User:Jiang luan

 North Street in Lezhi County, Shouthwest China

The street to be described as following is located in Lezhi county Sichuan province, an ordinary one in hundreds of small towns in southwest China. It is chosen out because the life style continues through decades of years though its physical appearance has completely changed with China’s reform and opening-up.

The street is one of the four oldest ones which cut the whole town into four parts. Along both sides of the subtly curved street, there once stood traditional timber-structure houses mostly with single floor, containing all kinds of small shops, clinics and tea houses. An open-air street market was held for mass trade every 2 or 3 days and small retailers always dropped in from house to house every day.

With the fast countrywide urbanization, all the old buildings were pulled down and taken placed of by the so-called international boxes which are 5 to 7 storey high without balconies. Rectangular windows and concrete bodies clad with tiles are almost the same size and style and they are set along the whole street, regularly and even boring. These new buildings themselves are so simple and crude that it is hard for people to keep them in mind or appreciate them.

However, the street space shaped by those not-so-good buildings is actually interesting and valuable. Though the street’s width is increased from 10 meters to 18 meters around, its orientation and section proportion (about 1:1) remain the same. The ground floor of the buildings is drawn back to provide a comfortable space for staying and watching, reminiscent of the wide roof of traditional Chinese houses. All buildings along the street are mixed used, ground floor for commerce and upstairs for residence.

When walking along the street, people will find it is intersected by smaller lanes every 50 meters. These lanes mostly lead to the quiet residential areas behind and connect each other at the other end. Like the main street, these lanes are also shaped by mixed used buildings with shops on the ground floor. Because of few cars turning inside and people’s interest in street life, these lanes become pedestrian area opened for entertainment, containing all kinds of local shops and open-air restaurants. Then these rhythmic crossings always place the role of entrances to small linear squares. It is clear that the activities on the street are much enriched, with two different types- one is the linear movement along the street and the other is long-term staying at certain points.

Therefore, it’s easy for people to find their own places and feel at home even in a completely new city space.