development

haitian road (海田路) is one of the short, but not narrow roads that run north-south (perpendicular to shennan road) within the expanding city center. with the completion of the new city hall, library, concert hall, as well as much of the environmental landscape around the city center, nearby construction has begun to smooth out the rough edges, those remnants of previous development. of course, many of the tall office buildings on nearby shennan road have been completed as have nearby residential areas. few rough edges remain.

sometimes i feel like i’m doing salvage anthropology of disappearing factory districts in shenzhen. sometimes, it seems like i’m simply trying to keep up with the change. sometimes, i just want to remember where i’ve been, when those places just keep vanishing. what happens to memory when nothing remains as it was? not that it was what i thought, but those buildings nevertheless anchored my thinking, placed limits on what might otherwise drift away. and then where would i be? while walking from the city center toward tianmian, i happened to walk down a bit of haitian road and took 4 pictures of razed buildings, which now form the protective wall around a new construction site. i have an idea of what used to be here, but can’t say for certain.