A Time of Change at Beizheng Street in Changsha

In a post about how China's nationwide stimulus for the economy may have led to an increase in forced evictions of people from their homes I wrote:

A few weeks ago in Changsha, Hunan province, I was walking through a neighborhood marked for demolition. While there I encountered a man who seemed curious about my presence. After he expressed his happiness in meeting an American, he had one parting message for me: the people who lived there received far too little compensation for their homes.

The neighborhood I mentioned can be found around Beizheng Street (北正街) which is close to a popular and rapidly developing shopping district in central Changsha. When I first visited Changsha over 3 years ago I noticed a number of similar buildings in other areas marked for demolition with a red 拆 (chāi) inside a circle. Now, it appears the preferred symbol is a red "征" (zhēng) inside a circle. 拆 roughly means "demolished" and 征 roughly means "acquisition".

Below are photos taken several weeks ago when I visited Beizheng Street and some nearby alleys. People still went about their daily lives and most buildings remained standing. But even if the red symbols seen everywhere were not direct in their meaning, signs of the change to come were obvious.

I recommend also taking a look at at the photos taken over four years ago shared in a blog post by Sheng Yong (盛勇) here. Not only by coincidence do at least two of the photos capture scenes found below, but they show the fuller life that could once be found at Beizheng Street, the street where Sheng grew up.