction, with 8 million square meters of space starting construction and 5 million finished already. The aggregated investment has reached 20 billion yuan. More than 100,000 farmers has moved into the newly built towns, which are more ecological and energy efficient.

The Best Urban Practices Area has been a key innovative project of World Expo 2010 Shanghai, which will display the recognized, innovative and valuable cases that have dedicated to improving the urban life quality. The pilot town of Huaming has been selected from 106 projects in 87 cities around the world.

Source:Enorth.com.cn

Editor: Zhang Jialu
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