Qingdao is advancing urban renewal through city health checks, shifting from large-scale expansion to quality improvement of existing areas. In 2025, the city completed health inspections covering 68 subdistricts, 969 communities, and 36,600 residential buildings over 25 years old, covering the main urban area and Laixi City. In 2026, it plans to inspect the remaining 21 subdistricts, nearly 500 communities, and over 4,600 such buildings, achieving full coverage of all built-up areas — leading the province and the country.
Qingdao has developed a "55+10+28" indicator system, combining national baseline indicators, provincial characteristic indicators, and 28 locally added ones. A "city health woodpecker" team works at the community level, using a "look, listen, ask, and feel" approach to collect residents‘ real needs. In Zhanshan Community, for example, issues such as parking shortages and lack of public space were quantified and addressed through micro-regeneration — transforming vacant spaces, building shared kitchens, and introducing smart parking systems.
The city has also built a City Health Assessment and Information Platform, featuring a "city-wide one-map" function that integrates over 160 indicators, 1,400 spatial layers, and 210,000 facility data points. The platform connects with the CIM platform and the “Shandong Tong” government app, enabling real-time sharing of inspection results. This year, Qingdao will launch special health checks for key areas to make urban renewal more targeted and people’s livelihoods better improved.
Editor: Wang Bingjie/ Zhang Yishuo
