Meanwhile, data from the NDRC's report show that in 2006, industrial fixed-asset investment was more than 728 billion yuan ($109 billion), while residential investment was just 35.6 billion.
The year-on-year rise in the rate of industrial fixed-asset investment outstripped that of residential investment until 2012, and it is still much higher in absolute terms.
Moreover, from 2005 to 2011, the year-on-year growth rate of land used for healthcare services rose from 5.52 percent to 8.67 percent, while the rate for commercial land use rose from about 25 percent to nearly 121 percent during the same period.
"People don't want to live in areas with inconvenient access to basic public services," said Feng Kui, an NDCR researcher who led the commission's survey.
The lack of opportunities and facilities as attractive as those offered in the more-centralized districts of the capital makes people, especially the younger generation, reluctant to move to new townships and they are opting to remain in the overcrowded core areas, despite rising traffic congestion and air pollution he added.
Shen Chi, director of the planning institute at the China Center for Urban Development, an NDRC think tank, echoed Feng's view: "Young people are seldom willing to move to a distant place and give up the opportunities a metropolis can offer."
Staying put
Liang Yi, an engineer in Zhongguancun, a hi-tech industrial development zone in Beijing's Haidian district, lives in a subterranean apartment three subway stops from his workplace.
He rents a small room from a family and although has to endure his landlord's babies crying incessantly in the next room, Liang refuses to move to a new district.
"The long hours of commuting would kill me," he said. "If I could find a job in a new district that paid the same as the one in Zhongguancun, I'd go, but there aren't any good opportunities."
He isn't considering returning to Jinan, his hometown in Shandong province, either: "I wouldn't be able to find anywhere like here, this place offers such good prospects and an exciting life."
Shen, from the planning institute, said there are a range of policy tools the government could use to prevent imbalanced development and achieve more-inclusive growth.
He suggested that local governments should abandon the old real-estate-driven growth model and quicken the pace of development to help boost the real economy of tangible goods and services.
Referring to the National New-Type Urbanization Plan (2014-20), Shen noted that China has already released top-level guidelines, but said the scenario would be different if local governments were allowed to formulate their own plans.
"It would partly depend on how determined local governments were to stop relying on massive land sales," he said. "They have the policy toolkits to improve efficiency of land use and place greater focus on building healthcare services and educational facilities."
He added that young people need to be provided with more policy support and job opportunities, and that local governments should produce new policies to attract talents.
If that could be achieved, it would be good news for those already living in the new towns and also for potential residents. It might also mean that Lyu wouldn't need to spend hours waiting for a bus, and, as new avenues of employment opened up, Liang might eventually move to the suburbs.
