Recently, Ningbo, as the winner of five successive championships in the National Civilized City Competition, put forward a higher standard for raising its profiles. It plans to build areas in 20 "city parlors" at parks, trading areas, scenic areas within Ningbo by the end of 2020. By then, it plans to create 100 such high-quality areas.

Xu Mokai, section chief of the City Appearance and Environment Office, Urban Management and Law Enforcement of Ningbo said that according to the "sitting on the ground" construction standard for building demonstration areas of city parlors, "city parlors" should have no blind angles in public areas, no dirt retention on the grounds and roads, no spot on city furniture, no trash in the water.

With the raising of the standard, the cleaning mode is upgrading, too. A sanitation worker who used to clean the city with sweepers and complete tasks all by their hands are equipped with detergents, scraper knives, steel wools, duster clothes, and so on. Nowadays, in Ningbo's major "city parlors", hand-pushed electric sweepers, Tennant M20 chemical decontaminant vehicles, and other equipment have gradually been included in the standard configuration, realizing the operation mode with machine work as the main part and manual work as the auxiliary part. At the same time, a large number of citizen volunteers have been driven to join the activity of "cleaning your own parlors".

Tianyi Square, located in Haishu District, is bustling with more than 100,000 people a day. Recently, Deng Lin, who is in charge of the property management of the plaza, found that there are signs of a "radical treatment" for the chronic disease of throwing cigarette butts. "We have placed 80 outdoor ashtrays, optimized the layout according to the number of cigarette butts, and used big data to control cigarette butts," Deng Lin said. The measure has cut almost half of the butts thrown on the ground.

It is more amazing that the environment is changing people, too. People are able to sit on the floor, so many smokers feel embarrassed to throw their butts, let alone spit on the floor, according to Deng.

Ningbo heavily uses UAV monitoring and big data management and focuses on farm produce fairs, villages in the city, rubbishes on roots, underground spaces, coastal lines, and other inconspicuous parts. It works in a three-pronged approach of "sea, land, and air", and pushes forward the "five reforms and two improvements" initiative in the spirit of driving nails.

"The establishment of the 'sitting on the ground' city parlors is the epitome of Ningbo's construction of high-standard urban civilization. Ningbo proposed to be a model student in the construction of an 'important window' in Zhejiang. It tests the governance efficiency through building a civilized city, aims at enhancing the sense of gain and happiness of its citizens, and strives to win the ‘six consecutive championships’ with high scores in the National Civilized City Competition," the responsible person in Ningbo’s Civilization Office said.

(Compiled by Xu Yuhong, translated by Zou Guan'er)