Abstract: The 2025 Central Urban Work Conference emphasized that, with the theme of promoting high-quality urban development, adhering to the main principle of intrinsic urban development, and advancing urban renewal as a key lever, we must forge a new path toward urban modernization with Chinese characteristics. In recent years, the Yangtze River Delta region has fully implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's important directives on urban work, playing a pioneering, exemplary, and catalytic role in advancing urban modernization with Chinese characteristics, thereby steadily enhancing the level of high-quality urban development. However, issues such as insufficient alignment between "industry, talent, and cities," regional development imbalances, and significant structural shortcomings still persist. Recommendations: Take cities as the foundation to improve urban functions and build a modern urban system; adopt a people-centered approach to break down barriers to mobility and strengthen the recruitment, cultivation, retention, and utilization of talent; take industry as the core to optimize the industrial layout system and promote industrial transformation and upgrading; and adopt a collaborative strategy to improve institutional mechanisms and enhance the level of inter-city cooperation.
