Beijing urban planning

Model of Olympic centre
Just south of Tian'anmen Square is Beijing's four storey Museum of Urban Planning. Here you can see what Beijing looked like in the past and what it should look like in the future. Highlight of the numerous exhibits is undoubtedly the huge model of the city - a patchwork of satellite photos mixed with scale models of town sections.

Walking through extensive exhibits covering the preservation plans for Beijing's hutongs (alley ways that made up the old Beijing) and traditional architecture, a visitor might be forgiven for thinking that Beijing urban planning is sensitive to the city's past, but they'd be wrong. Urban planning in Beijing has been driven by a passion & drive for rapid modernisation on one hand and, unfortunately, greed on the other. Real estate development has created vast fortunes in China over the last 10 years and it is no coincidence that that the country's 'rich list' is dominated by real estate moguls. And not much gets in the way of property developers and their projects - including city officials. Only last month Zhou Lianglio, former head of Haidan district in Beijing, & his wife were convicted of accepting more than $4M in bribes from real estate developers in the city over the last few years.

Only time will tell whether the noble intentions espoused in the museum for Beijing's city planning will match the realities on the ground.

Tac standing on the corner of Donzhimenwai Dajie