(101 Things About Shanghai) Laneways and Alleys, oh my

Shanghai’s got a lot of alleyways. I’m a huge fan of them, perhaps as a human level antidote to the carelessly changing skyscraper skyline of this city. They like things to be new, big and shiny here.  I prefer smaller things in my line of sight.

Some alleys are in the layouts for 1930s lane house projects with French names, like Cite Bourgogne on my street, with laundry hanging everywhere and outdoor sinks and bikes propped up against the buildings. Others are just warrens for warrens’ sake, with hidden entrances all over a square city block, with a maze of tiny shops and cramped flats.

Some have been gentrified recently and now straddle the awkward position between old school poverty and trendy bars and restaurants.  Places like Taikang Lu in Luwan in the French Concession, which used to be a gritty little artist/granny ghetto until the artists became too successful. It’s now filled with hundreds of tiny funky shops, galleries, cafes, bars, trendy restaurants. You can sit in a New York pizzeria drinking Brooklyn IPA whilst watching a 4 foot tall grandmother in padded pjs wash a pot in her outdoor cold water sink.

A lot of the laneways have been protected by the government as heritage sites and many of those have then been renovated to the point where they are no longer recognizable as former humble home of families. In Xintiandi, everything was gutted and refitted and neatly cobble stoned and is now a super trendy area for eating and drinking.

Lanes that weren’t so lucky simply no longer exist. Many are just ghosts and rubble underneath the Expo site. Some are still half standing, half demolished. There are scarred areas near the old town that look like minor bomb sites- crumbled walls, doors barred shut with planks, hollow staring windows.

I’m not even going to go into the forced evictions, broken housing laws, homelessness, lack of compensation and general awful greed that has accompanied Shanghai’s recent housing boom. A lot of people have been done wrong and a few people have seriously scored.

Let’s leave it at that for now.