A wrecking ball for Beijing's historyx
As property prices spiral upward in Beijing, some tenants in the city's 600-year-old hutong alleyways are rushing to cash in on their neighborhoods' destruction.
from the May 25, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
A wrench in developers' gears
Xia admits that she doubts she will be able to prevent the destruction of her house for ever, but takes grim consolation in her feeling that "even if I have to lose, this is a no-win game for the developers. Either they lose their money or they lose their image," she says.
In the end, say activists, delaying a demolition order or saving an individual courtyard here or there is all that they generally succeed in doing, as the pressures of city development mount.
"What we do is like throwing eggs at a rock," acknowledges Zhang Wei, founder of the "Old Beijing" website, which defends hutongs against developers. "We cannot win, but we can make things messy for them."
Meanwhile, on Dongsi Batiao, the renters hope that the developer's offer of compensation is just a bargaining position. "They are just saying that," says Mrs. Li, collapsing on the bed she shares with her daughter after a fruitless afternoon apartment hunting. "They will have to give us more than that if they want us to leave."
If they don't, and the bulldozers arrive anyway, it would not be the first time hutong dwellers have been forcibly evicted in Beijing. "If I am brave they won't be able to do anything, and if I'm not, they will tear it all down," jokes Mr. Huang, bitterly. "But all most of us can do is cry."
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