China "Lost on Chaoyang Lu" Jay Dunn (46 images)

Lost on Chaoyang Lu: The Price of Change in China

For all the Chinese who will enjoy the very real benefits of Beijing's Olympic-related improvements, such as the renovation and indeed rebirth of the subway system, there are ordinary citizens far from the spotlight who have simply been overrun by civic transformations made with little regard for those who are displaced.

Grand avenues are a tradition in China, in keeping with the aspirations of an exploding...
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Lost on Chaoyang Lu: The Price of Change in China

For all the Chinese who will enjoy the very real benefits of Beijing's Olympic-related improvements, such as the renovation and indeed rebirth of the subway system, there are ordinary citizens far from the spotlight who have simply been overrun by civic transformations made with little regard for those who are displaced.

Grand avenues are a tradition in China, in keeping with the aspirations of an exploding economy gripped by rightful pride and thousands of new cars. But for those who live and work in the dusty, flat outskirts of the city, sometimes forty minutes by bus from business districts or popular tourist spots, there is little reason stated in public for the removal of every single shade tree on Chaoyang Street, or the wholesale destruction of hundreds of small businesses.

Municipal authorities, often working on tight deadlines mandated by the central government, have the "big picture," of course, but in making themselves opaque, they remain accountable to none of the people who have been forced out. Desperate shop and restaurant owners unable to rebuild have resorted to banding together, in one case invoking funeral customs and superstition in a last-minute appeal for clemency.

What are no doubt necessary improvements for all have become bitter pills to the proud, patriotic Chinese who posted public pleas for help in their windows, their restaurant now standing alone in a sea of rubble close to three miles long.

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