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Flinging the poor into boondocks no way to promote civic harmony
By Li Luxiang |
July 3, 2009, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
SHANGHAI'S latest move to provide quality - and not far-flung - housing for its relocated low-income people is a sign of progress toward common prosperity.
On June 29, Yangpu District began to construct the largest-ever affordable housing project in downtown Shanghai. When it is completed in 2011, it will have more than 5,000 apartments for people relocated from their dilapidated homes nearby.
Although not all relocated families may move there - due to space limitation, among other things - the project signals Shanghai's new thinking about relocating the poor.
Since the 1990s, Shanghai has demolished or renovated around 70 million square meters of old apartments in decay. More than 1.2 million households have been relocated into new apartments.
However, some families have been moved out of the city proper, often to its suburban outskirts where life can be less convenient. Worse, some families have been relocated to new apartments in areas of extremely high air pollution.
Late in May, several hundred residents in a remote area in Xuhui District stood hand-in-and in the middle of a street, blocking movement of cement mixers to protest the filthy air caused by several cement factories around their community.
No city can attain ideals of harmony if its poor, or many of them, can only afford to live on the margins of a city, sometimes in a seriously polluted environment.
More than 10 million square meters of rundown housing remain to be renovated in downtown Shanghai. Yangpu District's model bodes well for those who will move there - and may be a model for the city.
On June 29, Yangpu District began to construct the largest-ever affordable housing project in downtown Shanghai. When it is completed in 2011, it will have more than 5,000 apartments for people relocated from their dilapidated homes nearby.
Although not all relocated families may move there - due to space limitation, among other things - the project signals Shanghai's new thinking about relocating the poor.
Since the 1990s, Shanghai has demolished or renovated around 70 million square meters of old apartments in decay. More than 1.2 million households have been relocated into new apartments.
However, some families have been moved out of the city proper, often to its suburban outskirts where life can be less convenient. Worse, some families have been relocated to new apartments in areas of extremely high air pollution.
Late in May, several hundred residents in a remote area in Xuhui District stood hand-in-and in the middle of a street, blocking movement of cement mixers to protest the filthy air caused by several cement factories around their community.
No city can attain ideals of harmony if its poor, or many of them, can only afford to live on the margins of a city, sometimes in a seriously polluted environment.
More than 10 million square meters of rundown housing remain to be renovated in downtown Shanghai. Yangpu District's model bodes well for those who will move there - and may be a model for the city.
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