Solving downtown toilet problems
At Chengxingli, an old neighborhood on Huanghe Road, the old shikumen (stone-gate) houses have been renovated.
A total of 1,334 households have consented to programs that will transform the downtown ghetto neighborhoods where they live, the Huangpu District government told city legislators on Monday.
The government aims for 8,000 such households by the end of this year and considers progress well underway.
By the end of last year, 65,000 households in the district had no toilet at home, using chamber pots, accounting for 40 percent of all such households in downtown Shanghai. Those households are mainly found in neighborhoods in the Old Town area and also along Beijing Road and Jianguo Road E.
The government plans to “fundamentally” solve their toilet problems by the end of 2025 and in the meantime breathe new life into old Shanghai-style residential houses.
Such projects entail a lot of investment and also a legal commitment to sustainable development of historical buildings, according to Hong Jiliang, vice head of the district government.
Hong said the huge cost and low output of the renovation projects had turned private businesses away, and better planned functions of the old neighborhoods had to be sought.
“It’s impossible to turn them all into Xintiandi,” he said, referring to the popular shopping and cultural complex.
Meanwhile, he proposed that new laws and regulations be considered to solve fire-prevention standards and underground space development in the old neighborhoods.
Zhu Sihuan, a deputy of Shanghai People’s Congress who works as an official of a residents’ committee in Hongkou District, was born in an old neighborhood in Huangpu District.
“Passages wide enough for fire engines and ambulances should be taken care of in transformation of the neighborhoods,” she said.
Huang Chen, another deputy who is a professor at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, proposed that the renovation projects should take into consideration garbage-sorting issues in line with the city’s forthcoming regulation.
