{"id":54298,"date":"2010-03-28T20:29:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T04:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=54298"},"modified":"2010-03-28T20:29:29","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T04:29:29","slug":"historical-beijing-quarter-to-be-destroyed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/03\/historical-beijing-quarter-to-be-destroyed\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Beijing Quarter ‘To Be Destroyed’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Telegraph reports <\/a>on the pending demolition of Beijing’s historic Bell and Drum Tower neighborhood:<\/p>\n

\nOver the last 20 years mile after mile of Beijing’s “hutongs”, or alleyways, have been bulldozed to make way for gleaming skyscrapers and apartment complexes as the city engages in a whole-scale, and at times brutal, program of modernisation.<\/p>\n

The plan is allied to an ambitious 20-year project to create an “underground city” by digging out three square miles of northeastern Beijing to create a network of shopping malls, car parks and even a three mile underground road.<\/p>\n

The area around the Drum and Bell Towers has been a vibrant part of Beijing since the days of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and in recent years has reinvented itself as a faintly bohemian cultural quarter with chic boutique shops, small galleries, restaurants and courtyard hotels.<\/p>\n

Conservationists point, with horror, to previous cultural “restoration” attempts by the Beijing government such as the Qianmen area around Tiananmen Square which is widely derided for its soulless, Disney-style rendering of Old Beijing. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Telegraph reports on the pending demolition of Beijing’s historic Bell and Drum Tower neighborhood: Over the last 20 years mile after mile of Beijing’s “hutongs”, or alleyways, have been bulldozed to make way for gleaming skyscrapers and apartment complexes as the city engages in a whole-scale, and at times brutal, program of modernisation. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,5],"tags":[5811,3994,2041,214],"class_list":["post-54298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-society","tag-beijing","tag-cultural-preservation","tag-hutongs","tag-redevelopment","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nHistorical Beijing Quarter 'To Be Destroyed'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/03\/historical-beijing-quarter-to-be-destroyed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Historical Beijing Quarter 'To Be Destroyed'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Telegraph reports on the pending demolition of Beijing’s historic Bell and Drum Tower neighborhood: Over the last 20 years mile after mile of Beijing’s “hutongs”, or alleyways, have been bulldozed to make way for gleaming skyscrapers and apartment complexes as the city engages in a whole-scale, and at times brutal, program of modernisation. 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