City’s cultural entities top new ranking

Despite the city boasting the most publicly-funded cultural services per capita than elsewhere in the country, Shanghai government officials need to invest more cleverly in the arts - if it is to develop a truly "cultured" society, suggests a new study released Wednesday.

The nation's first in-depth look into government-financed cultural services for the public among 31 provincial-level administrative areas on the Chinese mainland over the past few months determined that Shanghai residents have the most access to such cultural events and venues, ranking first on a per capita-index at 20.27 points.

Shanghai's counterparts, Beijing and Tianjin, meanwhile, trailed behind at 13.75 points and 11.91 points, respectively, said Shanghai Normal University's Urban Culture Research Center report.

Thousands of culturally geared events, institutions and services created for the public by local governments nationwide were examined against a range of criteria, including investment efficiency, where Shanghai ranked a meager 20th place in spite of its success in the overall per capita category, according to Sun Xun, lead researcher of the study.

"The municipal government has invested a lot in cultural services for the public, no one can doubt that," he told the Global Times Wednesday. "But, investment efficiencies must be improved for their cultural investment to warrant any real value in the future.

"An increasing number of affluent residents are turning their attention to high-end cultural activities, which makes access to affordable cultural events and institutions trickier for most ordinary residents," he said. "The government needs to pay more attention to this demographic."

Still, with some 114 museums and 237 public libraries included in a total of 2.95 million square meters of public cultural facilities - an impressive cultural collection that required some 7.56 billion yuan ($1.20 billion) in investments from the Shanghai government from 2006 to 2010 - the city has nonetheless made much progress within cultural circles in recent years, said Sun.

"But now, there's room for a few tweaks," he added. "For a city and its people to really be cultured, all members of society need more convenient and affordable access to an array of cultures, both in tangible and intangible forms."