Sharable electric bicycles put to market in Nanan District.

Index of sharable toilet on the street. (All photos provided by Nanan Committee Propaganda Department)

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Everyone is talking about the sharing economy nowadays. Can city management incorporate such a practice? Can resources be met when the demand of city life is surging so as to build a self-sustaining community? Nanan is pioneering in this field.

Meeting the demands of citizens

On April 1, grandma Li felt the need to go to a toilet while waiting for a bus at Yunshui Road Station on Tianwen Street in Nanan Distict. What could she do when there was no public toilet nearby?

Though 70, she is still pretty trendy. She raised her head and found two index signs on a street lamp by the roadside - “Sharable Toilet”. The left one says “Chuanchuanxiang”, “Hot Pot Chuanchuan” and “Estate Sales Department”. The one on the right says “Chengnan Homes Group 4 Toilet”, “XX Supermarket” and “Changshengqiao Hub Toilet”.

“Chuanchuanxiang is the nearest”, grandma Li said after reading the sign and went straight to the restaurant.

It is reported that Tianwen Sub-district, located at Jiangnan New City, is being actively developed. It typically has a household number of 100k, but there are only six toilets available. The Tianwen Sub-district is calling on companies and individuals to make their toilets public, and 51 of them — including restaurants, net cafes, supermarkets and hotels — are cooperating. As a result, some 300 new booths are now available.

It is noted that Nanan District is promoting the sharing economy this year, and twenty communities where people are able to share parking space is in the making. Once done, about 10,000 parking spaces will be provided.

Convenient and profitable for citizens as resources are thoroughly used

On April 30, Ms Chen went to Asia Pacific Enterprise Valley in Nanan to attend to something. The area is short of public parking spaces, it is pretty difficult to find one. However, she managed to find one and was able to park her car in a private spot in APEV via an app called “Cheweifei”.

The parking space belongs to Mr Tian, who work in Banan. Mr Tian drives to work on weekdays and parks his car in the evening when he is back from work. “It is better for these resources to be utilized than to have them wasted”, said Mr. Tian. He could earn 300 yuan per month via this program.

Related superintendents from Nanan said the idea to share parking spaces emerge from the situation where there are a lot of empty private parking spaces around nearby residence facilities while the traffic is too much crowded and heavy as people cannot find space to park their cars. (Translated by Yang Lifu, Fathom Language Limited)