Time is like a ruler, recording the speed of urban development and measuring the leap height of urban energy levels. If you look back in 2023, every step of Guangzhou along the way in the new century cannot be separated from the guidance of the two urban development strategic plans. The development strategy of a city is related to the long term. The development strategic planning of a city is to study the big strategy for the long term future of the city with big thinking and big pen. In 2023, Guangzhou proposed in the work report of the government that the city development strategic plan for 2049 should be prepared with high standards to optimize and form a multi-center and networked urban structure of "one corridor, one belt, two cores and five poles". Once again, at the critical stage of development, how can Guangzhou seize the opportunity and win the initiative? On February 24, Guangzhou held a symposium on urban development strategy, inviting well-known domestic experts and scholars to conduct in-depth discussions on the preparation of the 2049-oriented urban development strategy plan. Lin Shusen, former governor of Guizhou Province and former secretary of Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, attended the meeting, and Guo Yonghang, mayor of Guangzhou, delivered a speech, and Lai Zhihong, deputy mayor, presided over the meeting. Guo Yonghang said that the strategic planning is a key and basic work, which plays an important role in guiding and promoting the comprehensive competitiveness of the city. We should work out this round of strategic planning for urban development at a high level to promote Guangzhou's steady progress in the new journey. The change of strategic planning: from "cloud mountain and pearl water" to "mountain city, field and sea", those who are good at chess will seek the potential, and those who are good at planning will go far. Guangzhou is the first big city in China. It carried out two rounds of urban development strategic planning in 2000 and 2009. Based on the direction and strategic issues of the city's future, it has the courage to explore and innovate, and describes the future development blueprint of the city. In 2000, Guangzhou took the lead in developing strategic planning among major cities in China. The plan puts forward the spatial strategy of "expanding to the south, optimizing to the north, advancing to the east, and connecting to the west", which has opened up the urban pattern, expanded the urban space, and focused on the strategic deployment of land use, ecological environment, and comprehensive transportation. With major projects such as large ports and airports as the traction, and the "double express" system as the support, it has pulled large industries and large logistics, and promoted the urban spatial pattern from "clouds, mountains and rivers" to "mountains, fields and seas", It has played an important leading role in the urban development of Guangzhou in the early 21st century. In 2009, Guangzhou launched the second round of strategic planning, inheriting the regional concept and ecological priority concept of the 2000 strategic planning, implementing the cross policy of "expanding in the south, optimizing in the north, advancing in the east, connecting in the west and adjusting in the middle", determining the development orientation of "national central city", and defining the overall urban development strategy from "expansion" to "optimization and upgrading". Under the guidance of the two versions of the strategic plan, Guangzhou has achieved leapfrog development in the 21st century. According to the three-version master plan approved by the state, Guangzhou's urban positioning ranges from "the political, economic and cultural center of Guangdong Province" to "the central city of South China" and "the important central city of China", and then to the national central city, comprehensive gateway city, and the core engine of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area given by the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Planning Outline". Guangzhou is accelerating the realization of the goal vision of "a beautiful and livable flower city, a dynamic global city". In the world of globalization and the World Urban Research Network (GaWC)