Innovations are making the details of every transaction more transparent at a vegetable market at 349 Madang Road.

A large screen displays the price fluctuations of select vegetables in real time. The electric balances are also more reliable, with customers having information as to the type of vegetables, unit price, weight, and the sum. Customer can even trace the origin of the purchased item if they choose. The payment, of course, is digital.

Reporters invited to carry out a spot check on the market last Friday were also impressed by the versatility of the market.

This is just one case of governmental endeavor in the smart upgrade of vegetable markets, in a bid to make management and operation more digitized, and more efficient.

In Huangpu District, where the Madang market is located, AI smart electric balances are ubiquitous in all vegetable markets, and a smart management system keeps management acquainted real time with the goings-on in each and all markets.

Sources from the municipal Commission of Commerce suggested that, this year, 80 markets are slated for standardized renovation, as part of the municipal projects intended to improve people's livelihoods by addressing their immediate needs and concerns.

Such concerns, naturally, are not just restricted to food and vegetables.

In a community in Xietu Road Neighborhood in Changning District, at 1188 Xietu Road, residents, of all ages and descriptions, were having their fitness needs addressed thanks to a brand new fitness center, right in a residential compound.

There were so many people that there seemed to be a crushing need for equipment procurement even though it was already crammed with apparatuses. There is also a standard track and field space, and basketball and tennis courts.

Professional trainers are sometimes invited to give free instructions on how to achieve fitness.

Compared to purely commercial facilities, one of the chief attractions of such a wellness center are their affordability, and vicinity to residents, in the Xietu Road case being housed right in a residential building.

"A monthly card costs only 99 yuan (US$14),"said Feng Liang, who is responsible for the fitness center. "We do not have annual card, so that the residents need not worry about refunding issues often associated with annual cards, and they might be more focused on the exercise itself."

Huang Haisong, an official from Shanghai Administration of Sports, said that such fitness centers, mainly in the form of indoors sports spaces, will go a long way towards making up for the deficiency of big and medium sized sports venues in the city.

Being listed as projects answering the pressing concerns of the people, there have been beefed up efforts in launching such projects, at a pace of 30 a year. They have clearly gone well with residents.

In a megapolis like Shanghai, owning a car has always been a complicated issue, and an electric car in an old neighborhood poses particular problems, given the lack of charging facilities, not to mention the general lack of parking spaces.

This significantly restricts the use of electric cars, which are comparatively a green means of transport.

Addressing this particular need, Beixinjing Neighborhood in Changning District has been promoting the creation of such charging facilities in a progressive manner strictly in view of local conditions.

In a residential compound we visited, Xinjing Wucun on Lane 350 Tianshan Xilu, for example, six charging points have been newly installed.

To better exploit the limited parking resources, residents are kept abreast of the status of each charging point in a WeChat group.

By the end of last year, the neighborhood had set up 197 charging piles, covering all compounds in the neighborhood, earning it the title of being the first neighborhood in the city honored as exemplary in such effort.

The effort was government subsidized. According to government sources, for those compounds listed as exemplary in providing for charging stations at municipal level, they would be entitled to subsidies ranging from 30,000 to 80,000 yuan, subject to the number of piles built.