The city determines your destiny (depth)

I once read a book, which wrote: I graduated from college in 2007, and it has been 12 years now.

If you ask me: What is the biggest conceptual change in the past 10 years?

I will answer without hesitation: choosing a suitable city is much more important than choosing a university/a job/a partner.

I remember that when we were filling out application forms in college, a teacher kept reminding us: You should not only look at the school, but also the city. Compared with schools of the same level, it is better to choose a large coastal city.

Unfortunately, most of my classmates, including me, were unable to understand the value of this sentence.

I still remember that there was a teacher who asked his children to give up an undergraduate school in the western region and instead go to Shanghai to study at a junior college. At that time, many students could not understand this behavior.

Now, several years later, I have become more and more aware of the importance of a city.

What is the essence of struggle?

In fact, it is a process of making use of the resources around you, combined with your own strengths, and constantly leveraging strength. Simply put, it means monetizing the resources around you.

What is the essence of buying a house?

In fact, it is buying a city’s services and future. To put it simply, buying a house means buying stocks in this city.

The distribution of urban resources in China is very uneven, and the types of resources are beginning to differ, so choosing a suitable city is sometimes more important than choosing a university or a job.

The city where you were born determines your temperament.

The city you develop determines your future.

Beijing is suitable for business, thinking, and learning. Those who are born at the bottom but have ideas, those who are resourceful and flexible, and those who have lofty ideals can all have a try.

Shanghai is suitable for showing off one's temperament and talking about circles. Those with a good family background, those who are thoughtful and cautious, and those who like fashion/are proficient in high culture can go to Shanghai.

Shenzhen is suitable for being practical, pragmatic/efficient, whether it is a white cat or a black cat that can catch mice, it is a good cat. Those who are bold and courageous, those who are realistic, those who want to do business wholeheartedly, You can go there.

Beijing has produced politicians/investors/thinkers, and of course many braggadocios/retreaters;

Shanghai is suitable for CEOs/executives/celebrities, and has also produced many pretentious people. x person;

Guangdong is rich in all kinds of bosses, businessmen, and all kinds of unscrupulous small traders;

Since you have chosen a city, in addition to enjoying its resources In addition to convenience, you also have to bear the dark side of this city. This is the law of balance in nature.

This is the same as choosing your partner. You often have to support the beautiful ones, but most of the rich ones are unruly.

But there is one thing. Only in this first-tier city can we have this kind of inclusiveness. Its resources are very convenient, and its negative sides are also obvious. If you can master it, you will Let the horse come over.

Why do you have to go to first-tier cities?

First-tier cities are more open, with many opportunities and capable people, so everyone checks and balances each other, so each other can only abide by the rules; second-tier and third-tier cities are more closed, all are about fighting and unspoken rules, and they pay more attention to the sophistication of the world. .

The more opaque a local rule is, the greater the space for “hidden rules” to survive. Therefore, those vast counties and rural areas are basically dominated by local cowards: relationships are more important than ability, calculation is more important than hard work; comparison is more important than life;

There is a question on Zhihu, it is a kind of rule to have been to more than 100 countries. What an experience. One answer struck me.

“I understand that there is no such thing as natural correctness and absolute political correctness in this world, and I can accept other people’s different views and their derived ways of thinking.”

In this world full of prejudice , do not understand, and even speak harshly when they see differences, how important it is to be able to accept that others have different views and different ways of living.

If you have the chance, you must live in a big city. It gives you diverse values, and it tells you that life is not just one way to live.

Secondly, the failing GDP

Data is just a tool to find the truth. Many people often like to use the total GDP as the reference standard to measure the degree of development of a city. In fact, this It's a low-level mistake.

First of all, GDP, as an economic statistical tool in the industrial era, has gradually become ineffective in the digital era. Traditional GDP accounting subtracts the starting quantity from the final result quantity, and then obtains an added value, which is the value created by society. This is an extensive calculation method.

In the Internet age, because of various platforms, boundaries have been opened, which allows more creative individuals to be integrated into production. The energy of the team will be released.

Many trading activities have changed from "business to business" to "person to person", from "face to face" to "point to point", so transactions are becoming more and more vertically segmented. At this time we It is necessary to abandon the rigid statistical method of production index, to conduct flexible calculations of various economic forms, and to include the production efficiency of small and unregistered teams. This includes giving different weights to people of different natures, rather than simply counting the total population.

Secondly, even if we look at GDP, to measure the degree of development of a city, we do not look at the total, but at three data:

(1) GDP per capita

For example, Chongqing’s GDP ranks sixth in the country, but Chongqing has a population of more than 30 million, which is more than three times that of Hangzhou, but its total GDP is only slightly larger than that of Hangzhou, so we always feel that Hangzhou is richer overall. The average house price in Hangzhou is three to four times that of Chongqing.

For another example, Shandong has a population of nearly 100 million, Jiangsu has a population of more than 80 million, and the entire Zhejiang Province only has a population of more than 50 million. So why do Shandong and Jiangsu have higher GDP than Zhejiang, but we always feel that Zhejiang is richer? Some, the housing prices in Zhejiang are also higher.

(2) Proportion of tertiary industry

For example, Suzhou’s GDP has always been much higher than that of Nanjing and Hangzhou. In 2017, it even reached 1.7 trillion yuan, only It is inferior to several major municipalities and first-tier cities, but why is Suzhou's housing price not as good as Nanjing, whose GDP is much lower than it?

The reason is that Suzhou’s GDP content is mostly industrial. There are many large foreign-funded enterprises in Suzhou, which boosts the total GDP. However, the proportion of Suzhou’s tertiary industry is very low. The so-called tertiary industry It is the service industry, such as food, drink, entertainment, etc.

Only when the tertiary industry is developed in a city can it mean that the people in this city have strong consumption power. It also belongs to Jiangsu. Although Suzhou’s GDP has always been higher than Nanjing’s, Jiangsu’s best medical care, education, and culture There are more industries and employment opportunities in Nanjing, while Suzhou's industrial parks tend to be more large-scale. To put it simply: Nanjing has more white-collar workers and Suzhou has more workers. Of course, the overall level of Nanjing is higher than that of Suzhou, so housing prices are higher than those of Suzhou.

(3) Proportion of emerging industries

In this era of rapid change, the proportion of emerging industries represents future competitiveness, such as the Internet, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, etc., and can better reflect The vitality of a city.

Taking Shenzhen and Guangzhou as examples, Guangzhou’s traditional industries are more stable, while Shenzhen is more inclined to high-tech industries, so Shenzhen is more dynamic;

Comparing Nanjing and Hangzhou, Hangzhou focuses more on the Internet industry, so the salary level of white-collar workers is higher than that in Nanjing. Overall, Hangzhou's vitality is stronger.

What kind of provincial capital city has the most future?

Have you ever discovered the fact that every economically developed coastal province will have an "economic center" city with a higher level of economic development than the "provincial capital" city. From south to north: Shenzhen VS Guangzhou in Guangdong, Xiamen VS Fuzhou in Fujian, Suzhou VS Nanjing in Jiangsu, Qingdao VS Jinan in Shandong, Dalian VS Shenyang in Liaoning.

In other words, these provinces have an "economic center" and a "political center", which is called "separation of politics and business." Only when "politics" and "commerce" are separated can the economy truly develop, so the economies of coastal provinces have been fruitful. At the same time, we will also find that in the inland provinces with underdeveloped economies, the provincial economy will have the economic phenomenon of "the provincial capital is the largest".

For example: Wuhan in Hubei, Changsha in Hunan, Chengdu in Sichuan, Hefei in Anhui, Xi'an in Shaanxi, Taiyuan in Shanxi, Zhengzhou in Henan, etc.

"Politics" and "commerce" in these places are intertwined, and the economies of these places often rely on "administrative" means.

Taking Chengdu as an example, the following are the top cities in Sichuan in terms of total GDP. The GDP of Chengdu accounts for nearly 40% of the entire Sichuan Province. The second-placed Mianyang is not even a fraction of the first-placed Chengdu. , this is a typical province with a dominant provincial capital:

Gathering the resources of the whole province to develop a provincial capital is like the poorer the family, the more they want to dress up a dazzling and beautiful child, and like to see more Spend money wherever you meet, such as dressing him up. Because the poorer you are, the more you fear being looked down upon by others, and the more you care about face, so you want to show off yourself more. This is human nature and a law.

Wealthy families often spend money on invisible things, such as excellent educational conditions and a good growing environment, because they no longer need to prove themselves externally, they are very pragmatic. Improve yourself.

This is also the difference between the economic structures of "inland" and "coastal". Poor inland provinces always pile resources on the buildings of provincial capitals, while wealthy coastal provinces always like to be pragmatic and progressive.

In order to develop the economic level of a province, it is necessary to "separate politics and business". Politics should belong to politics, and business should belong to commerce. You can choose other cities as "economic centers" to echo the provincial capital. This is called clear division of labor and precise positioning.

Because of coordinated division of labor, multipolarization is the general trend of economic development, so that coordinated development can be achieved! In this way, political achievements will be achieved and people's lives will be improved.

Remember: You can’t make good dishes by stewing them randomly.

Three

Let’s take a look at the fate of several important cities

(1) What is the future of Guangzhou, the traditional core of trade?

After the reform and opening up, China shifted from a planned economy to a commodity economy. At this time, Guangzhou's status as the center of China's foreign trade began to become prominent, and the "Canton Fair" came into being. In response to the opening of the country, Guangzhou quickly became the center of China's foreign trade of goods and became a first-tier city, second only to Beijing and Shanghai.

Then why has Guangzhou’s status in China begun to decline in recent years?

The most fundamental reason is that we are experiencing another upgrade of human civilization: from the "big industrial era" to the "Internet era", this great change will surely give birth to a new urban civilization.

You can compare Guangzhou with Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

Guangzhou is the gateway to China’s traditional trade and the traditional circulation and gathering place for goods. The rise of the Internet in Shenzhen and Hangzhou has brought major changes to the circulation model of traditional goods.

Shenzhen, as the seat of Tencent, carries social information docking functions, such as WeChat, on which hundreds of millions of users conduct business activities every day: ordering food, taking taxis, making doctor appointments, express delivery, scanning bus codes, etc. Etc., these are like ant soldiers, cannibalizing the large-scale and unified traditional business services in the past.

Hangzhou, as the seat of Alibaba, has changed the channels for commodity circulation. For example, Taobao and Tmall connect more than 200 countries around the world, with a population of 2 billion and goods worth tens of trillions, defeating all super ports and shopping malls in the world.

When social information docking and commodity circulation channels have changed, traditional trade will be severely impacted. This can be seen from the Canton Fair in Guangzhou and the desolation of major stalls.

The core wealth of the future society will no longer be products, but data and information.

When things go to extremes, they must be reversed.

Any city will become stable when it is prosperous to a certain extent. Once stable, it will solidify and lose its vitality.

Looking again at the difference in population structure between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, we can find that 6 of the top 10 cities with new population sources in Shenzhen in 2017 were provincial cities,

And in Guangzhou in 2017 The top 10 cities with annual new population inflows are all located in Guangdong Province.

As the saying goes: The sea is open to all rivers, and it is great to be tolerant. Compared with Shenzhen, Guangzhou is obviously more tolerant. This can also be seen from another detail: as an immigrant city, the common language in Shenzhen is Mandarin, but as a traditional metropolis, Guangzhou is popular.

Obviously compared with Shenzhen’s openness, Guangzhou has become closed.

Guangzhou did nothing wrong. This is the general trend of the times. Know that past success will always be a burden to your present.

Feng shui takes turns, each leading the way for hundreds of years. Push forward 1,000 years, Kaifeng is the largest city in the world (Song Dynasty), and push forward 1,300 years, Xi'an is also the largest city in the world (Song Dynasty) Tang Dynasty).

Therefore, each of us needs to face the historical trend calmly, go up when it is time to go up, and go down when it is time to go down, and respect the laws and history.

(2) What is the future of Shanghai, the core of traditional finance?

Shanghai is China's financial center. Traditional finance often benefits large enterprises. We often say that depositing money in banks is a disguised form of relief for the rich, because it is difficult for the poor to obtain loan support from banks, which makes the poor poorer and the rich richer.

In the Internet era, take Ant Financial in Hangzhou as an example. The small online loans it leads have provided nearly 700 billion yuan in loans to more than 4 million small and micro enterprises in more than five years. Alipay also connects 600 million users around the world, and they benefit thousands of small and medium-sized individuals who are in urgent need of rescue.

The future of finance is based on inclusive support based on big data and credit, rather than the traditional bank mortgage model.

The core task of traditional trade and finance is to maximize the connection with large enterprises and projects. The core task of finance and trade in the Internet era is to take care of small and medium-sized enterprises and idle funds in the most extensive way. This conforms to the general trend of "the rise of individuals" and supports countless individuals to grow together.

For example, during this year’s Double 11, 3.43 million merchants received 202 billion in financial support from MYbank, of which the minimum loan amount was only 1 yuan, which was used to sell red beans and barley grown by farmers. . You can also get a credit loan with 1 yuan, which will help small businesses solve the problem of capital occupation to the greatest extent.

The so-called "310" loan service refers to a loan model that takes 3 minutes to apply online, 1 second to lend, and 0 manual intervention. The so-called "212" insurance service refers to: 2-minute application, 1-second review, and 2-hour payment. Tens of millions of small and micro operators have received financial services that were previously inaccessible.

This reflects that the service threshold is getting lower and lower, and tens of millions of small and micro operators can enjoy undifferentiated services.

If we could activate and connect all small and medium-sized enterprises and young individuals around the world, the kind of disruption would be unimaginable.

Why can’t Shanghai produce great Internet companies?

It’s the same sentence: Yesterday’s glory always easily becomes the burden of the present. Shanghai has lost its entrepreneurial spirit of hardship.

(3) City chain = wealth chain

Now to continue to explain the urban economic pattern in detail, we must clarify a concept, which is the industrial chain. Let’s first take a look at China’s “traditional industrial chain”:

Take textile and clothing as an example: Xinjiang’s “cotton” is first shipped to Shandong, where it is made into “yarn”. Shandong’s “yarn” Threads" are then transported to "Jiangsu and Zhejiang" to be made into fabrics. These fabrics are then transported to Guangdong to be made into "clothing" and then labeled with major brands. This is how every piece of clothing we wear is made.

From "cotton" to "yarn" is primary processing, which is labor-intensive production. From "yarn" to "fabric" is deep processing, which requires the detection of various functions such as dyeing and bleaching. , and from "fabric" to "clothing" requires the creative injection of the designer before it can become a piece of clothing. Finally, there is the "brand" operation. After continuous marketing and publicity by the brand, it will eventually become a brand of clothing pursued by all types of people.

Everyone has discovered that in this traditional industrial chain, from low to high, they are: Xinjiang, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Guangdong. The economic level of these regions increases in sequence.

This is determined by positioning. The higher the link you are in, the greater the technical content required. If you focus on mental work, the higher the benefits you will get. The lower the link you are in, the lower the technical content required. It is mainly manual labor and is often extensive production.

From a product perspective, brand operation is the highest link in the industrial chain. For example, although the Apple mobile phones we use are produced by Foxconn, we never think of them as "Made in China." This is the magic of branding.

From a business perspective, finance is the highest link in the industrial chain. Whether it is fast-moving consumer goods such as clothing or the service industry, many brands have set up their headquarters in Beijing. After making money, they send it to Shanghai (financial center) for operation.

This is how China’s regional economic pattern came about:

Xinjiang-Shandong-Jiangsu and Zhejiang-Guangdong-Beijing-Shanghai.

The essence is this:

Materials - processing - technology - brand - finance.

It is such a process, so sometimes innate conditions make it easier to determine the positioning of a region. For example, almost all "resource strong areas" are in "economically depressed areas". For example, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Shanxi have many excellent raw materials, wool, minerals and other natural resources. No matter how perfect your breeding and mining technology is, you will always be at the lowest level of "resources".

Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong are often areas with barren land, and only those engaged in commercial activities can maintain their lives. This is like a person who is born with the capital to "sit back and enjoy the gains", but often "does not think about making progress". And if a person is born with "nothing", he will inevitably have a strong desire to create.

City = Life

Sometimes it’s really not that we don’t work hard enough, but that you are born into a certain stage. Your link positioning is not only related to your region, but also related to your background, environment, knowledge, and abilities. No matter how perfect you are at a certain link, you will always be able to stay at that link.

Indeed, life is not born equal. This is so scary that the area you are in can also become a condition that restricts your development. For example, many people have become engineers, senior engineers, and special engineers from technicians, and they are still skilled workers...

The only way to counterattack in life is to improve your own situation. When you can look at it from a higher height After these series of changes, you will find that there are bigger things waiting for you to do, and you will look beyond the problem.

Pattern can not only determine height, pattern can also change a person's positioning. China's future is still full of variables, but one thing remains unchanged: positioning determines the future. The positioning of many cities is very vague. When you mention it, you often don’t have a deep impression. This is like a person who is mediocre in all aspects and belongs to an ordinary generation. How do you think about its future?

There are still many cities that are wavering and have no clear positioning. It's like when you find a person can do anything, but actually he can't do anything well.

When you find a person who can't do anything, there is always one aspect that no one can compare with, but you haven't discovered its potential yet!

So, when we secretly make our determination countless times, have we ever thought about why we were born?