Elevator pick-me-up

When people talk about modernized cities they tend to think of skyscrapers, high-rise apartment buildings and rows of villas. But to some Chinese urbanites living in old residential communities, home renovation is central to a well-off life.

For Li Feng, a woman of 89 in Taiyuan City of north China's Shanxi Province, an elevator is a true sign of progress.

Before the government started a program to renovate dilapidated homes in her city, which involves elevator installation, roof repair, pipeline renewal and road maintenance, she had to take several breaks when climbing the three flights of stairs to her home.

"It got even tougher when I had to carry things," she recalled. Built 20 years ago, the apartment building she resides in was not equipped with elevators.

Li was happy to see the inconvenience removed, and her excitement resonated with other senior residents in the neighborhood.

From 2018 to 2020, the Chinese government has planned to finance the renovation of 15 million dilapidated homes to improve the quality of city life, and rolled out preferential policies to speed up the progress.

When it comes to building a well-off society, there exists a general consensus that no one should be left behind. For seniors like Li, elevators speak volumes.

Smart future

Some 1,283 km to the southwest of Taiyuan lies Chongqing, which has overtaken Guangzhou for the first time to become the country's fourth-largest city by economic aggregate, behind only Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen.

To some local residents, a well-off life relates more to smart living propelled by the use of big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies.

When Wu Lin, a local, returned home from work, she scanned her face to enter the residential compound, searched for a parking space via the smart parking management system, dumped waste into automatic sorting dustbins, and requested water and electricity repair service through a quick tap on her mobile phone.

Yearning for more efficient modern city life, Wu expected the country to further enhance investment in building smart cities.

According to estimates by the International Data Corporation, a global market intelligence firm, by 2020, the country's spending on smart cities is expected to hit 25.9 billion U.S. dollars, with most of the total going to sustainable infrastructure, data-driven governance and digital management.

Completing the building of a "Xiaokang" society is a tangible goal to ensure people live a happy life and gain a stronger sense of achievement, rather than being all about numbers on a page, said Professor Xin.