“This sightseeing bus is so convenient!” Several Shanghai aunties who came to Haichen Village in Huinan Town praised it after getting off the sightseeing bus.
The increase in sightseeing buses in Haichen Village began with the suggestions put forward by several tourists at the contact point for people’s suggestions in the scenic area. It is recommended that the town and rural revitalization department and the scenic spot operator be transferred to the town and rural revitalization department. The staff will survey the route and investigate the passenger flow. In just a few months, the free sightseeing bus will be officially put into operation. The 3-kilometer route connects major points such as the Wish Bridge, Colorful Rice, and Metasequoia Forest. It takes about 15 minutes to circle the village.
The people propose “golden ideas”, and the implementation of the golden ideas brings real changes. In 2025, Shanghai’s people’s suggestion collection departments at all levels will receive a total of 103,000 suggestions from the masses, and 1,205 offline contact points will be set up in each district. In the governance of mega cities, the context is clearly visible in how to ask the people for their needs, plans and effects.
Hear more voices and hear more needs clearly
At 12 noon, in Songjiang Kaiyuan Mediterranean Business District, delivery rider Xiaoma parked his electric bicycle firmly into the “rider exclusive area” and turned around to go into the store to pick up his meal.
“It wasn’t like this before.” Xiao Ma, who has been running a food delivery business for four years, said that when it’s meal time, riders often squeeze their cars at intersections, sidewalks and even fire escapes in order to rush for time. “Pedestrians walk around and we feel panicked.”
When Fangsong Street launched a collection of people’s suggestions, riders put this question on the table: Can a special parking area be set aside in the core area of the business district to allow riders to park with confidence and quickly pick up food? The street immediately led the transportation, public security, business district management and others to conduct on-site inspections, and finally designated two exclusive parking areas for riders, which can park more than 200 vehicles, and reorganized the surrounding parking spaces. After the renovation, the overall traffic efficiency of the business district has increased by nearly 30%.
In megacities, new industries and new groups are constantly emerging. With the help of people’s suggestions, they have new channels to feedback their demands and link to resources.
“I am very happy to communicate face-to-face with various functional departments, and we look forward to relevant measures being implemented as soon as possible.” At the special solicitation meeting for people’s suggestions for OPC entrepreneurs held by the Xuhui District Keling Creator Community, Song Yuyan, the manager of the Alibaba Orange Community, frankly admitted the troubles of the start-up team: the company has just started, is small in scale, and lacks manpower. It is still difficult to fully meet the development needs of the company relying on Alibaba’s ecological resources. She hopes that the community can further empower the company’s growth.
On that day, managers and start-up representatives from eight OPC communities sat together with the district science and technology committee, investment promotion office and other functional departments. From industrial ecology and policy implementation to application scenarios and entrepreneurial services, relevant district functional departments responded to the concerns of enterprises on the spot. The person in charge of the event said that they hope to further shift the service from “enterprises looking for resources” to “resources looking for enterprises.”
In July this year, Shanghai also held a special gathering of people’s suggestions for industry associations and chambers of commerce under the name “People’s City·Doing Business with Me”. Issues such as industry order, industrial ecology, and companies going global were put on the table one by one and received wider discussions and responses.
In recent years, the participants in the Shanghai People’s Suggestions Special Collection have been continuously subdivided, and young entrepreneurs, new employment groups, community governance participants, etc. have all been included in the scope of attention.Thousands of industries and tens of millions of people, with different positions and different demands, seek consensus through consultation and formulate solutions through co-governance.
“Golden ideas” bring real change
Zhao Siwei, a fourth-year student at Gucun Science and Technology Park School in Baoshan District, passes by the Gubeidong Road Fulian Road bus stop every day when he goes to school. Over time, she discovered that there were potential safety hazards here: greenery occupied the waiting space, and passengers often stood on non-motorized lanes and blind paths. After Gucun No. 2 Comprehensive Grid released the task “I contribute to the grid”, Zhao Siwei and other “community teachers” reported the situation of the station to the grid staff through the “Little Teacher Discussion Station”.
Baoshan District Transportation Commission, Construction and Communications Center and other departments invited the children to the site to inspect the green area and passenger waiting positions. The children proposed “adding low seats and not blocking stop signs”. When discussing the plan, they added the suggestion of “retaining small green plants and adding hooks for school bags”. These opinions were put into the renovation plan one by one. In more than a month, the green space was relocated and a new bus shelter was built.
Putuo Huanyucheng MAX Business District, within an area of 0.06 square kilometers, has more than 100,000 people entering and exiting every day, and the parking demand for non-motorized vehicles exceeds 2,000. The combination of commuter passenger flow and takeout delivery once formed a “city besieged by thousands of riders”. In response to this problem, Putuo District launched a special collection of people’s suggestions and received more than 500 suggestions online and offline. What residents, riders and surrounding businesses mentioned most was staggered parking, zoning parking, and adding charging piles. Relevant departments then re-examined the space around the business district: adjusting employee entrances and exits, utilizing corner plots, setting up tidal parking spaces, and demarcating takeout parking areas; the shared bicycle clearance time was shortened from one hour to 15 minutes.
Half a year later, more than 600 non-motorized parking spaces were added around the business district, freeing up 450 square meters of road space. Parking pressure during morning peak hours dropped by 30%, 12345-related work orders dropped from an average of 18 per month to 2, and the citizen satisfaction rate reached 100%.
In Songjiang, in response to problems such as incomplete AED layout, difficulty in finding equipment, and public fear of using it, some people suggested optimizing the grid layout and creating a “4-minute first aid circle.” Songjiang subsequently formulated the “one policy for one district” for AED allocation, by allocating 700 additional AED devices in residential areas for private projects, and integrating existing and new equipment into “one network for unified management.” For the construction of Pudong’s “Fifth Ring Road” water vein, “opening the door to build a water ring” was proposed from the beginning of the design, and opinions were widely solicited from residents, enterprises and institutions along the line. More than 5,000 people’s suggestions were incorporated into the design and construction plan.
In fact, the “golden ideas” suggested by the people have been written into Shanghai’s future development plan. In the 2025 collection of people’s suggestions for the preparation of Shanghai’s “15th Five-Year Plan”, more than 1,900 citizens made face-to-face comments to the planning department and received more than 11,000 suggestions; during the planning process, more than 34,000 opinions from all walks of life were gathered within a few months, and they were fully absorbed and adopted after in-depth analysis.
The “citizen wisdom” that Shanghai has always been praised for has been more concretely reflected in the people’s suggestions.
From “one thing” to “a category of things”
A big city is a small thing, a small thing is not a big deal. Taking specific people’s suggestions as the starting point, Shanghai has implemented the entire process of handling people’s suggestions. The municipal and district levels have promoted the transformation of suggestions through direct trains for municipal leaders, issue forecasts, coordinated promotion, and centralized feedback.
In the past, when Shanghai subsistence allowance recipients applied for hospitalization deposit exemption, they had to first go to the Community Affairs Reception Center in their place of residence to issue proof of income. Some citizens asked whether medical insurance and civil affairs data can be directly communicated with each other, so that the public can save time on errands. After the transfer was recommended, the Municipal Government General Office took the lead and the health, civil affairs, big data and other departments reorganized the process and opened up more than 20 business links one by one. In the end, the process of hospitalization deposit exemption for low-income families changed from “three trips back and forth” to “one trip to the hospital.”
Relevant departments have drawn inferences from one example and continued to promote the production and issuance of electronic certificates and data sharing for 7 certificates including the “Certificate for Extremely Poor Persons in Shanghai”. At present, all social assistance certification materials accepted by the Shanghai Community Affairs Acceptance Center have been processed electronically.
From “one thing” to “a type of thing”, it often starts from such trivial details. Focusing on the management of stray cats in the community, the Social Work Department of the Municipal Party Committee sorted out the “golden ideas” collected, summarized the stray cat management experience created by streets, towns and villages in practice, compiled the “Guidelines for the Management of Stray Cats in the Community” and excellent cases, guided each district to build a learning and exchange platform, and carried out case sharing, practical training and practical application. Songnan Town, Baoshan District, Yanji Street, Yangpu District, etc. use the “Work Guide” (action version) to guide party organizations in residential areas, guide residents to participate in stray cat management projects, and form a “three-step” working method of scientific feeding, quantity control, and long-term management.
In response to the problem of “big trees disturbing residents” in the community, the neighborhood committee, property owners committee, and property management team of Donghu Garden Community in Minhang District jointly promoted tree pruning; Hongxu Residential Community in Changning District raised funds through community foundations for tree pruning and community garden maintenance. The practices of different communities were sorted out together with the questionnaire opinions of more than 2,000 citizens and nearly 400 suggestions, and were finally integrated into the Municipal Greening and City Appearance Bureau.推出的“Several Provisions on Further Strengthening the Adjustment of Greening and Tree Pruning in Residential Areas of Our City”之中, the old problem has a more standardized and clear solution.
The handling of people’s suggestions never stops at “reply”. In January this year, the Municipal Party Committee Comprehensively Deepening Reform CommitteeListened to the report on the improvement of the mechanism for collecting people’s suggestions from the Municipal Party Committee’s Social Work Department and pointed out that,要抓好Suggestions should be transformed into “implementing a suggestion, improving a work, improving a batch of policies, and solving a type of problem.”
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