Baoshan Luojing Town’s Office of Planning, Construction and Ecological Environment was recently awarded a “Leading Unit for Rural Revitalization in Shanghai” at Shanghai’s Conference on Rural Work.

Luojing Town has been committed to promoting rural revitalization. Aiming to build a green town at the Yangtze River estuary that is economically strong and vibrant and environmentally friendly, Luojing Town’s Office of Planning, Construction and Ecological Environment has been working on agricultural and rural planning, rural scenery protection and management, living environment improvement, and building model villages for rural revitalization. It has made great progress in rural development, agricultural upgrading, and farmer development.

Luojing Town has built a rural revitalization demonstration area covering the following five villages: Tangwan, Haixing, Huahong, Xinlu, and Yangqiao.

Developing rural recreation economy

Relying on the natural scenery and industrial resources of the five villages, Luojing Town has built a rural recreational area for people to downshift their lives by taking a long walk or biking on rural trails.

Luojing Town has planned to build service stations at the tourist center in Tangwan Village, the great lawn in Haixing Village, the crab aquarium in Haixing Village, the farming and weaving gallery in Huahong Village, the camping site in Xinlu Village, and the Taro field in Yangqiao Village. It has also planned to build a leisure road network with a total length of 21km by connecting the recreational area with Huxin Road, Yutang Road, Hetang Road, Dongsheng Road, Yangxin Road, Yangqiaocun Road, Qianhe Road, Wenyang Road, and some roads in Liuhe Town.

Meanwhile, it worked on developing a guide system for visitors to the five villages, including unifying guide symbols and providing audio guide services. The guide will provide a panoramic view of the five villages, street signs, service facility signs (parking lots, public toilets, etc.), and tourist destination signs (cultural galleries, scenery spots, farmhouses, etc.).

Building distinctive rural destinations

The five villages have taken full advantage of their local features to build distinctive rural destinations.

Tangwan Village relies on its vast forest land to focus on developing a maternal and child health center. Moreover, it also works to develop the firefly industry and the day lily industry;

Haixing Village relies on its vast crab ponds to create a fishing experience center that also offers sports health and family activity facilities;

Huahong Village relies on its vast rice fields to build a farming experience center that also offers leisure and family activity facilities;

Xinlu Village relies on its vast vegetable fields to build a field study center that also offers vegetable cultivation experience and forest experience services;

Yangqiao Village relies on its adjacency to Jiangsu Province to build a rural leisure center that also features Taro fields and fruit gardens.

Building a new river system

Luojing Town has launched a river treatment project to improve the landscape and water quality of the 171 rivers within the town with a total length of 145km; it has also worked to clear hidden dangers along the river channels to improve the water environment; it also revised the water system planning and the drainage system planning; it took great efforts to integrate the river system with peripheral trees and houses to create a picturesque water town that offers river cruise experience.

It has repaired Sanxiangou and the other three rivers with a total length of 1,994m. Sanxiangou River was selected as one of the most beautiful river channels in Shanghai and a river channel model of Baoshan District. To restore the living environment for fireflies, Luojing Town has repaired the ecological environment of 20 rivers whose river quality now has reached II, III, or IV levels.

Building a new rural landscape

Luojing Town has demolished illegal buildings with a total area of 27,420m2 and three waste dumping sites, thereby creating a new rural landscape without illegal constructions. It also worked to remove projects that violate the environmental law, urged some enterprises to make rectifications, and removed all enterprises within the water-head area. These efforts have helped accelerate rural revitalization, reduce pollution, and improve the ecological environment. Luojing Town has also reclaimed lands with a total area of 54 mu, which helped restore the rural landscape.

It launched a rural road improvement project, including restoring and asphalting five village roads with a total length of 2.438km. It also connected 14 rural sewage treatment stations with the municipal sewage treatment network via the sewage pipelines along Hutai Road, and rebuilt and upgraded 10 public toilets.

Creating a new rural housing style

As living standards are improved, 85% of the farmers in Luojing Town have restored their houses. Many villages have been merged, leaving residential areas more centralized. Luojing Town guided farmers to ensure orderly restoration, realized a full-process regulation from restoration application and approval, construction, and completion and inspection, and regulated rural house rental by launching relevant rules and concluding agreements. It also recruited a professional design firm to redesign the landscape of Tangwan Village to fully improve its spatial form, construction style, decoration quality, and sectional views, in an effort to build a Haipai-style village. In addition, Luojing Town made regular efforts to supervise the restoration projects and re-planned idle lands to create a more favorable inhabiting environment.

Realizing rural revitalization has been the dream of farmers. Following the central government’s guidance for rural revitalization, Luojing Town will make more efforts to coordinate rural planning and industrial development and formulate a set of approaches that can be applied elsewhere.