2.1

Regional position of CSH

The CSH lies in the east of the Taihang Mountains, consists of the areas of Taihang Mountains, the hills and the North China Plain. From administrative division, as a part of Hebei, the CSH includes seven cities, such as Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Xingtai, Handan, Cangzhou, Hengshui and Langfang. The CSH has a very important regional position in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei². First of all, it is an important agricultural area. Based on the functional division, the CSH belongs to the main agricultural area in the Huang-Huai-hai Great Plain. Secondly, the CSH is the most densely populated area. The population density of the piedmont plain area reaches 4-10 times more than that of the northern Hebei area (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1.

The geographical location of south and Central of Hebei (Left, From author).

Figure 2.

Map of population density in 2023. (Right, From author).

2.2

Developmental characteristics

One of the economic developing characteristics in the CSH is that the secondary industries developed very well. Compared with the areas of northern Hebei and round the Beijing-Tianjin, the CSH has a larger proportion of the secondary industries in Hebei. The secondary industries increased in each county with the very important position in the county economy. The manufacturing industry in the secondary industry developed very well³. Therefore, the manufacturing-led industrial structure was taken by most of the piedmont plain and coastal areas except resource-led counties along the Taihang foothills (See Figures 3 and 4).

Figure 3.

The proportion of secondary production of each county of Hebei Province in 2022. (Left, from author, data from Hebei statistical yearbook).

Figure 4.

The type of industrial structure of Hebei in 2022. Hebei Province in 2022. (Right, from author, data from Hebei statistical yearbook).

3.1

Low level of urbanization

There is the lower level of urbanization in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. It shows that the economy developed slowly in large and medium-sized cities, but much faster in the towns. The large and medium-sized cities of Hebei developed slowly and have less population size and economy because of reflected by Beijing and Tianjin⁴. On the other hand, with a large amount of the plain and fertile arable lands, the unique natural conditions promote agricultural production and industrial development in county, town, and village. Therefore, their economy and population size have developed much faster than those of large and medium-sized cities (See Figure 5).

Figure 5.

The added value proportion of secondary production of Hebei province (From author, data from territorial spatial planning of Hebei).

3.2

Economy of towns and villages developing fast from past till now

The specialized industrial clusters in CSH have been a long time. At present, some famous professional enterprises, such as Anping wire mesh, Gaoyang textile, Xinji fur, and Anguo traditional medicine, are still thriving, most of them began from the Tang and Song Dynasties, prospered in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and flourished in the Republic of China. As early as 100 years ago, the local farmers’ money made from relevant industries of handicraft and processing accounted for about 80% in the total family net income. In addition, farmers have more time to work in the township enterprises after farming because the cultivated land in the northern was in good condition⁵. Therefore, it is beneficial for farmers to make more money to feed their families by both farming and working. That is why township enterprises keep growing rapidly. Developing of manufacturing industry in CSH depended on a number of poor workers mostly. Moreover, most of workers have traditional craftsmanship or skills learnt from their ancestors, which improve productivity greatly in traditional processing and manufacturing industries. Therefore, it is difficult for township enterprises to survive and develop as soon as left low-paid workers because they depended on these workers badly (see Table 1).

Tabel 1.

Rural household income composition of South and Central of Heibei (From author, data from Hebei statistical yearbook).

3.3

The rough mode of urbanization with the environmental risks

According to statistics, in China, the number of motor vehicles of Hebei ranks among the top. In recent years, the government has invested so heavily in the construction of town and village infrastructure in CSH that the dense road network, including the highways, national highways and provincial highways, have been extended to everywhere in Great Plain area of CSH. The network of highways promotes the rapid flow of people in the region, which provides the convenient commute for farmers to work in different cities of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The off-farm workers can go far away to different places for work freely by trains or buses from small villages to towns, counties, even cities. The data indicated that the commuting proportion of Hebei farmers occupied about 60-90% just in one day⁶.

3.4

Low level, small-scale and scattered industries with lower profit

The characteristics of the rural enterprises are small-scale with low technological content for their scattered distribution even if growing so fast. As it was reported, lack of necessary technological content to win the intensive competition, these enterprises have been obtained more and more lower and even decreasing profits and rate of returns although they have a larger market share of products. For example, Hengshui Anping Wire Mesh, as a well-known and the pillar industry of the county in CSH, the product price has been lower because the industrial technological content is not enough, in the contrast, while the product price of German stainless steel mesh is about 6-10 times higher than that of Hengshui Anping Wire Mesh⁷.

The most densely populated area of CSH is the town belt in front of the mountains, which is affected by the natural geographical environments of Taihang Mountains and has poor diffusion conditions. In spring and summer, the southeast wind stops in front of Taihang Mountain with pollutants, then the pollutants spiral and go down in the atmosphere. In autumn and winter, the northwest wind is blocked by the mountains and cannot take away the pollutants in the atmosphere, so it is very easy to form more serious haze there.

In order to decrease production costs, high-polluting energy is used to producing in some traditional industries, such as leather, textile printing and dyeing, and hardware processing⁸. Lack of environmental protection facilities, the scattered industries of villages and towns pollute the atmosphere and water seriously during their producing.

4.1

To guide workers and industries to gather in some counties and towns

We will find ways to guide the industries of villages and towns to gather in county-level Industrial Park gradually for using land effectively and intensively. We will break down administrative class and traditional financing channels, spend money on public service facilities in counties and towns, and attract more people to work there. We will introduce more private capital for infrastructure construction to push forward industrial transformation and upgrading by combining with high technology of specialization. For example, Gaoyang Textile enterprise invested 4.1 billion Yuan to build the most advanced plant for sewage treatment in Hebei according to production and technology upgrades. The better water quality and better products, both established a virtuous cycle of water treatment and textile products. On this basis, a large-scale circular economy industrial park with industrial upgrading has been formed by relying on the sewage treatment plant. The overall optimization of the cluster production mode in local textile enterprises has been accelerated greatly.

4.2

Solving the environmental pollution problems to develop the green economy

The small scattered enterprises in villages will be sorted out and transformed. The low-end enterprises with the environmental problems will be closed completely. In developing of county economy in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, some townships have considerable industrial vitality. Therefore, it is positive for them to promote the urbanization and improve farmers’ life quality, solve the problems about employment of farmers, and other social conflicts although the development of township economy lacks standardization with environmental pollution problem. The government will change traditional energy structure into clean energy in small towns. The public infrastructure will be improved by gas heating or subsidizing public transportation. More money will be provided for rural heating, strengthening the construction of clean energy facilities such as solar energy and biomass energy.