"\\;Material power makes a city strong, but soft power makes the city great"\\;. This idea has now found its way deeper into the hearts of Shanghai citizens. Last year, Shanghai made a clear call for fully leveraging the "\\;catalyst"\\; role of soft power.Improving livelihood: make people comfortableFor megacities, the complexity and high cost of solving livelihood problems make it no easier task than developing the economy. Greater patience and dedicated efforts are often needed, and one has to confront and tackle all kinds of complex issues heads-on.Seemingly trivial things are actually related to citizens' sense of belonging to and identification with a city. Besides universal services, respect and care for some special groups are also indispensable.Focus 1: elderly people. Last year, Shanghai added 51 comprehensive community service centers, 201 dining venues, 5,084 old-age care beds and 2,303 nursing beds for people with cognitive impairment, and reconstructed 6,868 homes to make them suitable for old-age care.Focus 2: young people. Last year, Shanghai added 65 inclusive kindergartens and care centers. and opened 543 summer care classes for primary school students. With the formal implementation of the newly revised Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Protection of Minors, 200 more juvenile protection workstations will be added this year.Last year, Shanghai pressed ahead with work to raise the level of "\\;digital accessibility"\\; of public services. It launched the Digital Partnership Program, renovated Internet applications, and created "\\;One Key"\\; scenarios to keep elderly people in pace with digital transformation.To help disabled people to find jobs, Hinichijou&\\;nbsp\\;(the Bear Claw Coffee Shop), an extremely popular brand on the Internet, has gone beyond Yongkang Road where it is located and opened numerous branches across Shanghai. As&\\;nbsp\\;more chain coffee brands that help people with autism and hearing impairment find jobs enter local communities, there are city-wide efforts by citizens to respect the disabled and convey the humanistic care of the city.Creating poetic space: make visitors fascinatedUrban style is an important part of a city’s soft power. For Shanghai, the connecting and opening of various poetic spaces not only constitutes an important way to enhance the charms of its urban public spaces, but also defines one of its unique advantages.One river and one creek are the most familiar urban spaces for Shanghai citizens. After the completion of the 45km public bank line along the Huangpu River, the 42km public river line of the Suzhou Creek was also basically connected at the end of last year.Despite its limited land resources, Shanghai is now energetically unleashing creative changes to many of its urban spaces."\\;Space Plus"\\; thinking is now constantly finding its way into streets, parks and communities across Shanghai. One spatial ecology with composite functions after another are fast spreading from scattered points to establish wide presence. The "\\;Road Plus"\\; Project comprehensively takes into account various elements: ecology, business format, style, furniture items and so on. "\\;One Street, One Scenery"\\; has created Shanghai’s unique urban expressions.Rich historical and cultural resources have also given birth to new urban lifestyles - "\\;Readable Architecture"\\; has now become a well-known brand, while "\\;Shanghai-style Urban Archaeology"\\; has become the latest popular spot.Practicing good governance: touch the heart of the future generationBuilding a hub of high-level talent minds is Shanghai's strategic mission. To attract all kinds of talented minds, Shanghai must have in-depth appeals beyond ample development opportunities and livable and caring urban spaces.Such "\\;in-depth"\\; things are often not easy to see, but they do profoundly reflect the "\\;underlying logic"\\;. A competitive institutional environment is one of them.Shanghai has made it clear that it should not just rely on materialistic incentives to attract talented minds. It calls for heightened efforts to break the “rigid boxes” and empower talented minds through a uniquely soft environment, opportunities, platforms, innovative atmosphere, and institutional and mechanism innovation.Shanghai is now home to over 6.75 million talented minds, and has so far issued more than 310,000 work permits to foreign professionals, accounting for a quarter of the total issued in China.Another example is efficient urban governance.Last year, Shanghai comprehensively expanded “Government Online-Offline Shanghai” to cover 3,458 access service items in all. High-frequency items can now be basically handled at one visit. A "\\;handling assistance"\\; system has also been established. It now has more than 61.95 million real-name users, and handles 280,000 matters on average daily. The digital twin-based urban vital signs index system is constantly empowering the refined governance of China’s largest megacity.Behind all this is a strategic thinking on&\\;nbsp\\;promoting urban digital transformation in a comprehensive way, as well as a set of changing ideas on governance. Data resources and digital infrastructure now play an increasingly prominent role in citizens’ everyday life. To steer and accelerate the momentum, Shanghai has formulated and issued data regulations, and officially set up Shanghai Data Exchange and put it into operation, while stepping up efforts to press ahead with the construction of 5G outdoor base stations and other new digital infrastructures. Thanks to the efforts, more and more digital technology-empowered governance application scenarios and higher governance efficiency have emerged in Shanghai. &\\;nbsp\\;Efficient governance is a gateway to good governance. However, good governance also requires co-building, co-governance and sharing. Shanghai is striving to build itself into a place of best practices for whole-process democracy for the people, and integrate such democracy into the entire process of its urban development and all aspects of its urban construction.In everyday practices, more and more people now participate in building Shanghai’s soft power. This has given rise a unique landscape in Shanghai: “Everyone is soft power, and everyone showcases soft power"\\;.Source: Gu Jie and Zhu Minwu,&\\;nbsp\\;Shanghai Observer