"What new and big problems are small towns facing?" published; 40 years later, "Small Towns, 40 Years Ago"
40 years ago, Mr. Fei Xiaotong's "Small Towns, Big Issues" was published. This article comes from Fei Xiaotong’s one-month research in Wujiang, Jiangsu. Today, it is of positive significance to review and learn from the experience and inspiration of Fei Xiaotong’s research on small towns.
The first is to establish the academic research value of small towns.
Sociologists represented by Fei Xiaotong established community research as an important research object of Chinese local sociology, leaving a rich academic legacy for later generations and forming a Chinese sociological research tradition that has influenced today. Among them, topics such as small towns and rural industrialization, the social composition and social operation of small towns, the relationship between small towns and villages, and small towns and urbanization roads still have important research value.
The second is the decision-making choice that affects the path of urbanization.
From agricultural society to industrial society, some European and American countries have embarked on the road of "rapid urban expansion". China is a socialist country with a very large population. It has consciously explored an urbanization path with Chinese characteristics and gradually established a development model for the coordinated development of large, medium and small cities and towns.
The third is to establish an example of academic research serving reality.
One of Fei Xiaotong's expectations for small town research is to "play a consulting role." He proposed that “scientific research, consultation, decision-making and practice constitute a cyclic system in the process of modernization.” Scientific research and consultation are necessary links in this cyclic system, and the four links’ cycle reflects the “party’s mass line.”
In reality, some academic researchers tend to separate or even oppose the two, and even have the misunderstanding of favoring one over the other. The research on small towns and Fei Xiaotong’s “circulatory system” theory are worthy of study and reflection. Today, we are faced with one "hard nut" after another. It is even more necessary to conduct in-depth investigations and special studies, master "first-hand information", listen to "front-line voices", draw on the wisdom of the masses, summarize successful experiences, and come up with targeted opinions and suggestions.
The fourth is to continue the fine tradition of local research in sociology.
Since the reform and opening up, the large-scale translation and introduction movement has not only provided rich academic nourishment for the re-started Chinese sociology and even the humanities and social sciences, but also profoundly affected the basic stance, viewpoints and methods of local social science research, but it has also more or less It brings about the weakness of subjectivity and originality.
Fei Xiaotong personally continued the tradition of Chinese sociology caring about local issues and studying local society. He emphasized that the problem of small towns did not fall from the sky, nor was it thought up by any one person. It was raised in the development of objective practice. This essentially answers one of the most important lessons in academic research - "how to ask questions." Only by raising questions from practice can we get rid of the patterns of "circling in concepts" and "from books to books".
It is located in Zhenze Town, Wujiang District, Suzhou City, in the Yangtze River Delta Ecological Green Integrated Development Demonstration Zone. Data pictures
Taking this as a spur, the “big problem” of small towns also needs to be re-understood in the new urbanization stage.
On the one hand, it is necessary to admit that the modern economy relies more on large-scale agglomeration, and the traditional rural industrialization model is unsustainable. In reality, except for some small towns with a strong economic development foundation, the vast majority of small towns mainly function as market towns for regional consumer goods distribution, and it is difficult to become "the center of farmers' economic activities." The economic and social scale of some small towns concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta has reached the size of small cities or even medium-sized cities, and they are not "small towns" in the typical sense.
On the other hand, the functions of small towns in rural revitalization need to be optimized and strengthened. Public services such as education and elderly care are major issues related to rural revitalization. The rural public service system with the county as the center, towns as the nodes, and villages as the terminals needs to continue to strengthen its service functions. This can be described as "small towns, new problems."
In response to this change, the strategic layout of new urbanization has been actively adjusted. From "vigorous development" to "focused development" to "categorized guidance", changes in the strategic positioning of small towns call for timely follow-up of sociological research.
