Moji Mountain under sunset, Yanjiang Road in golden autumn and Binjiang Park covered by snow......Here, you have chance to enjoy beautiful scenery at all seasons and to feel local people’s hospitality and enthusiasm.
Yichang, a shinning pearl inlaid in the vast west of Hubei Province, has both the calmness of smooth waters flowing through high gorges and the spectacle of the great river going to the East. It has gone through a long history of Ba and Chu culture and now is striving to build itself as a modern “big, strong, excellent and beautiful” megacity.
Strengthening ecological construction and building a pleasant city
The beauty of a city first lies in its picturesque and harmonious environment and ecology. At the 18th CPC National Congress, ecological civilization construction has been brought into the "five-in-one" general layout of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the proposal to build "Wild China" is another good interpretation of the beauty of a city. Yichang is rich in mountains and water resources and its biggest advantage is the ecological environment.
A good ecological environment is the fairest public products and most affordable social well-being. Strengthening overall urban ecological construction meets the inherent requirements of accelerating the transformation of economic development mode and realizing sustainable development,. It is also an important guarantee for improving ecological environment, upgrading the quality of people\'s livelihood and promoting social harmony, and the only way to build a big, strong, excellent and beautiful modern megacity and a well-off society in an all-round way.
At the forum on "comprehensively deepening reform, transforming development mode and speeding up the construction of a modern megacity", Huang Chuping, Member of Hubei Provincial Standing Committee and Secretary of Yichang Municipal Party Committee, stated that green ecology was the biggest advantage and the greatest potential for the development of Yichang. He also suggested that we should take ecology as a culture, keep environmental protection as a habit, put green mountains and blue waters as treasure so as to keep the first-class ecological environment all the time.
Regarding the overall promotion of urban ecological construction, we must rely on practical constructions and projects and make achievements within the three to five years and do our best to boost the Ten Ecological Projects, including Ecological Red Zone Protection and Ecological Restoration Engineering, Urban Drinking Water Source Protection Projects, Comprehensive Treatment and Protection Project of Water Environment in Ten Reservoirs of Sanhe, Urban Greening Project, Green Traffic Project Green, Low-carbon and Ecological Construction Project of the New District in Dianjun District, Industrial Transformation and Upgrading Project, Comprehensive Improvement Project of Urban Environment, Suburban Beautiful Villages Project and Blue Sky Project.
Establishing a civilized city and improving the happiness index
Speeding up the construction of a modern megacity needs both a solid material foundation and strong spiritual strength. Establishing a long-term mechanism and building a civilized city are important carriers for us to collect and spread positive energy, stimulate all-round enthusiasm and creativity and coordinate scientific and leaping development of Yichang.
Over the years, Yichang Municipal Committee and Yichang Municipal Government\' have always regarded the establishment of a national civilized city as a great impetus to coordinate scientific and leaping development of Yichang and improve the happiness index of citizens. On the principles of building a megacity by people and for people, people first, and people advancing with city, we have achieved remarkable success in coordinating multi-city innovations with building a civilized city as a leading goal.
We must persist in promoting development through construction and enhancing the city\'s comprehensive strength. With the construction of civilized city as the leading goal, we stick to the strategy of coordinating multi-city innovations and carefully building the city brand of "pleasant city, prosperous land" so as to show the charm of Yichang gradually. In 2011, the city was the first one to enter the ranks of national civilized cities in the whole province, breaking the "zero" record of Hubei Province. In 2012, Yichang ranked first in Hubei and eighth in China in the national index evaluation of urban civilization.
This year, according to Yichang Municipal Committee and Yichang Municipal Government\'s strategies, we have started the overall urban planning and achieved remarkable success. Up to now, we have over fulfilled greening task of this year. 126 renovation projects of beautifying urban facade have been under construction, which account for 103% of the annual plan and benefit 4,000 households with a population of nearly 13,000. Hoarding renovation projects have reached 63 sections with a total length of 13,300 meters, 2.2 times as much as the annual goal. As for lighting, we have completed hundreds of street light projects including Yiling Yangtze Bridge.
To further deepening civilized city construction, we must conform to the criteria of realizing fundamental interests of the public, putting the needs of the masses in the first place and taking the satisfaction rate of citizens as the essential measure of a long-term mechanism. On that condition, we have to spare no efforts to solve hot and difficult issues that citizens are concerned with, further lift the satisfaction rate of the public on the civilized city construction, improve people\'s happiness index and create a living environment comfortable for living, enjoyable for traveling and profitable for business.
Transformation of the old city and improving quality of living environment
In accordance with the connotation and denotation of “Old city transformation” and development characteristics of Yichang at the present stage, Yichang has established a final theme---rehabilitating the urban, updating it properly and building it into a livable city by comprehensively considering the actual needs of urbanization, industrialization and the objective reality of low ratio of the old plant area and villages in the city and shantytowns’ rebuilding. In short, the theme is to respect the history and protect the culture, focusing on the environment and quality and opposing and avoiding massive demolition and construction. Old city transformation is a significant exploration and practice in new period with strategic significance and overall significance as well as an important starting point to forge a livable city, aiming to comprehensively solve the issues of city capacity, function, environment and livelihood, etc.
Old city transformation demands implementation of the “two-wheel drive”. The construction of new district is to expand the framework, improve function and achieve the goal of building the city a big and strong one. Old city transformation will strive to enhance the environmental quality, and promote the integration of old and new, which is the inevitable path to build the city into an excellent and beautiful city. Rehabilitating the urban, reducing the population density and building density is to transport popularity and development vigor to the new district where accelerating the construction of new district is to provide the population transfer settlement, undertake site of industrial transfer, accommodating location of function transfer for old city transformation. Old city transformation and accelerating the construction of new district are interdependent and mutually promote. The dislocation development and boost in different times of the new and the old districts create favorable conditions for promoting overall quality and management level.
In the forum of "comprehensively deepening reform and transformation development mode to accelerate the construction of a modern megacity", Mao Chuanqiang, the Municipal Committee member and Deputy Mayor, on behalf of research team of old city transformation and accelerating the construction of a livable city, made a statement that old city transformation should highlight the three function systems.
The first one is centering on the goal of building world famous hydroelectric tourism city, striving to develop tourism-oriented modern service industry and high-tech industry,, improving the industrial supporting ability and development environment and leading Yichang to an adjustment and upgrade path for industrial structure. About the tourism industry, we plan to change Yichang from a pure landscape tourism city into a strong tourism city through the old city transformation.
Secondly, through old city transformation, Yichang will increase urban public space and public green space, improve urban infrastructure and the urban living environment, and promote the development of people\'s livelihood and public utilities and take a path of optimizing living environment. Yichang will boost urban construction land use and management system innovation, strengthen policy reserves and system supplies, greatly improve the urban landscape, and create a beautiful environment suitable for tourism, comfortable for living and profitable for business.
Thirdly, through old city transformation, Yichang will be forged into a city landscape with a modern urban culture and traditional historic culture.
Voices
Experts’ comments:
Li Jinxing---Deputy Minister of Yichang Municipal Committee Propaganda Department and Director of Municipal Civilization Office
We should establish long-term working mechanism of civilization so as to institutionalize and standardize the founding work of civilization. Secondly, we need to further create an atmosphere to involve the general public and strengthen civility knowledge dissemination and publicity of moral models, forming an atmosphere of respecting the moral models, learning from the moral models and striving to be the moral models.
In addition to long-term sticking to the idea of all the people involved in the work of civilization and the work of civilization is for all the people, we have to know that it is inseparable from the high attention of Municipal Government, District Government and government at different levels, which means that they regard the work of civilization as the primary project. Meanwhile, the work of civilization must involve extensive participation and close cooperation of various departments. The work of civilization covers various aspects including politics, economy, society, culture and ecology and can’t be carried on without the efforts and support from all aspects.
The work of civilization also needs to seize the key point that is striving to improve the quality of public with the people-oriented idea and forming an atmosphere of everyone being civilized.
Public expectation:
Qin Pan, a local resident
As a native, I have witnessed rapid changes of Yichang. Living in Yichang, you can enjoy the beautiful natural scenery and feel everyone’s passion in making the city better than before. As a citizen of Yichang, I am proud and really looking forward to see its wonderful future.
Li Feng, a local resident
After working in Yichang for three years, I choose to settle here. I have been to many big cities when studying and traveling however, I feel Yichang is not inferior to any other cities and its development and changes are great. Nowadays, Yichang is making big strides to be the megacity which makes us full of expectation for its future. (Reporter Li Feng)