Global Eye
Vacant Land
So what happens next? Excellent question. When the remaining structures were razed for good last year, all the neighbors in
our building began to get nervous. Choosing an apartment overlooking this huge vacant space was always a bit of Russian
roulette. One day the bulldozers and jackhammers are
bound to come, along with the dust and, possibly, a new
tower that will block the glorious unobstructed sun that
bathes our apartment every day from up above the vacant
land. But they didn't come, at least not yet. The land has
been vacant more than ten years. We gamble that it will
remain that way for at least as long as we are here. Then it
becomes the next tenants' gamble.
And if the builders do come, just what are they planning to
build there anyway? No one has a clear answer. There are
plenty of rumors, including one that the city was planning on
turning it into a park. That would be nice, but fat chance. (I
once mentioned that possibility to my neighbor; he burst out
laughing.) The likely future for this land is a high rise
apartment tower, probably not too different from the one we
live in. An urban planner friend assures me that this land could never be developed without a long public hearing phase.
According to him, it will still take years for something to be built there.
On the other hand, it is unimaginable that such a huge and valuable piece of land in the very middle of one of the most
dynamic cities in the world could remain empty. But yet, one year after the old man passed on, no one has touched the
property.
In a way, the fact that this land still sits vacant represents a marked change in China. It's clear that the way the land was
originally seized was a debacle, and the authorities could never allow construction to happen with the apparent bitterness
that must certainly remain. In the new China local leaders are obliged to demonstrate more sensitivity. It's almost as if a
kind of atonement must be paid. And the local residents living
around the land have a voice that is harder and harder for
officials to ignore. Things have to be done correctly now and
officials know it. Their own careers depend on them
managing these interests well.
Not a day goes by that I don't peer out over the land to check
out what's going on. It is an uncomforting presence in the
neighborhood, so dominating and large yet so hush hush and
invisible at street level. Almost as if it's not really there.
We renewed our lease just a month ago. We are doubling
down that this unlikely oddity caught in between the cogs of
rapid change and development on one side, and the quickly
disappearing old China on the other side, will not get
transformed into the new flash Shanghai. Rather it shall
remain exactly how it is. At least for one more year.
The vacant land sites in the Xuhui District of Shanghai, along the east side of Wulumuqi Middle Road in between Wuyuan
Road and Anfu Road.
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THE CONE - ISSUE #3 - AUTUMN 2014