Chongqing- "If you put people in your mind, you'll see that you're in their minds, too," said Xie Lan, a director of the local neighborhood community in Chongqing, who will be present at the 20th Party Congress as a Chongqing delegate.

Xie Lan's delegate qualification was awarded for her excellent work organizing local community work in urban renewal or city renovation. (Photo/ Wang Chun)

Since 2008, Xie has participated in several urban renewal projects at Renhe Street of Liangjiang New Area, including the renovation of two old markets and one resettlement community. Her work experience at Xingjiaqiao Community won great praise and honor for her.

The word "trust" is what she has been building in her position. In 2013, with passion and a sense of happiness, she returned to serve Xingjiaqiao, where she used to work for five years, a community initially built for the rural re-settlers.

She felt disappointed when she saw the aged buildings, with the lack of management causing many trouble issues for 1,422 families in the community. She began to research local opinions about the renovation.

This was the old look of one residential building at Xingjiaqiao Community. The peeling wall and the tanglesome electrical wires were visible. And inside the building, residents were facing problems like ceiling leakage. (Photo/ Shangyou News)

She persevered, though, knowing every difficulty 

To her surprise, Xie received vast neglect at the beginning. She proved herself worthy to be trusted by reporting to the upper authority about the dire conditions of Xingjiaqiao.

"Renovating the resettlement community is an important job to improve residents' well-being," she wrote this several times to the upper authority.

Some residents wanted the building to be demolished so they could receive compensation. Some wanted to stay here but were unsure if this project was only a "vanity project." Two sides all had their dissatisfaction and doubts, which made Xie's persuasion job hard.

"Our resettlement housing is not in good condition, but they did not fit in the definition of 'dilapidated housing,' which qualified the standard of demolition," she explained to the residents. More efforts are needed to improve the quality of residents' lives.

Xie organized 35 coordination conferences to listen to every side's voice. She finally decided to make customized solutions for every family, a decision that many administrators would fear to make as it required much more time and money. It was very hard to carry such grand work for a small community, including hundreds of small projects.

She knew every difficulty of this project, but she chose to do it.

In early 2020, folks moved back to the community as the first stage of the renovation was done. (Photo/ Liangjiang New Area Media Center)

Model of primary-level governance

According to the data released by Liangjiang New Area, Xingjiaqiao Community renovated about 36,000 square meters of the old communities, including 16 residential buildings, 488 families, and 91 shop fronts, benefiting more than 1,400 people.

More importantly, the Xingjiaqiao renovation is deemed as tremendous progress for Chongqing's urban renewal work because Xie's work has solved the local people's living issues and has gained people's trust.

Xie keeps her busy steps to visit thousands of families in the community every year, a habit she developed from the Xingjiaqiao experience.

When she returns from Beijing, she will keep doing so, being the model of primary-level governance.