
Cities serve as the spaces of civilizational development and the carriers of modernization. As global urbanization accelerates, it is estimated that by 2050, nearly 70 percent of the world's population will reside in urban areas. Challenges such as population expansion, resource scarcity, and complexities in governance are becoming increasingly prominent. Improving urban governance and livability has thus become the shared task for cities worldwide. The rapid evolution of digital and intelligent technologies offers new pathways toward inclusive, green, and sustainable urban development, contributing to the profound transformations in urban governance. Faced with unprecedented opportunities and challenges, cities around the globe have pressed ahead with reforms and bold innovation, producing valuable experiences. Currently, strengthening global dialogue, deepening cooperation in digital and intelligent domains, and jointly advancing the modernization of urban governance have become shared missions for cities worldwide, essential for addressing common challenges and promoting the progress of human civilization.
Beijing, famous for its historical and cultural heritage, is a dynamic, modern international metropolis of over 21 million permanent residents in an area of more than 16,000 square kilometers. In 2019, to address urban governance challenges, Beijing launched the "Swift Response to Public Complaints" reform initiative, leveraging its 12345 citizen service hotline as the main channel to receive public complaints and respond to each of them with speed and efficiency. In keeping with the trends in digital and intelligent transformation, Beijing has integrated smart technologies into urban governance, by analyzing public livelihood data to identify patterns and address the most-raised, common, and difficult issues with targeted solutions. It has also developed a public sentiment index and built a think tank for people's well-being. Over the past seven years, the platform has received 180 million public requests, inquiries and complaints, with both the resolution rate and the satisfaction rate exceeding 97 percent. A complete and effective closed-loop management system for public services has been established. The city has therefore developed a new path for modernizing megacity governance, one driven by citizens' feedback.
To promote global exchanges and mutual learning in urban governance, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the China Media Group, the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality jointly launched the Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints. Under the permanent theme "People's City, Better Future", the forum has been successfully held three times since its debut in 2021.
The 2024 edition, themed "Modernizing for People-Centered Urban Governance", welcomed over 3,100 guests, including more than 170 international participants from 40 countries. Multiple achievements were released. The documentary film "Hotline Beijing", which premiered during the event, was released nationwide and screened in multiple cities outside China. It has won several awards, including the Golden Rooster Award for Best Documentary, the Golden Panda Award for International Communication of Chinese Stories, and the Best Documentary of the Year award at the Chinese American Film Festival.
The forum is held every two years. The 2026 edition is tentatively scheduled to take place in Beijing in late October or early November, under the annual theme "Digital Intelligence Era and People's Cities". The event will include an opening ceremony, a main forum, parallel forums and salons, and a closing ceremony. Several publications will be released, including a collection of theoretical findings on the "Swift Response to Public Complaints" reform, an English monograph on the reform, an English special issue on the reform, an evaluation report on global cities' hotline services and governance effectiveness, and a collection of typical cases in global urban governance. Additionally, a new documentary on the reform's progress will be screened.
We sincerely invite representatives from academic institutions and government agencies worldwide to join us at the event. Let us work together to explore the directions and pathways for modernizing urban governance through digital intelligence and create a bright future for human urban civilization.
