the random oracle

This article in the New York Times is interesting: it’s about how gentrification has hit China, and also shows that news about gentrification in China has hit America.  One of the more common (and less controversial) causes du jour among China watchers is the fact that modernization has led to the loss of many old neighborhoods.  Article after article first bemoaned the loss of traditional ways of life to the construction crane and wrecking ball and the infamous “ 拆” sign (which marks a structure for demolition), and now I guess there will be article after article bemoaning the loss of traditional ways of life to yuppies and the nouveaux riches, since they’re starting to buy up the remaining traditional neighborhoods (whether they be hutongs (胡同) in Beijing, shikumen (石厍门) in Shanghai, or even the humble pingfang (平房) in Suzhou).

And they’re right, it has.  In fact you can see two distinct ways in which it’s happening: take a look at Nanluoguxiang (南罗鼓巷) in Beijing or Xintiandi (新天地) in Shanghai, and you’ll see that the traditional architecture and style has been co-opted by Westerners, who bring in big money, expensive restaurants, cafes, bars, and trendy shops but want to house them in “authentic” local garb.  I have to admit, the mix is alluring and they are fun to stroll around, but there is clearly a certain “type” that frequents them: the expat and the expat-lover.  I find it hard to imagine that many truly local Chinese would want to mix in these crowds unless they were showing a foreign friend around.

But why shouldn’t they exist?  Just as New York has its Chinatown(s), why shouldn’t Beijing or Shanghai have their Europe-villes?  The cultures are distinct enough that the kinds of things one culture enjoys might not really be compatible with, or even comprehensible to, the other (coffee, vodka, steak on the one hand versus longjing tea (龙井茶), maotai (茅台), and chicken feet (鸡爪子) on the other).  So if one has to live in the other’s midst, why not let them have their own enclaves?  I think what we shouldn’t do is to think that these neighborhoods are the “new China”; I think that upscale and trendy Chinese neighborhoods will not look like these, but will have their own unique feel and be populated by a different mix of stores.

The other way gentrification is happening is more home-grown: yuppies are starting to buy up property in old, sometimes dilapidated neighborhoods, and renovating them.  In fact, the government is giving them a helping hand, since they’re renovating many old areas in the hope of turning them into tourist attractions.  This is happening in Suzhou en masse: many neighborhoods and townships have recently been scrubbed clean and renovated, with new shops installed and cultural performances happening in the evenings.  The one that I experienced firsthand was rather small, named Shantang St. (三塘街) and located near Tiger Hill (虎丘) in the Northwest of Suzhou city, but there are larger and more famous “water townships” in Suzhou prefecture such as Luzhi (甪直), Zhouzhuang (周庄), and Tongli (同里) that, I hear, have become pretty big attractions.  On the residential side, streets such as Pingjiang Rd (平江路), which hugs an old canal and runs through the center of Suzhou’s old city, are also being cleaned up, and since it is right next to some quiet pingfang residences, the momentum for development in this area may one day be driven by residential properties.  In fact, it’s already started, with many old houses being bought up and combined into larger, more comfortable residences.  It’s a direct reversal of what the Communists did, which was to take these residences that used to belong to a single (rich) family and split them up for use by many families.  In this respect, as in most others, Communism in China is dead.

So anyway after the background material, back to the main point: gentrification has hit China.  But is this a bad thing?  I think people in the West are a little quick to decry the lost of traditional neighborhoods because they want foreign countries to remain pretty little exotic caricatures that they can easily pin down in their mind.  But there are several things I would argue:

1. Many of these old neighborhoods were poor neighborhoods, such as the hutong in Beijing; for the locals, there’s really no reason to keep the old buildings around because they’re dirty, cramped, and in disrepair.  What they really want to preserve is the feel of the old neighborhoods, where neighbors know each other and help each other out.  As we know, even in the West this has been hard to preserve, but why not try to preserve it in novel ways?  Maybe the monotonous highrises that we associate with anonymity and indifference can be replaced by vibrant highrises where, well, neighbors know each other and people help each other out?  One way to start might be to place markets and stores on each floor (instead of just the ground floor) of the highrise so that neighbors shop together.
2. Many of these old neighborhoods were rich neighborhoods, such as the shikumen in Shanghai, so gentrifying them is really just returning them to their original condition.
3. I do agree that some of these old districts should be preserved, but they cannot all be preserved simply because there’s not enough space.  These cities cannot grow without growing vertically, and the small one- or two-story houses that preservationists adore will necessarily play a small role in the future.  You certainly can’t ask these cities to mimic, say, LA by sprawling out into a flat plain.  Oil prices will only head higher in the future and as experience has shown, dense, vertical cities fare better with higher energy prices than flat, sprawled out cities.

In any case, demolition, preservation, and gentrification have all hit China within the span of 20 years, so at the speed things are going maybe they’ll figure out how to deal with gentrification before Americans do!

I’m sure people disagree, let me hear your opinions!