THERE WAS heavy snowfall in the south of the country on the weekend and many urban management departments faced the task of keeping the cities clean and maintaining smooth traffic flows. People's Daily commented on Tuesday:

While residents in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai municipality have been sharing photos of themselves playing in the snow, it has been a more serious matter for urban management departments. Heavy snow means worse traffic conditions, as well as higher risk of traffic accidents. Even flights and trains were delayed because of the heavy snow.

When heavy snow hit the southern provinces in 2008 ahead of Spring Festival, many trains were delayed and tens of thousands of people were stranded at train stations.

This time it has been totally different. When Shanghai residents woke up in the morning, they found that the snow on the streets was cleared. The police, government employees, even the local armed police worked overnight to clean the roads. In Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, it is the People's Liberation Army that helped to clear the streets of snow.

These efforts have been warmly welcomed. When the official micro blog account of the Shanghai municipal government posted a group of photos about the clearup work, it was clicked 4 million times and received many likes.

That shows that Chinese cities have been learning from the past by improving their urban governance system. Shanghai especially has accumulated ample experience in urban governance and introduced modern technologies such as the mobile internet and big data technology to help serve the public.