Nanjing Letter: City builds on new approach to old neighbourhood

In the middle of Qing Liukun’s garden, beneath a small tree and among the shrubs and potted plants, a notice asks visitors to be careful on the grass. At 71, the retired doctor has lived in this house in Nanjing’s Old Town for 40 years and her garden has become something of a tourist attraction.

“I like people coming in to see it and to enjoy it like I do,” she said this week.

Old houses like Qing’s are rare in big Chinese cities like Nanjing, where successive waves of development have transformed the urban landscape over the past 40 years. Anything built before about 2010 is seen as out of date and buildings from the 1980s and 1990s are often demolished to make way for bigger, more expensive ones.

The Xiaoxihu block where Qing lives is one of Nanjing’s few remaining historical neighbourhoods with internal courtyards dating back to the Qing dynasty. The low-rise houses, mostly one or two stories, are built along narrow alleys that open out occasionally into small squares.

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After decades of dilapidation that saw younger people leave the neighbourhood and a number of failed efforts at urban renewal, a new project has had more success with a fresh approach.

“In the past, we only focused on the architecture, on the material. We didn’t pay as much attention to people’s needs in the past. Nowadays we are combining the two,” said Fan Ning, director of the Nanjing Historic City Protection and Construction Group, the state-owned enterprise in charge of the project.

Fan’s group approached all 810 households in the district, proposing three options: to stay in their home; to move into a newly renovated home in the neighbourhood; or to get a new home somewhere else. About half chose to leave and their old houses have been renovated as dwellings or converted into shops, offices or cafes.

One cafe that was especially busy this week is the former home of a woman who raised her children and grandchildren there. She has moved into a newly reconstructed house next door but crucially, she still owns the building that is being used as a cafe.

In the past we would have been ashamed to show you old houses like this

“The reconstruction doesn’t change the ownership. That is the principle we are following. We will rent this building for several years but after the contract ends, she has the right to take the house back so the ownership has not changed,” Fan said. “This house will be rented by the local authority for a long time but for a relatively low fee. If there is income it will be shared by the local authority and the owner.”

The project has drawn praise from across China and beyond and it won a Unesco ward for new design in heritage contexts last year. But with half of the original residents gone and many of their houses converted into bars, restaurants and shops for the well-heeled, it has more than a whiff of gentrification about it.

Looking out over rows of old houses whose owners have decided to stay where they are, Fan insists that they are benefiting from the changes too.

“In the past we would have been ashamed to show you old houses like this. These local people have not reached an agreement with us. They still want to live in their houses. We have improved the infrastructure for them, the new water pumping system and the new road,” he said.

“What we need now over the next five or 10 years is to see new people, a younger generation moving into this street. Nowadays most people living in this neighbourhood are elderly. The prosperity of the street is improving so we sincerely hope that the second generation and the third generation of the local population can come back. Maybe come back to live here or maybe come back to open their own shops.”

The Xiaoxihu urban renewal project will continue to have its critics and many of the district’s residents are choosing not to be part of it. But it is evidence of a shift in attitudes in China after the globally unprecedented urbanisation that saw almost half a billion people move into cities within a few decades.

“Urban renewal is now a national strategy in China’s 14th five-year plan. All of these old streets and historic areas are treasures for us that can be passed on through generations. So how to renew and use these resources properly is our most important job,” Fan said.

“This city is owned by the people. It was built by the people and it must be shared and owned by the people as well. That is the principle for a modern advanced society.”