Wenzao River is the mother river of Baoshan, with a length of 15.6 kilometers, which is an important waterfront space carrier in Baoshan. Since 2021, the coastal landscape integration and upgrading project along the Baoshan section of Wenzao River has been launched, and the functional areas along the shoreline have been gradually opened up. Among them, 1.4 kilometers of shoreline has been integrated along the open Miaohang section, incorporating a variety of leisure functions such as footpaths, green belts, free space, waterside terraces, etc., to maximize the effect of services for the surrounding people, so that the citizens can access the water with great convenience and feel the charm of the waterfront.

At the beginning of this year, Baoshan District launched an online voting, inviting citizens to vote for the 30 actions they are most looking forward to from the 110 actions of “10 Major Projects and 100 Actions” for the creation of a National Civilized City in 2023. The voting campaign received wide attention and participation from the public, with a total of more than 250,000 visits. Some of the people who participated in the online voting were also invited to become observers and supervisors for the promotion of the 100 actions, making suggestions for the advancing of this project and personally feeling the corresponding achievements.

This initiative can be traced back to 2018. This year, Baoshan District launched the creation project of a National Civilized City. To further integrate the efforts of the whole society to participate in this project, and thus enhance people’s sense of belonging and happiness for the city, Baoshan District established a three-dimensional framework of “10 Major Projects—Special Actions” to promote the creation of civilized cities, and launched a three-year action plan to put the “10 Major Projects” into practice during the creation period. In response to the difficult and hot issues of concern to the public in the creation process, Baoshan District carries out a number of special actions (including thematic activities, practical projects and special rectifications) every year, and promotes the special actions on a regular basis through thematic months, activity weeks, action days, and so on.

Over the past six years, Baoshan District has practiced the work concept of creating for the people, benefiting the people and by the people, and has promoted a total of nearly 300 special actions that the people are concerned about and looking forward to in the work of creating a national civilized city, so as to allow the people to share the fruits of a civilized city in a more convenient and efficient way, thus continuously improving their sense of happiness.

Thematic activities highlight the foundation of the city’s soft power

What’s an art museum like with works of art on display but no walls? In Baoshan, whether in the busy road, commercial complexes, or in the subway station, parks, hospitals and other public places, people can personally feel such a novel atmosphere of art appreciation. Baoshan District Administration of Culture and Tourism, together with Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University, built an “art museum filled with a wall of works of art”, displaying works of art on the walls and fences in accordance with local conditions based on the large flow of people in the above-mentioned places. Some exhibition spaces also introduced online panoramic VR digital exhibition halls, so as to truly make the cultural services accessible to everyone, integrate art and aesthetic education into citizens’ lives, and demonstrate a more down-to-earth characteristic culture.

Since 2021, the project of building an “art museum filled with a wall of works of art” has been widely popularized all over Baoshan, including its streets, communities and parks. So far, 55 thematic exhibitions have been planned and implemented, which display more than 1,000 works of art and cooperate with more than 60 artists, gaining a good reputation.

Mr. Tao Xingzhi, a great Chinese educator, put forward the “Little Master System” when he founded the Shanhai Working and Studying Group in Baoshan in 1932, which advocates the children to be students while being masters, so that they can learn and teach at the same time. In recent years, Baoshan District has injected a new connotation into the “Little Master System” by launching the volunteer service project of “Little Master in the Community”. Children went into the community as volunteers to participate in the public welfare activities for social governance such as building cleaning, garbage sorting and caring for the elderly.

After three years of accumulation, the project of “Little Master in the Community” has attracted nearly 80,000 young pioneers from 487 communities to participate in the volunteer services, and also played a role in encouraging the participation of parents, driving more than 110,000 parents to become community volunteers and carrying out a cumulative total of nearly 9,000 volunteer services.

Since December 2018, Baoshan District has been carrying out the “Family Action Day” event with the starting point of improving the civilization of women and children and the focus on family civilization construction. The format of “One Theme Per Month” event is flexible and innovative, keeping in line with the times. The five rounds of actions that have been carried out cover a wide range of themes such as “Changing Bad Habits, Establishing New Trends” “The Most Beautiful Moment of the Family” “Passing on Red Stories from Generation to Generation” and “Staying with Good Neighbors to Welcome the Two Festivals”. Baoshan held a total of 622 lectures and service activities in 12 streets and towns in the district, covering 192,000 people and consolidating the one-city effect of everyone participating in the creation of a civilized city.

Practical projects focus on people’s livelihood

Baoshan, with its riverfront and sea front, is regarded as an important node and waterway gateway along the Yangtze River Economic Belt. In recent years, the former riverside “industrial shoreline” has undergone a series of renovation and renewal, and has become a “living shoreline” with a gathering of citizens and tourists, a good ecological environment, and outstanding recreational, leisure and sports functions.

The construction of Baoshan Riverside New Era Civilization Practice Park adheres to the concept of “building for you and gathering for me”, bringing together nearly 30 high-quality projects in three categories. People can take part in various publicity and educational activities at the District New Era Civilization Practice Center in the park, enjoy open-air movies and concerts at night, and participate in the Citizens Art Night School. The park becomes more lively on weekends and holidays.

Baoshan District has been cultivating and building a series of “good” cultivation brands for moral models with the theme of “Virtue Runs the Riverside and Good Deeds Cover Baoshan”. The district has nearly 1,200 advanced models at all levels, such as the National Moral Model, the National Civilized Family, “Good Samaritans of China” “the Most Beautiful Volunteer of China” “the National Model Youth in the New Era” “Touching Shanghai Awards” “Good Samaritans and Good Deeds of Shanghai Socialist Spiritual Civilization” “Touching Baoshan Awards” and “Good Samaritans of Baoshan”.

To further establish the value orientation that “one good turn deserves another”, the project of “Baoshan Good Samaritans Card” is being pushed forward with the support of the whole society, and it will become an innovative and normalized initiative of Baoshan District in caring for and respecting the moral models. The “Baoshan Good Samaritans Card” has received positive responses from 119 committees, offices, bureaus and civilized units, and has now brought together 22 service items in six categories. With the card, moral models can enjoy annual medical checkups, green channels for window services, free admission to cultural venues, preferential tickets to fitness venues, and other privileges.

The “10 Major Projects and 100 Actions” practical project focuses on people’s livelihoods. Taking the “Employment in Baoshan” handy project launched in February this year as an example, the establishment of this service platform makes both individual job-seeking and corporate recruitment more assured and tangible. As of end-July, the platform has attracted 1,445 registered enterprises, and more than 14,000 registered individuals, with more than 800 enterprises posting nearly 9,000 jobs.

In terms of government services, taking smart governance as a conceptual tool and digital technology as an empowering means, Baoshan District Government Service Center developed the “Bao Ni HUI” series of applications (APPs) in an innovative way, benefiting more enterprises and the masses. Some enterprise staff reflected the tediousness of filling out forms, and the “Bao Ni HUI Intelligent Form Filler” APP was born, covering 195 items. “Originally, it may take at least half an hour to fill out the form, but now through the ‘human-machine interaction’, it only takes a few minutes to complete the filling.” In particular, the “Bao Ni HUI of handling one thing at a time” special zone opened by the Baoshan Channel of Government Online-offline Shanghai website has launched 46 corresponding scenarios. Up to now, the channel has handled 406,000 cases, and solved the difficulties encountered in cross-departmental affairs, such as moving around multiple departments, hanging in numerous materials, and taking a long time, thus promoting the one-stop handling of a wide range of cross-departmental matters.

Specialized actions stimulate residents’ self-governance

Residential buildings are the extension of residents’ family life to social interaction, and are also the starting point for driving grassroots to innovate governance patterns. In recent years, Baoshan District has taken the construction of “vibrant residential buildings” as a strong support for practicing the whole-process people’s democracy, and has promoted the formation of a shared community with a warm and tidy environment, harmonious neighborhood relations, democratic consultation on affairs, a high degree of self-governance among residents, and a full burst of vitality by cultivating 1,000 vibrant residential buildings every year.

In 2023, with the theme of “Improving the Vitality of Residential Buildings”, Baoshan District promoted the upgrading of the star quality of residential buildings through the mode of the government providing a platform, the residents volunteering to cooperate, and the third party providing related guidance. The Baoshan District Home Affairs Bureau set up a “Creation Camp” to bring together liaison officers, instructors and advisors from various streets and towns to focus on community governance issues such as piling up in hallways, installing elevators, throwing objects from the air and charging with flying wires, etc., and to help stimulate and improve the governance skills of the backbone team of the residential buildings in real-life problematic situations. To make more community residents feel the upgrading effectiveness of these buildings, the District Home Affairs Bureau has also set up a “Residential Building Online Exhibition Hall” to support the residents of the whole district to “visit virtually”, thus stimulating residents to further participate in the self-governance of the community.

The vegetable market is a place frequented by citizens in their daily life, the details of which can reveal the degree of civilization. Since the beginning of this year, by improving the planning layout, optimizing the management mode, and promoting the construction or renovation of the market, the special action on upgrading Baoshan’s vegetable markets has successively completed the renovation of the district’s three vegetable markets, and will realize the renewal and upgrading of seven vegetable markets within the year. The 95 markets in the district are under unified management. Going forward, Baoshan will continue to build a standardized vegetable market (smart market) system that meets the district’s positioning with reasonable layout, standardized management, perfect function, safe and orderly guarantee, and good environment.

Good street environment reflects the orderly vitality of the city. In Youyi Road sub-district office, the special action of optimizing street management and control with the theme of “orderly governance and action together” is committed to the timely and effective hierarchical supervision on daily street conditions, the “double random selections and one informational publicity” inspection, and various special law enforcement actions, so as to realize the fine, precise, normalized and long-term law enforcement and management. In view of the common problems such as garbage sorting and disposal, safe charging of battery cars, oil fume emission and kitchen waste disposal, the comprehensive administrative law enforcement team of Youyi Road sub-district office is still making efforts to strengthen the publicity of normalized laws and regulations, guide merchants to legally standardize their operations, and thus enhance their awareness of the rule of law. Over the past six months, the law enforcement team has publicized and educated more than 12,000 times to ensure food safety, fire safety, and clean and orderly street environment in its jurisdiction.