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From communal kitchens and toilets to rooms with a view
By Nie Xin |
January 5, 2009, Monday
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SHANGHAI has bragging rights when it comes to dramatically improving living conditions and residential areas. Space, private kitchens and indoor plumbing are nothing to sniff at, writes Nie Xin.
While some people lament the disappearance of "quaint" and "charming" old Shanghai neighborhoods, many who actually lived in them are glad to trade nostalgia for space, privacy and plumbing.
Twenty years of vision and modern urban planning and renovations have wrought enormous improvements in living conditions and standards.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to official statistics, 60 percent of Shanghainese were living in under 4 square meters.
One-fourth of residents used public corridors as kitchens; over half used chamber pots; 40 percent used coal stoves for cooking.
Take Suzhou Creek running through the north part of the city for example. Along the creek, many old communities left a deep impression of extremely poor and shabby residential housing. They were known as liang wan yi zhai or two wan and one zhai.
Both wan and zhai mean houses in ancient times.
Liang wan yi zhai here refers to Panjiawan, Tanziwan and Wangjiazhai in Putuo District. They were known as a warren of shack dwellings, or penghu qu in Chinese.
For many years before renovation, there was no hospital, no private bathroom, not even a paved road.
It was a dead-end area. Hundreds of thousands of people lived in tiny shared spaces, using laohu zao or huge communal "tiger stoves" for hot water, cooking on sooty coal stoves, using chamber pots. It was dirty and messy.
Wang Rongmei, over 60 years old, used to live at 101 Panjiawan Road. "There were four people in my family and we lived in a room of only 8 square meters," recalls Wang. "There was no kitchen and I only could cook in the corridor."
Since there was no space, cooking pots, bowls, even salt and oil were stored on wooden stairs.
"The rainy days would be dreadful. As construction of those old wooden shack dwellings was very poor, when it rained outside, it would rain inside as well," recalls Wang.
The rain put out the cooking fires.
Besides the "kitchen on the stairs," there were other nicknames for neighborhood spaces in Panjiawan. Narrow public walkways outdoors were called yi xian tian, or "one-lane sky" because residents piled their jumbled belongings outside their tiny living space.
There was so much stuff that two people could not pass at the same time - it was single file, and the sky above was only visible as a narrow line or lane.
In the late 1990s, the city began the great renovation of old communities within the Inner Ring Road. More than 10,000 families were relocated at the same time in one of the city's most important projects to improve public welfare.
Now, liang wan yi zhai has been replaced by Zhongyuan Liangwan City, a high-end residential area of 160,000 square meters. A central park covers 60,000 square meters with green space of 10,000 square meters.
There's a 2-kilometer greenbelt beside Suzhou Creek.
Old residents have been relocated to modern, bright communities built by the municipal government.
"Today there are still four members in my family," says Wang, "but we live in an apartment with three bedrooms and one living room. The kitchen alone is even bigger than our old single room."
While some people lament the disappearance of "quaint" and "charming" old Shanghai neighborhoods, many who actually lived in them are glad to trade nostalgia for space, privacy and plumbing.
Twenty years of vision and modern urban planning and renovations have wrought enormous improvements in living conditions and standards.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to official statistics, 60 percent of Shanghainese were living in under 4 square meters.
One-fourth of residents used public corridors as kitchens; over half used chamber pots; 40 percent used coal stoves for cooking.
Take Suzhou Creek running through the north part of the city for example. Along the creek, many old communities left a deep impression of extremely poor and shabby residential housing. They were known as liang wan yi zhai or two wan and one zhai.
Both wan and zhai mean houses in ancient times.
Liang wan yi zhai here refers to Panjiawan, Tanziwan and Wangjiazhai in Putuo District. They were known as a warren of shack dwellings, or penghu qu in Chinese.
For many years before renovation, there was no hospital, no private bathroom, not even a paved road.
It was a dead-end area. Hundreds of thousands of people lived in tiny shared spaces, using laohu zao or huge communal "tiger stoves" for hot water, cooking on sooty coal stoves, using chamber pots. It was dirty and messy.
Wang Rongmei, over 60 years old, used to live at 101 Panjiawan Road. "There were four people in my family and we lived in a room of only 8 square meters," recalls Wang. "There was no kitchen and I only could cook in the corridor."
Since there was no space, cooking pots, bowls, even salt and oil were stored on wooden stairs.
"The rainy days would be dreadful. As construction of those old wooden shack dwellings was very poor, when it rained outside, it would rain inside as well," recalls Wang.
The rain put out the cooking fires.
Besides the "kitchen on the stairs," there were other nicknames for neighborhood spaces in Panjiawan. Narrow public walkways outdoors were called yi xian tian, or "one-lane sky" because residents piled their jumbled belongings outside their tiny living space.
There was so much stuff that two people could not pass at the same time - it was single file, and the sky above was only visible as a narrow line or lane.
In the late 1990s, the city began the great renovation of old communities within the Inner Ring Road. More than 10,000 families were relocated at the same time in one of the city's most important projects to improve public welfare.
Now, liang wan yi zhai has been replaced by Zhongyuan Liangwan City, a high-end residential area of 160,000 square meters. A central park covers 60,000 square meters with green space of 10,000 square meters.
There's a 2-kilometer greenbelt beside Suzhou Creek.
Old residents have been relocated to modern, bright communities built by the municipal government.
"Today there are still four members in my family," says Wang, "but we live in an apartment with three bedrooms and one living room. The kitchen alone is even bigger than our old single room."
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