Shanghaiist contributor Micah has posted some information about the present and future of Wujiang Lu in the comments section of our post from yesterday. We thought they were worth highlighting.

Comment No. 1:

I've been reading some Chinese articles on this from Google News:

Looks like, concretely, they're shutting down and "remodelling" the section between Taixing Rd, where the WB store is, and Shimen No 1 Rd, where the "real" Wujiang Rd starts. The rest of the street, they're performing a "purification" on, bringing things up to building and health codes. The tone of the articles is the usual resignation, a "what can you do" kind of attitude.

There's some irony there too. In this article, a city rep claims that the new street will attract office workers and high-income local residents, but in another section a white-collar women who works at a Pudong financial institution laments that the once-busy street has grown shorter while a man taking his wheelchair-bound mother on a walk praises the streets newfound walkability. Telling, if you ask me.

Comment No. 2:

Rumors say that many of the stands that clogged the old Wujiang Rd have moved to the Yunnan Food Street, south of People's Square. Baidu Maps here.

(It seems like I remember another food street south of the walking portion of Nanjing East Rd, on the way to the Bund.)

Also, the city will set up a branch of the police that patrols Nanjing East Rd to patrol Wujiang Rd in the future in order to assure that the present cleaning-up lasts into the future. Also, a mounted bicycle patrol.

The reports say that cleaners had to bring in high pressure hoses and laundry detergent to wash off the layers of oil that had accumulated on the road's brick surface over the years. Store owners commented that people often fell on rainy days because of the oil slick that appeared on the road. They were outside taking advantage of the street's emptiness to give their stores' face a good scrubbing. "Unlicensed stand" owners (as the articles all standardized on calling them) stood in the shadows discretely watching the janitorial work. They ask that the city government develop a supervised licensing system so they can legally work their trade.

Good article here.

Same as it ever was.