‘15-minute life circle’ program helps communities modernize
Minhang District has made tremendous progress in its campaign to enhance its development. In 2016, a long-term plan was drafted to improve educational, medical, leisure facilities and cultural centers. The plan’s focal point was the creation of a “15-minute community life circle” — an area whose distance stretches as far as a person walks in fifteen minutes — featuring the latest in modernization.
The pilot program kicked off in 2019 and over 180 sub-projects have taken shape in the city. The campaign overall has been included in the “Shanghai Master Plan” by 2035, which maps out the city’s general development goals and patterns, and is the theme of the ongoing Shanghai Urban Space Art Season that lasts until the end of November.
Meilong Town in Minhang District, for example, has flourished under the plan. Take resident Tong Ling for example, to gain a better understanding of the life circle initiative.
Each weekend, Tong takes her children to the local Haoren Park, a five-minute walk from home. The park is landscaped beautifully and includes a number of useful amenities.
“My children love the park’s green lawns” Tong said. “They play Chicken and Eagle or football with their friends. When they are tired, they sit on the grass and read in the sunshine,” she said.
A few hundred meters away, the town’s Party community service center provides activities for children and adults alike. Tong said that her children particularly enjoy the center’s reading sessions, which are hosted by authors. While her children read, she attends yoga classes or sometimes learns how to make handicrafts in an adult education course. She likes the center so much that she has become a part-time volunteer.
Another part of the community life circle which Tong and her husband frequent is an industrial park called Reeb 1987, which was transformed earlier this year from the original beer plant of the same name. She and her husband often enjoy fine dining in the area as well.
The community life circle doesn’t just benefit the young. Tong’s mother-in-law, Ling Xiuzhen, who spends most days doing household chores, said she loves visiting the Longnan Wholesale Wet Market, only 10 minutes’ walk away.
She also frequents nearby Yimei Garden, which holds charity fairs and where a variety of tasty foods can be purchased on the spot or delivered to one’s home, a convenient service for the elderly.
But Ling often first avails herself of a brand new fitness center — a result of the life circle initiative — featuring state-of-the-art equipment. “The gym is right across from our home, and lots of seniors go there to swim and do yoga,” she said.
Ling’s husband, Wang Degui, likes to visit a local flower and bird market, where he buys goldfish for his grandchildren.
Wang has also signed with a family doctor, who would take his prescription to him, saving him the trip.
“I don’t need to travel back and forth to the hospital, which I had to do in the past,” said Wang. “This is a terrific service for which I feel deeply grateful.”
Meilong has achieved full coverage of such practice in planning. Some projects are taking shape.
Its success has not gone unnoticed. Other regions are studying its modernization achievements for possible duplication.
Take the Junlian community in Zhuanqiao Town, comprised of more than 13,000 households. The township is also modernizing, and has already improved medical facilities, shopping malls, banks and public traffic connecting to a railway station.
Xinhong Subdistrict is promoting “smart nursing” for seniors, who no longer need to leave their homes for a medical checkup. Beds are installed with computer health monitors and patients wear medical wristbands, providing vital medical data doctors can use to make a diagnosis.
Another popular part of the community life circle is the Pujiang Citizens’ Sports Center, whose construction was completed in March. Citizens use the center for swimming, basketball, fencing and badminton.
By the end of last year, Minhang had 16 such sports centers, and more are scheduled to be built in the future.
City Library, also part of the life community circle, has branches in Maqiao, Xinzhuang, Jiangchuan and Gumei. Some are open 24 hours a day.
The community center in Maqiao offers a variety of classes for residents, including calligraphy and biology. Shi Wenqing, an employee at the center, is upbeat about the life circle modernization program.
“The life circle initiative has brought us all these wonderful things,” she said. “Residents all benefit, and many are happy to volunteer their time as a result.”