The Information Office of Shanghai Municipal Government held a press conference on August 8. Huang Yongping, director of Shanghai Municipal Housing Security and Administration Bureau, briefed the city’s progress in moving forward the refined urban management work. Cai Jun, inspector with Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission, Jin Chen, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Housing Security and Administration Bureau, Xu Jian, deputy director of Shanghai Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Chen Yuanming, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Water Authority, and Zhu Xinjun, chief engineer with Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau, attended the conference.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, noted on March 5, 2017 while attending a group discussion with deputies from Shanghai during the 12th National People's Congress that for a mega-city like Shanghai, urban management should be done “as delicately as making embroidery.”

In November 2018, President Xi made key remarks on refined urban management during his inspection tour in Shanghai, calling on “a first-class city like Shanghai to adopt first-class management methods,” and urged that more efforts should be made to ensure scientific, precise and intelligent urban management. The Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Shanghai Municipal Government have been attaching great importance to President Xi's speech and has been pushing forward refined urban management measures and taking it as a breakthrough for creating high-quality urban life and economic development. The city has unveiled a Three-Year Action Plan (2018-2020) to strengthen refined urban management and has been pushing forward to wider realms and deeper levels of urban management on a more delicate and more precise scheme.

The overall requirement of the city's refined urban management initiative is people-centered, and to adopt the principles of rule of law, rule of socialization, and intelligent and standardized means to achieve a full-scale, full-coverage urban management, which is expected to make the city safer, cleaner and more orderly. The major work laid out in the action plan involves specific tasks such as cracking down on violations against water environment management rules, comprehensive waste management rules, transportation management, construction rules, underground space and various pipeline management. It will also seek rectification and improvement of grid management system, improve the level of rule of law, and at the same time push forward the construction of a standardized management system, to innovate grassroots community management. A total of 14 such tasks shall also be integrated with a series of comprehensive campaigns, such as the "Beautiful Blocks" campaign, the "Beautiful Neighborhoods" campaign and the "Beautiful Countryside" campaign, which has been set as an important goal in the country's rural revitalization strategy.

I. Major approaches

On January 31, 2018, the CPC Shanghai Committee and the Shanghai Municipal Government held a conference to push forward refined urban management, which marked the official start of the endeavor across the city. Since then, various government departments and districts around the city have been paying specific attention to accountability issues, law-based management, targeted policies, as well as innovation so as to ensure a full implementation of the concept and request of refined urban management in every aspect of urban management work.

First, a keen focus on details and standardization.

When the idea of refined urban management was first proposed, a few requests were made as following: smooth road surface, functional facilities, clean waterways and banks, stylish and aesthetic building exteriors, colorful greenery landscapes and elegant arrangement, among others. A batch of standards and regulations have been worked out or improved. Notably, based on the experiences gained and problems found through the city’s extensive task of removing the overhead hanging cables as well as some other projects, the local authorities have worked out detailed technical guidelines and regulations on road construction and renovation, and an upgraded guidebook on standardized and civilized operation of construction projects.

Second, cooperation among various departments.

Refined urban management is implemented in every subdistrict with urban management, greenery and public sanitation, market supervision, housing administration and public security watchdogs making joint efforts. Meanwhile, a total of 409 model units for joint management between the Party and neighborhood committees have been established in residential communities while residents are encouraged to engage themselves more in the management of their own communities.

Third, intelligence as the technical support.

Shanghai has already established a comprehensive, non-emergency monitoring and commanding urban management system called “1+16+214+5902” (one municipal digital urban management center, 16 district-level comprehensive management centers, 214 subdistrict-level management centers and 5,902 neighbourhood-level work stations), which has covered all areas of Shanghai. Since 2018, based on the current urban management system, the city government has made great endeavors by introducing big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence to further upgrade the system in its complete chain of operation including intelligent spotting, automatic commanding, fast handling and real-time feedback.

Fourth, the rule of law as the fundamental guarantee.

Laws and regulations concerning historical site protection, waterway management, drainage management, outdoor signboard management, landscape lighting management, LPG management and house-use safety management have been made (revised) or are being made (revised). At the same time, various types of special law enforcement have been carried out, further highlighting the rule of law and to stress the urgency in curing the stubborn problems in the urban management. The city will focus on regulating security hazards such as public security, firefighting, food safety, as well as noise, soot pollution and dirty environment. Those who arbitrarily change the nature of property, damage the appearance of the house and bearing wall structure shall be punished. In particular, the city will strengthen and consolidate the results of the comprehensive environmental improvement in the “5 violations and 4 musts” areas and achieve the result of zero illegally built structures and villages (streets and towns). Since 2018, more than 57 million square meters of illegal buildings have been demolished; 149 towns and neighborhoods have been acknowledged model units with no illegally built structures, with the acceptance rate reaching 66%.

Fifth, take “subtraction, all factors and integration” as the basic solution.

“Subtraction” means that in the process of rectification, all kinds of cables, railings, billboards, urban furniture and other facilities that are disorderly installed must be resolutely removed; “all elements” mean roads, greening, urban furniture and all building facades and other elements should be systematically planned, constructed and managed; “integration” means all supporting forces such as engineering construction, maintenance operations and law enforcement in the districts, especially subdistricts, should be integrated to better play the overall effect.

II. Main achievements

The city's refined urban management work has been carried out for more than a year, and its appearance has continued to improve. In particular, in 2018, Shanghai’s superb urban environment provided great support and guarantee for the success of the first China International Import Expo, which was highly praised at home and abroad.

First, the city takes a fresh look.

Focusing on the 4 important ground roads such as Hongqiao Road and 9 elevated roads and express roads such as Yan'an Elevated Road, Shanghai carried out comprehensive rectification. Targeting the color of the building facade, the setting of exterior structures of air conditioners and advertising signs, the city implemented architectural design, renovated and upgraded 218 buildings' facades. A total of 31 pieces of wasteland have been changed and created more than 5 million square meters of green space. The city turned 116 kilometers of overhead electric wire into the ground, cleaned 18,207 blind spots, removed 68,000 tons of garbage by taking mechanical cleaning, flushing and artificial cleaning, thus greatly improving the environment.

Second, more attractive greenery landscape.

Surrounding the People’s Square, the Bund and the Lujiazui financial district in Pudong — the three core areas of the city — along with other key places and roads, Shanghai has built altogether 219,000 square meters of greenery terraces, over 34,000 setups, 3,700 flower lamps, 88 themed tourism spots and 80,000 flower beds on the highways to improve greenery landscape in the city. The flower consumption in one season surpassed 13 million pots. Shanghai has also created a shiny night scene along the Huangpu River under the theme of “Brilliant Huangpu River, Charming Shanghai” — with the completion of four cross-river bridges, 388 important buildings, renovations of lights along the bank that stretches nearly 20 kilometers.

Third, supporting projects to guarantee quality.

Shanghai has completed more than 20 facilitating projects for the China International Import Expo, including those related to the S26 highway at its entrance to the city, the extended second-floor walking corridor east to the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) and related parking lots. Shanghai has also renovated more than 50 roads with a combined length of 180 kilometers and renewed facilities including quality of pavement, noise barriers, anti-glare boards, lights, hanging greenery, anti-collision barrier and marking lines. Meanwhile, the city has connected 11 roads and completed projects to ease traffic congestion on 78 roads. It also finished 21 projects for slow-lane traffic and improved 110-kilometer sidewalks and barrier-free facilities; There were 159 shared-parking projects finished to offer 6,513 shared berths.

Fourth, the improvement of overall environment.

Shanghai continued to carry out “Beautiful Blocks”, “Beautiful Neighborhoods” and “Beautiful Countryside” programs to benefit all its residents. The city has cleared 10,200 rivers of V-type. The environment of residential communities has kept improving with accumulated renovation of 28.2-million-square-meter old houses of three types and 1.37-million-square-meter houses in lanes, while the city fixed potential problems in 8.415-million-square-meter old houses. Shanghai has completed the 2018 village renovation project for 70,000 farmers and set up 23 city-level models for “Beautiful Countryside” with breakthroughs in a large batch of thorny problems in urban management that drew people’s complaints.

Besides, Shanghai has enhanced management in environment monitoring, waste-water collection, water supply, supervision of water quality, garbage collection, public transportation and residential community administration under the guidance of three-year action plan to strengthen urban security management.

III. Future work plan

Shanghai has made some achievements in strengthening the refined urban management. However, there are still many problems, especially in the overall condition of the urban management around the city, which create a gap to the general public’s desire for a good, quality life. In the next step, relevant departments will step up efforts to ensure the successful completion of the high-quality, high-level tasks of “Beautiful Blocks,” "Beautiful Neighborhoods" and "Beautiful Countryside" campaigns, which will fully promote the quality of Shanghai's urban management.

First, comply with the standards and strictly implement the new regulations.

Shanghai will comprehensively implement new standards and regulations, such as the regulations on city appearance and technical regulations on road construction and remediation work, to promote long-term management. The city will further fulfill its responsibility of the management department and the construction enterprise and strictly implement the construction regulation upgrade version.

Second, improve management.

Based on the urban information system covering the city, district and town levels, the 13 categories and 144 sub-categories and events included in the municipal standards listed on the basis of nearly 18 million cases each year, the city will integrate the existing data of more than 70 systems, such as urban and rural construction, urban management, housing management and urban management law enforcement. Shanghai will focus on highlighting problems, clarify business processes, strengthen technology perception, implement intelligent analysis and judgment, open up parallel departments, reach the overall goal of vertical level and comprehensively upgrade the city and district grid management platform, as well as support the standardization of the town and urban transport platform to make urban management more intelligent.

Third, ensure the quality and quantity of tasks.

Shanghai will actively implement the “community planner” system. In accordance with the requirements of “subtraction, all factors and integration,” the city will strengthen the design and review of neighborhood design plans and promote the construction of beautiful neighborhoods. Shanghai will accelerate the implementation of environment improvement project, focusing on strengthening the renovation of the facades of buildings on both sides of the “19+15” important passage. The city will enhance the crackdown of illegal building construction, strengthen the governance of illegal advertising, shop recruitment and rectification. The city will further regulate overhead wires, as well as promote the classification of domestic waste, water supply and flood control, facilities management and traffic organization.

Fourth, eliminate potential safety hazards.

Shanghai will intensify the investigation and rectification of safety hazards, clarify responsibilities and classify disposal. The city will promote the regulation of key areas and important building facades, improve the system and the monitoring mechanism for house use.

Shanghai will adhere to high standards, focus on outstanding issues and obvious shortcomings, promote urban maintenance management mechanism innovation, achieve results, enhance the city's refined urban management brand and make citizens satisfied with urban management. The work of urban management will be continuously advanced to a new level.