The Pedestrian Walk

This project started seven years ago and I have followed it for the past six years. It is a section of the city about a mile and a quarter long and about a quarter of a mile wide. It was a section of very old housing and family businesses. A developer came in and paid the right amount of money and took control of the space and started pushing out the people who were living there and replaced them with a strip of modern shops, lined on both sides with high rises to provide buyers for the shops down the middle.

The tall building with the red sign on top is the corner of a big mall that anchors this project. The mall opens to this strip of shops and restaurants that run its full length.

Another section of shops is under construction.

This is a completed section.

This is the new section.

This is the next section, which is just starting.

This is the next part.

Looking across the last three pictures shows the progress.

Shopping and eating down the center, with living in high rises on both sides. This is happening all over Wuhan. In one place a canal was dug between two lakes to provide a setting for a high end development. Money seems to be in endless supply here.