Zhang Haibo

On June 12, 2018, President Xi Jinping visited Weihai and put forward the ardent expectation that “Weihai should develop in the direction of fine city”, which pointed out the way forward for Weihai. Over the past two years, we have kept in mind the President’s entrustment and promote the development from two aspects. First, the idea of “fine city” was used to guide all aspects of politics, economy, culture, society and ecological civilization and to handle five relationships between the construction of “fine city” and economic development, rural revitalization, ecological environment, ocean management and opening up to the world, and to create a new situation of “Fine City, Happy Weihai”. Second, precise planning, exquisite design, careful construction, elaborate management, precise service and smart growth were focused to build Weihai city into a good model for fine city.

1. To seek a breakthrough in top-level design by precise planning. There is no precedent to follow in building a fine city, so we start with top-level design, earnestly sum up the experience, and widely collect opinions to establish laws and standards system for fine city. The fine city evaluation index system of Weihai has been formulated, and 50 core indicators have been included, covering ecological environment, urban characteristics, public services, development drivers and social governance, which will be issued as a local standard soon. The compilation of the Outline of Weihai Fine City Construction Planning is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year, and the “14th Five-Year Plan” and more long-term development goals and construction strategies will be formulated to guide the fine city construction. The Regulations on the Construction of Fine City have been drafted regarding the code of conduct in terms of urban planning and design, urban management and public services, which will be approved by the People’s Congress of Shandong Province by September. Meanwhile, in accordance with these regulations and index systems, some planning, including urban area, main functional area, marine function area and rural area were integrated into a whole new one, which will be the blueprint for the overall construction of fine city.

2. To seek a breakthrough in highlighting the characteristics of the city by exquisite design. Based on the resource advantages of mountains, sea, bays, beaches, islands and springs in Weihai, as well as its unique historical culture, red culture and marine culture, the pilot project of urban design has been actively carried out to show the characteristics, keep the “memory” and polish the “features” of the city. First, to design the city like a scenic spot, maintain the overall style of “mountain and sea view”, and to integrate with the superior environment and the city skyline to achieve the goal of showing the unique characteristics of Weihai’s landscape. The second is to design each area and building with the artist’s vision, historical and cultural blocks, and transportation hubs are the key areas. A three-dimensional data platform is being built and characteristic blocks, gardens, landscape lighting, streets and urban sculptures will be well designed to create a delicate and unique urban space. The third is to make sure the Regulations on the Protection of Urban Landscape of Weihai City to be well implemented. At present, Weihai’s old town area, Qixia Street, Shengxiao Street and Xinwei Road and other characteristic blocks renovation project has already been started. A large number of “new landmarks” are scattered in the city, and many “internet-famous sites” are going viral online.

3. To seek breakthroughs in improving the quality of the city by careful construction. Take the opportunity of “Urban Renewal” and “Beautiful City” projects to continuously improve the carrying capacity, inclusiveness and livability of Weihai. The first is to resolve the “troubles” of urban growth. 104,000 housing certificates problems involving the 77,000 households were resolved in 2018; all idle and uncompleted projects have been restarted since 2019, 125 projects have been re-activated so far and the rest will be finished within the year. The renovation of inefficient urban land projects kicked off this year. The second is to comprehensively improve the quality of urban life. The protection and development of 14 historic blocks have been implemented, and the construction of museum clusters is under way. The Urban Exhibition Center, Urban International Exchange Center and Industrial Innovation Exhibition Center are being built and the construction of Harbour Park, Jinxianding Park and the 1000 km coastal walkway has been launched to create a unique “A coastline of 1,000 kilometers just like a beautiful landscape painting”.The third is to solve the bottleneck of long-term urban development. “Water scarcity” was resolved by various ways and the construction of major infrastructure projects, such as the Weihai New Airport, Lairong High-speed Rail, Wenlai Expressway and underground comprehensive pipeline corridor are on the fast track. The city area has reached 37.5 square kilometers and 40.6 kilometers of the corridor has been completed so far.

4. To seek breakthroughs in innovative governance by elaborate management. Modern concepts, scientific methods and effective means were exploited to promote the modernization of urban governance systems. First, a three-level grid Governance Center was established with 6,090 assistants to sort out 240 grid lists. The second is to adhere to intelligent construction. Taking the provincial new smart city pilot project as an opportunity to start the construction of the smart city operation center and the “City Brain” platform to make a more intelligent city, a more convenient life and a more safe society. The platform will be put into operation this year. The third is to promote integration. A comprehensive coordination system of urban governance and a “woodpecker” fast reflection mechanism have been established and a new app to promote communication between citizens and government was developed, through which 13 categories and 234 sub-categories of urban management problems could be reported on time.

5. Insist on precise service and seek breakthroughs in improving the quality of people’s livelihood. More attention need to be put on the feelings of the masses and resolving their specific concerns regarding travel, parking and public activity places etc, 21 bottleneck roads were widened, 10 parking lots were built and 10 old residential districts were transformed, 7213 parking spaces were opened, 20 public toilets have been built or renovated, 5 markets have been upgraded, 10 “community canteens” were put into operation, and 227 school sports facilities opened to the public for free, which are warmly welcomed by the masses. At the beginning of this year, 20 projects, such as pocket parks and overpasses to promote people’s livelihood, were confirmed and all of them would be completed this year, which will let people enjoy the benefits and changes brought by the construction of fine cities.

6. Insist on smart growth and seek breakthroughs in promoting sustainable development. Firmly establish the concept of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” to promote the integration of industry and city and green development. On the one hand, promote ecological industrialization. CNY2.55 billion was invested to optimize the ecological restoration projects of the Huaxia Culture and Tourism Group, and the three-year action plan for coastline restoration, mountain restoration, river management and reservoir grass planting was implemented. In the last two years, the proportion of the city’s ecological construction funds to general public budget expenditures has reached 17.3%, air quality has reached the national second-level standard for four consecutive years, and Weihai has been selected as “waste-free city” and “ecological civilized city”, which makes Weihai the only such city in Shandong province. Relying on the excellent ecological environment, rural tourism, coastal tourism and integrated tourism were vigorously developed. The annual growth of tourists is more than 9%, and the revenue increased more than 12% in the past two years. On the other hand, the city is also promoting the evolution of industrial ecology. On the basis of full consideration of the environmental carrying capacity, the plan to build a new generation of information technology, medical equipment and biomedicine, health-care tourism and other CNY700 billion industrial clusters was implemented. More efforts were put on the green, low-carbon and circular economy, and the city’s energy consumption in 2019 dropped 4.17%, exceeding the target of energy consumption reduction in the 13th five year plan ahead of schedule.