Living conditions improved as residents rec
From a combination of straw and mud to highrise buildings
People’s living conditions in Jiading have improved significantly, with the upgrading of plainly decorated bungalows to highrise residential buildings that are more than just a roof over people’s heads.
Jiading residents Lu Muxiang, who researches the district’s culture and history, and Li Tong, an urban planning engineer, share their stories of owning a pleasant place to live over the years.
Back in the 1980s, “houses” in the rural area of Jiading were usually bungalows that were often made of straw and mud.
The housing quality was poor, and space was limited. It was quite common for several generations of a family to live under one roof — with only one room and a curtain used to separate areas in the residence at night. It would be even more of a headache if there were relatives visiting and staying for the night.
There was also a kind of rather “fancy” house in the rural area. Built with bricks and wood, rooms circled around a square with a patio in the middle. It was most representative of rural houses in southern areas of the Yangtze River.
Houses and furniture were the most important purchases in the 1980s, when people started to make money. In the rural area, we built our own houses.
In 1986, I came back to my hometown Jiading after working in Lanzhou, the capital of the northwestern Gansu Province, for 13 years. My mother, who was in her 70s, told me of her concerns just three days after my return.
“Everyone in the village is building houses. What are we going to do?” she said. I assured her that we would build our own, though I was fully aware of the difficulties that lay ahead.
It was not easy to buy enough construction material. I made some calculations, and the bricks, the cement, sand, steel, wooden frames all added up to around 30,000 yuan ( US$4,560) plus money to hire workers.
The annual income of my wife and I was about 5,000 yuan. We saved up 10,000 yuan and borrowed the rest. It took us three years.
In October 1989, our house was finally finished after 40 days of construction. To be honest, it was hardly a “beautiful” house. The ground floor had solid walls but the second floor had hollow walls. Tap water and a sewage system were not heard of in the countryside, so we naturally didn’t have them. But a house of our own was surely enough to lead us to satisfaction and joy.
Infrastructures in the rural area began to improve in the 1990s. Houses built after that would be equipped with a kitchen that used gas and a restroom with flushing toilet.
A campaign to mobilize villagers was launched in 2000. Residential communities began to be built and our village of Hongqiao merged with other villages.
The community we lived in was over 40,000 square meters, built with various structures that were home to more than 4,000 households.
We moved into a terraced house with bedrooms on the second floor and other necessary facilities like a big living room, a kitchen and a dining room on the ground floor. Water, electricity, gas and telecoms were all in place. It was a total makeover for our living environment.
Now that revitalizing the suburban area has become a national strategy, renovation for a batch of rural living projects is underway. While preserving the authentic texture of the villages, they are more modern and adopt smart means for rural management.
There’s access to high-speed Internet. Pipelines for water and sewage are installed, and security systems utilizing facial recognition are in place.
Villagers are happy staying where they are without being forced to move into the city.