Focus interview, adjust measures to local conditions, "circle" a good life community for a quarter of an hour | life circle | good life
What services can you enjoy by walking a quarter hour from your residential area? Can it meet the daily needs of life? Not long ago, the Ministry of Commerce announced a three-year action plan to build a 15 minute convenient living circle nationwide. The so-called 15 minute convenient living circle refers to walking within a community for 15 minutes, about one kilometer, to find various shops and facilities, meeting various needs such as shopping, catering, elderly care, cultural and leisure. Starting from 2021, 80 regions across the country have conducted pilot projects, constructing approximately 1400 living circles, many of which are built for old residential areas. How were these 15 minute life circles created, and what are the stories during the construction process? The reporter conducted research in two communities in Beijing for over a month.
Zhang Shenyi is the community secretary of Lianhuahe Community in Guang'anmen Outer Street, Beijing. For a long time, she frequently received feedback from the elderly in the community, requesting the construction of a nursing station to solve the problem of elderly people's meals.
The Lianhua River community has been built for nearly 20 years, with a population of over 5000 people. Through years of development, within a 15 minute walk, which is one kilometer radius of the community, supermarkets, restaurants, and other facilities are relatively complete, making life convenient. But as the community enters an aging population, the proportion of elderly people gradually exceeds one-fifth, and the demand for elderly care stations is becoming increasingly prominent.
In the dynamic map of the 15 minute convenient living circle in Beijing, you can clearly see the distribution of convenient commerce in the 15 minute convenient living circle of Lianhua River community. There is a nursing station within the circle, but for the elderly in the Lianhua River community, there is a very practical difficulty in going here, which is to cross a very complex main road with inconvenient transportation. In addition, there is also a nursing station in the neighboring community with good conditions. Why don't the elderly go here? The reporter followed the community secretary Zhang Shenyi on a field trip.
The reporter followed the community secretary and walked from the Lianhua community in Lishui to the nearest elderly care service station. From the map, the distance in a straight line is 1 kilometer, but after walking for 24 minutes, it passed through a river and 3 intersections, all of which had a very high traffic volume. This 24 minute journey was still very difficult for the elderly.
It seems that the surrounding elderly care stations are indeed difficult to solve the problem of elderly dining in the Lianhua River community. The demands of the elderly are very strong, and Zhang Xinyi is even more anxious. They plan to build elderly care stations through a combination of social capital investment and government subsidies, but the first challenge she faces is finding a suitable place.
Lianhua River Community is located adjacent to Beijing West Railway Station, with a large flow of people and a good location. The surrounding shops have always been affordable for rent and sale, and the owners are unwilling to rent them to the community at a low price for public welfare. And there is no idle space in the community, which makes Zhang Xinyi very worried.
The difficulties faced by Zhang Shenyi are not isolated. Zhang Wei, Vice President of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, has been conducting research on the construction of convenient living circles in various parts of the country for 15 minutes in recent years. She found that after years of development, most of the surrounding facilities in the old community can meet the basic needs of residents such as buying groceries and medicine. In recent years, residents have higher demands for quality of life. To create a 15 minute convenient living circle is to continuously meet people's needs for a better life. However, the lack of space in old residential areas is a common challenge during the construction process.
Zhang Wei, Vice President of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce: In the early days of community construction, this part may not have been fully considered. So now the commercial facilities in old residential areas are not as complete, and everything is fixed there. What we are solving is how to activate the stock.
How to revitalize inventory, identify available space, and increase convenient facilities? In recent years, various regions and departments have come up with many solutions. On Hepingli North Street in Beijing, a retired and unused bus has been transformed into a small vegetable market; In Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the abandoned nucleic acid testing booth has been transformed into an "Asian Games Youth Micro Station", providing convenient services to citizens; In the Dongdu area of Xiamen, utilizing the renovation of old residential areas to integrate inefficient idle space, constructing neighborhood canteens, and so on.
Zhang Wei, Vice President of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce: Better integrate some idle resources in society with the consumption needs of community residents, drive social capital to increase market-oriented investment, and meet the daily living needs of the people. Each family has its own difficulties, but each family also has its own tricks.
After half a year of searching, Zhang Xinyi finally received good news in mid May. One of the bottom businesses in the community has been vacated due to the expiration of the lease, and the owner is a state-owned enterprise who is interested in developing into the field of elderly care services. The two sides reached an agreement immediately. The house has been found, but with it comes another challenge. According to the regulation of providing at least one elderly care station for every 20000 people in Xicheng District, Guangwai Street has met the configuration requirements. Can Lianhua River Community add another elderly care station?
Zhang Shenyi provided feedback on the needs of the elderly in the community and the methods they came up with to Guangwai Street. After conducting research and on-site investigations, the street leader agreed with the idea of Lianhuahe Community. At present, the construction application for the Lianhua River Community Elderly Care Station has been submitted to the relevant departments and is in the approval process.
Zhang Wei, Vice President of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce: Most of the time, we push business planning from top to bottom, and the construction of a 15 minute convenient living circle reflects more on the standard of people's satisfaction, that is, we solve what we need and want. We do not encourage a one size fits all approach, but rather hope that various regions can combine the consumption and development needs of their respective cities and communities, ask for needs from the people, ask for advice from the people, and actively innovate.
The purpose of building a convenient living circle is to ask for the needs of the people, to ask for advice from the people, to make up for what is lacking, and to adapt to local conditions. The Tea Horse South Street community, which belongs to the same street as the Lianhua River community, is a large mixed commercial and residential community mainly focused on the tea industry. There are numerous tea shops and developed commerce here, which greatly squeezes the leisure activity space of the surrounding residents. They really hope to have a public activity space inside, which can have a reading area, sports area, and small theater, etc. Guangwai Street has introduced social capital in order to create such an activity space in the community. After multiple searches, they finally found an idle underground warehouse in the tea city. However, new problems have emerged, and the planning of this warehouse clearly requires that it can only be used for storing goods and cannot be used for other purposes. If the purpose needs to be changed, the procedures are very cumbersome, which has also made the street office difficult.
Journalists have found through research that the common challenges encountered in building a 15 minute convenient living circle in old residential areas are: firstly, insufficient space in the community, and secondly, the mismatch between the planned and intended use of the space, resulting in policy constraints in changing the use.
Solving such a difficult problem requires a breakthrough in policy. Guangwai Street learned that in recent years, the Ministry of Commerce and 12 other departments have issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Construction of a 15 Hour Convenient Living Circle in Cities", which clearly states "promoting the composite development and utilization of land, rational conversion of uses, and revitalizing existing housing facilities.". Beijing has successively introduced multiple measures to encourage the use of idle space for convenient commercial services, which provides a solution to the problem of Chama South Street. They successfully changed the usage scope of the warehouse space to convenient services, so that the reading area, sports activity area, hair salon, etc. can all be accommodated. But the small theater was still stuck outside the door.
Li Nan, the person in charge of the third space of Guangwai: If it is not a commercial performance, it is possible. Commercial small theaters are not listed by the Commerce Bureau.
Li Nan is the person in charge of contracting this convenient service space, and he hopes to open a portion of the time of the small theater to commercial performances for profit, in order to cover the investment. The community and street office believe that such ideas are not inappropriate, but the current policy is a blank in this regard.
Whether to include operating small theaters in the list of convenient services has been negotiated multiple times by relevant departments and streets, and has gone through nearly half a year. Finally, after determining that most of the convenient activity space would be used for public welfare and a small portion for business, multiple departments in Xicheng District decided to jointly make a breakthrough.
Liu Jun, Deputy Director of the Commerce Bureau of Xicheng District, Beijing: Finally, the handling process was given a green light, allowing it to do the corresponding work. However, during the process of making a small theater, due to the gathering of personnel and being underground, we relied on relevant departments to conduct a strict review of it. After meeting the requirements, we only gave the relevant procedures approval.
The small theater that the people long for has finally been completed, and on weekdays, it has become a gathering place for community activities. The elderly choir in the surrounding community is rehearsing here.
Zhang Wei, Vice President of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce: The government is not a player, it is more about solving problems that cannot be solved by market forces. Through government intervention and guidance, the entire model can be put into operation. Currently, various departments are actively working to implement flexible management while maintaining the bottom line of safety risks, in order to carry out institutional reforms and innovations in the traditional circulation governance field, and better enhance people's sense of happiness and satisfaction.
On May 20th, the small theater welcomed its first commercial performance. As of 2022, 1402 convenient living circles have been constructed in 80 pilot areas across the country, with 6855 standardized vegetable markets and fresh vegetable shops, 7978 maintenance points, and 1172 elderly care stations being renovated and upgraded.
It is understood that the Ministry of Commerce has included the construction of a 15 minute convenient living circle as an important part of theme education, as a specific action to practice "business for the people", promoting the combination of theme education and convenient living circle construction. In the near future, it will work with relevant departments to introduce the "Three Year Action Plan for Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a 15 minute Convenient Living Circle in Cities", guiding various regions to build multiple types of 15 minute convenient living circles. What is missing and what is needed by the people, the government will do whatever it takes to make up for the shortcomings in the community, making services more convenient and facilities more complete. The sense of gain, happiness, and satisfaction of residents will also be further enhanced.
Editor | Liu Xiaochen
Camera | Fu Peng, Ruan Hongyu
Editing | Tong Yongjie, Zheng Yu
Planning | Yu Renshan
