Harbin – capital of China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province – has made great progress in its “civilized city” campaign by upgrading its various public amenities and infrastructure to improve its citizens’ overall standard of living, according to a report in the Heilongjiang Daily newspaper.

In China, a national civilized city refers to a metropolis with a relatively high level of urban infrastructure, whose residents enjoy a high quality of life.

The title of National Civilized City is the highest honor granted by the Office of the National Steering Committee for Ethical and Cultural Progress, which reflects the overall level of conditions in cities on mainland China.

Local officials said that responding to the evaluation index measuring national civilized cities, Harbin has made every effort to promote the demolition and renovation of old communities and shanty towns to upgrade residents’ living environments.

In 2019, more than 20,000 illegally constructed sites with a total area of 4 million square meters in Harbin were demolished.

That same year, some 102 kilometers of Harbin’s old urban pipelines were renovated and 200 km of new urban roads were constructed. Officials said the number of newly constructed parking lots in Harbin city reached 61,000, and the efficient treatment rate of domestic garbage in urban areas reached 100 percent.

In 2019, Harbin recorded 304 days with air quality rated good to excellent.

Meanwhile, Harbin city is making things better for its residents by improving its government services by applying big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
 
In the overall online services capability index rankings of 32 key cities nationwide in 2019, Harbin jumped from the tenth in 2018 to a nationwide ranking of sixth.